The Truth About Private Schools

Vox is currently running a series called “Hindsight 2070,” where prominent scholars have been asked to look back at today from 50 years in the future and identify what we do now that will be unthinkable then. Some things on the list, like eating meat and youth tackle football, are predictable, but others like “bosses” and ending the draft were surprising and thought-provoking reads.One of those pieces is dedicated to K-12 education. The headline reads “Abandoning public education will be considered unthinkable 50 years from now” and it is written by sociologist Adia Harvey Wingfield. Dr. Wingfield argues, “Prior to Brown v. Board of Education, most U.S. students attended local public schools. Of course, these were also strictly racially segregated. It wasn’t until the Supreme Court struck down legal segregation that a demand for private (and eventually charter and religious parochial) schools really began to grow, frequently as a backlash to integrated public institutions.”