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by pen2l 4084 days ago
That does not sound true.

E.g., some private high schools (for the rich-rich) charge up to $30k and more, that's less than a lot of really good universities for goodness sake.

2 comments

That's a specific case where their client base literally does not care about the cost. $30,000 or $40,000 makes no difference to them.

Or, to take it further, it's quite likely a Veblen good: because only families that can shrug at $30,000 a year for private school will be going there, your kid will only associate with other rich kids, creating valuable romantic and professional networks.

DC spends 30k a student and 83% can't read properly.
That's a nice, oversimplified, right-wing talking point, but there also happens to be a huge disparity in per-pupil spending in Washington-area schools:

[1] http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/District_Dossier/2014/10/stud...

Also, The Education Law Center has found that low-income public schools overall spend $3,000 less per student than their wealthier counterparts, amounting to $75,000 less per 25-student classroom, yet low-income districts contain many more students likely to have higher needs due to poverty, English Language Learner status, or disability.

[2] http://www.elc-pa.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/ELC_schoolf...

In other words, I'm sure the right-wing can cherry-pick anomalies (like they do with climate change, etc. and look like fools throwing snowballs on the Senate floor [3]) while disingenuously attempting to prop anomalies as "the norm", but the greater reality is that low-income areas tend to get less funding for students overall -- and, it's a problem.

[3] http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/sen-jim-inhofe-throws-snowbal...