Start Charging Parents for Public Schools
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. However, let’s say only half of the parents can foot the bill. That still leaves $8.5 billion to deliver to public schools.
Cutting a week out of the already skimpy school calendar as a way to save money, an idea proposed by California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, is not the solution to a fiscal crisis, though if the week cut out was the one for state testing, many teachers and students wouldn’t mind. Already American kids attend school fewer days than most other industrialized nations. While a free education for all is a wonderful gift, it’s simply not possible anymore.
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 videogame console, a child can get educated for an entire year.
There should be no sticker shock about this. Already parents pay for athletic uniforms, musical instruments, lab fees, school-embossed clothing, and field trips. Plus, they get nickled and dimed to death from schools throughout the year to donate money for art and music programs, to get their cars washed for athletic programs, to consume cardboard pizza so that a few dollars will go to the schools. Children would no longer have to go begging relatives and neighbors to buy coupon books.
For years community colleges charged no tuition. Then 20 years ago they started implementing a $50 per semester fee which rose to $60 per semester in the 1990’s. "How dare they" demonstrations broke out proclaiming the beginning of the end of community colleges. Well, today the colleges have more students than ever before, and the current fee is $20 per unit. For an average class load of 15 units, the cost of one semester tuition of college is $300. Nearly half of community college students get their tuition waived anyway due to their low-income status.
Look, nobody enjoys paying for services that used to be free. However, a generation of people have grown up with cable television and don’t even remember that TV used to cost nothing. Paying $360 a year for a child’s education is half of what the average person spends on watching television. Which is more important?
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. Walk onto campuses right after lunch, especially at high schools, and notice the garbage strewn around. Kids would less likely trash their schools knowing their parents had a vested interest in the property.
Beyond charging for tuition, parents should be billed whenever their children are truant. Since schools receive funding based on average daily attendance, parents should foot the bill whenever their children miss school for non-illness reasons.
The Scotts Valley School District in Santa Cruz, California is doing just that. The letter sent home entitled "If You Play, Please Pay" informs parents that one child absent for one day costs $36.13. In 2005-06, the district lost nearly one-quarter of $1 million due to students missing school other than legitimate illnesses. While paying the bill is voluntary, many parents, perhaps out of guilt, gladly pay it, further proof that there are parents out there who would pay for school tuition.
A holiday season just ended where scores of parents spent hundreds of dollars on video games, I-pods and cell phones for their children. Is $360 going to break their backs?
Thanks for this. It really helped me out!
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Whether property owners or renters paying higher rent to cover property taxes, parents already pay for public education through property taxes! Then there are the endless fundraisers and demands for school supplies. Remember, in many communities, teachers earn more than the parents and work far fewer hours.
Penalizing parents when students miss school for non-illness reasons is a bad idea. Parental responsibility for truancy depends on the age of the student. By high school, kids are mobile and can leave school once there. Unless you expect parents to stand at every door of every high school (in which case, you'd better like prison design), it's unrealistic to hold them accountable.
If you want to blame someone for truancy, why not the school staff? They're not creating schools that entice students. They're not communicating how important school is.
Outraged? Well, you've just learned how difficult it is to be the parent of a troubled teen.
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Thank you for your honesty to share your views. I agree with you that schools are not enticing students to come every day via their prison-like veneers and apathetic teachers. However, parents do need to take responsibility for getting their children, no matter their age, to school and on time.
Regarding the issue of charging tuition, most people agree with me that some kind of small payment would make parents figuratively buy-in to their children's schooling. Too often when something is "free" it holds no value. If a tuition were implemented, it would diminish the need to increase property taxes, especially on those taxpayers who have no children in the school system.
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There you go again with this "free" word. IT'S NOT FREE! My hard earned money gets taxed to pay for our kids to be educated in our failing school systems. Only two other countries in the world spend more per student and I expect that our education results are probably closer to two from the bottom than the top. Also, the idea that most people agree with you on making an extra payment for public school, outside of what is already taken from our taxes, I find that hard to believe (please present those statistics and where you got them from). That may be a hot topic of conversation in the professor's lounge, but take that conversation up to the break room up at Briggs & Stratton assembly plant, or the coffee shop on the corner, or even corporate break rooms across America. Report back to us on how that idea was received in those places.
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You are correct that educating children is not free since schools are paid for via property taxes. And you are also correct when you refer to our school systems as "failing." That is exactly why the system needs to be transformed and, unfortunately, it will cost money to do so. Just as with the military, the question is often asked "what price freedom" the same standard should apply to the future of our children's education.
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I read this article today in the Atlanta Journal Constitution and then I looked at the property tax bill I got this week. I have one child in public schools this year. Can you get my county to lower the $2475.00 I pay now for education down to $360. I would appreciate your help.
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I understand your point. However, remember that many city services are paid for via property taxes; schools do not receive all the money.
Also, how much money is your child's education worth?
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Brian,
You make several valid points. The most salient of those points being the psychological reaction to something that is free. Many of the comments follow the basic notion of criticizing rather than finding a common understanding to what point is being made. The point is simple--US schools are lagging behind the rest of the industrialized nations in education--yet no one seems to want radical reform. I would agree that public education should end. Yet the mentality of Americans is that the government should fill in the gaps for those who can't always pay up. Ultimately, we will arrive back to this square unless the appreciation of school is somehow made punitive. By this I mean, penalties should be levied, whether these penalties are financial or other in other forms, for the underperformance of students. As an educator I feel teach my students that it is their job to be a good students. You don't need to have a 4.0 gpa, but students most certainly should be able to pass a grade-level test. My suggestion is akin to what colleges/universities do all over the country. When students do not make the grade or do fail to demonstrate academic progress, these students are given probation and then if the failures continue, they are expelled, dropped or removed from the university. Why should secondary public education be any different. Students earn their keep at the collegiate level, they should also be required to earn their keep at the secondary level.
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