Things would change pretty quickly if our leaders had to put their money where their mouths are.

I don't have the figures in my head, but I recently read that a large percentage of public school teachers and administrators send their own kids to schools not in the iron grip of the teachers unions.

erp is correct, of course. In our city it is unheard of for school people to suffer their own children to do time in mainstream public schools.

BTW, that $6631 figure looks way too low. Public schools quite often flim-flam their per-pupil costs by declaring only the cost of running the classroom, omitting their bloated administrative overhead, and even the "capital expenditures" entailed in keeping a roof over the classroom. The real figure might be double that. Ecrasez l'infame.

OJ,

Even in Jacksonville Florida, a decent private school like Bolles costs $14500.

If Hightower feels her kid would be better off in private school, then she should send him there. Political consequences be damned. Your kids are not political pawns.

Parochial schools don't.

The Jacksonville Solomon Schechter(K-8 only) costs $7700/yr but it stinks. It doesn't even offer algebra.

The story also pointed out that the Superintendant of the District and the Mayor had sent their children to private schools.

The back story that the article does not articulate is that all three are black.

Mr. Judd: Bart doesn't feel that a parochial school could possibly be a decent private school.

I spent 14 years in parochial schools, and they were lousy.

Repeating over and over that they are better does not make them so.

there's not a union in this country that has an iron grip on anything, save the dues of their members.

oj: parochial school kindergarten in my city runs 12,500 a year.

the people who run the show here in the greatest country to ever grace the planet have absolutely no interest in educating children.

they do have an interest in making sure kids get enough mercury and sugar into their brains and bodies so as to render them unable to pay attention to the squandering of their birthright, but that's a separate issue.

Harry:

Your bad education doesn't make them bad schools. It's that whole Harry-subjective deal again.

lonbud:

No they don't.

Harry:

I spent 14 years in parochial schools, and they were excellent. Is that a sufficient rebuttal?

Matt:

No. If Harry has a headache there's an epidemic of brain tumors.

16 yaers for me. I vote with Matt.

Preview is my friend. I won the seventh grade spelling bee,too, but that was along time back.

FYI ionbud, the teachers unions have every public school in the U.S. and I gather in the U.K. by the throat. They own the Democratic party and control the Departments of Education in Washington and all the state capitals as well as the local boards of education. Notice, I said the unions, not the individual teachers who are powerless.

My own three kids got through the public schools in suburban Connecticut before their complete breakdown and my grandchildren are in private schools which cost their parents almost $20,000 a year. If I had school age kids today and couldn't afford private school, I'd home school. No way would I send my kids to a public school.

I went to a Catholic grammar school run by the Sisters of Charity. They took a kid who couldn't speak a word of English and for eight years filled my head with reading, grammar, poetry, writing and 'rithmetic along with civics, geography, history and all the rest. High school and college were a breeze thanks to those sainted nuns and their no-nonsense teaching methods.

Granted that was over 50 years ago and I can't speak to what kind of an education a kid gets in today's parochial schools, but I would find it hard to believe they aren't far better than the moribund public schools.

erp: so, just to be clear -it's the fault of teachers' unions that our moribund public schools are so pitiful?

silly me, i thought if you fail to fund an institution and pay the people who work there paupers' wages, that would actually do the choking.

there are all manner of alternatives to public education in this, the land of unlimited choice, and from what i can gather parochial school does prepare one well for higher education.

my personal feeling about the matter is that, in the absence of a real commitment to prioritize education at the federal, state, and local level, and to make the teaching profession a well-paid and respected one, the home school route is the way to go.

that, and all home schoolers should get tax credits for every dime they spend educating their kids.

lonbud:

No, it's our own fault for letting public educators wreck the schools.

We spend way too much on education.

we spend too much on everything--happens when you're rich.

oj,

It was the politicians who wrecked the schools by acceding to parental demands, especially by members of certain ethnic minority groups that are at the bottom of the American economic ladder, that standards be eliminated. I can assure you that nobody on the Engineering, Science and Math faculties at CUNY wanted 'open admissions.'

We do spend too much on education but it isn't the teachers who get the cash. Most of the pelf goes to administrators and bureaucrats, a whole army of coordinators, counselors and other human detritus. And the biggest waste of money is 'special education' but then the pro-lifers here would object to how I would deal with that.

Voters didn't ask that schools spend more money and raise property taxes. Unionsa run the schools. Break them and you can save public education, though there's no reason to bother.

Well, let's put it this way: I sent my kids to our excellent public schools, and they all got much better educations than I did.

Ah, still don't believe Galileo?

Had to unlearn that Borromeo was right, which is how we were taught.

I should write a book: 'Everything I Know I Learned after I Escaped the Sisters of Mercy'

Harry:

No one doubts that your current level of education is a function of your post-Church years.

I can tell OJ's been waiting to use that line.

My son just finished his first year at a parochial school here in St. Louis. Tuition is approximately $3600 per year. When my daughter starts the incremental cost will be another $1000 per year. The education he is receiving is outstanding. As of the end of kindergarten he can read, he's learned some Spanish and Italian, intro astronomy,etc., not to mention the religious instuction. There is no comparision to the "free" city schools.