A new Boston University study has discovered the most affluent 20% of public-school districts in Massachusetts lost more students than the other 80% combined since the COVID-19 pandemic.
Simultaneously, high-income districts such as Brookline – a town comprising part of Boston’s metropolitan area – have seen private-school enrollment increase from about 13% in 2015 to 18% today, according to Brookline News.
“The pandemic changed the calculus for some parents, who came to favor alternatives to public school that they wouldn’t have otherwise considered,” Celeste Alcalay writes, adding one family interviewed considered COVID-19 a “tipping point” for withdrawal.
“They had already been ‘generally disappointed with the level of academics’ and ‘like many parents’ had been ‘supplementing [their son’s] day-to-day education with Russian Math classes, as well as an online History tutor.’”
