I happened to check in on CNN.com and found this article entitled “Republicans unveil $100 million school voucher plan.”
Even though the Department of Education “just released a study that raises questions about whether private schools offer any advantage over public ones,” Congress wants to give families in poor schools up to $4000 towards private school tuition. “Supporters say poor parents deserve choices, like rich families have,” the article points out.
Ok. Time for Google-fu. From this site, you can find out what the accredited private schools in your area are. Remember, if it isn’t accredited, you should ask why. These days, most schools have websites. For example, if you live in Las Vegas, you will find a list which includes Las Vegas Day School, and if you enter that into the search engine of your choice (if ths school name doesn’t include a city, add it), you will find it — oddly enough — at www.lasvegasdayschool.com. With a little digging, you should be able to find tuition information about most schools, in this case $10,500 per year. This does not include uniforms, book fees, extracurriculars, transportation, or “After School Study Hall.” Please keep in mind, LVDS is a top quality private school. If your kid qualifies, and you can afford it, and there is a seat, by all means send them. Please feel free to research each school in your area. Keep in mind that church run schools can afford to provide education at below cost, and a plan which includes religious schools would probably not pass Constitutional muster. Also keep in mind that very small schools have lower expenses, and may be nothing more than a “front” for a homeschool group. Not that there is anything wrong with homeschooling, but homeschool is not a private school.
Finished the research? Good. So now you have a pretty good idea what tuition at a private school in your area costs? I bet it’s more than $4000 per year.
Now let’s move on to this report which tells us (emphasis mine):
[T]his report details the results of the Goldwater Institute’s first annual statewide survey of Arizona private schools, representing over 20 percent of private schools in Arizona. It shows that private schools serve a diverse student population and offer a variety of curricula at roughly half the average public school expenditure of $7,816 per student. The average private elementary and middle school tuition is $3,700, and 89 percent of private schools offer financial aid. Three-quarters of private schools surveyed are sectarian, but 83 percent of those schools do not require religious affiliation for admission. Ninety-three percent of private schools surveyed administer standardized tests annually. Nearly 80 percent of private schools surveyed offer kindergarten, and 49 percent offer preschool programs. Forty-three percent of Arizona private schools surveyed accept special needs students, and nearly half of them have room for more. Private schools typically have half the student population of public schools and have smaller classes, 14 students per teacher compared to 18 students per teacher in public schools on average.
To review, they got data from one out of every 5 private schools in one state. Most of them offered financial aid despite the fact that I have yet to encounter a private school that did so. Among those schools, 75% were religious and probably won’t be able to receive Federal funds. Is “average” the mean or the median? Does the “average” figure of $3700 include unaccredited schools? Does it include very small schools? Oh yeah, and at over half of these schools, good luck if your kid has any kind of “special need.”
Oh, and by the way, where is the money to fund this going to come from? The Social Security lockbox?? Congress and the President keep talking about bringing the budget deficit down, but then they turn around and offer to spend $100,000,000.00!
A voucher of $4000 is a cruel joke on the middle class. For more of my musings on this topic, see my fourth post. In that very early post I also point out that voucher programs can result in de facto government control of private schools (“If you want the money, you have to do things our way”). I don’t think anybody wants that.
The nice folks at NYC Educator also have things to say about this, and I’m sure other education-centered blogs will weigh in Shortly.