As we mentioned briefly in today’s Morning Roundup, a number of D.C. area private schools are seeing drops in applications and enrollment, resulting from a combination of demographic shifts and a troubled economy coupled with rising tuition costs.
The Post reported that the number of children living in the District between the ages of 5 and 9 declined 13.4 percent between 2000 and 2007, and is projected to drop further between 2007 and 2012, leaving fewer school-age students for both public and private schools.
Economic strains may be another reason for the decreasing applications. Private schools have in the past offered financial assistance to bolster economic and racial diversity, but with tuition costs that rival some colleges, even parents who have already enrolled children are applying for aid. Tuition at District exclusive private schools like Sidwell Friends and Georgetown Day will be around $30,000 for the 2008-09 school year.
So where are would-be private school families sending their kids? The suburbs? D.C. public schools? Charters? There are currently around 22,000 kids in D.C. charter schools and about 50,000 in the regular public schools. At the rate of growth the charters have seen in recent years, the majority of D.C. students will be in charters by 2014, but that shouldn’t be mistaken as a sign that charters are always the answer – some can be as bad, or worse, as some of the struggling campuses within the D.C. system.
As Marc Fisher wrote last week:
Parents put a huge value on schools perceived as safe and locally-run, even if the performance measures of those schools aren’t necessarily any better than those of their neighborhood school.
And it’s important to remember that not all “neighborhood schools” are necessarily bad either. Mayor Fenty may send his sons to a private elementary school, both Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee and Deputy Mayor for Education Victor Reinoso send their young children to Oyster Adams Bilingual School, one of the 42 DCPS schools that passed muster under No Child Left Behind last year.
District parents – what side did you come down on, and why?
Photo of Thomson Elementary by army.arch
