Private-School Enrollment Growing Rapidly Recent Growth Twice As Fast As That Of Public Schools
Enrollment in private schools in Washington is growing twice as fast as in public schools, and officials say the popularity of Christian schools is part of the reason.
Private-school enrollment has risen about 4 percent a year over the last five years statewide, while public-school enrollment has grown about 2 percent a year, said Stephen Dinger, president of the Washington Federation of Independent Schools.
Only 9 percent of the private-school students attend expensive college preparatory schools, while one-third of the students attend nondenominational Christian schools, Dinger said. The latter schools account for almost half the growth in private schools over the past 15 years.
“The conveyance of the faith is of great concern for many parents,” said Dinger, whose federation represents 70 percent of the state’s 450 private schools. “They are not running from anything - they are there for something.”
The rapid growth of nondenominational Christian schools is no surprise to Dave Peterson, secondary school principal at Seattle Christian School in SeaTac. An increasing number of parents are seeking schools that reinforce religious values, he said.
“They feel their morals and values are being undermined in the public schools,” Peterson said. “People think everyone who goes to private schools are either rich, or wacko right-wing conservatives. But neither of those stereotypes are true.”
The 700 students at the kindergarten-to-12th-grade Seattle Christian attend daily Bible class and weekly chapel, in addition to academic classes. Tuition is about $5,000 per student for high school, and slightly less in lower grades or when siblings attend.
Class sizes average about 20 students, and there are waiting lists for most grades.
Independent, community-based schools with an average size of only 40 or 50 students are also seeing growing enrollments. There are now 100 such schools around the state.
One of them is the Bellingham Cooperative School, which has about 50 students now, but which has seen enrollment increase 10 students a year for the last three years, school director Heidi Alford said.
The preschool-to-sixth-grade school offers classes with no more than 12 students. Tuition is $3,900 for a full-time student.
Despite their relatively small proportion of the private-school enrollment, some college-prep schools have also seen rapid growth.
The Northwest School in Seattle, for example, has increased enrollment by 150 percent since 1988, to more than 370 students - despite annual tuition of $12,000 for middle and $13,000 for high school.
For every student the school accepted this year, five were turned away.
Seattle public schools Superintendent John Stanford, who works to make schools safer, boost academic achievement and give parents more control over curriculum, doesn’t concede anything to private schools.
Stanford noted that public schools face challenges that are rare for private schools, including poverty, non-English speakers, and students with severe learning disabilities or chronic behavior problems.
“We make no excuses for the fact that we have poor kids in our schools who we intend to educate,” he said. “I can’t do anything about someone who doesn’t want their child sitting next to a black or Asian or Latino.”
Stanford also maintains students from equivalent economic backgrounds do not gain by attending private school.
“They do just as well in our schools,” he said. “I’m willing to challenge any private or parochial school with a similar cross section of students.”
xxxx ENROLLMENT Private-school enrollment last year in Washington totaled 76,306 students, with about 85 percent in religious schools. The state’s public-school enrollment was 951,696.