On Wed, 7 Sep 1994, Mary Lou Mitchell wrote:
> I attended aomeeting here in San Diego about this issue (broadcast on TV)
> at which a priest chanted - capitalism is good (or was it god?) His
> attitude seems prevalent.
>
> I agree that parental involvement is the key. If anything is clear it is
> that today's parents are overworked and stressed out and unable to be
> involved. IN addition, especially in a state such as California, we have
> lots of folks who come from countries without this sort of tradition or
> who may be overly impressed by the authorities to become involved. We
> are asking more of our schools each day, in terms of services provided to
> nonenglish speaking students, students growing up in poverty and
> violence, yet to do it with less support from parents and the community.
> I go into the schools as part of my work and also have started a program
> at the law school where I teach to bring at-risk kids in -- so I see
> whatoit is to be a teacher today first hand - they need combat pay,
> smaller classes, and more support -- not to be dumped on as pigs feeding
> at the public trough.
>
> My question is (asked as a noneconomist) whether anyone has done a study of
> funding for publich
> schools - is it higher or lower on some reasonably comparable basis ,
> e.g., per student expenditures?
Public schools are cited in the literature as being more
expensive per unit of outcome (note I ddi not say per unit of output).
That may be very misleading however, if you consider that there are many
pupils in public schools who do not want to be there as compared to
private schools in which there tends to be more homogeneity etc. Thus, be
careful in accepting this as an argument for non-public schools. While I
would have preferred that my three sons attend a non-public school
(becuase each is very different and I would have been looking for a
different school for each of them), I do not buy the economic argument
that private schools are cheaper necessarily.
