Many Floridians Prefer Public To Private Schools, Says UF Study

May 21, 1996

GAINESVILLE — Many parents prefer the diversity and quality of public schools and would not send their children to private schools even if tuition were paid for, a University of Florida survey finds.

“The conventional wisdom is that most parents would probably send their kids to private schools if they could afford it,” said Chris McCarty, survey director for UF’s Bureau of Economic and Business Research. “But our study shows that parents do not necessarily prefer private schools to public schools. If anything, parents with children in the public schools are relatively satisfied with those schools.”

The bureau asked about Florida schools during its monthly consumer surveys of Floridians in August, September and February. The 1,170 respondents were chosen through random digit dialing for 10-minute telephone interviews.

One of the questions involved asking parents to grade the schools where their children attended. Private schools received better grades overall, while public high schools received the lowest overall grade, a “C.”

Despite the differing views of their own children’s schools, most wouldn’t switch if they had a choice.

Of those parents with children in public elementary schools, 57 percent said there was no private school they would prefer for their child, compared to 52 percent of those with youngsters in middle schools and 55 percent in high schools. Only a handful of these respondents (17 percent) said the reason was no private school in their area.

“The main reason people gave for wanting to keep their children in public schools was exposing them to a diversity of students from different economic classes or races,” McCarty said. “Others simply said their public school was doing a good job and they had never thought about switching.”

Twenty-three percent of parents with children in middle schools said they would send them to another public school if they had the choice, compared to 17 percent with children in high schools and 15 percent in elementary schools.

“It’s unclear whether or not middle schools in particular are being managed poorly or this is just a difficult age to deal with,” McCarty said. “I suspect it’s the latter because many parents say the transitional years of middle school are a rough time in a child’s life.”

When asked to grade the school their child currently attended using grades “A” through “F,” the survey respondents rated private schools higher than public schools. While the average grade for private elementary, middle and high schools was “A”, public elementary and middle schools received a “B”, and public high schools a “C.”

Grades also varied regionally. Orlando schools were rated the lowest for all three school levels, while Tampa’s elementary schools scored the highest of all schools in the different regions, only a fraction of a point from an “A” average.

Tampa and southeast Florida were found to have higher rates of private enrollment. Nineteen percent of households in southeast Florida and 18 percent in Tampa had children in private elementary schools, compared to 12 percent in Orlando and 13 percent statewide.

Private school enrollment was most common among elementary school-aged children, declining in most regions in the higher grades, McCarty said.

Reasons parents chose private schools varied with children’s age. The largest percentage (37) of parents of elementary school youths preferred the greater resources provided, while parents of high school students more often cited supervision (31 percent).

“For parents of elementary school kids, the big priority is having things like computers and small class sizes that foster intellectual growth,” McCarty said. “Whereas in high schools, parents are more concerned about making sure their children stay on campus and are not going to be harmed by other students.”

The survey also found religion to play a relatively minor role in the selection of private schools over public ones, he said.

As expected, people with higher incomes are most likely to send their children to private schools. While 13 percent of Florida households with elementary school-age children chose private schools, about 19 percent of parents with incomes over $45,000 did, he said.

The margin of error for the statewide results was less than 3 percent. Regional results are subject to a sampling error of less than 5 percent.