Just a quick data point for you because I just happened to see the expenditures for our public school a few days ago (small town, school has around 100 students per class). It was about $5200/yr/student.
And when a school charges a low tuition and has a low dost of attendance, it is also likely not providing some services on its own. For example, my kids’ grade school had a low tuition for parish members (about $2100 for one child, 3500 for two and I think 4500 for four or more) The cost of attendance was $3000 per child. The remainder was made up through fees, fundraising and a subsidy from the parish. The textbooks were loaned by the state and the only transportation was Metrocards provided by the city to eligible children. So right off the bat, the $3000 did not include transportation or textbooks. It also did not include workbooks or any other supplies (separate fees for those). The school did not offer foreign languages, no real art or music program (taught by the homeroom teacher), there were no special ed or gifted programs, no nurse, no guidance counselors. No paid supervision for lunch time ( parents did it to complete their mandatory service hours), no paid security ( parents sat at the door for service hours). A paid secretary , assisted by parents.
And that $19,000 will have to cover the teacher’s benefits, part of the principal’s and any other paid staff’s salary and benefits, liabilty insurance, utilities, maintenance and cleaning
And while private schooling may appear better than public schooling, I wonder how much of that is due to self-selection by the parents. I suspect all of the parents who really don’t give a damn about their kids education currently send them to public schools. I suspect if they were removed fromthe public schools, the public schools would look a lot better. Not that I’m advocating that their kids should be denied an education, but selective public schools, which can reject the behavior problems and indifferent students look a lot like private schools on paper. It’s the public schools that have to take everyone that look bad . Maybe the problem is not with the schools as much as it’s with the students and their families
They’ve been trying vouchers in Cleveland for several years. I am utterly unimpressed.
The state winds up sending more money on the voucher kids than it does on the public school kids (while deducting state aid from the public schools for any kid they lose) and after several years of scoring lower on the idiotic standardized tests, the voucher schools finally got slightly ahead of the public schoolsl last year in reading and social studies–still behind in math and science.
The kids going to the existing Catholic schools were doing OK (although the Catholic schools had been accepting neighborhood (and non-Catholic) kids who couldn’t pay even before the vouchers and they are maxed for student populations), but the schools created explicitly to teach the voucher kids have been dismal.
Is there anyone watching Milwaukee who can give a better report?
My personal reason to oppose vouchers has to do with the part of the country I live in. Private school vouchers are generally sought by middle and upper-middle class parents who don’t want their children exposed to the evils of public schools where they might learn about evolution or sex education. The really annoying part is that they could afford private schools, but would rather buy a Lincoln Navigator or somesuch.
To be fair, there are more than a few sub-standard schools here in Texas, and public school financing is something of a debacle in this state, but I would far rather see the money put back into the public school system than to have it used to create a revenue stream for churches or corporations.
ps - the track record of Charter schools in this area has been execreble - lower class scores and financial scandals make the headlines fairly regularly.
Here in MI it’s between $6600 and $7300. So, even throughout the country we have a pretty big differential in costs.
I think the whole damn system is broken. Things are so bad we should blow things up and start over. If vouchers help, then great.
First of all, financing schools at the local level is absurd. Poor towns, and poor states, just don’t have the money that rich towns and rich states do. Everyone in the country should have access to the same quality of education.
Second, restricting where kids can go to school is brain dead. We let poor people shop where they want, why should they have to pick a school from their district.
Third, we need better teachers. We have to be able to attract the best and brightest and you can’t do that paying $31,000 a year. Education majors generally have the lowest SAT scores and GPAs.
Fourth, we need to have para-professionals do all the scut work such as grading exams, taking attendance, baby sitting home room, etc. Let the highly skilled teachers concentrate on teaching.
Fifth, we need to break the back of the teachers union. I want Democrats to concentrate on kids and parents needs, not the teachers needs. (I’m a Democrat by the way).
Sixth, we need to increase the school day and the school year.
This is going to be expensive, but I don’t see anything else more important. Certainly not this damn fool war in Iraq.
I’d like to see a cite to back this up. Of the English and Math majors I know, we’re all pretty damn bright, and all near the tops of our respective classes anyways. Those History guys are generally a bit lower than us academically. Most of them that I know just want to coach. (That’s another debate: Why do History teachers coach? Is it in the contract?)
I like this idea, but I think that the grading of non-subjective materials and attendance can be taken care of by students. Ya know, use them like TAs. We did this at my old high school by having Seniors TA for the freshman and sophomore classes.
I think that if you take away my union, you take away my pay. I really don’t even think I’d get $31,000 a year if it weren’t for the NEA and MEA.
No and Maybe. I need time to grade subjective materials (essays and other writings), so a longer day just means I’m up later and more exhausted in the morning. As far as a longer year goes, NCLB mandates that I complete 18 credit hours of graduate work in Education every three years. Taking away my summer takes away the best time for me to do this.
I agree.
Okay, since the OP attempted but failed to come up with data for Detroit area schools, I went for Pittsburgh area schools, since I’m familiar with them. This is what I learned:
Non-sectarian private elementary schools within the city limits tend to be elitist and pricey. Costs range from $5,200 for the Waldorf School to $12,000 for the very snobby Ellis School. Average is $6,950. When you expand it to include the rest of the metro area, Ellis still ranks as the most expensive, but the average goes up $7,700 per year.
Non-sectarian private high schools (thanks to Ellis which weighs in at $17k a year) average in at $13,000 per year.
Catholic schools in and outside of the city limits all seem to run within $500 of one another. (I believe that’s due to diocesan cost controls and parish subsidies.) Elementary schools average $2,500 and all have a program in place to offer discounts for families with more than one child enrolled. The three regional elementary schools I’m familiar with in heavily-minority inner-city communities all offer a tuition reduction program and all diocesan schools take part in a program that allows parents to offset their tuition by purchasing everyday items with pre-paid shopping cards for “credits.”
Catholic high schools in and around the city range from $5,000 (for the school in the “Steel Valley” which is an economically depressed area) to $8,700 for Oakland Catholic, which is attempting to fashion itself as a Catholic counterpart to schools like Ellis. (With excellent athletics, their former basketball coach was an Olympian and now coaches in the WNBA.) The average is $6,545.
Christian (Protestant) schools around the area have the lowest costs across the board. $2,100 - $4,300 for elementary schools (the latter in a pricey suburb) with an average of $3,053. High schools range from $2,200 - $3,400 with an average of $2,880.
All of these are accredited schools who make their information available online, which of course makes the data self-selecting. Some of the schools which I know would push the averages for Christian schools downward are not online, similarly, a couple of schools which would put the non-sectarian average up quite a great deal take an “if you have to ask you can’t afford it” tack and do not publish their tuition.
“The most academically proficient college graduates in
the 1960s were equally likely to enter teaching as an alternative occupation, but by 1980, the top
academic performing college graduates were much less likely to enter teaching (Murnane, et al,
1991). Today, research shows that teachers are drawn from the lower end of the distribution of
standardized test scores (Hanushek and Pace, 1995; US Department of Education, 1996), more
likely to have taken remedial undergraduate coursework relative to their college graduate
counterparts (U.S. Department of Education, 1996), and more likely to graduate from less
selective postsecondary institutions (Ballou, 1996; Turner, 1998).”
From here. (warning PDF file).
What Rhubarb said. I have yet to see any compelling evidence that proves vouchers are more than just a con game by middle- and upper-class conservatives who want to enroll their kids in private schools on the taxpayer’s dime. If they have to squeeze public schools to the breaking point to do so, it’s no skin off their nose.
Well thanks, Dan!
Vouchers are wrong. They force ME to spend my tax dollars in schools that insist on certain religious practices, and teach “creationism”. That’s a violation of the 1st Admendment.
Then again- there is no Public oversight. For public schools there are School boards that I can vote for- and even run for if I like. There’s the Civil Grand Jury which also oversees the Schools and the School boards. Then there’s the State Officers who oversee the whole program.
Private schools have no such oversight.
And private schools are better mainly because they are not forced to take the most disruptive and hard-to educate kids- including learning disabled kids. Any system of vouchers leaves these kids- the ones who need help the most- in the lurch.
I know tons of liberals, both rich and poor, that do or want to, put their kids in private school. This is not to avoid the teaching of evolution, its to enable kids to be taught calculus.
We had little Dan in Montessori pre-school and then enroleld him in public kindergarten. We were lucky, we were told, as out local school was one of the best. We told the teacher that little Dan could already read and they assured us that they would find work at the right level for him. Instead he wasted his time as the other kids learned their colors and letters. At a mid year conference the teacher pulled us aside and said “you know, he is reading”. No shit sherlock!
Once at “circle” they passed him a box and asked him who he thought the most important person in the world was. He thought about if for a while and said “Leanardo DaVinci, because he is both a scientist and and artist”. “Wrong” they said, “open the box”. Inside was a mirror. “You are the most important person”.
Ironically, this was an exercise to build self-esteem. You think anyone with two lobes to rub together would have figured out to praise him for knowing who DaVinci was.
Needless to say, we pulled him out the next year and never looked back. At the same time, we voted and continue to vote for every education levy. I just wish that I could at least have deducted the cost of his education.
I am sure that anyone who reads the SDMB is an exception.
Well thanks again, but I was just thanking you for providing a cite.
On that note, it’s 1:30 am, and I have to teach at 10 (I love teaching at a university!)
I’ll be back tomorrow evening, I hope this isn’t too much of a train wreck by then.
I don’t recall saying that only conservatives want to put their kids in private schools.
There are two starting points that all parents, regardless of political affiliation, will agree with:
- We want to put our kids in the best schools possible.
- The current public school system is (very generally speaking) a mess.
The liberal approach to the problem is, “Bad schools aren’t good for anyone. We must work together to improve our schools so society benefits as a whole.”
The conservative approach to the problem is to say, “Fuck public schools! I’m putting my kid in a private school ASAP! If I can weasel out of that portion of my taxes that are going to public schools, I’ll be golden.”
There’s nothing wrong with public schools that can’t be fixed with a healthy chunk o’ money to teachers and some administrative rework. The problem is, the moment you say “money,” conservatives don’t want to listen; apparently they believe textbooks sprout from sunbeams and teachers are allowed to ignore their bills. Then you end up with a bunch of folks muttering vaguely against “teachers’ unions” while simultaneously wondering why the teachers aren’t keen to jump on the voucher fad.
You kidding? We laughed at DeVry at community college.
Well 4260 is still better then full price, right? Another possibility is that a few more private schools could open and could price themselves a bit lower.
I don’t expect each any every program to be applicable to each and every situation. For those who live in crummy school districts the vouchers may make it possible for them to be able to afford to send their children elsewhere. If those schools end up with less students then the teachers should be able to give each student a little more personal attention.
Because the parents have the option of pulling their children out of school if the teachers and administrators do a poor job. That’s not really an option in most public schools right now.
Marc
I disagree that it’s just about money. I feel that a lot of public schools aren’t about teaching children to think they’re about teaching children to pass their tests. In Texas the students can spend weeks learning how to pass the state’s skills assessment test. There’s also the propaganda taught at public schools such as the war on drugs being good, guns are bad, and everyone who drinks is going to get hurt.
I’m all for teachers making more money and making more materials available to schools. I am unwilling to work towards that end until I see some concrete plans for improvement.
Marc
3,000 per Class?