Editorial: Chicago schools enrollment is at lowest level in memory

Chicago Public Schools hasn’t yet officially provided its enrollment for the 2025-26 school year, but Chalkbeat reported (preliminarily) that there are about 12,000 fewer students at CPS schools this year than last, with enrollment now standing at about 313,000. That’s a 4% decrease from 325,000 last year and the lowest CPS student total in decades.

It’s clear now that a modest two-year increase in CPS enrollment was a mirage, as we and many others believed.

There’s always the possibility that more students will have enrolled by the time CPS reports its figures in the next few weeks, but it doesn’t seem likely the narrative will change appreciably. What CPS had touted over the past two years as a reversal of what seemed like an inexorable decadelong slide was mainly due to a wave of migr