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
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