Anya Kamanetz, Cory Turner and Mansee Khurana:

The challenge now, for educators, is understanding where those young children and their older siblings went. Did they simply stay home — or did their families enroll them elsewhere?

A shift to private schools 

Private and parochial schools generally enroll about 10 percent of all students in the United States, or about 5.7 million students. While nationwide enrollment in private schools dropped last year along with public schools, this year it has rebounded.

The National Association of Independent Schools comprises private, non-parochial schools. They report a net enrollment growth of 1.7% over the two pandemic years.

There’s a particularly big rebound in private preschool enrollment in the NAIS sample. That number dropped dramatically between 2019-20 and 2020-21, but then grew 21% this fall for a net growth of 6% over two years.

While accurate data are not yet available for parochial schools, media reports suggest their enrollment has rebounded this fall as well.

“We saw a couple thousand students that transferred over to private schools in the city,” says Martinez, who took over as chief executive officer this summer in Chicago. “And that was because the private schools were assuring the families that they would be open in-person, no matter what.”