Private schools in the United States are generally whiter than public schools and have fewer black, Hispanic, or Latino students. This may not be a surprising statistic because private schools are often expensive and exclusive, but it is not so easy to determine. There is no central list of private schools in the country, and the only demographic data on them comes from a little-known voluntary survey conducted by the federal government.
While reporting on our project Academies of segregation in the South last year, we drew on that survey to find private schools founded during desegregation and analyzed their demographics compared to local public school districts. Our analysis of this survey revealed, among other things, Amite County, Mississippiwhere about 900 children attend local public schools—of which, as of 2021, 16% were white. By comparison, two private schools in a district with more than 600 children, were 96% white.
In the course of our reporting, we’ve come to realize that this data and analysis is illuminating and useful—even beyond the South. We decided to create a database to allow anyone to search for a school and view data over the years.
Today we release Demographic database of private schools. This is the first time anyone has taken past surveys and made them so easy to study. What’s more, we matched these schools with surrounding public school districts, allowing parents, researchers, and journalists to directly compare the makeup of private schools to local public systems.
Until now, much of this data has been difficult to analyze: while the National Center for Education Statistics, which collects the data, provides a tool to look at Private School Universe Survey data for the past year, there was no easy way to examine historical trends without tussling with large, unwieldy text files.
As debates over school choice, vouchers, and the privatization of education intensify, making this repository of private school data accessible is more important than ever. The information is self-reported, but we’ve tried to flag or correct some obvious inaccuracies where possible.
How to use the application
Search: You can search private schools or public school districts by name and view results using multiple filter options.
For schools, you can filter results by state, religious affiliation, school type, and enrollment range. For some schools, you can also filter by year of establishment. By default, we only show results for schools that responded to the survey at least once in the last few years, but you can turn off this filter to include older data in your search results as well.
For public school districts, users can filter by state and sort the results to see where the most students attend private schools, as well as the difference between the largest racial group in the district and the share of those same students in the school. Because private schools may draw students from different districts, comparisons of their racial composition with public schools in the same district are imperfect. However, these comparisons can offer valuable insights into broader patterns of segregation and access.
I am looking for a private school: On each private school page, you’ll find basic information about the school (its name; location; type of school and its religious affiliation, if applicable; and classes taught), and we’ve also included a summary and visualization comparing the school’s demographics to the public school district .
There is also a compilation of demographic data provided by the school for the survey that you can download for your own analysis:
Study area or state: See the area and state pages for more general information about private schools in those areas. (Search districts hereand view links for each state here.)
You may find areas where private schools do not demographically match neighboring public schools. U Osceola County, Floridasouth of Orlando, both the local public school district and private schools are predominantly Hispanic or Latino.
On the state and district pages, private schools are broken down by religious affiliation and school type, as well as a list of all private schools in the state or district. The state pages also list all the school districts in the state.
District pages include some additional features such as:
- A searchable map of private schools within the district, color-coded by the predominant race of each school’s students. (Use the search tool next to the map to search for schools by name, or click the Use Your Current Location button to zoom in on schools near you. Clicking on a school’s address will take the map to its location, and clicking on the school’s name will take you to of this school.)
- An interactive line chart showing how public and private school enrollment has changed over time for each racial category. Use the drop-down menu to change race categories and explore trends for different groups.
If you find something notable, we’d love to hear about it. We’d also love to hear your ideas for improving the app, including new features or data you’d like to see. And if you spot something you think is a bug, there’s a button on every page you can use to let us know.
