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Originally Posted by Snow Lady
There are so many opinions about the different schools in each district/town/city, but the bottom line is that public ed, even in Barrington, Scituate, E Greenwich, are dysfunctional. They are not preparing kids for the post K-12 world. The state does have Providence Country Day, Moses Brown School, Lincoln School, Wheeler (independent schools) near E Providence. I'm a former public school teacher. My kids attended independent schools. It's an expensive alternative, but well worth the investment.
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I'm certain every parent would like to send their children to Wheeler or MB.
MB's annual tuition is $26,995 per student.
Wheeler's annual tuition is $28,810 (K-5) and $31,315 (6-12)
Were a parent to send on child to Wheeler, they'd "invest" roughly $361k over the time span, per child.
We're talking serious money. As a public school teacher, whose salaries are perhaps too low for the work but higher than average wages in the state, I imagine it was a difficult row to hoe, even with a spouse and savings. Especially as you stated you had more than one students, so the costs doubles, perhaps triples. Most parents couldn't even dream, let alone afford, to send one child to either school. I don't think this is the viable option for the vast majority of Rhode Islanders.
The solution to poor city/town educational systems, it seems to me, is complicated. You cannot expect every, most, or even many parents capable of affording private schools. And what of the 80-90% of parents who cannot afford your proposed option? Give up on them and their student-children? I mean, let's get serious, Public schools in Rhode Island, or any state, will never approach the quality of education availed to a student at Wheeler, and how could one expect them to be the equal? PVD spends $15,300 per year on a student's education, exclusive of infrastructure. or roughly half of Wheeler's revenue.
It seems to defy economics to assume that the same quality could be achieved at the current public school funding level per student, and as such it is manifestly unfair, perhaps naive, to expect the same result. And beyond this bump in the road of life, there are approximately 850 student slots at Wheeler; there are 142,854 students enrolled in in public schools in this state. How do you propose to shoe-horn them all into one school? You'd need approximately 168 Wheeler-sized, Wheeler-quality schools throughout the state. Where do you proposed finding the $4.9- $5.7 billion to construct these "Wheeler Lite" facilities? Ain't going to happen, nor should it.
And, just as not every student thrives and succeeds at an Ivy, not every student is equipped to succeed at Wheeler.
Your idea is foundationally flawed and is not the solution, except for the privileged.
As a side note, wasn't it "Big Education" that encouraged college students to take loans for their university tuition? And wasn't it Big Education that facilitated an easy conduit between often uninformed students and parents and banks that charged excessive interest rates on these student loans. Many cannot afford to pay off these college loans, partly because of the active and profitable collusion between banks and colleges? Who did this explosion in expectations that students need attend the most expensive institutions possible at whatever the cost really serve? So far as I know, no college presidents are suffering from this unwise and possible complicit paradigm, indeed their compensation packages are rarely based on student performance, so the last folks one should take tuition/school selection advice or policy from are the very same institutions and advisers who helped place millions of kids into often dire, sometimes desperate straits.
Got a Plan "B?" Because this dog won't hunt.