05-08-2025
Public Schools Try to Sell Themselves as More Students Use Vouchers
A decline in the number of babies being born and a boom in private school vouchers and home-schooling have combined to create an enrollment crisis for public education.
The threat is so great that some school districts are trying something that would have once seemed unthinkable.
School systems in Orlando, Newark, Memphis and dozens of other cities and towns have hired consultants who aggressively woo parents to convince them to enroll their children in local public schools.
Brian J. Stephens has built a business around this new reality. Mr. Stephens, a political consultant based in Memphis, runs Caissa K12, a consulting firm for public school districts with the tag line 'We recruit students.'
Caissa K12 has taken off, with over 100 district clients. Its popularity illustrates some of the challenges facing public education.
Two-thirds of traditional public schools lost enrollment between 2019 and 2023, according to federal data. Low fertility rates mean that the number of children in the United States is starting to shrink. At the same time, policymakers have introduced more competition than ever, meaning many families have options beyond their neighborhood school.
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