No. of Recommendations: 2
There’s an obvious answer. The answer is that the schools here aren’t perceived to be very good.
That would indicate a very high rate of affluency. Private schools aren't cheap. There's a good chance that any parent that can afford private school would send their kids there anyway, no matter what city they lived in.
I also like the suggestion to require private schools to take special needs kids. The state must take them. Private schools can pick and choose to make their "outcomes" look better. Of course, since Seattle doesn't have a voucher system, that probably wouldn't be workable. Any city that does, require the private schools to take all comers with no extra fees. They'll almost certainly end up no better (or worse) than the public schools.
