Note: This content was originally hosted at nobbs4ccs.com during the 2022 CCS school board election.
Student Flight
Since this is the fact check that seems to have got me banned from the Brake, Brown & Sharp campaign page and declared a fake person, this is the first topic I’m addressing. These candidates seem to be completely out of touch with reality on this one.
The Claim
That massive numbers of parents are pulling their kids from Carmel schools.
Quote: “(Carmel Clay Schools) have lost about 700 students during the past few years”
Quote: “Why are hundreds of families pulling their students out of our schools?”
The Short Response
This seems to be pure fiction. First, the difference between the largest enrollment and current enrollment in Carmel Schools is 449, not ‘about 700.’ Second, the data indicates that enrollment is shrinking because there are fewer Carmel residents with young kids, not ‘hundreds of families pulling their students out of our schools.’
The Long Response
This is a pretty easy fact check because the state tracks annual enrollment by corporation and anyone can download it by clicking here. If you go to the link, you can find the file by scrolling down to the ‘Attendance & Enrollment’ section and selecting ‘Corporation Enrollment by Grade Level’.
Looking at that easily accessible data, we see that CCS peaked out at 16,664 students in the 2019-2020 school year. In the most recent reported year, 2021-2022, CCS is at 16,215. That’s a difference of 449, not ‘about 700.’
But ok, you might say, the number was exaggerated, but it looks like hundreds of students were pulled from the school system. Actually, no.
If the candidates’ claim were true, we would expect to see reductions in the sizes of classes as tracked by their year of graduation. That is, we would expect there to be fewer 6th graders today than there were 5th graders a year ago and 4th graders two years ago and so on.
Since Indiana makes the data so readily available, it’s quite easy to organize it to track year-over-year growth or decline for each graduating class. Let’s do that with the most current data. We’ll leave off students currently in pre-k and kindergarten since they don’t offer a year-over-year comparison.
As of the close of the 2022 school year, here’s where the classes stood:
Class of ’33 – grew from 1,053 to 1,139 from ‘21-‘22 (8.2% increase over 1 year)
Class of ’32 – grew from 1,142 to 1,183 from ‘20-‘22 (3.6% increase over 2 years)
Class of ’31 – grew from 1,048 to 1,161 from ‘19-‘22 (10.8% increase over 3 years)
Class of ’30 – grew from 1,116 to 1,230 from ‘18-‘22 (10.2% increase over 4 years)
Class of ’29 – grew from 1,062 to 1,216 from ‘17-‘22 (14.5% increase over 5 years)
Class of ’28 – grew from 1,028 to 1,239 from ‘16-‘22 (20.5% increase over 6 years)
Class of ’27 – grew from 1,057 to 1,304 from ‘15-‘22 (23.4% increase over 7 years)
Class of ’26 – grew from 1,018 to 1,294 from ‘14-‘22 (27.1% increase over 8 years)
Class of ’25 – grew from 1,113 to 1,320 from ‘13-‘22 (18.6% increase over 9 years)
Class of ’24 – grew from 1,014 to 1,323 from ‘12-‘22 (30.5% increase over 10 years)
Class of ’23 – grew from 1,056 to 1,308 from ‘11-‘22 (23.9% increase over 11 years)
Class of ’22 – grew from 1,138 to 1,376 from ‘10-‘22 (20.1% increase over 12 years)
In other words, rather than highlighting ‘student flight’ resulting from hundreds of families pulling out of the school system, the data actually shows that all of the current classes have grown over time, usually somewhere between 2% & 3% per year.
So, you may be wondering, if that’s true, why are there 449 fewer students today than there were two years ago?
It seems like a good starting point is checking whether we have enough young kids enrolling in kindergarten to offset the number of seniors graduating from high school. (SPOILER ALERT: We don’t.)
2022 – 342 MORE graduating seniors than kindergarten enrollees
2021 – 347 MORE graduating seniors than kindergarten enrollees
2020 – 179 MORE graduating seniors than kindergarten enrollees
2019 – 274 MORE graduating seniors than kindergarten enrollees
2018 – 69 MORE graduating seniors than kindergarten enrollees
2017 – 183 MORE graduating seniors than kindergarten enrollees
2016 – 227 MORE graduating seniors than kindergarten enrollees
2015 – 155 MORE graduating seniors than kindergarten enrollees
2014 – 169 MORE graduating seniors than kindergarten enrollees
2013 – 76 MORE graduating seniors than kindergarten enrollees
2012 – 100 MORE graduating seniors than kindergarten enrollees
2011 – 7 FEWER graduating seniors than kindergarten enrollees
2010 – 94 FEWER graduating seniors than kindergarten enrollees
2009 – 136 FEWER graduating seniors than kindergarten enrollees
2008 – 69 FEWER graduating seniors than kindergarten enrollees
It seems like a straightforward, obvious explanation when one actually pays attention to the data.
Considering how easily Brake/Brown/Sharp could have looked all of this up, I feel like I was being quite civil when I posted the data and asked the following of them on Facebook: Was this an honest mistake or an intentional misrepresentation to scare the readers of Current in Carmel?
Rather than answer my question, they banned me and deleted the comment. In this case, I’ll take their actions as their answer.
Comments