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- Message-ID: <CATHOLIC%92122218475306@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU>
- Newsgroups: bit.listserv.catholic
- Date: Tue, 22 Dec 1992 16:18:59 MST
- Sender: Free Catholic Mailing List <CATHOLIC@AUVM.BITNET>
- From: Brent Winiger <ABDWINIG@IDBSU.IDBSU.EDU>
- Subject: Re: Financing education (was Queens School Board
- In-Reply-To: Message of Tue,
- 22 Dec 1992 17:05:11 -0600 from
- <TBEAUDOIN%UMKCVAX1.BITNET@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU>
- Lines: 42
-
- On Tue, 22 Dec 1992 17:05:11 -0600 Thomas said:
- >If a voucher system
- >were established in this country, and let's say every parent suddenly
- >had an extra $2000 to spend on private schools per year, it is reasonable
- >to me that most private schools, including Catholic ones, might
- >raise their tuition $2000 accordingly, in order to avoid opening up the
- >schools to the more general public. Perhaps this is a cynical viewpoint,
- >but i only raise it having experienced being a student and a teacher
- >within the private/catholic schools. If more people have access to
- >catholic schools, discipline in the schools might be (seen to be) threatened.
-
- Experience has shown this not to be true. Many Catholic schools have pay-what-
- you-can plans for the disadvantaged. Some larger cities have experimented with
- voucher plans (Chicago comes to mind) to allow disadvantaged kids to go to
- private and religious schools. It didn't cause the rates to go up, and was
- quite successful in some cases. Many of those disadvantaged kids got far
- superior educations to what they would have gotten in their neighborhood
- schools. I'm not sure of the status of these programs now. It seems to me
- they were under-fire a couple of years ago in Chicago because separation of
- Church and State is so much more important than helping out disadvantaged
- kids who are at high-risk.
- My fifth-grader's class at his Catholic school has a huge waiting list to
- get in. If his school really wanted to keep those "undesirables" out, I'm sure
- tuition could be substantially raised without enrollment going down at all.
- I believe you'll find that there are far greater numbers of less
- financially well off kids in Catholic schools than you would surmise.
-
- >Generally, if parents have to stretch their money toi
- >(to) send a kid to school, there is more pressure on that student
- >to be high-caliber.
-
- My experience leads me to believe that the parents stretch their budgets
- and send their kids to Catholic schools because they want them to be well-
- educated and have good Christian morals conveyed. (high-caliber?) You've
- got the cause and effect backwards when you say they want them to be high-
- caliber because they are spending so much money. The key here is that those
- parents care about their children's education and moral development and are
- willing to sacrifice for their children.
-
- >Thomas Beaudoin
-
- Brent
-