From: mwilson@ncratl.AtlantaGA.NCR.COM (Mark Wilson)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian,comp.org.eff.talk,soc.culture.usa,alt.activism
Subject: Re: [misc.activism.progressive] Clinton Office Requests Comments
Date: 12 Jan 93 18:05:30 GMT
Organization: NCR Engineering and Manufacturing Atlanta -- Atlanta, GA

In <BZS.93Jan11200745@world.std.com> bzs@world.std.com (Barry Shein) writes:


|From: pjs269@tijc02.uucp (Paul Schmidt)
|>This is one example of bad people in private enterprise.  But here is
|>another example.  Government schools cost an average of twice as much
|>than non-governmental schools.

|But a lot of that is due to the fact that most private schools are not
|set up to take "special" students (the severely disabled, retarded,
|etc) and can just refuse them. Public schools (as a system, and we're
|talking about the price of the system even if an individual public
|school is different) can not do this and has to spend the money to
|accomodate students like this, by and large (up to a point, they don't
|have to provide medical-like services.)

|It's not shocking that being able to refuse the expensive cases, and
|thereby stick the public schools with them, keeps costs down.

I'm sorry Barry, but the claim does not stick.  Just think about it,
what percentage of students fall into this category?  1%, 2%.
Now if the schools spent 3 times on special ed students as the do the
rest, we're still talking only 3% to 6% of the budget.

I refer you to an article from the WSJ, July 8,1992
Private schools, public savings
by Robert Genetski

To summarize the article
He takes the Chicago school system and their budget for the 1992-93
school year.

                                 Public     Catholic Private 
average cost per pupil K-12      $5,548          $1,814

eliminate transportation from public schools $221 per pupil
				 $5,327          $1,814

eliminate all funds spent on special ed.
NOTE: This also eliminates funding that would have been spent on these
students had they been in normal classes, but since the Chicago hired
private schools to teach special ed, the author had no way to reliably
seperate those funds that were unique to special ed, so in an effor
to bend over backwards, he just eliminated the wad.  $1,645 per pupil.

				 $3,682          $1,814

Religious schools use religious personel instead of lay teachers.  Their
pay is less, so the author adjusted the cost of the Catholic schools to
account for this.

				 $3,682          $1,864

At the catholic schools, parents had to provide text books.  $100 per pupil.
[I believe this is also overly generous as public schools do not buy
new books every year.]
				 $3,682          $1,964

The author then adjusted the salary recieved by the lay teachers in the
catholic schools to reflect the wages earned by public school teachers.
[I believe this is also overly generous as part of the public teachers
salary is based on the monopoly price that the teacher's union has won.]
adjustment  $890 per pupil
				 $3,682          $2,854

Even after some very generous adjustments, including special ed
Private schools still came in at nearly 25% less than the public schools.
-- 
Mob rule doesn't become any prettier, just because the mob start to call itself
a government.
It ain't charity if you are using someone else's money.
Mark.Wilson@AtlantaGA.NCR.com
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian,alt.amateur-comp,soc.culture.usa,alt.activism