BR hits record for middle- to upper-income enrollment in local public schools
This 10-year high could bring big impacts for students across East Baton Rouge Parish
The Baton Rouge Area Chamber today released new research showing that local public schools enrolled a record-number of middle- to upper-income students in the Fall 2022 semester1. This finding, which encompasses enrollment in all East Baton Rouge Parish School System (EBRPSS) campuses as well as all public charter schools serving EBRPSS students going back to 2012, has significant implications for local K-12 education. Perhaps the most important research-related finding is that academic outcomes improve for all students, including economically disadvantaged students, when a school increases its middle- to upper-income student headcount.
The full research report, available here, may read to you a little dry (not our opinion, just the opinion of some of our editors), so we wanted to take a step back and emphasize the key points from the report and explain why this is important and what may be causing this trend.
Research shows enrolling more middle- to upper-income students leads to performance boosts for all students
This milestone – record middle- to upper-income student enrollment – may appear anomalous based on the chart above, but there’s reason to believe this is the culmination of a years-long effort by community partners to increase the number of high quality seats in local schools. Compared to a decade ago, 64 local public schools currently enroll more middle- to upper-income students, and 85 enroll more than they did just one year ago. Middle- to upper-income enrollment gains were found in elementary, middle, and high schools, and at schools with ratings from ‘A’ to ‘F.’ While this trend spans across all types of schools, including traditional public schools, magnet schools, and public charter schools, some of the largest middle- to upper-income enrollment gains were found in the region’s high performing magnet and charter schools.
There’s decades of academic research, including studies of students both nationally and internationally, showing that performance gains are found in all students, including economically disadvantaged students, when a school’s middle- to upper-income enrollment increases. Economically disadvantaged students at four of our five nonselective local public schools with the largest middle- to upper-income enrollments outperform economically disadvantaged students districtwide. In short, economically disadvantaged students at schools with more middle- to upper-income students perform better.
Why is this happening?
Private school enrollment in East Baton Rouge Parish is notoriously high, particularly among families with sufficient financial means to send their children to a private school. According to the American Community Survey, about 27% of K-12 students in East Baton Rouge Parish are enrolled in private school which is much higher than comparable principal urban counties in Little Rock (22%), Greenville (19%), Mobile (16%), and Columbia (12%). These data lag several years, so we can’t verify if increasing middle- to upper-income enrollment in local public schools accompanies a decline in local private school enrollment. The Louisiana Department of Education (LDOE) does not make private school enrollment data publicly available, so we also can’t use that to compare2.
Generally speaking, the schools that have sustained middle- to upper-income enrollment growth over the past decade have been the Parish’s high-performing magnet schools, including Baton Rouge Magnet High School and Baton Rouge Foreign Language Academic Immersion Magnet (BR FLAIM). Some charter schools with briefer lifespans have consistently increased their middle- to upper-income enrollment since they opened their doors, including BASIS Baton Rouge Materra.
BASIS Baton Rouge Materra is one of the area’s highest performing public schools. BASIS Charter Schools, one of the country’s highest performing charter school operators, boasts a long list of nationally-recognized schools. In May 2019, just after BASIS won approval to open their second local campus, the Advocate published an article in which BASIS reported that about half of the Materra campus’ enrollment came from “private and parochial schools.”
Families want to send their children to a good school. Middle- to upper-income families, because of their higher incomes, have a longer list of options that includes costly private schools. But as BASIS Materra and other high-performing schools have proven, these families will send their children to a public school if that public school is high-performing. So while we can’t say for certain that growing middle- to upper-income enrollment in local public schools is a result of students leaving private schools, we will say high-performing public schools, whether they be traditional, magnet, or public charters, have proven their attractiveness to families across the income spectrum, including middle- to upper-income families. Expanding the number of seats available in these schools increases the likelihood that these enrollment trends persist.
There’s another theory that may explain these enrollment trends. Lower income families in Baton Rouge enrolling their children in public schools may be more financially secure than they have been in previous years, which could push these families above economically disadvantaged status as it’s classified by LDOE3. There’s evidence to support this theory: lower income workers have seen their wages grow by higher percentages than higher income workers in the years since the pandemic4. For many low income workers, this wage growth has outpaced inflation. Even if these enrollment trends simply illustrate that more Baton Rouge families have healthier pocketbooks now than they have in years past, that would not upset the important notion that outcomes improve for all students when schools enroll more middle- to upper-income students.
There’s a delicate line to walk when discussing the importance of increasing middle- to upper-income student enrollment. High quality seats in public schools should be accessible to all students, not just those coming from middle- to upper-income families. And students from families across the income spectrum can and do prove they are capable of academic success, regardless of the school they find themselves in. BR By The Numbers is all about research- and data-informed decision making, and empirical research done by experts who care about the performance of K-12 students has shown the powerful impacts that result from increasing middle- to upper-income enrollment. These trends are good news for all families in the district, both current and prospective, low and high income alike.
Middle- to upper-income students are defined as students not classified as economically disadvantaged, a student classification tracked by the Louisiana Department of Education. A full definition of economically disadvantaged can be found in Appendix A of the full research report.
The Louisiana Department of Education (LDOE), beginning in Fall 2022, began publishing enrollment reports for registered nonpublic schools not seeking approval and home study programs. These represent a fraction of total nonpublic enrollment, including enrollment in private schools, data which is collected but not reported publicly.
A full definition of economically disadvantaged can be found in Appendix A of the full research report.
Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. https://www.dallasfed.org/cd/communities/2022/0808