A Toast to Middle and Upper Class Welfare
I want to thank those of you who are
supporting (by not opposing) Betsy DeVos’s confirmation as Secretary of
Education. If she gets her way, my granddaughter and her family will get a nice
bump from the vouchers you seem to want her to have. My granddaughter already
attends an independent school. Her parents choose to pay the hefty tuition bill
that comes with it because they think it’s the best fit for her and because
they can afford it – without government help.
If Ms. DeVos’s voucher system is put in place,
every family in every district would be offered a voucher for $x (the figure I’ve
seen quoted is just north of $2,000, which I assume is some kind of average).
That money, of course, would come from the financial support public districts
receive from the state and national governments.
How much tuition will that $2,000 offset? In the religious school at which I taught, that figure would have
amounted to less than 15% of the tuition bill of 4 years ago, and that doesn’t
count parent association dues, fees, the multiple fundraisers, the annual gala,
etc. That’s probably in the neighborhood of $500-$1000. If you think that the
religious and independent schools are going to discount 80% of their tuition so
they can fill their classes to the brim, you’re naïve.
JBS ($26,000+), MICDS, SLUH, SJA, and the like,
who already have healthy rejection rates, are not going to throw open their
doors to more students because there’s a pool of families with an extra check. New
schools are not going to suddenly spring up to take elite school rejects. There
is probably room at DuBourg, with a list price tuition of $14,000 and a subsidized
rate of $10,000 (plus the above mentioned fees). Does that $4,000 put the cost
in range? And even if a family decides to make the sacrifice, they will still
need to factor in transportation costs.
Let me be blunt. Your kid is not going to
start attending some expensive private elementary or high school because you
get a voucher for $2,000 or even $4,000. Your public school, however, WILL lose
that funding from those students who already attend private,
parochial, or independent schools, plus those very few who will now make the
shift.
I spent most of my career at a public school
where the average parents had below average incomes. Even the DuBourg option of
say, $7,000 (with a voucher) instead of $10,000, was out of reach. Ironically,
those “poor” public schools won’t be impacted that much because they won’t lose
many students or have that many already enrolled on the private side. But the
schools in more affluent districts, schools that are generally acknowledged to
be doing a good job, those schools that already have a high population of
independent school students, will get hit hard, very hard. Think about what
$2,000 per student time 100 students would mean them.
I’m a public school guy but I can do that
math. It’s $200,000 a year for students already not attending the
schools and I guarantee you that 100 is a low number of students within
Webster’s borders that attend independent or parochial schools. The same would hold
true in Kirkwood or Mehlville or Lindbergh or Rockwood or Hazelwood. To quote
the President, the loss of income would be “Yuge” to schools that are already
struggling with their budgets because the state of Missouri has been
underfunding them for years.
You know what else will probably happen?
Following the Law of Unintended Consequences, tuitions at those independent
schools will rise, because they will reason, “Well, our parents are getting
these vouchers, so….” If you doubt that, track the rate of increase in college
tuition along with increase of federal aid and student loans. One of the
reasons tuitions rose so quickly was because there was more money available for
students to borrow. Of course, it’s not like student debt is a problem. Oh,
wait….
There will be less incentive to keep tuitions
down because there will be more money available, which means the percentage of
the tuition offset by vouchers will decline. And all this from the same people
who want to get the government out of the education business. As those same
conservatives so frequently remind us, there is no such thing as free money; it
always comes with strings attached. Why should we think voucher money will be an
exception?
Who will benefit from vouchers? The affluent
or almost affluent. Just what this country needs, another middle class welfare
program. But I’m sure my daughter, her husband, and granddaughter will enjoy
the money, so thank you for supporting Betsy DeVos and vouchers. The check that
you can’t spend (unless your student is already out of the public system) is in
the mail.
No comments:
Post a Comment