[quote=livinincali]This article from 2007 says SDUSD spends 18% of it’s budget to support special needs. Of the total student population 12% have special needs. So if you work out the math a special needs kid gets about twice as much spending as the non special needs kid. It does have an impact but not a huge impact. If you had 10% of your school special needs and it took twice as much spending to educate them versus a regular kid, then you’d have to boost prices by 10% across the board. So any private school that costs less than a 10% discount to public education is doing a better job financially.
Those are just the “official” special ed students. There are many other students who require extensive resources: low SES students, ESL students, students with major behavioral issues (many of whom should be classified as special ed), etc.
In many public schools, these types of students make up 80-90%+ of the student population. Then, you also have the high student turnover rate in many schools, where over half of your class turns over by the end of the year, and they are replaced by students from other schools or from other countries (oftentimes, they haven’t even attended much school because they come from small villages where children are expected to help their families with farm or other types of work).
I once had a class where two students (from different families, not related incidents) had watched their mothers get murdered in front of them. Other students lived in the local transient motel. Most of the students came from the projects that surrounded the school.
So, while private schools might look better on paper, they are NOT dealing with the same student populations. This will affect both the cost and the educational outcomes.
There ARE low-cost private and free public options available to poor people. Contrary to AN’s assertions, it is not difficult to navigate the system, even for poorer parents. All too often, they are so caught up in the drama of their own lives that they are unable to help their children more. For those who are willing and able to prioritize their child’s education, they will easily find a variety of options that are publicly funded or private options that are heavily subsidized (usually by churches).
