Over the past six years of our work, we have repeated exposed the truth about the enormous growth in religious educational institutions. Here is another report we have prepared to give you even more information about the growth of religious schools. This report does not include enrollment in colleges, universities, seminaries or other higher educational facilities. It does not include independent religious schools either. The enrollment statistics projected through 2013 will soon be available.

HeartStrong’s work is SO important in these times. These large increases in enrollment mean that more and more students are being sent to these schools who need to hear our message. Increase in enrollments means an increase in public outings, mandatory reparative therapy and expulsions.

New reports have shown some significant demographic shifts within the world of private education. Since 1989, conservative Christian schools have seen an astounding increase of 46 percent in enrollment. The 245,000 additional students in those schools accounted for 75 percent of the total rise in private school enrollment during the past decade. Other types of private schools that posted noteworthy percentage increases in enrollment during the same timeframe included Episcopal schools (37 percent) and nonsectarian schools (26 percent).

Council for American Private Education

CAPE member organizations, which collectively represent 80 percent of the nation’s private school enrollment, have also seen some sharp increases in student counts. The Association of Christian Schools International, which serves evangelical Christian schools, had a K-12 enrollment gain of 70 percent between 1989 and 1999. During that period, ACSI moved from the third largest to the second largest association of private schools in the country. Other CAPE organizations with substantial 10-year enrollment hikes were the Oral Roberts Educational Fellowship (53.4 percent), the American Montessori Society (53.2 percent), the National Association of Episcopal Schools (20.7 percent), the Solomon Schechter Day School Association (also 20.7 percent), the Friends Council on Education (18.1 percent), and the Lutheran Church ­ Missouri Synod (15.6 percent).

Two of CAPE’s newest members, the National Christian School Association and the Southern Baptist Association of Christian Schools, while not on the NCES list of private school associations in 1989, had enrollment counts in 1999 of 34,122 (NCSA) and 27,468 (SBACS).

The 1999 enrollment figures for states showed California to have the highest private school enrollment (619,067) and Wyoming to have the lowest (2,221). Other states with large concentrations of private school students included New York (475,942), Pennsylvania (339,484), Illinois (299,871), Florida (290,872), Ohio (254,494), Texas (227,645), New Jersey (198,631), Michigan (179,579), and Maryland (144,131).

Nearly half of all students in private schools (49.2 percent) attend schools located in central cities; another 40 percent attend schools in an urban fringe or large town. Only 11 percent of private school students are in rural or small-town schools.