kramerica.inc wrote: ↑Mon Oct 24, 2022 11:22 am
I'm pretty well-read on education issues.
Resistance to integration in public schools?
In what way?
I don't think this applies to you at all, but I suspect you understand how this logic was used to justify segregation.
I think you may have misunderstood my point.
I understand that you're just talking about parents who send their kids to private school getting a deduction.
But that's all such parents...eg my family, with exception of my wife, all private in my parents' and my generation.
I never saw sending my son to Gilman as benefiting society
because I wasn't burdening the public school system...sure, I'd hope/expect that he'll end up a very productive member of society and a benefit that way, but I never expected the public tax payers to give me an extra break because we chose that path for him. I did it because we thought it was optimal
for him and we prioritized that investment over other choices. I continue to donate to the school so that they can provide scholarships for poor kids to have that opportunity as well.
Moreover, I'm not so sure it wasn't a cost to the public school in our region for him to not be there, rather than the other way around...I have no doubt that he'd have contributed significantly to any classroom and to any other activity in the life of the school...we'd have been equally as involved as parents in ensuring the quality of the environment, the support for teaching excellence, etc as we were at Gilman...on net, a positive even.
But public school education costs, per student, are a small fraction of the costs that Gilman expends per student. Dramatically different facilities, technology, teacher pay, etc, etc. The tuition itself, which is much larger than the per student cost of public schools, covers only a portion of the overall annual budget...close to half that cost comes through alumni annual donations and endowment draw.
And that's with a school that is able to self-select students that generally conform within a set of expected capabilities that enable more efficient delivery of education. Little remedial education needed, little behavioral issues tolerated. More efficient...but still way more cost expended.
so, if we provide $ incentives to remove from public schools those who are best positioned to conform to private school selection, we increase the density of the most costly student situations...and removed the positive contributions such students make to the classrooms, school life, critical mass, etc.
Just as we made the choice for our own family, as a taxpayer citizen I'm for prioritizing education as a community, as a state, as a country, over all sorts of other potential investments we can make.
IMO, that's our problem, we don't prioritize this investment sufficiently.