Posted on 09/08/2009 6:46:57 AM PDT by freespirited
With states across the country facing huge budget deficits and potential devastating cuts to services, the time has come to start charging parents tuition for their children’s public school education.
If parents of the 47 million students in the United States who attend kindergarten through 12th grade were billed $360 per child per year — that’s $2 a day for each of the 180 days of instruction — nearly $17 billion would be generated.
Can half of America’s parents afford $360 per year for each of their children?
For the price of a cup of coffee, a child can get educated for a day. For the price of a movie ticket, a child can get educated for a week.
For the price of a cellular phone bill, a child can get educated for a month. For the price of a video game console, a child can get educated for an entire year.
Parents spend hundreds of dollars on iPods and cellphones for their children. Is $360 going to break their backs?
However, let’s say only half of the parents can foot the bill. That still leaves $8.5 billion going to public schools....
There should be no sticker shock about this. Parents today pay for athletic uniforms, musical instruments, lab fees, school-embossed clothing, and field trips...
Attaching a price to “free” services will help students and parents understand the value of education. Psychologically it’s interesting how people view something that is free: They tend to place less value on it than if they have to pay for it....
(Excerpt) Read more at ajc.com ...
My view is, high time those who actually use the public school system pay for it. I’m sick of paying for a failing school system that my children don’t use.
“start charging parents tuition for their children’s public school education.”
I am guessing this person fails to understand income taxes, sales taxes, property taxes - state government, federal government and is simply a shill for the failed teachers union.
7 or 8 percent of funding comes from the federal government for k-12 education. Yet they dictate what is taught.
How about doing away with the Department of Education who has never educated a child yet, leave that money in our pockets and then we can pay our property taxes?
Federal government can butt the hell out of our local schools.
Hey, I’ll make that switch...
Cut my $3500 school property tax bill and I will pay the $360.
So do people who do not have kids.
And we're pretty pissed about the whole thing.
Dear Mr. Brian Cosby:
Not only do parents already pay “tuition” through taxes - but everyone else does to.
As the great thinker Bugs Bunny once said....
“What a maroon!”
Yep yep yep - for the price of a cup of coffee, that is the battle cry of the libs, everything can be fixed for the price of a cup of coffee......would that be dunkin donuts coffee, starbucks coffee, honey dew coffee, generic no name coffee?????? I pay property taxes etc. wth are those taxes used for may I ask????????
Beat me to it.
We are homeschoolers, but I hear the parents of public schoolers are already paying for supplies that once were free (ie, paid for by taxpayers and distributed in school), like pencils, paper, crayons, rulers.
Friends tell me the kids are always coming home with new demands which they relay from the school.
FWIW, here in central PA our property taxes on the main residence come to just 1x $360, and it’s a really big residence.
It almost sounds like Sally Struthers speaking on behalf of Save The Children wrote this article...
He's a friggin TEACHER and UNION THUG and HE DOESN'T UNDERSTAND HOW THE SCHOOLS ARE FINANANCED!!
This made my head explode.
There are many private Christian schools around here.
Newspapers used to have editors who were older and wiser than the writers. And newspapers used to research and report on actual facts, not just blow smoke out of their moron exhaust systems.
I tried that argument here at work and did I ever get a mouthful in return from coworkers who have kids. Everyone benefits from an educated youth, want a dumb generation of kids in the future...those kinds of arguments...
Then why subsidize it at all?
I remember a story of two parents taking their teenager into school to DEMAND to know why their little urchin couldn't read. The Principal asked “YOU never noticed your child couldn't read?”.
I know that if the parents were PAYING for the child's education they would have paid a bit more attention on their education value per dollar spent ratio.
I suspect there is a group that is even more pissed: those whose property taxes go primarily to provide services to illegals.
Here is a saving idea - 75% all all school money goes towards teachers pay, benefits and PENSIONS. Start cutting there to what you can afford.
BTW, $360 is roundly my WEEKLY property tax here in NYC.
Dear Brian Crosby,
You moron, we already pay for public schools through our tax dollars. Maybe you need to take ECON 101.
If I’m going to pay again for education I’ll send my kids to private school. No wonder we’re in the shape we’re in - idiots like Brian at the AJC does not understand who pays the bills.
Sincerely,
The Taxpayer
I'm moving there. Please FReepmail me the name of the area if you dont mind.
They mean, more Obama voters?
Yes, we do and I wouldn’t be at all adverse to charging for education if these taxes were abolished but since they won’t be then not only no, but hell no!
The last time I looked at my property tax bill, there was a category charge for “Public Schools”, further broken down into 2 line item charges of “School-State” and “School- Local”. These charges are well in excess of the $350 already.
And does school choice come with this plan?
Correction: $350 should read $360
So was I, and I didn't even have children at the time, so I did something about it. I got involved. Yup, even though I had no children I attended school board meetings, spoke out, and worked on a couple of campaigns of people running for the school board.
I now have a child in public school and I still do it. I can practically hear the "Oh no, not her" through the phone line or from behind a door any time I contact someone in the district office. But guess what? Not a one will ignore my calls or my presence.
Besides property tax we pay constantly for our son’s school. The extra fees never seem to stop. He’s a junior now and has his own car, $65 a year for school parking. Last year we were charged for wear to his textbooks. Sports fees never end. Turned in his workout clothes but coach forgot to mark it down, more money. I’d guess we pay between $500-1000 extra every year.
Why don’t we charge illegal immigrants? my community has just built
a multimillion dollar school for them that is 85% hispanic. the illegals
pay no property taxes. they receive free healthcare and foodstamps
for groceries. plus, we pay for spanish speaking translators and
bi-lingual teachers. it sucks!
>>My view is, high time those who actually use the public school system pay for it. I’m sick of paying for a failing school system that my children don’t use.<<
Amen!
I have owned a house since 1989. I had my first child in 1997. She did a year and a half in school. My younger child did two months. We’ve paid out of pocket for their education ever since.
Time for the parents to pay. Got a cell phone? A car? Buy a lotto ticket? Have cable?
Time for you to pony up to educate your kids.
The property tax as a way to pay for public schools is a failed model. It leaves out the increasing number of people who do not own property but whose children go to school. It also unfairly penalizes those who own property but do not have children, or do not have children in school (kids either too young or already out of school).
Paying for school is the way to go. "Free" public education has been shown to be neither free nor provide an actual education.
What the hell does this lib “news” paper think property and school taxes ARE??!!
>>, want a dumb generation of kids in the future...<<
We are there!
Look at graduation rates in all major cities.
The “education” the kids get is sorely lacking.
Of course - - - He's a teacher.
I agree - if someone doesn’t have kids in school then they should not have to pay that amount of taxes. But, on behalf of those who do have kids in school and who already pay their taxes, the writer of this article can stick it.
Folks the money is being pissed away in administration. Fire two thirds of those folks, getting rid of their stupid and time wasting rules, and you've got more than enough money and vastly improved schools.
Another "cup of coffee" gone. If I bought 1000 cups of coffee a day, I guess I could afford these dem proposals.
Our kids have not spent a day in public school, we have paid for private from preschool on up to college. I had to rant this past weekend bc they had little boys in football uniforms asking for $ donations outside of the Safeway. I have had public HS choir/band students come to my door asking to help fund their band/chorus trip to Europe. This makes me lose my mind. We are not only paying private school tuition, AND taxes, but we are also paying fees for every single extra curricular activity/sport that my 3 kids have ever engaged in. Fundraisers are fine, SELL something or perform a service, but the BEGGING for cash literally drives me insane.
Yep - truly frightening.
Of course the children of Illegal Aliens will continue to attend free of charge.
The part that leaps out at me is that “for the price of a movie ticket/cell phone bill/etc”.
This is pretty much the core of the entitlement mentality -
that others should pay for your needs, so that you can spend on your wants.
Pssssstt...
I think the post might be suggesting we continue to pay the taxes AND then pay the extra money...
Of course.
Then cut it all out and go to a voucher system and let parents choose. They need competition, because now we are getting monopoly pricing and monopoly service.
If the leftists have their way, we’ll be drinking 542 cups of coffee a day.
How about if we charge for public education and get rid of school attendance laws? A lot of kids that don’t want to be in school and disrupt classes would disappear quickly.
Hey! Not a problem - this was from the AJC. Probably BOTH the writer and the editor were educated in the (Atlanta or Washington or Detroit or LA or NYC ...) public school system - on taxpayer money.
I'll switch with ya!
What an ignoramus this writer is...dah -
Oh better still, since I have no children in school - let them bill only people who do -
Click the link and read to the end, he is a teacher’s union...
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