Public Vs Private School Based on Family Income
The one factor uniting virtually all of these choices, scholarships aside, is the decision to pay tuition, which averaged $10,940 in 2011. Private schools historically ranged widely in their annual fees; many programs, such as those run by the Catholic Church, were designed to exist broadly affordable and offered meaning discounts for low-income families. However, the number of Catholic schools has fallen sharply in recent years, while the number of nonsectarian private schools has increased. At the same fourth dimension, income inequality and residential and school segregation by income have grown.
How take these shifting trends affected private-school enrollment nationwide? Has expanding income inequality led to an increased concentration of flush families at individual schools? If so, has that fueled a broader increase in segregation at both public and private schools?
To explore these questions, we examine enrollment and family-income data from the past 50 years at Catholic, other religious, and nonsectarian individual uncomplicated schools (that is, schools serving grades K–viii). Our analysis finds that private schools, like public schools, are increasingly segregated by income. In item, the share of middle-income students attending private schools has declined past almost one-half, while the private-school enrollment charge per unit of wealthy children has remained steady. Much of the decline among middle-income students is due to falling enrollment at Catholic schools, which accept closed in droves in the past 20 years. Meanwhile, individual-school enrollment among affluent students has shifted from religious to nonsectarian schools.
Tracking Trends in Individual-School Enrollment
The share of U.S. school-age children attending private elementary schools peaked during the postwar blast of the belatedly 1950s and early 1960s, reaching fifteen percent in 1958. By the mid-1970s, it had fallen to 10 percent and remained quite steady for the residual of the 20th century. During the subsequent fifteen years, it drifted downward slowly and was slightly less than 9 percent in 2015 (see Figure 1).
Those relatively steady numbers since the mid-1970s mask significant changes in the mix of school types that make up the private-school market, driven in particular by widespread closures of Catholic schools. In 1965, 89 percent of American children who attended a private uncomplicated schoolhouse were enrolled in a Catholic school; in 2013, the comparable figure was 42 pct. By contrast, the percentage of individual elementary-school students who attended a not-Cosmic religious schoolhouse increased from 8 percent in 1965 to 40 percent in 2013. During this same period, the percentage of individual elementary-school students enrolled in nonsectarian schools increased from four percent to xviii percentage.
Has the family income mix of students attending each blazon of private school inverse in contempo decades? One reason it might have is that inequality in the incomes of American families, which held steady betwixt 1945 and 1975, grew over subsequent decades. Looking at families with children in grades 1 to viii between 1975 and 2010, the boilerplate income, net of inflation, among those in the 10th percentile declined past 11 pct. That of families with incomes in the middle, or 50th percentile, increased by 19 percent. That of relatively affluent families with incomes in the 90th percentile increased by 57 percent.
Methodology
To answer these questions, we assembled data on families' incomes and uncomplicated-school choices from the decennial census, Current Population Survey, U.Southward. Department of Education longitudinal surveys, and the National Household Education Survey, and combined them with information from the pedagogy section's Private Schoolhouse Universe Survey and survey data from Phi Delta Kappan.
Some surveys, such as the demography, asked respondents to study the individual income for each family fellow member, while others asked parents to identify their household income within a set range of dollar amounts. To obtain a common metric, we converted ordinal income categories into percentiles of the national distribution of incomes for families with children enrolled in grades 1 to eight. Our analysis includes incomes from the 1968–69 school year until 2013–14, which we refer to every bit 1968 and 2013. To remove the effects of inflation, we express all family incomes and private-school tuitions in 2015 dollars.
Nosotros practise non accept enough data points to precisely measure the individual-school enrollment rates of families at each income level. For instance, the number of families with incomes of exactly $fifty,000 is too small to calculate a reliable enrollment rate. Instead, we use a statistical model to estimate the relationship between private-schoolhouse enrollment and the family'due south income relative to families nationwide, and then compute the estimated proportion of students enrolled in private school in the relevant year at the 10th, 50th, and 90th percentiles of the income distribution. We refer to these family-income percentiles as depression, middle, and loftier.
In reporting our results, we pay particular attention to changes in the size of the gap in private-schoolhouse enrollment rates between families at the 90th and 50th income percentiles, which we telephone call the "90-50 gap." We practise this because the growth in income inequality among families with school-age children in recent decades has been overwhelmingly in the top one-half of the income distribution. For case, amidst families with children in grades 1 to viii, the 90th percentile income in 1975 of $111,410 was roughly double that of the 50th percentile income of $56,084. In 2013, the comparable 90th percentile income of $183,959 was nearly triple the 50th percentile income of $68,256.
Findings
Our analysis finds a strong positive role of family unit income in predicting individual-school enrollment, as well as a marked decline between 1968 and 2013 in the share of students from middle-income families attending individual schools (run into Figure 2). For example, in 1968, 18 pct of elementary-school-historic period children from high-income families attended a individual schoolhouse, compared to 12 percent of children from centre-income families and five percentage of children from low-income families. In 2013, the percentage of children from middle-income families had declined by nearly half, to 7 percent, while the percent of children from high-income families remained roughly steady at 16 per centum. As a outcome, the 90-50 gap in private unproblematic-school enrollment rates grew from 5.5 percentage points in 1968 to 9.iii percentage points in 2013.
Much of the expanded ninety-50 gap is due to declining enrollment at Catholic private schools, which historically served big numbers of children from low- and centre-income families. In addition, growth in the gap amongst students at private nonsectarian uncomplicated schools has been particularly big, virtually entirely due to a substantial increase in the enrollment rate of children from high-income families.
We also notice that private-school enrollment rates are much higher amid eye- and high-income families living in cities than among families with similar income levels living in suburbs, and that the ninety-50 gap grew more amid urban families than among suburban families. In addition, on the whole, private-school enrollment rates are lower for black and Hispanic families than for white families, simply differences in family income business relationship for a large part of those differences.
Finally, we find that individual-school enrollment trends differ dramatically by region: the percentage of students from high-income families enrolled in private school increased in the South and W and decreased in the Northeast and Midwest. The ninety-l gap grew much more in the Southward than in other regions.
Schoolhouse Type: While the private elementary-school enrollment rate for children from high-income families remained stable overall, many affluent families have shifted from religious to nonsectarian schools over the last four decades. And while the individual-schoolhouse enrollment rates for children from middle- and low-income families declined due to decreasing Catholic school enrollment rates for these groups, those declines were somewhat offset past increases in their enrollment at other individual religious schools.
Individual nonsectarian unproblematic schools serve a pocket-size percentage of the nation's students, but a growing share of high-income students. Just 1 per centum of eye-income students enrolled in those schools in 1969, and the percentage grew slightly to between ane and 2 per centum in 2011. But the enrollment rate among high-income families grew from 2 per centum in 1969 to half-dozen percent in 2011. As a result, the 90-fifty enrollment charge per unit gap grew from 1 percentage bespeak in 1969 to almost 5 percentage points in 2011.
Nosotros also analyzed enrollment trends at Catholic elementary schools, looking closely at the period from 1987 to 2011. Enrollment rates for students from families in the bottom one-half of the income distribution cruel slowly but steadily over those 24 years. Among eye-income students, the enrollment rate in Cosmic schools roughshod from 7 percent to three percent in 2011. Meanwhile, the enrollment rate for high-income families declined by only 1 pct bespeak, from 11 percent to x pct. As a consequence, the ninety-l gap in enrollment rates grew from four to near 7 percent points.
At not-Catholic religious elementary schools, enrollment over the same 24-year period diverges from the trends elsewhere. Enrollment for children from middle-income families increased from iii percent to 4 percentage, while that of children from high-income families declined from half-dozen percent to v percent. As a result, the 90-50 gap in enrollment rates in not-Catholic religious uncomplicated schools in 2011 was one-half the size of the comparable gap in 1987.
Race: Nosotros looked at enrollment rates for white, black, and Hispanic students overall, too as among low-, center-, and loftier-income families in each grouping. On the whole, enrollment for white students decreased from 16 percent in 1959 to 11 pct in 2013. Enrollment decreased far more than dramatically for Hispanic students, dropping from thirteen percent enrolled in individual schools to 3 percentage. By contrast, the individual-schoolhouse enrollment rate increased among black students, from 3 percent to 5 pct.
These trends could reflect shifts in each group's income distribution or changes in the overall individual-school enrollment rates by family income. Black and Hispanic families were less concentrated in the bottom 10 percent of the income distribution in 2013 compared to 1969, then we might expect their private-schoolhouse enrollment rates to rise fifty-fifty if enrollment rates among families at each level of income remained constant. This is why it is of import to examine trends in private-school enrollment rates for blackness and Hispanic families at particular points in the national family unit-income distribution.
In 1969, merely under 2 percent of blackness children from low-income families attended private elementary schools. This charge per unit rose slowly over the adjacent iv decades, reaching four percentage in 2013 (see Figure 3). Enrollment for black children from middle-income families was steady, at five pct in 1969 and 6 per centum in 2013. In contrast, the private-schoolhouse enrollment rate for black students from high-income families increased from 11 pct in 1969 to more sixteen percentage in the mid-1990s. Subsequently, this rate brutal slightly, to fourteen percent in 2013. The net effect of these trends is that the 90-l gap amid blackness students in 2013 was viii per centum points, slightly larger just not statistically different from the comparable gap of 6 points in 1969.
Hispanic children were less probable to enroll in private school overall in 2013 than in 1969 (the first year with information available for Hispanic student enrollment), with the steepest turn down among centre-class families, whose rates barbarous from fifteen percent to 3 percent. However, the decline was small for children from high-income families, falling from 18 percent to 15 percent, and the xc-50 gap among Hispanic families grew from three points in 1969 to 12 points in 2013.
Community Type: In 1968, 19 percent of children living in cities and 13 percent of those living in suburbs attended a private uncomplicated school. Over the next half century, both percentages declined, to 10 percent of urban center dwellers and 8 percent of suburban children. Among high-income urban families during those years, the share of children enrolled in private school peaked at xxx percent in 1989 and was 24 percent in 2013 (see Figure 4a).
For eye-income families living in the suburbs, the private-school enrollment rate cruel from 11 percent in 1968 to 6 per centum in 2013. The comparable enrollment rate for children from high-income suburban families remained steady, between 15 and 18 pct, from 1968 until recently, but roughshod in the years following the onset of the Bang-up Recession. As a result of that decline, the 90-50 gap among suburban families was the same in 2013 as it had been in 1968: seven pct points.
We also find declines in overall individual-school enrollment rates among families living in the Northeast and Midwest during the report period. The rates brutal by roughly half, from 22 percent to ten percent in the Northeast and from 16 percent to 9 percentage in the Midwest. Meanwhile, those in the South and West held steady at around 7 percent. Looking at enrollment past family unit income, in the South, the enrollment charge per unit of children from high-income families really increased from fourteen percent in 1968 to 19 per centum in 2013. We find a gap of 14 pct points in 2013 between the private-school enrollment rates of children from loftier- and center-income families—twice as large equally the comparable gap in 1968 (see Figure 4b).
Explaining the Patterns
Nosotros consider a number of potential explanations for the trends that we detect in private-school enrollment. We do not claim to present evidence of causation; rather, our potential explanations are hypotheses supported past descriptive prove, which nosotros offer to motivate future research.
One major explanation for these patterns is the widespread closures of Catholic schools, which had relatively low tuitions and were concentrated in the Northeast and Midwest. Due to a decline in the number of clergy and members of religious orders, who provided depression-toll teaching services, equally well equally financial and other pressures related to public disclosures of long-standing sexual-corruption bug in the church, the number of Cosmic elementary schools in the U.S. declined by 37 pct between 1970 and 2010.
The Catholic elementary schools that remain open up are more expensive, with an average tuition in 2010 of $v,858 (in 2015 dollars), which is more than than six times the average tuition of $873 in Catholic unproblematic schools in 1970. During this period, middle-income families with uncomplicated-school-age children experienced an average real-income increase of 23 percent, while the average real income of low-income families with children declined by 22 percent. Though average tuition rates do not reflect scholarships and other discounts, these averages and income trends may help explain why Catholic elementary schools increasingly serve affluent students.
Meanwhile, since the late 1970s, tuitions at other types of private schools also have increased more rapidly than median incomes. The average aggrandizement-adjusted tuition in nonsectarian private elementary schools increased from $four,120 in 1979 to $22,611 in 2011. Given the high tuitions in nonsectarian private uncomplicated schools, it is non surprising that enrollment in these schools rose faster among students from high-income families than amid those from low-income families, or that the ninety-l enrollment gap increased essentially.
Tuitions accept also increased substantially in not-Catholic religious elementary schools in contempo years. In 1993, the boilerplate inflation-adjusted tuition was $3,896; that nigh tripled by 2011, to $9,134. Information technology is therefore surprising that the 90-50 enrollment gap did not increase betwixt 1987 and 2011.
Another relevant cistron for families' decisions is the perceived quality of the public schools with which private schools compete. One marker of comparison is educatee functioning on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), where the difference between the average math scores of public and individual 4th-form students declined markedly between the 1990s and 2011. This could explain why the per centum of elementary-school students attending private schools declined slightly during this period.
Only these patterns differ betwixt cities and suburbs. Boilerplate math and reading scores on NAEP are considerably lower for public-schoolhouse students in cities compared to those in suburban schools, in part due to residential segregation by income. Suburban families requite their schools better ratings, too: annual survey data from Phi Beta Kappan evidence that more than families in the suburbs rated their local public schools an "A" or "B" throughout the 1980s and early on 1990s than urban parents at the same income level. Farther, high-income suburban parents gave their local schools better ratings than low-income suburban parents, likely reflecting the greater capacity of high-income parents to move to communities with high-quality public schools. In dissimilarity, loftier-income parents living in cities did non rate their local public schools more favorably than lower-income urban parents, which helps to explain why high-income urban parents are more likely than affluent suburbanites to send their children to private schoolhouse.
The striking differences beyond regions in individual-school enrollment trends may reflect regional differences in the composition of private-schoolhouse enrollment. Private-school enrollment in the South was not essentially affected by Catholic school closures; it was affected by white flight following school desegregation orders. In addition, the South is dwelling to a significant number of conservative Christian families, and Supreme Court decisions banning prayer in schools may explain the increasing percentage of middle-income families sending their children to non-Catholic religious elementary schools. Interestingly, the percent of high-income families in the South who sent their children to not-Catholic religious elementary schools declined over this same menstruation, and the 90-50 gap in enrollment rates in other religious elementary schools narrowed.
Implications
The distribution of private uncomplicated-school enrollments in the U.Southward. has changed dramatically over the last 45 years. Today, not-Catholic religious elementary schools serve more than low-income students than Catholic uncomplicated schools do. Meanwhile, the percentage of students from high-income families who attend individual nonsectarian schools has grown essentially. Much less is known most nonsectarian private schools than about Cosmic schools, which historically were the ascendant supplier of private-schoolhouse services in the U.S. and the subject of a great deal of inquiry.
Given that less than 10 percentage of American children attend a individual uncomplicated or secondary school, why should we intendance if gaps by family income in private-school enrollment rates have grown? Relative to residential mobility patterns, trends in private-school enrollment play only a modest role in explaining increases in schoolhouse segregation past income. Just that office is not inconsequential, and could exist important for 2 additional reasons.
Starting time, if the private schools affluent families choose for their children provide a improve education than the schools available to children from lower-income families, these choices laissez passer on economic reward to the next generation and undercut the potential for intergenerational economic mobility. 2d, it is possible that well-educated affluent parents who send their children to private schools may be less interested in devoting their political and social uppercase to advocating for better public schools.
What can the data tell us? Nosotros know that the percentage of American children attending individual elementary schools has declined from 15 to less than nine per centum in contempo decades, and that Catholic schools and nonsectarian private schools increasingly serve students from loftier-income families. It is more hard to judge whether these shifts in enrollment have contributed to gaps in educational outcomes. If average per-student expenditure is an indicator of instructional quality, this may be the example. The ninety-l enrollment charge per unit gap has increased the most in nonsectarian elementary schools, which are more than than twice as expensive, on average, equally religious schools. However, middle-income parents pay less than loftier-income parents who enroll their children in individual schoolhouse, due not only to scholarship help but also to the relative costs of the schools these types of families choose. We know of no evidence near whether more-expensive private schools are more effective than less-expensive schools, though the choices of affluent families suggest that they believe they are.
The primal trends identified by our analysis have troubling implications. As a result of growing residential segregation by income, low-income families are increasingly concentrated in urban areas. In such places, one quarter of loftier-income families enroll their children in individual schools compared to a much smaller—and failing—proportion of heart- and depression-income families. As a issue, both urban public schools and urban private schools accept less socioeconomic diversity today than they had several decades ago.
Higher-income families increasingly alive either in the suburbs or enroll their children in private schools. Moreover, the private schools their children attend are more than likely to be expensive nonsectarian schools than was the case four decades ago. Together, these trends indicate an increasingly polarized pattern of school enrollment. As a result, American schools—both public and individual—are increasingly segregated past income.
Richard J. Murnane is Thompson Inquiry Professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Instruction and a inquiry associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. Sean F. Reardon is the Professor of Poverty and Inequality in Education at Stanford University and a senior fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Enquiry. Preeya P. Mbekeani and Anne Lamb are doctoral students at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
Last updated July 17, 2018
Source: https://www.educationnext.org/who-goes-private-school-long-term-enrollment-trends-family-income/
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