Sister Milton Ignatius Explains It All For You, The Great Splitsville • Sacred And Secular Options

[Milton Roe]

Milton, around my area, the property taxes on homes range from about $3,000 to $6,000 per household, annually. Local income taxes (again, regardless of whether or not you have kids in school) are assessed by the townships in the county, and they range from 1.0% to 2.5%, typically. For an average HH income of $100,000, that's another $1,000 to $2,500. These monies go to pay for schools, county parks, township parks, police, parades, social services, etc., regardless of how many children you have in the public school system.

The better private schools in our area will run parents about $18,000 to $26,000 a year, per child. The Catholic schools run $5,400 per year, per child.

Even if we backed out 60% of the local taxes for parents who opt out of the public schools, that would only be a "savings" back to the household of about $4,500, generously speaking.

Can you explain for me how -- as a parent of a kid in elementary school -- public school "costs more" than private school? Or, are you saying that $5,400 is less than $4,500?

The costs of a Catholic school vary widely across the country, and depend in part on charitable subsidies, which can vary from 20% to as much as 40% or more of the tuition. So it may not be fair to compare the actual tuition fee to public school spending, as somebody pays the charitable part, so that's a social cost. So, we do need to remove the donation part (which was undoubtedly part of the NYC figure).

http://www.ncea.org/news/annualdatareport.asp

Catholic schools report that their total operating expenses run from about $5,436 a year TOTAL cost for elementary-plus (K-8) students to numbers like $10,228 per pupil in secondary (freshman 9th grade). In Catholic schools across the country there were 1.526 million students in K-8 and 593,000 grade 9-12 students, for a total of 2.119 million pupils. This report doesn't give a total mean K-12 student cost, but if you figure K-8 at the stated cost and 9-12 at the stated cost, it would be somewhere between these figures. At the high end, figure the mean at $7832 per year. The same report gives the public school costs as $9683 per pupil (total K-12, with no breakout of elementary from secondary). That accords with the US figures (NYC school tuitions are depressed for both public and private K-12 figures nationally)

Thus, at the national level, Catholic schools do it for 7832/9683 = 80% of public school cost . Not counting charitable donations at all. This is not as good as the 50% savings in NYC, which no doubt didn't count donations. Still, it's 20% off.

Now-- what the country should do and what you personally should do, are very different things. If you want to maximize personal savings you should have 10 children and live in an inexpensive house on a small lot in a lower-real-estate tax area. One of the problems of public education is that everybody thinks they're getting a partly free lunch, since property taxes are paid by a lot of people who don't have children. However, they're all paid by SOMEBODY, and those costs get passed on to society (anybody who owns real estate and does business passes taxes to their customers), so ultimately, there's no free lunch. Hope I don't have to go into that more. Anyway, on average, every kid that goes to public school gets $9700 or so, from society, somehow. Even if you personally are under the impression that you personally pay less. Vicious illusion, that.

If your state is running overbudget and making it up by selling bonds (what's happening in California), you may figure that the interest rate just ends up paying back some tax money to those who hold the state bonds. But there's no guarantee that all those people will be in your state, or even in the US. If outside the US, you end up paying not only for your K-12 education, but interest on some of it to foreign parties, just to pay your teacher retirement. So it gets to be like the federal debt in that regard. Parochial schools don't do that. Indeed they have endowment funds like some Ivy League universities, so they lend money and get paid interest from somebody else. Somebody less fiscally responsible.

[Jon Awbrey]

Milton, around my area, the property taxes on homes range from about $3,000 to $6,000 per household, annually. Local income taxes (again, regardless of whether or not you have kids in school) are assessed by the townships in the county, and they range from 1.0% to 2.5%, typically. For an average HH income of $100,000, that's another $1,000 to $2,500. These monies go to pay for schools, county parks, township parks, police, parades, social services, etc., regardless of how many children you have in the public school system.

The better private schools in our area will run parents about $18,000 to $26,000 a year, per child. The Catholic schools run $5,400 per year, per child.

Even if we backed out 60% of the local taxes for parents who opt out of the public schools, that would only be a “savings” back to the household of about $4,500, generously speaking.

Can you explain for me how — as a parent of a kid in elementary school — public school “costs more” than private school? Or, are you saying that $5,400 is less than $4,500?

You see what happens here, Greg? You let yourself get pulled into that DED (Dog Eat Dog) Republican Mindset, where Etication is a Product that you buy for your kids, so they can get ahead of all the other kids on the block, in the sub, in the country, in the world — so why should you have to pay for the trick-or-treats that someone else's kids gobble up?

All our Founding Fathers and all our Founding Mothers would be revolutionizing in their graves at the very idea that We The People have become so poorly educated that We allow ourselves to forget even for a moment what Universal Free Public Education is all about.

Jon

[thekohser]

You see what happens here, Greg? You let yourself get pulled into...

Not so fast, Jon -- I haven't issued my slam dunk yet. Here goes...

In Catholic schools across the country there were 1.526 million students in K-8 and 593,000 grade 9-12 students, for a total of 2.119 million pupils.

Hey, Milton... how many of those kids were being sodomized by the parish priest, then having the bishop surreptitiously move the offender to another parish so that the local parents don't catch on? Is that a free, value-added feature, or do the parishioners chip in to help pay for that service? Or, wait... is that some sort of government program?










<done>

[Gruntled]

Hey, Milton... how many of those kids were being sodomized by the parish priest

Of course, such a thing could never, never happen in a secular boarding school, could it? It's absolutely impossible, isn't it?

[thekohser]

Hey, Milton... how many of those kids were being sodomized by the parish priest

Of course, such a thing could never, never happen in a secular boarding school, could it? It's absolutely impossible, isn't it?

Most secular boarding schools don't have an international network of campuses where the offending staff member can be shuttled off to, with light reprimand and "closed" personnel file.

[Jon Awbrey]

Hey, Milton … how many of those kids were being sodomized by the parish priest … ?

Of course, such a thing could never, never happen in a secular boarding school, could it? It's absolutely impossible, isn't it?

All sorts of bad shit happens all the time everywhere, Gruntled, in military schools, religious schools, private schools, and public schools. But it's the variant cultures of those institutions that determines what happens next.

Jon Awbrey

[It's the blimp, Frank]

Hey, Milton... how many of those kids were being sodomized by the parish priest

Of course, such a thing could never, never happen in a secular boarding school, could it? It's absolutely impossible, isn't it?

I thought that's how candidates for the foreign service were selected.

[Gruntled]

Conservative Christian private schools were not statistically different than public schools.

To revert to the subject of the thread: what would be the impact if Wikipedia replaced English teachers who allowed pupils to say "different than" rather than "different from"? Would that improve standards of grammar? Or does Wikipedia also allow sloppy grammar?

[Gruntled]

Most secular boarding schools don't have an international network of campuses where the offending staff member can be shuttled off to, with light reprimand and "closed" personnel file.

Not individually, but these schools are part of networks and "old boys clubs" - headmasters know each other - things can be done without being formally part of the same organization.

You know it's the one Cardinal Sin we have around here …

Cardinal Sin was a great man. Let's not be making fun of him please.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...5062001362.html

[thekohser]

Conservative Christian private schools were not statistically different from public schools.

To revert to the subject of the thread: what would be the impact if Wikipedia replaced English teachers who allowed pupils to say "different than" rather than "different from"? Would that improve standards of grammar? Or does Wikipedia also allow sloppy grammar?

But that's not what I've written now, is it?

This post has been edited by thekohser: Fri 18th March 2011, 4:50pm

[Milton Roe]

Conservative Christian private schools were not statistically different than public schools.

To revert to the subject of the thread: what would be the impact if Wikipedia replaced English teachers who allowed pupils to say "different than" rather than "different from"? Would that improve standards of grammar? Or does Wikipedia also allow sloppy grammar?

Yes! Get him where he lives! Ha.

[Milton Roe]

Now stop that!

[It's the blimp, Frank]

Although I don't think it is generally a problem, I think that there is such a thing as over-moderation.

[Milton Roe]

Although I don't think it is generally a problem, I think that there is such a thing as over-moderation.

Indeed, and you've just seen a great example of it, above.

The suggestion here, of course, is that since most of the figures for private education happen to come out of Catholic schools, that when I use those figures, I'm somehow a Catholic school apologist. (I wonder if there are any regular readers of this forum who are unaware of my personal dislike of organized religion, as well as my feeling that disorganized religion doesn't have a lot to recommend it either...).

So I'll have some things to say about non-religious private schools in another thread. No more discussion of this in a "meta" thread where an involved moderator is waiting to work me over. If I wanted that kind of argument, I'd go to Wikipedia for it.

[Jon Awbrey]

Although I don't think it is generally a problem, I think that there is such a thing as over-moderation.

It's not easy thinking up fitting titles for some people's hijackofferies, but I followed the rules of my order and elected the funniest from a multitude of evils.

I tried to sift out the chaffing that had more to do more with comparing and contrasting the virtues of the 3 P's — Parochial, Private, Public — when it comes to education. Funny titles and comic relief aside, that's all that's really implied here.

Now, Milton is under the impression that I have a POV about this side issue, but the Palin Fact is that he never St. Fu'd long enough to find out what I thought about it. Oh sure, I said, “Been There, Nun That”, but I would have to say “None Of That” to most of the experiences I've had in every estate of school house and yard.

So by this sifting let me say in deed what I think of the 3P issue, to wit, or not, that it's largely irrelevant to the issue that HK raised at the start. If I myself got drawn into the fray, well, y'know, I'm afrayed that happens from time to time, and so now I've done what I can to make a mend.

And with that I say amen —

Jon Awbrey

[Gruntled]

Conservative Christian private schools were not statistically different from public schools.

To revert to the subject of the thread: what would be the impact if Wikipedia replaced English teachers who allowed pupils to say "different than" rather than "different from"? Would that improve standards of grammar? Or does Wikipedia also allow sloppy grammar?

But that's not what I've written now, is it?

May I express my sincere thanks to Mr. Kohs for that wonderful compliment. I pointed out an error he has made, and what did he do? Did he get angry? Did he accuse me if being powercorrupts or Zoloft or lilburne? No, he corrected it!!! Has anyone else in the history of WR received such a compliment? Thank you again.

[Lar]

What was the original thread title before JA changed it to take a swipe at a longstanding good contributor here? I'm curious.

[Jon Awbrey]

What was the original thread title before JA changed it to take a swipe at a longstanding good contributor here? I'm curious.

For listeners just joining the programme, the present divertimento is one of two Variations on a Theme from Wiki-Paradise Lost that I excerpted from Herschel Krutofsky's original musement on the question, “Will Wikipedia Replace Your Kid's Teacher?”

♪ Thanks for tuning in ♫

Jon