Purpose: Provide an independent analysis of the relative merits of public versus private high school education in Northwest Washington D.C. as it relates to college and university enrollments of former Lafayette Elementary School students.
As children approach elementary school graduation in affluent neighborhoods of upper Northwest Washington, many of their parents debate the merits of continuing to send their children to public school and consider the alternatives of private or parochial school. Beyond the quality of education provided by the various options, parents consider how the choice of school will affect their child’s prospects for admission to selective colleges. Both the private schools and the neighborhood District high school (Woodrow Wilson Senior High School) demonstrate that their graduates enter the best colleges but, in the end, there was little analytic information available for parents to base their decision upon.
Two studies were conducted of the institutions of higher learning that enrolled members of the graduating classes of Lafayette Elementary School in Northwest Washington D.C. An initial study was conducted in 2006 of the class of 2000, which graduated from high school in 2006. A second expanded study in 2009 examined the Lafayette classes of 2000, 2001, and 2002, which graduated from high school in 2006, 2007, and 2008, respectively.
Each study investigated whether there was a difference in the rankings of the colleges and universities that enrolled Lafayette graduates who had attended public high schools versus those who attended private high schools. The results show that there is no significant difference in the rankings of colleges and universities where students were enrolled based on public versus private high school attendance.
The author has performed the analyses of the Lafayette classes as a public service for the benefit of the community. On March 7, 2007, the Northwest Current newspaper published an article about his initial study of the Lafayette class of 2000.
| Study of high school classes of 2006, 2007, and 2008 completed in July 2009. |  |
|
| Northwest Current article on original study of class of 2000. |
You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader to view these files.