Another way of looking at “the Big Sort” is presented in map form at Axios. The map shows what has happened to public school enrollments in 48 of the 50 states (LA, VA not reporting) during the period 2009 - 2020.
States in the northeast and rust belt have mostly been losers (except MD and DE), as have 4 of the 5 Pacific coast states (CA, OR, AK, HI). The big gainers have been in the mountain and prairie west (except NM and MO). The southeast is a mixed bag, all gainers except MS and AL.
The pandemic hit, and public schools were subjected to state and local guidelines. Many of them flip-flopped on virtual versus in-person learning. Widespread teacher and staff shortages exacerbated the problem. Students rapidly fell behind. That pushed frustrated parents to pull their kids out. As a result, private schools and charter schools gained students. The number of homeschooled students doubled to about 5 million.
