This is a follow up to “Hey, where the white kids at?” and “Did the white kids go to Richardson or Plano?”
In an earlier post we saw that there is a vast difference between the percentage of Dallas residents that are white (30%) and the percentage of white Dallas ISD students (5%). So what could account for that difference?
In a follow-up post, I dismissed the possibility of a flight to private schools making the difference, since I mentioned it would take tens of thousands of students being enrolled in private school for that to be the case.
Well, since then I’ve been directed to some numbers found in dallasrelo.com, a Dallas relocation site that has enrollment information for Dallas Private Schools. If the numbers are right, then there ARE tens of thousands of students enrolled in Dallas Private Schools. Follow me after the jump for the comparison between DISD enrollment and Dallas Private School Enrollment.
If we take a fairly conservative estimate and guess that half of the 23,000 students in private school are white, then the percentage of white students in Dallas (DISD + Private Schools) would jump to approximately 11%. Still not enough to completely account for the gap between population and enrollment, but getting us closer. If we assume that 2/3 of private school students are white, then the percentage of white students in Dallas becomes 14%. That would be about half of what the US Census says is the white percentage of the population inside Dallas.
So, what can we conclude? Where ARE the white children in Dallas?
Well, I think in the end, the white children are in a combination of Private School and… nowhere. I think we have to accept the possibility that commenter “Gettin’ By” is correct when he posted a comment
earlier that
There seems to be a large urban population of young white childless people who live in the downtown condos. I wonder if there is an equally large population of empty nesters.
It’s probably very likely that a significant amount of the white demographic in Dallas is comprised of young childless couples that may move to the suburbs looking for more room when/if kids arrive , and empty nesters. Do you have any other theories?
*UPDATE* Hello DMN DallasISD Blog Readers *Â Thank you for the link to the government private school figures. I’ll update this post with the official numbers soon.
Oh, and for those that couldn’t comment earlier, my apologies. One of the AJAX Comment plugins was acting screwey, but it has been disabled now, so your comments will go through. Those reponsible have been sacked.Symphony Hour ipod
____________________Written by Jean Valjean
May I offer a tip? You can download comprehensive school enrollments for every private school in Dallas (or Texas or the U.S., for that matter) from this U.S. Dept. of Education website:
http://nces.ed.gov/surveys/pss/privateschoolsearch/
That data is better than what you’re getting from the relo website.
Comment by Kent Fischer, Dallas Morning News — February 24, 2009 @ 12:16 pm
Wow, excellent resource! Thank you so much. I’ll definitely look it up and update accordingly.
Comment by Jean Valjean — February 24, 2009 @ 12:23 pm
Interesting exercise. The website Kent references is by no means complete, just off the top of my head I don’t see Cistercian, Greenhill, St. Marks. And then there are the charter schools, Harmony Science Academy, North Hills, etc.
Comment by MCP — February 24, 2009 @ 1:36 pm
The question should not be where, rather why?
Comment by Mike Warner — February 24, 2009 @ 2:00 pm
Greenhill is there:
http://nces.ed.gov/surveys/pss/privateschoolsearch/school_detail.asp?Search=1&SchoolName=greenhill&State=48&NumOfStudentsRange=more&IncGrade=-1&LoGrade=-1&HiGrade=-1&ID=A0109386
So is Cistercian: http://nces.ed.gov/surveys/pss/privateschoolsearch/school_detail.asp?Search=1&SchoolName=Cistercian&State=48&NumOfStudentsRange=more&IncGrade=-1&LoGrade=-1&HiGrade=-1&ID=Y1608436
St. Marks is missing, which is odd because I’ve used this data before (it’s been a few years, tho) and they were included previously.
The best way to get the full scope is to search for all Texas schools, download the data into Excel/Access and then filter for the local schools via zip code, city name, etc, because Greenhill is in Addison and Cistercian is in Irving.
Comment by Kent Fischer, Dallas Morning News — February 24, 2009 @ 3:25 pm
Not to overrun your blog with references to mine, but you might also want to look at this:
http://dallasisdblog.dallasnews.com/DISD%20Enroll%20by%20Eth%2071-06.jpg
It shows whites began leaving DISD when the district integrated in the early 1970’s.
(That’s a graph I made for this blog post last year: http://dallasisdblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2008/03/disd-demographics.html)
Comment by Kent Fischer, Dallas Morning News — February 24, 2009 @ 3:30 pm
Not all those white kids are leaving Dallas for private school. I’m surrounded by cars with ESD, Greenhill, Jesuit, and Highlands stickers on them every morning as I leave the Grapevine/Flower Mound area to drive my son to Cistercian.
Is it “white flight” when you leave a white school for private school?
Comment by DFW Mom — February 24, 2009 @ 4:50 pm