[Leica] Re: Subsidies to private schools

[Ken Wilcox <klw.51@comcast.net>]

In my state (Michigan) schools are paid per student enrolled, and 
most of the money comes from the state. Therefore students lost to 
vouchers or private schools by any means takes money directly from 
the public school. As you said the private schools do cheery pick and 
often they are only K-6 or K-8 schools, leaving the the more 
expensive 9-12 students to the public schools.

Your statement about teacher salaries is VERY misleading. Most 
teachers I know spend a great dceal more than 6 hours on the job. 
Grading papers, planning lessons, filling out misc. paperwork and 
dealing with parents takes many more hours. Most teachers that I know 
also spend The 2 summer months working on curriculum committees and 
attending school to enhance their skills.For example, I spent a 
summer a few years ago (I'm now retired) commuting daily about 100 
miles a day to work at the National Superconducting Cyclotron Lab so 
that I would be up to date on nuclear physics. this was done at my 
expense.

Ken Wilcox

At 11:23 AM -0400 9/15/03, LRZeitlin@aol.com wrote:
>Jerry writes:
>
><<And W. wants to subsidize those private schools, taking the money
>
>from public schools.  Therefore those bad public schools will be worse,
>
>with even less money per student.>>
>
>This is a common misperception.
>
>First, the Federal government has little to do with public K-12 education,
>providing less than 10% of the funds nationally. In the US education is almost
>entirely controlled and financed by States and local communities. Individual
>school districts are generally governed by locally elected school 
>boards. So no
>matter how much a Presidents mouths off about privatization of education,
>vouchers, or being the "education President" - it ain't gonna make much
>difference. If presssed, local school districts would willing to 
>give up the Federal
>pittance to be free of Dept. of Education mandates. Education is one of those
>activities the US Constitution leaves under State control.
>
>Second, even if vouchers are authorized by local communities to subsidize
>parents who send kids to private schools, the vouchers rarely pay 
>for more than a
>small part of the tuition. More important, THE PARENTS ARE NOT EXEMPT FROM
>PAYING LOCAL SCHOOL TAXES. So the parents pay twice, first to send the kids to
>private schools, second to support the public schools in their community. And
>they pay those taxes as long as they live in the community, even if they don't
>have kids in school.
>
>The result of vouchers is that the public schools have pretty much the same
>funding as always but they have to educate fewer kids. You would think that
>they would be happy about this - but NO. The private schools cherry pick the
>children, leaving troublemakers and the handicapped in public institutions. It
>costs approximately three times as much to educate a handicapped child than a
>normal one. Still, if enough children use vouchers to escape public 
>schools, the
>public schools should come out ahead, having more dollars to use for fewer
>pupils. So even if the best and the brightest leave, the public schools could
>focus more dollars on kids who really need help.
>
>The real opposition to government subsidy of private schools is the very
>powerful teacher's unions, the NEA and the AFT, both of whom 
>anticipate job losses
>in a currently lucrative profession. Don't be misled by the "underpaid"
>teacher propaganda. The average public school teacher in my area 
>makes over $70,000
>a year in salary and benefits for a 10 month year, working an average of 6
>hours per day. This is a lot better than most working photographers.
>Collectively the teacher's unions are the largest single voting bloc 
>in the US. But they
>usually do not support candidates, mostly Republican, who support school
>privatization.
>
>Larry Z (a 10 year school board Trustee, and a member of the AFT)
>--
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Ken Wilcox 
Rescue a Greyound! Call 1.800.GO HOUND
klw.51 at comcast.net                                           or 
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