Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Gossip Girl Meets GIS: Private School Enrollments in NYC

Based on a series of novels by an Upper East Side private school survivor, "Gossip Girl" is a new teen drama that details the lives of the "rich and the popular" teens on the Upper East Side. It's certainly not high art, but all the hype got me wondering what proportion of NYC K-12 kids go to private school by neighborhood.

The 2000 Census includes data on school enrollment - and with the help of skoolboy (thank you!), who processed these data, here's what I found out:
  • In 6 of the 32 community school districts, 25% or more of the K-12 students are enrolled in private school. These districts are marked in green below. (Sorry about the ramshackle map - no time for GIS tonight.) In Manhattan's District 2, a whopping 43% of all K-12 students are enrolled in private school. Other heavy private school districts include Manhattan's District 3 and Brooklyn's districts 14, 20, 21, and 22.

  • In 11 of the 32 community school districts, 15% - 25% of the K-12 students are enrolled in private school. These districts are marked in blue below.

  • For the blue/green colorblind, see the table below which lists the percentage of K-12 students enrolled in private school by district.

Percentage of K-12 students Enrolled in Private School by
Community School District
(green>=25%; blue=15.0-24.99%)


And for anyone who is curious, here is a write-up of "Gossip Girl" in the New Yorker and the trailer:


5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I don't think your definitions of blue and green in the map heading match your definitions in the text...

eduwonkette said...

rachel - thanks for catching the typo!

mymopinion said...

Does the private school percentage include parochial schools?

ed notes online said...

The parochial school issue raises some interesting points, especially in heavy Jewish/Hassidic neighborhoods as the public schools are not even an option to them. I know Dist 14 real well. In south Williamsburg the Hassidic concentration (they even "bought" 3 public school buildings that were closed in the 70's - a slight scandal there, but another time for that)distorts things. In north Wllmsbg and Greenpoint there's a very heavy concentration of Catholic schools. Now with an influx of Manhattanites in west Wllmsbg, we can expect more of the Manhattan private school model. I have a friend who gets 10G's for consulting on how to get kids into exclusive private schools. A very different kettle of fish from most of the Wllmsbg/Greenpoint private schools.

eduwonkette said...

hi ms. miller and norm,

parochial schools included - unfortunately, the census doesn't break the two out separately.

and norm, a more detailed map is coming soon - we can take a closer look at W'burg.