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From: lmg@houxb.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Private school tax deduction vs NEA
Message-ID: <235@houxb.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 15-Nov-83 14:44:31 EST
Article-I.D.: houxb.235
Posted: Tue Nov 15 14:44:31 1983
Date-Received: Wed, 16-Nov-83 07:00:57 EST
References: <433@ihuxb.UUCP> ihuxl.744
Lines: 40

#
	I don't think it's generally true that private schools
have a smaller student/teacher ratio than public schools. I am
under the impression that the opposite is the case. I certainly
remember being in some parachial school classrooms where there
were 40 students to one teacher, which I do not think is typical
in public school classrooms. Thus shifting students from public to
private schools might tend to *reduce* the number of teaching jobs.

	I think there are two arguments in favor of tuition tax
credits:  1) fairness  2) quality and cost effectiveness.

	1) Why should I pay $XXXX.00/year to educate YOUR child
while I am already paying good money to send MY child to a private
school? Why should I pay for a resource I am not using? In my
neighborhood, 2/3 of the taxes collected go to support the local
public schools, which my family does not, did not, and will not use.

	2) Back in the days when public school was said to spend
$2,000/student/year in my neighborhood, my family was paying $900/year
to send me to the local parochial school for what everyone agreed
was a higher quality education. (Some additional money is contributed
by the church which ran the school.) IF these numbers were and are
correct, THEN it makes more sense to give a student $900 (or whatever)
and let him go to a school of his choice than to subsidize a lower
quality education at twice the price. Of course, the proposed tax
credits would only partially offset the taxes already paid to support
public schools

A note on "white flight" and "the wealthy": The wealthy do not need
tuition tax credits; they can already afford to send their children
wherever they want, and they have largely left the cities anyway.
The people who would desert the public schools in droves if given
tuition tax credits are the children of concerned inner-city blacks
(and whites) who have concluded that the inner-city public schools
are not offering them a decent education.

					Larry Geary
					AT&T Information Systems
					Holmdel, NJ ...houxb!lmg