City Kids,Go to Suburban Schools

The Seattle Times reports:

West Seattle High School seemed too violent and private school seemed too elitist, so Barbara Tippett looked across the water to find the right school for her son, Sky.

Starting this morning, his first day of high school, Tippett will drop off Sky at the Fauntleroy ferry dock to catch the 6:45 boat to Vashon Island. He won't be alone. About 75 Seattle kids commute the same way every day — filling two school buses that shuttle them from the Vashon dock to the island's three public schools.

The rural, 550-student Vashon Island High School meets Sky Tippett's criteria of a "real high school." And Barbara Tippett likes the socioeconomic diversity of a public school without the problems she sees at some of Seattle's.

"I found they're much too violent," she said. "I have safety concerns for a freshman boy going into a public high school."

Seattle Public Schools faces a funding crisis that is tied largely to its falling enrollment — half what it was in the 1960s — and is closing school buildings to cut costs. Families are leaving Seattle in search of cheaper housing, while many of those who remain send their kids to the suburbs for school.

It's a compromise they say gives their kids a public-school experience without the challenges that can plague an urban district. Parents rattled off reasons they want to avoid Seattle's schools: gangs, large class sizes, test scores and financial mismanagement.

"As West Seattle becomes more yuppified, parents want a better choice, and Vashon offers that," said Mike Bowers, who lives above Alki. His son is a sophomore at Vashon Island High School, and another son graduated from there. Last week, he took his girlfriend's 14-year-old daughter by ferry to her freshman orientation.

A Seattle superintendent's committee appointed last year to study the 47,000-student district's financial crisis said enrollment is falling partly because of a lack of public confidence. Similarly sized districts across the country have seen the middle class flee their public schools, and the state's open-enrollment policy — which allows students to easily transfer between districts — could make it affordable for more middle-class families to leave.

Already, about a quarter of school-age children in Seattle — some 15,000 — choose not to attend public schools. Most of them go to private or parochial schools, while nearly 1,000 enroll in surrounding districts.

Great moments in Blue America.Few places in America can say they have lost half their school age population since the 1960's.Would you call a place like that a successful city?