voucher hoo-hah
i did my own little quick and dirty calculation of the tuitions of the 50 schools that have signed up to take voucher kids in DC, based on information from last summer's cato study of area private schools. i found that the median tuition amount for the elementary schools that will be taking voucher kids is $3789.50, $710.50 less than the median tuition for all the elementary schools. when you look at high school, the median is $9810, less than two thirds the median citywide high school tuition ($16,075).
this means a couple of things:
1. in general, less elite schools are participating in the program. this is hardly shocking, but it needs to be noted. if you remove sidwell friends from the group (god bless 'em, but they are kind of an outlier when it comes to tuition), the mean tuition for high school drops from $10,513.75 to $9,160.
2. since the legislation does not require that schools accept the voucher as full payment, parents of kids going to 4 elementary schools and all but 2 middle and high schools will have to shell out as much as $9475 (in the case of rock creek international school) for tuition anyway, not to mention additional fees. the legislation's income eligibility requirement will stave off the development of a total Chile situation, where class-based inequalities in schooling were simply reproduced in the private sector. but i can't see how families closer to the income ceiling (185% of the poverty rate) won't end up at sidwell friends and the vast, vast majority of the others at their neighborhood catholic school, where most of the seats are concentrated.
there's a lot more yet to be discovered about what's going on with dc vouchers, and i am still getting the ole stonewall (read: voicemail) from ED. but i will find it out, i assure you, and when i do, there will be a rant. and the rant will be long.
1 Comments:
hi there,
have you looked into charter schools? i know that in atlanta there are a number of charters, including a couple of kipp schools (www.kipp.org). there are also magnet schools, such as the one i attended (north springs high, fulton county), which gave me a great education. the truth is that the idea that the current system "traps" kids in failing schools is a myth in most metropolitan areas.
and the other truth is that just like there are good public schools and bad ones, there are good private schools and bad ones. vouchers don't guarantee you a better education; in fact, there is no solid evidence that voucher kids do better than when they were in public schools.
your kid is lucky to have parents as committed and concerned as you are. but there are lots of kids who aren't so lucky; who may only have one parent and one source of income; whose parents may be working several jobs just to keep food on the table and therefore don't have time to research the best schools. should those kids be "left behind" in schools where the money is being drained into voucher programs?
if you're talking about what's "fair," vouchers aren't a fair solution for anyone. with the charter solution, public money goes to schools that are accountable for its proper use. they still have to live up to the standards of the no child left behind act. they are not allowed to discriminate against anyone. and, in a lot of cases, they provide a damn good education.
just like there are bad public schools and bad private schools, there are also bad charters out there. the difference between vouchers and charters is that the bad charter schools can be shut down.
hope this helps,
julie
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