WWYD crisis paying tuition

amother

Purple

Mon, Aug 22 2016, 7:57 pm

amother wrote:

We owe $3500 to our daughter's school from last years tuition, plus registration fees and first month for this year, etc. means if we can't give the school about $5000 they won't register our girls. We are barely living "hand to mouth". How am I supposed to get my girls back to school? My husband is working (bH!) at two jobs, 16 hours a day---the expenses/income just don't add up (our tuition bill alone is $2400/month for the kids)! What are we supposed to do?

OP, except for the fact that your DH helps out financially, we are in the same boat. I am looking into homeschooling this year and I appreciate the links people have provided. I really hope your situation is resolved favorably, but at this point I'm not banking on it for us and I refuse to disappoint my children again by shopping for uniforms and school supplies. If you are in Lakewood and want to do this together, I would love to get in touch.

HappytoHS

Tue, Aug 23 2016, 1:25 pm

Amarante wrote:

there is a correlation between amount spent and quality of education.

Interestingly, this only applies to schools. There was a large homeschooling study done in 2009 which found that amount of money spent on home education did not significantly affect quality of education as measured by standardized test score. On average, children of families that spent over $600/yr scored in the 89th percentile vs. 50th percentile for public school average and kids of families who spent - listen to this! - less than $600 per year scored on average in the 86th percentile.

In case anyone is wondering, level of parental education didn't affect quality of home education either. You do have to find educational resources for your kids (there is so much great stuff out there), but you don't actually have to do the teaching if you'd rather not.

Amarante

Tue, Aug 23 2016, 1:34 pm

HappytoHS wrote:

Costs for home schooling have no relevance to costs for a school.

The cost of wages for the rent teacher and the cost for the physical plant of the school isn't counted. There are obviously also administrative expenses that school incur which are completely absent in a home school situation.

I am assuming the amount is spent for physical materials like books and perhaps curriculum guides. I would doubt the amount for books in a school is significantly higher.

I have no opinion as to the quality of home schooling but merely pointing out that comparing expenses for home schooling to a regular school has no significance.

If you don't teach, then yu have to pay to teach and that would drive up the per capita cost for home schooling anyway unless I am missing something.

sky

Tue, Aug 23 2016, 1:44 pm

Amarante wrote:

Financially school is expensive

Public schools are paid for by taxes and there is a correlation between amount spent and quality of education. Also a correlation between wealth of a community/size of tax base and quality if schools.

Supposedly this was a failed "experiment" in NJ. More money did not equal better education.

In NJ more than half of all state school money was allocated to 31 struggling districts. Camden and Asbury Park received as much as $30,000 per student and their still failing school districts. NJ gives double California per student and doesn't seem to be improving anything.

Wealthier communities\school districts are more likely to do well due to less crime and more involved parents and more stable home environments as a large contributing factor.

HappytoHS

Tue, Aug 23 2016, 2:21 pm

Amarante wrote:

Costs for home schooling have no relevance to costs for a school.

You're right. Smile

I'm not addressing school costs. I've suggested that parents consider homeschooling and providing what I hope is helpful food for thought about factors that might affect a family's decision-making process. A comment was made about the correlation between amount of money spent on education and quality of that education and I provided information on how there is no such correlation in home education, for those parents for whom finances are a motivating factor in considering alternative ed options, so they won't think, "Oh great, so to give them a high quality home education I'll still have to shell out tons of money." The good news is they won't. You can provide a superior home education for less than $600 per year (well, in 2009, but still).

As far as teaching, yes! You are missing a lot. Smile

But that's for another thread.

Amarante

Tue, Aug 23 2016, 3:01 pm

sky wrote:

Factors relating to costs necessary in especially poor districts like Camden are not as black and white as you are trying to portray. Camden was in such a state of crisis that it was yptaien over by the government and so there hasn't been sufficient time to actually determine how the new funding and programs enabled by that funding are working.

The program seems to be working in early education which is really the point in time when intervention is most critical.

Also the costs for attempting to make up the economic deprivations for an impoverished neighborhood are significant and not costs that are necessary for a more middle class population.

In general, there is a correlation between highly trained and motivated teachers who will generally be able to command a higher salary. There are other factors that cost money that most people would want to see in a school for their children and all of these cost money. I don't know how they relate to various levels of specifically Jewish schools but in general MO schools which most closely resemble high quality public schools in terms of teachers, courses etc are very expensive and exceed tuition for other frum schools don't have those costs. But even the most basic school has actual expenses which need to be aid in order to keep the doors open.

Amarante

Tue, Aug 23 2016, 3:05 pm

HappytoHS wrote:

You're right. Smile

But that's for another thread.

Understood that yiu are asking people to think outside the box and that there are various ways one might homeschool which differ from what is commonly thought.

My comment on school costs was only relating to actual schools where money to a great extent correlates with better schools measured by various factors. Which is not to say that money solves everything or that a particular child can't thrive in a poorly funded school.

Amarante

Tue, Aug 23 2016, 10:29 pm

amother wrote:

VOTE FOR TRUMP! He is planning on SCHOOL CHOICE!!!

The president has absolutely nothing to do with state school policy.

Not sure what you even mean by school choice as everyone has the right to choose their school assuming they are willing to pay tuition. There are only a limited number of states that provide vouchers and the federal Government has no ability to change state policy head to that policy.