(Source: MIRS.news, Published 12/14/2023) In the last four years, from the 2019-20 academic year that first faced COVID-19 through the recent 2020-23 school year, enrollment in Michigan's public schools fell by 62,243 students, while increasing by 3,002 new students for charter schools in the same time frame.
The aforementioned numbers come from the December 2023 "Believing in Public Education" report by the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, which is presently being touted by the Michigan Association of Public School Academies (MAPSAs).
"This enrollment information is telling us that parents are looking for things that really work for their students, and they're seeing something important in charter public schools," said Dan Quisenberry, the MAPSA president to MIRS. "The harsh reality is there's a drop in enrollment for traditional schools. It's up slightly in charter public schools…digging into it and understanding why, what is it that matters to parents…we should be creating policy that supports those ideas."
The national report zoomed in on the Michigan Department of Education's student count enrollment files. It additionally found that enrollment among Hispanic students in charter schools grew by 8.54% – or by 1,216 students – in Michigan, and by 3.46%, or 3,598 students, for Hispanic students enrolled in non-charter public schools from the 2019-20 through 2022-23 academic years.
As for Black students in Michigan from the 2019-20 through the 2022-23 school years, charter school enrollment dropped by 1,158 students and by 7,475 students for non-charter public schools.
Also, international migration to Michigan is expected to grow between 112,000 and 113,000 new residents every five years from 2025 through 2050, according to the joint population study by the Citizens Research Council (CRC) of Michigan and the Ann Arbor-based Altarum Institute. Quisenberry hopes charter schools in the state can play a unique role, as he anticipates a more diverse population to become Michiganders in the future, with a charter school capable of specializing in certain languages.
"I do see evidence of that…much more diversity in our schools, and that ability to be able to address diverse needs – cultural, language – is really going to be important," Quisenberry said, referencing schools like the Armenian General Benevolent Union (AGBU) Alex and Marie Manoogian School in Southfield, which is a tuition-free charter school that accepted around 100 student refugees who left Ukraine amid the ongoing Russia-Ukraine War.
As young refugees came in, Quisenberry said charter schools like the Alex and Marie Manoogian School offered a "safe place, to speak the language, (that) understood the culture, (that) understood the country…and what a comforting thing to do in a very uncomfortable situation."
