mcal@ihuxb.UUCP (Mike Clifford) (11/14/83)
An article in the Nov. 13 Chicago Tribune described new lobbying techniques used to communicate with lawmakers in Washington. The article mentioned that the NEA (National Education Association) is urging their members (teachers) to contact their representatives in Washington and urge the Senators and Congressmen to vote against a proposal that would allow federal taxpayers to deduct the cost of private school tuition. I would like to hear why the NEA opposes the idea of tax breaks. Obviously, one of the reasons could be that if the deductions were allowed, more people would be enrolling their children in private schools, and the declining public school would mean the loss of jobs for many instructors. Perhaps the reason is that taxpayers who send their children to public school do not receive tax breaks. It would seem to be that these parents ARE receiving an indirect tax break because of the subsidy provided by the taxpaying parents of children in private schools. I really haven't read much on the subject of private school tuition being tax deductible, but it doesn't sound like a bad idea to me. I would appreciate receive some more info, pro or con, from the readers of net.politics,, via mail or this netgroup. Mike Clifford ihuxb!mcal
riddle@ut-sally.UUCP (Prentiss Riddle) (11/15/83)
I don't know why the NEA opposes tax breaks for parents who send their
children to private schools, but it may be because of concern that such
breaks would further encourage the phenomenon known as "white flight"
and further erode the tax bases of many of the nation's poorer school
districts. In many larger cities, there is already a painful discrepancy
between the richer, whiter suburban school districts and the poorer, blacker
inner-city districts. This has harmful effects both in terms of finances
and in terms of the social goal of racial balance. If the tax system allowed
whites and the wealthy (obviously not the same group, but you have to admit
that there's a lot of overlap there) to escape inner-city school districts
without actually having to move to the suburbs, these problems would increase
dramatically.
Another concern about tuition tax breaks is constitutional: the overwhelming
majority of the schools which would benefit under such a policy are parochial
schools. Is it a violation of the first amendment to divert tax revenues to
religious purposes? To what extent do parochial schools serve "religious
purposes"? These questions are subject to debate.
----
Prentiss Riddle
{ihnp4,seismo,ctvax}!ut-sally!riddle
riddle@ut-sally.UUCPseifert@ihuxl.UUCP (D.A. Seifert) (11/15/83)
> Obviously, one of the reasons could be that if the deductions were > allowed, more people would be enrolling their children in private > schools, and the declining public school would mean the loss of jobs > for many instructors. > Perhaps the reason is that taxpayers who send their children to > public school do not receive tax breaks. It would seem to be that > these parents ARE receiving an indirect tax break because of the > subsidy provided by the taxpaying parents of children in private > schools. > > Mike Clifford > ihuxb!mcal I think that if more people enrolled their kids in private schools there would be *more* jobs for teachers, not less. Private schools tend to have a lower ratio of students to teachers than public schools. Assuming a constant number of students, this requires more teachers. In turn, this requires more money, assuming salaries are constant. What *will* happen, is that jobs will disappear from the public school system and reappear in the private school system. Teachers transfering between systems would probably lose their beloved tenure. It may be difficult for the less competant teachers to find jobs in the private systems. Private schools tend to have higher standards, they expect teachers to actually *teach* something, not just play babysitter. Private schools are currently expensive, partly because quality education costs more, and partly because you're also paying taxes for the public school which you are not using. Education is *not* free, even if we try to hide it in property taxes. People should have the responsibility of paying for their children's education, and should have a choice of schools. I have attended both public and private schools. The difference in quality was at least an order of magnitude. I'm sure there are counterexamples, so please no flames about how great public school "foo" is, or how bad private school "bar". ) ( ) from the mildly opinionated keyboard of _)__________________ |OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO| Dave Seifert |OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO| ihnp4!ihuxl!seifert |OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO| |------------------|
lmg@houxb.UUCP (11/15/83)
# 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
koved@umcp-cs.UUCP (11/16/83)
The quality of a public school system greatly affects the desirability
of living in a given neighborhood. When people are looking for new
homes, one of the important questions is about the quality of the local
school district. This will in turn affect the price of the housing.
An area with a good school district will have homes which will cost more
than those ares which have poorer quality public schools.
Of course, this may affect only those people who have children, or
are thinking about having children in the future. What does happen
is that if people are taking their children out of the public school
system and placing them in private institutions, then the quality of
the public systems tends to slowly decline. This is due to the people
who do not want to maintain/increase the quality of the public system
AND support the private institutions.
Unfortunately, this leads to a vicious cycle whereby the parents take
their children out of the public system and put them into the private
schools. They vote against tax increases for the schools, whereby
the public school system quality declines. More parents take their
kids out of the system, put them into the private schools, and vote
against tax increases for the public schools, whereby...
This syndrome has happened in many metropolitan areas. Once the quality
of the public schools has declined, the area served by the schools
becomes less desirable (since better public - sectarian - schools can
be found in other nearby areas). People move away. The area slowly
declines ("white flight" is one term used to describe this phenomena).
This is one of the major reasons that public school administrators
and public school system teachers oppose tax deductions for people
who want to send their kids to private schools.
- Larry Koved
U. Maryland, College Parkwelsch@houxu.UUCP (11/16/83)
I am against the notion of a tax break for parents of students in private shools. One could draw an analogy to why not give people own guns a tax break on defense spending, or why not give people who never fly a tax break on airports, or why not give people who don't have children a tax break for not sending children to school in the first place and so forth and so on. Larry Welsch houxu!welsch
cas@cvl.UUCP (Cliff Shaffer) (11/17/83)
It seems to me that the idea of tuition tax credit is a lot more
reasonable than most other tax credits given in our idiotic tax system.
Now, if the issue were to give tuition tax credit for all tuition
(college tuition most importantly) then I would be all for it. However,
the issue seems to be one of giving tuition tax credit for sending
children to private school for pre-college education - in other words to
the people who least need it, and who have a free alternative. College
tuition SHOULD be the issue, with elementary/high school tuition perhaps
riding along.
But, (as Arlo Guthrie would say) "Thats America..."
Cliff Shaffer
{seismo,mcnc,we13}!rlgvax!cvl!casseifert@ihuxl.UUCP (D.A. Seifert) (11/17/83)
[this line intensionally left non-blank] > ... , or why not give > people who never fly a tax break on airports, or why not give > people who don't have children a tax break for not sending > children to school in the first place and so forth and so on. > > Larry Welsch > houxu!welsch RIGHT! Why *should* people that don't use airports have to help pay for them? This merely allows artificially low prices for airplane rides. Modern jets use a *tremendous* amount of fuel. Driving a car is much more efficent, even a gas-hog at over-55. And yes, the roads should be paid for with vehicle/fuel taxes, not out of the general fund. (but spare me from those stupid toll booths every half a mile) Why *should* people who are concerned about overpopulation be forced to pay for kids of people who don't give a &%^#$ ? This is not intended to be an attack on those who limit their families to 1-2 kids, and are willing and able to take financial responsibility for them. It is meant to be an attack only on those who favor Gov't subsidy of unlimited numbers of children. ) ( ) from the mildly opinionated keyboard of _)__________________ |OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO| Dave Seifert |OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO| ihnp4!ihuxl!seifert |OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO| |------------------|
brp@ihuxm.UUCP (11/17/83)
The people who don't use airports are few and far between.
Travel is only one function for an airport. Mail and a
good deal of freight are shipped through aairports.
A great number of fringe benefits are provided.
Local business will die on the vine without an airport,
opportunities for visiting cultural groups would be
severly limited. It is impossible to single out
one aspect of a service/utility paid for by the general
public for use by the general public and then say that
you receive no benefit.
Who should pay for a state university?
Just the students or the parents of students?
Baloney! We all benefit every time the education
of the general population rises.
The external benefits of these things are great and
those who would rather not pay for them can move to
where they don't exist.
Want to send your kid to a public school in Florida?
Ben Priest
Bell Labs
Naperville Il
--
!ihuxm!brpmmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor) (11/19/83)
The "mildly opinionated keyboard of Dave Seifert" seems to think
that taxes paid by childless people are benefits to parents. They
aren't. The whole society benefits from the education given to
anyone's children, and it is not even obvious that the parents
benefit most. So certainly taxes should support good education.
My problem with tax support for private schools is that many of
those schools are set up not to give good education, but to give
one-sided education (Christian, White, Hebrew or whatever). The
idea is often not to expose children to the widest range of ideas,
but to protect them from exposure to ideas that disagree with those
of the parents. There are, of course, many private schools dedicated
to good education. If we could distinguish these schools from the
others, then I would favour tax support for them. But how can the
public decide? I think a better solution is to pay properly for
public education. Give teachers money for good teaching, not for
seniority and degrees in "education". Give schools good laboratory
equipment and computers ....
If public schools were good, there would be less pressure for private
schools dedicated to a good education.
Incidentally, what does Dave Seifert think? Or doesn't his keyboard
let him express his ideas?
--
Martin Taylor
{linus,ihnp4,uw-beaver,floyd}!utcsrgv!dciem!mmt
or {allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!dciem!mmtlaura@utcsstat.UUCP (Laura Creighton) (11/20/83)
Martin, At least in Toronto it is *already* decided how well the private schools measure up. One of the great secrets (which various U of T officials do not admit to) is that all schools are not graded equally. A 90% from Upper Canada College is unheard of. Even 80% are rare. If you are getting a 70% average then you are doing very well, since they tend to produce lots of 50-69% average. On the other hand, at least 6 years ago, everybody knew that if you transferred to York Mills (a public High School) and stayed away from their killer theatre arts program then if you did not get an 80 average then you were a fool. There were lots of 90s. Now, when somwebody like U of T says "you need a 74 average to get in" they do not quite mean this. For they will let people in from UCC with a considerably lower average. (and a darn good thing, or else nobody from UCC would be let in!) What a lot of people think we need are Departmentals. (for you Americans who are looking goggle-eyed at all this, yes, what I am saying is that there is no country-, province-, or city-wide exams.) The idea that a 90 from any school is as good as a 90 from any other does not wash. You would either have to phone up certain schools and say "look even if the student gets perfect on every assignment, test, and exam you can only give him an 80 because your school isn't worth any more" of tell UCC that it has to give all of its students 100, regardless of effort, since they are over-taught. These days you get "the Canadian basic Skills tests" which get administered every so often and can tell how you measure up against all the other Canadians taking the test. With Departementals you could differentiate the good schools from the bad schools. This means that if you could select the best school for your children. It would, however, mean that the disparities would grow. Some people are opposed to this. Laura Creighton utzoo!utcsstat!laura