After 11 years of declining enrollment, Chicago Public Schools is no longer the nation’s third largest school district.
There are now 322,106 children attending the city’s public schools, roughly 9,000 fewer than last year, according to the official enrollment count released Wednesday during a school board meeting. That’s more than 80,000 fewer students than there were a decade ago, when city officials shuttered 50 schools citing low enrollment, and more than 115,000 fewer than were enrolled 20 years ago.
The stunning contraction in size raises important questions about the future of the public school system and the city as a whole.
