The question being, Does OpinionJournal EVER present honest analysis?
They want vouchers specifically to support Catholic schools in NYC.
Catholic schools produce results far better than their public counterparts for a fraction of the cost. On last year's New York State reading and math tests, fourth and eighth graders in Catholic schools scored 7% to 10% higher than public-school students. The public per-pupil cost in New York is about $15,000 annually; Catholic school tuition is about $3,000.
The public per-pupil cost includes capital expense like building maintenance. Catholic school tuition does not. The comparison is meaningless.
The answer, of course, is no. And not only is the tuition vs. cost comparison invalid, it turns out the reported superior scoring isn't even real.
Public Schools Perform Near Private Ones in Study
By DIANA JEAN SCHEMOWASHINGTON, July 14 — The Education Department reported on Friday that children in public schools generally performed as well or better in reading and mathematics than comparable children in private schools. The exception was in eighth-grade reading, where the private school counterparts fared better.
The report, which compared fourth- and eighth-grade reading and math scores in 2003 from nearly 7,000 public schools and more than 530 private schools, also found that conservative Christian schools lagged significantly behind public schools on eighth-grade math.
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So why does race have to be
So why does race have to be taken into account to make public schools not suck ?
this is the actual report
http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2006461
I will read in more detail. Considering that the majority of the schools in america
are not inner city schools I ama little surprised that public didn't do better.
Thanks for the link to the
Thanks for the link to the report. I was looking for that.
Race has to be taken into account because people like your good self insist on making it an issue. Look back at this post, and the one where I beat up on OpinionJournal. Look at the report and the linked NY Times article.
Where's the race references? Only in your comment.
The point is these findings undermine the drive to dismantle public schools in search of some market-based educational utopia. There is no benefit from it, and per the report there is actual damage done to mathematical skills by Christian Conservative schools.