Unfortunately, that is the way it is for many schools that I’ve looked into. Middle class doesn’t qualify for the financial aid, and they can’t afford it without financial aid.
I didnt realize how lucky we are to have a parish to commit to a school like that!Very good points.
That is a wonderful situation you have, at least until high school. Considery yourself very lucky. I assume someone in Wichita,KA?We are not to the school age yet but our kids can go to the k-8 parish school if we tithe (10%) to the church. There is still a registration fee and book fee, but other than that there is no tuition. Then the high school tuition is about $6,000 per year per child.
Agreed. That’s why the college rate is obscene.
That does not necessarily mean that parents have a moral obligation to send their children to a parochial school. It means that parents have an obligation to make sure their children are receiving an education that augments the teachings of the Church and educates them according to those teachings. They are not to send their children to a school that would detract from or undermine the Faith. That goes well beyond the curriculum taught. That undermining factor could come from individual teachers, the atmosphere of the school, the type of culture that is promoted at those schools, classmates, etc.
Oh, my goodness. What a novel idea
The teacher’s union will never stand for that, probably because many of them could not compete. BTW, I agree with you.Correct. The teachers’ unions have successfully blocked every effort to give school vouchers to taxpayers. Think of it! The people who don’t have children would get money back! The public schools would be decimated, and would have to re-configure their entire structures! Even people who couldn’t get into the suddenly filled and waitlisted private schools could use the money to home school their children!Oh, my goodness. What a novel idea
It doesn’t take a PhD to teach someone to read. Many of my classmates who got PhDs were working less and making more their first year out of graduate school than our public small-college professors did as full professors. It was not a difference of “if you can’t do it, teach it”, either.
Every school has to keep the parents satisfied, and in the long run that is 99% of the difference between any one school and another, IMHO. This is why (also IMHO) public schools fight vouchers so much. It isn’t just that the program syphons off money. It takes their best parents, too…the students from whom you can achieve the most with the least amount of money.
Very True, but it does mean a greater degree of equality. I can apply to send my kid to the local school. the local Christian (CofE) school, or the local Catholic school. In many areas there are also muslim, jewish and seikh schoolsPaid by your taxes does not equal “free.”
Many of the core classes in colleges are taught by graduate assistants - the students do not even get a professor for their tuition. Colleges love 200 student auditoriums for courses like Earth Science, College Algebra, and English Literature. They also love students that will major in Liberal Arts, and other “soft” degrees. Years alter in when many students drop out or graduate they owe thousands in student loans with very little in the way of quality education to show for it.
I know a lot of pastors who only wish that “keeping the pastor happy” were that high on their parish school’s priority list!
Certainly the parents don’t see it that way. Parish schools do owe a lot to heroic pastors who back up and guide principals and school boards in a way without a parallel in public schools!OK, but the students who know how to take advantage of the huge universities with the faculty in the National Academy of Science can do real research in real research laboratories with world-class science, and be on their way to becoming world-class scientists themselves. I know because I’ve seen it happen.
For the record, I do agree that school vouchers would solve a lot of problems. On this issue, I tend to be in favor of the use of school vouchers.
Totally agree with you on that one. I currently attend a small public school, and I just find it so much more enjoyable. I passed up an (almost) full ride at our state’s large public university to come here, and I have to say, I made the right choice. I pretty much know all of the professors in my school (school of engineering, that is), and many of them know me by my first name. All the courses are usually under 30 students (big core classes like Chemistry usually have many more, but nowhere near 100 or 200 like large state universities). I can see my professor almost anytime during their office hours and know that I usually won’t have to wait 2 hours to see them. I don’t feel like a number.
)But this is a largely self inflicted wound. Public schools have taken the cowardly position of leaving behavioral problem kids mainstreamed in regular classes which alters the culture of the classroom and drags the entire class performance down. If the administrations would have the guts to call a spade a spade and tell the parents of bratty kids that their kids must remain in the ‘behavioral’ program until/unless they shape up, then the regular classes would vastly increase in performance. But nobody is willing to do that, so the class bully holds everybody else back. Been there, seen it myself and nobody is going to tell me it isn’t real.