Huffington Magazine Issue 83 | Page 53

LOST BOY district was failing to evaluate them on time.” So D.C. became a national outlier for the number of children it placed in private schools, with 2,204, or about 4 percent of students, in the 2011-12 school year, compared to a national average of about 1,300 in each state, according to federal data. All those private placements put a strain on D.C.’s budget. One estimate found the district pays as much as $200 million annually between private school tuition and HUFFINGTON 01.12.14 transportation; in a recent budget, private school tuition cost the district $109 million. In 2006, another court de 7&VR