BY DANA DiFILIPPO
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Rosa Brinkman wants to show off her students. She ducks into a kindergarten class and asks them to recite the day's devotion, which they're supposed to memorize.
They roar: "DEPART FROM EVIL AND DO GOOD!" And then, more quietly: "Psalms 34:14."
As Mrs. Brinkman thanks the students, it's not just their accuracy and enthusiasm that makes her smile. It's their size.
Enrollment at the Southern Baptist Christian Academy in Avondale has doubled since last year. About 105 students are enrolled in kindergarten through eighth grade this fall, and Mrs. Brinkman frequently adds new names to a waiting list for this and next year. The popularity of such private schools is increasing, statistics show.
About 4.8 million students nationwide attended 26,712 private schools in 1989, while 5 million students enrolled in 27,686 private schools in 1996, according to the U.S. Department of Education. Religious-oriented schools represented more than three quarters of those schools and students.
While Mrs. Brinkman credits curriculum changes and other improvements for her school's surge, she notes that parents are demanding academics that include more than reading, writing and arithmetic.
"Parents want values in education," Mrs. Brinkman says. "A lot of inner-city children live in neighborhoods where they have to handle conflicts every day. In this school, they learn the Christian way to handle conflicts."
In the Tristate area, Catholic school enrollment in the 19-county Archdiocese of Cincinnati has risen about 10 percent in the past decade, from about 51,800 students in 1987-88 to 57,100 in 1997-98, Archdiocese spokesman Dan Andriacco said.
Many parochial schools have opened in the Tristate in recent years, including the Miami Valley Christian Academy in Newtown, where enrollment has jumped more than 700 percent since the Bible-based school opened in fall 1996.
"The parents who come here are very concerned about the moral atmosphere that their children are bathed in all day. They're seeking an education that fosters a home environment," said Dody Staker, director of development at the 80-student elementary school. "Children spend a third of their lives with a classroom teacher, and parents are telling us they want morals and values that match their home."
Morals, a home environment and a commitment to ensure achievement proved important to Angela Randolph of Evanston, who pulled her twin daughters out of Cincinnati Public Schools to enroll them in the Southern Baptist Christian Academy this year.
"My kids went to public school for two years and couldn't read. It had me wondering what they were doing those two years," Mrs. Randolph said of 7-year-olds Asia and Ayanna Randolph. "They've only been in their new school a month, and they already can read. It's an amazing difference."
Such attitudes have public school administrators scurrying to change their approach.
CPS enrollment has dropped about 7 percent in the past decade, from 51,600 in 1988-89 to 47,900 last year. While urban flight, tight resources and other problems have discouraged some parents, administrators admit private schools pose a challenge.
"With every initiative we have to improve Cincinnati Public Schools, you hope that people who are new to the city will join the system or you can lure back those who have left," said Raymond Finke, the district's lobbyist and facilitator of secondary leadership.
