Where Did More Than 1 Million Students Go?

When it was recently revealed that more than one million students and their families left their assigned public schools in 2020, too many in American education attempted to explain the exodus. But it should not be a mystery.

Districts locked down in 2020 and the ones that stayed closed the longest lost 1 in 22 students. Those that served students longer in person had a net loss of only 1 in 93 students. But those numbers don’t tell the whole story.

Parents now know why nearly 50 million students were locked out of their schools and who was to blame. What we need to do now is to understand where those students escaped to, a fact my organization has. It’s something we’ve learned first-hand by identifying, evaluating, and rewarding America’s top education entrepreneurs who did what’s right for students during the pandemic, and grew as a result.

We set up a one-of-a-kind competition in February 2021 to find these entrepreneurs, to help students, and to champion an exemplar, and hope for others. We found thousands doing right by their students, but who weren’t talked about in the New York Times or the Washington Post. Most weren’t being featured on their morning news shows. They were quietly keeping learning going for their students, ensuring parents were satisfied, and providing hope for their communities.

We’ve since identified more than 4,000 education innovators who deliver for their students in different ways, in different places, and for all kinds of kids for whom their assigned district school was either closed, not working for them, or both. This most recent year, the Yass Prize awarded more than $13 million across 64 education entrepreneurs to eight different kind of learning approaches across 32 states which altogether reach nearly 300,000 thousand students. Our award money is intended to boost their expansion to provide other education opportunities to more students while they take advantage of laws in their states that allow families tax dollars to follow students. Winners are transformational and outstanding when they give educators wide flexibility to do what’s right for all students with innovative, 21st century approaches. Most importantly, they are ‘permissionless’— not dependent on someone to tell them when and how they can serve students.

We found that many of the more than one million students who left their assigned schools were the forgotten among us. Students like those who are autistic, who are Black, who live in rural areas, who have been in and out of foster homes, who have made mistakes, who want to work, or who just learn differently.

Students like these left their assigned schools and they are not coming back. Instead, they are thriving in the most entrepreneurial of learning institutions which are offering the education that works for them. If we want to usher in the next, prosperous phase of American education, it’s time to look not backward at where they left, but forward to where they are going.

One model could open in every state and fill a critical niche for a growing population of students—approximately one in 40—who have autism. Arizona Autism Charter Schools was one-million-dollar winner of the Yass Prize. The school’s story began when Diana Diaz­-Harrison’s son, Sammy, was diagnosed with autism in 2004. Diana quickly realized Sammy’s assigned public school was not serving him well, and there weren’t many options elsewhere. She partnered with other parents, grandparents, and pediatricians to found the school under Arizona’s public charter school law. It quickly went from serving just 90 students to 700 across four schools. Diana’s schools focus on helping students learn how to excel and become independent. Diana wants to open schools like hers in every state across America.

A similar story gave life to Louisiana Key Academy, a public charter school serving students with dyslexia—students that most district schools too often fail, despite it affecting 20 percent of students nationwide. Even during Covid, 80 percent of LKA students improved their reading fluency from the beginning of the year. At a time during tragic and noticeable learning loss throughout the nation, the personalized education that was provided by the Academy was comprehensive, safe, and transformational for students with dyslexia.

The only Black-led private school in the state of Kansas serves students from their lowest performing schools, who are on their way to needing special education when Urban Prep Academy intercepts them. Their success is only possible because of the state’s modest tax credit program.

Florida’s SailFuture Academy is a learning environment where students in foster care, who’ve made mistakes, or who are “at risk” can learn in ways that work for them and access employment opportunities through paid apprenticeships. Its founder Mike Long knows how to get results from troubled youth. Long himself spent more than a year in and out of Florida’s juvenile justice system and went through intervention programs too many to count. He has proven that such interventions can be avoided if students learn to think like entrepreneurs and leverage experiences in in-demand fields like maritime, the culinary arts, and construction.

These are but a few examples of approaches to education that students need and parents demand. Places like these are where 1.2 million students went and still more are going. There’s a simple reason: when education is designed around what students need, parents want it for their kids. When education is personalized to address and celebrate the diverse needs of every child, families that can flock to those institutions, even if they are miles—or states—away. If all families are empowered with the freedom to find the right fit for their children, the next, most prosperous phase of American education can begin.