I have a theory... an idea... something I would like to research.
The theory is this...
You know how in the 1960s and early 1970s there was a proliferation of private Christian schools that sprang up as a result of the order to integrate public schools? Especially in the South, these schools were known as White Flight schools. While many of them flourished, others closed once the initial integration of public schools began to age.
Then in the 1990s, there was another private Christian school boom. It began about the time George H.W. Bush lost his bid for re-election to Bill Clinton. With the end of the the Republican Golden Age and the return of the White House to the Democrats, many conservative Evangelicals sought to educate their children in non-government schools. By the mid 1990s there was a resurgence of private Christian education. My theory is that these schools were Right Flight schools.
I'm noticing that whenever fear takes hold of parents, affluent families abandon the public schools; but then the perceived threat to safety or sanctity passes, affluent families begin to filter back into public schools.
There are likely a myriad of other factors contributing to the Right Flight era, and I'd love to research them in a social-foundations-in-education setting.
