Texas public schools saw their first non-pandemic enrollment decline in nearly four decades this academic year, a shift policy analysts tied to changing demographics and schooling choices as immigration enforcement activity increases. The report released Monday by the policy research group Texas 2036 said enrollment dropped by about 76,000 students, with Hispanic students accounting for the overwhelming majority of the losses.
At a Texas House education committee hearing, Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath laid out the enrollment trend for lawmakers and said, “We cannot tell you the precise cause of this.” The hearing also focused on how the state funds public schools based on attendance, setting up concerns that districts could face tighter budgets if enrollment keeps falling even as state education funding rises on paper.
Texas 2036’s analysis found Hispanic students represented 81% of this school year’s enrollment decline. The report also highlighted sharper drops among students learning English and among those from low-income families, and it said the declines were not evenly distributed across the state.
Carlo Castillo, a senior research analyst at Texas 2036, said the data point to a trend that continues as Texas grows. “What stands out in the data is that public school enrollment is falling even as Texas continues to grow,” Castillo said in a statement. He added that population gains were “no longer translating into public school enrollment growth,” which he said suggests “a broader structural shift policymakers and district leaders will need to plan for.”
Texas 2036 shared the findings just ahead of the Monday hearing. The panel included updates on enrollment trends and on the stability of Texas’ school funding system, where some districts have cut programs and shuttered campuses even after Texas approved a nearly $8.5 billion increase to public education funding last year.
During the hearing, Bob Templeton, who studies Texas’ education demographics, said the decline is occurring as immigration helped public schools manage earlier declines tied to birth rates. He told lawmakers that districts will likely end up serving higher concentrations of students with significant needs while receiving less funding because of fewer children being born and slowing immigration. Templeton estimated that public school enrollment could drop by roughly 500,000 in the next four to five years, adding, “This is not another blip or a one-off,” and calling it, “an inflection point.”
The Texas 2036 report said districts in urban areas, the Panhandle, and along the southern border experienced the decline disproportionately. It said the 2.1% decline in Hispanic enrollment—61,781 students—represented the “single largest year-over-year reversal” among the state’s four major racial and ethnic groups. Mary Lynn Pruneda, Texas 2036’s director of education and workforce policy, told The Texas Tribune that her group could not determine to what extent increased immigration enforcement contributed to the loss.
Several political and community figures described the enrollment shift as a potential byproduct of enforcement activity and fear among families. Rep. Gina Hinojosa, an Austin Democrat running for governor, said during a press conference Monday, “I wouldn’t be surprised if it is contributing to it.” Esmeralda Alday, senior director of programs and impact at ImmSchools, said her organization hears directly from families who question whether to send children to school as immigration officers have increased activity, and she said parents and districts worry about students vanishing amid enforcement concerns.
Alday said she has heard accounts from teachers and principals who describe bilingual program students or children in virtual learning options who disappear, alongside requests for help locating them or determining what happened to their families. “I’ve heard it directly from the teachers, from principals, saying, ‘Hey, these kids just disappeared. Can you help us locate them or help us figure out what happened to them or to their parents?’” Alday said. “So, yes. It’s fear.”