The story about Akron mother Kelley Williams-Bolar getting jail for sending her two daughters to a public school in another district is getting lots of well-deserved attention. But of course the Copley-Fairlawn district was unusual only in the lengths it was willing to go to enforce its boundaries. Hundreds of districts nationwide have found lower-profile ways to achieve the same ends: keeping poor kids out.
A year ago, my colleague Janie Scull and I released a report, America's Private Public Schools, which identified almost 3,000 public schools that serve virtually no low-income children. Some of the major findings:
- More than one child in ten attends ?private public schools? in Connecticut (18%), New Jersey (17%), Arizona (14%), and Massachusetts (12%).
- The metro areas with the largest shares of students in ?private public schools? include Boston (16%), New York (13%), Phoenix (11%), San Francisco (10%) and Denver (9%).
- In some metro areas, a high percentage of white students in public schools attend ?private public schools:? New York (27%), San Francisco (21%), Boston (20%), Philadelphia (14%), Denver (14%) and Los Angeles (13%).
If you live in one of the nation's 25 largest metro areas, you can find a list of their private-public schools here. So before you throw stones at Copley-Fairlawn, be sure that your own neighborhood school isn't one of the excluders.
?Mike Petrilli
