S/o of having less kids...

LittleDucky

Wed, Oct 07 2015, 2:52 am

m in Israel wrote:

Your math is faulty. When the statistics say a district spends $20,000 per student, it doesn't mean that the cost of adding an additional child is $20,000! That number means that if you take the total budget and divide it by the number of students, it is X amount per student. But the vast majority of those costs do not increase exponentially according to the number of students. A principal's salary doesn't change if the school enrollment increases by 15% -- buildings don't cost significantly more to maintain if they are partially full or totally full, etc. If anything, the overall cost per student goes down as the fixed expenses are spread out over more students (I.e. a teacher with 25 students in her class is more "expensive" than one with 35 students).

This. The first student costs the most- every student after that decreases the per student cost, until you need another teacher, classroom etc. Plus, so many kids get services through the PS system. Evaluations, therapies etc...Even if they don't go to the school. Does that count into their budget? What about the super expensive kids- those in high needs classrooms, the teachers that work in hospitals, in prisons etc- are those counted? Prison teachers probably get "hazard pay". I know an ill child who gets a public school teacher to come to her house. In NY. Too sick to go to school and it's a long term issue. That teacher gets a salary but only teaches one at a time. And has travel time costs, down time...
The average kid doesn't cost 20,000.

Raisin

Wed, Oct 07 2015, 6:13 am

Why don't frum communties push for more hebrew language charter schools? If one was opened in a frum area it would populated almost entirely by frum or Jewish student surely there would be a demand for after school extras such as gemara and chumash.

It could also work well for certain chassidic communtiies who don't believe in teaching girls torah... (in this case, it could be a yiddish language charter school.)

nylon

Wed, Oct 07 2015, 8:19 am

Go look up what a teacher in Utah makes vs a teacher in New York. And class sizes. New York schools do have more layers of administration IME, but they also provide more extensive services. Pensions are an issue, but NYSTRS is, AIUI, correctly funded. Many states have punted the ball down the field, and are just going to face a nasty bill (I live in Pennsylvania which has this problem--and our constitution forbids taking away pensions from people who are already vested in the system; any future pension changes will only affect new entrants).

In any case, aside from being a nonstarter politically, vouchers won't solve the problem. Look what happens with UPK. How much did your tuition go down? In many voucher programs there are rules about what can be charged above and beyond the value of the voucher to prevent that problem, which means more expensive schools don't accept the vouchers. The voucher value will NOT be $18,000.

33055

Wed, Oct 07 2015, 8:26 am

Laiya wrote:

There are aprx. 250,000 non-public school students in NYC; double that in NY State. At $20,000 per student, if only the NYC students were to enroll in public schools, that would cost the city an additional $5 billion. Jewish students in NYC comprise 95,000. So even if only the Jewish students were to enroll in public schools, it would still cost the city an additional $1.9 billion.

How much additional federal or state funding would cover that sum? Obviously no one can answer that, but I imagine there would be a shortfall.

Regardless, I know it’ll never happen. Sad

I disagree with you regarding First Amendment issues. The argument is not that the government should sponsor religious instruction, but that citizens should not be forced to sponsor other children's education from which their own children receive no benefit.

Anytime you have giveaways you create more need. Your half a million private school students will quickly swell you a million and beyond. This would come from existing parents wanting to remove their children from public schools and it would come from people who would migrate to NY to take advantage of the vouchers.

amother

Turquoise

Wed, Oct 07 2015, 8:27 am

I live in Cincinnati. we have vouchers-my understanding is that the school is only limited in that they can't charge the rest of tuition to pple who earn less then a certain amount. That is also only for actual tuition so building fund, dinner fee... is not included. I don't qualify for that so we pay the rest of tuition- we don't mind though, it is sooo much less then what we would have had to pay in nj where we used to live.

Laiya

Wed, Oct 07 2015, 10:08 am

5mom wrote:

You pay for a fire department even if you've never had a fire. Childless people pay school taxes. We look for the greater good for the society as a whole. Having an educated population benefits us all, so everyone has to chip in.

As far as religious instruction, the frum community is far too invested in the notion that government ought to pay. This is incredibly short sighted. There's a good reason for separation of church and state. Do you really want your tax dollars going to fund ISIS day schools? They have as much claim as yeshivas do.

A better analogy would be paying for a fire department in another vicinity, while my own town has none.

The ISIS analogy doesn't work either, for a few reasons. One reason: There's a difference between direct funding and a tax credit.

ETA. Also, freedom of religion means the govt is not allowed to show animus toward religion or religious institutions. It has been argued that these efforts to block funding to private schools (via whatever means) amounts to just that.

Last edited by Laiya on Wed, Oct 07 2015, 10:55 am; edited 1 time in total

Laiya

Wed, Oct 07 2015, 10:30 am

LittleDucky wrote:

This sounds logical but isn't accurate.

The average cost per student is actually $20,000 at the low end, $28,000 at the higher end.

Low-ended districts have sued the city claiming this disparity is unfair. They are not asking for more of a particular service; they are asking for a specific dollar amount distribution.

It's likely that 100,000 or 250,000 additional students would cause that dollar amount average to be reduced--so what? It still would be a huge increased expense for the city.

May

Wed, Oct 07 2015, 10:33 am

I'd waaay sooner move out of town to a city with super cheap tuition (Cleveland, Cincinnati, Milwaukee) if I couldnt afford the local tuition than actually limit my family size due to tuition. Tuition is a relatively short term problem. Family size has humongous ramifications for your entire life as well as for eternity...

Laiya

Wed, Oct 07 2015, 10:33 am

nylon wrote:

My tuition went down from $6,400 to $1,800.

I never suggested a voucher should be $18,000. My point was that the city is benefitting both from private-school students' tax money, AND from the fact that private school students are not enrolled in public schools.

amother

Green

Wed, Oct 07 2015, 10:52 am

seeker wrote:

My understanding is that they do their own begging or borrowing, rather than the burden of fundraising and budget shortfalls falling on the school. Which must be very difficult and painful for people in these most desperate situations, but avoids the larger systemic problem brought up here.

My heart hurts reading your post. You cannot imagine what our family is going through right now. We send to a fine, upstanding school in Lakewood and the tuition burden is killing us. We are middle class so we don't qualify for government programs (B"H) and we are not meeting our tuition obligations. DH borrowed 10K this summer because the school wouldn't send my kids admission cards. He does not sleep at night. We are in the process of selling our house, even though the monthly mortgage amount still won't cover the tuition fully. You cannot imagine how humiliating it is to be called and yelled at regularly. My DH told me he feels like he's choking. The tuition situation is destroying our marriage. Ultimately I know it is only a matter of time that we will be told to keep our kids home. They gave us an ultimatum to pay up but there's no way we can meet that. I just pray my kids don't realize why they are home when that happens.

5mom

Wed, Oct 07 2015, 11:03 am

Laiya wrote:

The fire department analogy works fine. You are funding a service you don't use. Same if you don't borrow books from the local public library or don't play in the nearby playgrounds. The thing is that the service exists, whether or not you choose to avail yourself of it.

Also, a tax credit isn't free. It means that money that should have gone into the government Treasury is being credited to you. But it's not your money. It belongs to taxpayers who let you use it.

The reason you want vouchers is to make religious schools more affordable, andikely to grow. Whether through direct funding or tax credits, money that would have gone to public schools is now funnelled into the religious school system. Any religion.

Laiya

Wed, Oct 07 2015, 11:34 am

Squishy wrote:

You make an interesting point, but Cuomo's proposal from last June consisted mainly of allowing a tax credit to private school donors, as well as a small ($500) credit to some families.

This is not the same as a giveaway, and in any event, looking at other states that have done similar (ex. FL) should indicate whether what you say has proven true.

saw50st8

Wed, Oct 07 2015, 1:03 pm

amother wrote:

I realize this is hard for you, but where do you think the extra money should come from?

5mom

Wed, Oct 07 2015, 1:35 pm

amother wrote:

It's not a fine upstanding school if they make you feel like dirt.

Laiya

Wed, Oct 07 2015, 2:36 pm

5mom wrote:

This is disingenuous, because, if all non-public school students were to enroll in their local public schools, the schools would be unable to handle them.

Tax policy is set by the politicians that we, the tax payers, elect. So I'm not really sure what your argument here is.

When someone says that they can't afford yeshiva tuition, what they're actually saying is that, after accounting for taxes--which can approach 40% of their income, and which is used, in part, to pay for the education of other people's children--they can't afford tuition.

amother

Green

Wed, Oct 07 2015, 2:52 pm

saw50st8 wrote:

I realize this is hard for you, but where do you think the extra money should come from?

I would never dream of asking for or accepting charity, I was simply responding to the posts about Lakewood families and tuition. Ideally dh would get a better paying job but until that happens the school doesn't want to stick it out. I can't blame them. They need the money to pay their teachers and staff and I understand that. Meanwhile our ship is sinking and time is running out.

saw50st8

Wed, Oct 07 2015, 3:00 pm

amother wrote:

I'm sorry you are having a rough time. I hope things turn around.

saw50st8

Wed, Oct 07 2015, 3:01 pm

Laiya wrote:

We're not Catholic schools, where if you can't pay, you can't send.

This is a heartbreaking post Sad

I'm sure you are donating every spare penny to the cause. You sold your engagement ring, your silver candle sticks and everything of value so a child can go to yeshiva right?