Four reasons why 1% of the student population seems to be missing from Wisconsin schools

Rory Linnane

About 1% of Wisconsin’s estimated student population seems to be missing from school headcounts, a new report from the Wisconsin Policy Forum found. The report relied on data from fall 2019 through fall 2022, as enrollment data for the current school year have not yet been released. The lead researchers, Sara Shaw and Ari Brown, found that during that time, public school enrollment fell by about 32,000 students. The total was 854,959 in fall 2019 and 822,804 in fall 2022. Most of that drop was easy to explain: birth rates continued declining, and many students moved into private schools and homeschooling.