Opinion: CPS mustn't let enrollment declines shortchange the students it serves

In the fall, Chicago Public Schools enrolled 316,224 students — more than 9,000 fewer than last year. After two years of modest gains, enrollment is falling once again.

Today, CPS serves roughly 80,000 fewer students than it did just a decade ago. Even though CPS no longer funds schools based solely on headcount, fewer students still translate into fewer staff positions and less discretionary funding. Families feel the impact: fewer electives, fewer advanced courses, fewer extracurriculars, and fewer opportunities for students to find what makes them excited to show up each day.

In a new report, we show that many drivers of CPS’s enrollment decline are beyond the district’s control. Chicago’s birth totals have nearly halved over the past two decades, producing smaller cohorts moving through CPS each year.

Enrollment was briefly buoyed in recent years by the arrival of nearly 9,000 migrant students. But that growth has leveled off: new-student enrollment fell this year across every grade level and racial and ethnic group.

Even as overall enrollment falls, the needs of CPS students are growing. English Learners now make up more than a quarter of CPS students. Special education enrollment has continued to climb. Serving these students well requires additional staffing, specialized support, and stability, all of which are harder to sustain when schools are losing students.

CPS is also enrolling a smaller share of Chicago’s school-age children than it once did. For nearly a decade, about three out of every four school-age children in Chicago were enrolled in CPS. More recently, beginning just before the pandemic and accelerating since, CPS’ market share has declined to about 70%, with more families now choosing non-public options.

A smaller pool of school-age children is a demographic reality CPS cannot solve alone. But declining market share suggests more families are making a conscious choice not to enroll in CPS, which raises different questions about trust, perceptions of quality, and whether families see CPS as their best option.

In Chicago, conversations around enrollment often jump to closing schools. The legacy of the 2013 closures looms large. Families remember not only the disruption, but the sense that decisions were made without them and done to them rather than with them.  

As enrollment declines and district deficit projections rise, some have pointed to shuttering schools as a way to ease financial pressure. But we need to be clear-eyed about what closures can and cannot accomplish financially.  

CPS is staring down a deficit of more than half a billion dollars next school year. Even if the district closed its 10 smallest schools, their combined budgets represent only about $30 million —and CPS would inevitably recoup just a portion once transition costs and supports at receiving schools are factored in. Put simply, closures are not a panacea for the district’s budget challenges.

What matters most in this conversation is how smaller schools shape students’ daily experience. Low-enrolled schools can mean fewer course offerings, fewer enrichment options, and fewer extracurriculars. Some students will tell you they feel deprived of options and opportunities. Others will tell you that a small school is where they are known, supported and safe. Both can be true.

Too often, we don’t ask these questions or listen closely to students in smaller schools. When we do hear their experience, it is often indirect — through rising absenteeism rates or student surveys showing weaker connectedness to school. Occasionally we hear it through a story about students being forced to repeat the same elective year after year because their school offered no other option.

These students deserve more than passing attention. Their lived experience should guide what the district does next — whether that means shared services across nearby schools, improved access to advanced coursework, or, in some cases, community-driven and community-designed actions with clear protections and supports.

Enrollment decline is ultimately about educational opportunity. If current demographic and family choice patterns persist, Chicago will be forced to navigate a much smaller school system. The priority should be ensuring that students in every neighborhood have access to strong academics, stable adult support, and the programs that make school feel engaging and worth attending.

That is the work ahead. And it starts by listening to those most affected.

Hal Woods is Chief of Policy and Mariam Raheem is an Applied Data Fellow at Kids First Chicago.