Using data from the 2011 Digest of Education Statistics, here's a graph that does seem to show a trend:
The notes for the relevant table add that the numbers come from the NCES "Private School Universe Survey (PSS), 1999-2000 through 2009-10."
Public school enrollment numbers seem to have risen in all but one year of the same period:
For this graph, the 1999 figure comes from the 2011 Digest and the others from one of the recently released "selected tables" from the 2012 Digest.
Does the private school data include homeschoolers?
ReplyDeleteI'm going to go hunt for the underlying survey to find out.
DeleteFrom the design description at http://nces.ed.gov/surveys/pss/: " Organizations or institutions that provide support for home schooling without offering classroom instruction for students are not included."
ReplyDelete