Private schools feel the pinch
It seems like The New York Times has had a lot of features lately about rich people who can't live quite as extravagantly as a result of the economic downturn. On Sunday, the lead article in the Style section was about parents who will have to resort to public schools because they can no longer afford private school tuition.
Not surprisingly, Baltimore's private schools are feeling the pinch as well. I've heard the most about the plight of the city's Catholic schools. Mount St. Joseph High sent an e-mail to alumni today saying that the president and principal will both take an 8.5 percent pay cut and the rest of the staff will see wages frozen this year, as the endowment is down 24 percent. This despite the fact that alum Mark Teixeira has a $180 million contract from the Yankees...
The city's Catholic schools have formed a blue ribbon task force to develop a strategic plan. The committee includes leaders from public education, among them Nancy Grasmick, Joe Hairson and Andrés Alonso. I find Dr. Alonso's placement a bit ironic, since he likes to joke that he wants to put all the private schools in Baltimore out of business. (Seriously, he says, he's trying to develop partnerships.)
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Comments
What does Mark Teixeira have to do with Mount St. Joseph's financial troubles? It's not his responsibility to bail out the school just because he is wealthy and went there.
Posted by: Jeff | March 4, 2009 5:52 PM
Part of the solution, of course, would be to let parents keep a portion of their property taxes, or rebate a portion of what would have been used for public school, to use for their school of choice if not attending a public school during their children's school years. As that New York Times article noted,
"So for every family that pays $30,000 and up to attend elite schools in Manhattan, thousands more will pay tuitions closer to $2,700 — next year’s cost for St. Agnes Catholic School in Roeland Park, Kan.
To many parents who step outside the public system, an independent or parochial school is not a luxury but a near necessity, the school itself a marker of educational values, religious identity"
That is many thousands of regular people, who will pay less per student for their kids' educations than the public school system will. It is narrow to maintain that there aren't parents of children in public school richer than parents who pay twice--once to the public system and once to the parochial--for a school that represents their values in education.
To say a private, not-for-profit school is an extravagance in these cases is to simply express you have no appreciaton for what these parents value. Certainly enough people who can't pay a tuition apply to these schools hoping for aid, not being "rich" at all, and if they get it are subsidized by the parents who manage the full tuition.
Why would there be any sense of satifaction over anyone's loss of discretionary income?
The public bus systems, paid by all families, also should transport all children and not only public school children to school.
Posted by: Maria Hartman | March 8, 2009 5:13 AM