The Paucity of Poor Kids in Many Public Schools

There’s a widespread belief that public schools are homogeneous and all inclusive while private schools are bastions of the elite. This was proven to be a myth decades ago by the renowned sociologist James Coleman, and as far as I know, that pattern of findings hasn’t changed in recent years.


Nevertheless, the myth continues. A new Fordham Institute paper provides a partial antidote, pointing out that quite a few public schools enroll virtually no low‐​income kids, making them bastions of the elite. Where the Fordham paper trips up a bit is in calling these elite public schools “private public schools.” As already noted above, private schools are, on average, better economically integrated than their government counterparts, so this phrase is exactly backwards and, as Sara Mead points out, is quite a slap in the face to the many private schools that do yeoman’s work serving large numbers of low‐​income students. Still, good to have folks taking note of these data.