Private institutions are attracting wealthy families who are frustrated with public schools' flip-flopping on remote and in-person learning.
Why it matters: The trend is weakening public schools, which will lose funding as they lose students, and deepening the divide between how rich and poor kids are educated.
What's happening: In districts across America, public schools have had to follow local and state guidelines and stick with online school, while private schools have offered in-person alternatives.
- That's appealing to parents who are fed up with virtual learning because it forces them to juggle work and child care or because the schooling is not as high in quality as in-person instruction.
Just 5% of private schools were virtual this fall, according to survey data from the National Association of Independent Schools, cited by CNBC. Compare that with the 62% of public schoolkids who started the fall on Zoom, per Burbio, which has been tracking public school re-opening plans.
Private schools have a clear advantage in how they've been able to handle the pandemic:
- They were able to devise and advertise their reopening plans throughout the summer while CONTINUE READING: Private schools pull students away from public schools - Axios