Different School Options, But the Same Results
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A March 30 Metro story, "D.C. Parents Look Outside the Box for Public Education," reported on the dilemma faced by some affluent D.C. parents regarding where to send their children to high school: a "flawed neighborhood school," a private school or a public school in another jurisdiction.
Though the article focused on parents who "look outside the box" for secondary education after primary school, parents who stay "inside the box" and send their children to Woodrow Wilson Senior High School in Northwest see those children perform just as successfully by an important measure: college admissions.
I conducted a survey of the members of the Lafayette Elementary School sixth-grade class of 2000 (which included my son). The study investigated whether there was a difference in the U.S. News & World Report rankings of the colleges and universities that admitted the Lafayette children who went on to graduate from public high schools and the rankings of those that admitted the Lafayette children who attended private high schools.
There was no significant difference in the college rankings of the two groups; public and private high school graduates were admitted to colleges and universities of equal rank. Nearly 80 percent of the students in the study who attended public high schools attended D.C. public schools, with most attending Wilson High School.
Upper Northwest families may choose to spend tens of thousands of dollars for private schools or public schools in Maryland and Virginia, but students from Lafayette Elementary who graduate from Wilson attend colleges and universities of the same quality as students whose parents have paid for them to leave their neighborhood school behind.
LEONARD JEWLER
Washington
