Private School Alternatives for Children's Education

Among the decisions that many parents have to make when it comes to back to school is where to send their child to school.

In addition to the local public school system parents have other options, some of which vary by state, including charter schools, home schooling, private (including parochial) schools or neighboring school districts.

While the local public school is usually the least expensive in terms of cash outlay, other options are becoming more affordable.

Public schools, of course, are paid for, directly or indirectly, by everyone since all of us have to pay taxes which fund public education regardless of whether we have children in the local public schools.

However, in recent years, public schools have been facing increasing competition from alternative schools.  These alternative school options include the following:

Charter schools are not found in all states and while they vary somewhat depending upon state law these have become increasingly popular in recent years. They are public schools in the sense that they are chartered by their respective state and are funded by tax dollars.

Most are run by for profit companies or non-profit organizations (including, in some states, religious groups), but, in some places, there are some that are operated as alternative schools by school districts.

While required to meet basic educational standards of the state that chartered them, charter schools are not burdened with the numerous rules and regulations regarding what to teach and how to teach as well as their instructors meet all of the educational course requirements imposed on regular public school teachers. A degree in the subject taught is usually sufficient educational preparation.

This gives them increased flexibility and charter schools, in addition to being small in terms of physical size and student population, tend to specialize in working with specific types of students.

Home schooling has grown and become increasingly popular in recent years. With home schooling, parents take charge and teach their children themselves - at least this was the movement started.

While parents still shoulder the responsibility for their children’s education, home schooling has grown to the point where a support industry has grown up around it to provide support. Often, there will be a number of people in an area home schooling their children and this has led to parents splitting the work with each one taking responsibility for teaching the areas they know best.

Parents now have a wide variety of books, curriculum and other teaching resources available to them in the market. Extensive and growing support is available online to help parents who are home schooling their children. There are some Internet based charter schools that have been set up to provide both online courses as well as testing and the awarding of accredited high school diplomas.

Also some colleges and even enterprising public school districts (which usually get to claim the child as a student for state funding purposes but don’t have to bear the expense in educating that child) now offer high school diplomas to home schooled students meet their educational standards. Home schooled students have generally done well in college and are now sought after by colleges.

Elite private schools, both boarding schools and day schools (where the student lives at home) have long existed in the United States as an option for the wealthy. Also, since at least the mid-nineteenth century, the Roman Catholic Church has run a parallel educational system designed to meet the educational and religious needs, initially, of immigrant and working class families. Other denominations have also provided church subsidized schools for their members but, until recently, there have been relatively few of these. In recent years there has been a huge growth in church sponsored schools by other denominations. While still faith centered, including the teaching of their religious values in their curriculum's, many of the Catholic and Protestant Christian schools are attracting, and welcoming, children from families of other faiths (or even agnostics) who are looking for quality educational alternatives to public schools for their children.

Non-sectarian private schools are also appearing, but lacking the financial subsidies provided by Churches, they tend to be more expensive. From a business point of view, the charter school model is a better choice for both for profit and non-profit educational organizations (in some states, charter schools can be run by religious organizations).

Unlike many charter schools which tend to be much smaller and more specialized or home schooling where the child and its siblings are the only students, both secular and religious private schools tend to be larger, but no where near as large as many of today’s mega-sized public schools, and have a more diverse population in terms of general educational needs. In this sense these schools are more like the neighborhood public schools of a half a century ago in which the student population tended to range intellectually from poor to good and tended to come from families sharing basically the same values and traditions.

Conservative and free market critics of the present K-12 public school system in the United States generally cite lack of competition as the main reason for both the poor results, in terms of student achievement, and the run away costs of the system.  Until recently public schools held a near monopoly on education in which consumers (i.e. the families of students) not only had no choice but to send their children to the local public school but were required by law to do so.  The only alternatives were to pay to send their children to a parochial school which, in the past was only open to members of the same faith, or move.  And moving to a district with better schools was not only common but also a good incentive for homeowners to agree to increased school taxes in order to preserve the value of their homes.

In an attempt to create some competition, some states are allowing school districts to accept students from other districts provided they have the capacity.  In return the receiving school receives the state funds that would normally go to the student’s local district, and often funds from the child’s district as payment as well.  Thanks to a demographic shift which has led to a drop in the total number of students in the K-12 age group along with the growing number of students being siphoned off by competing alternative schools, many districts are finding themselves with excess capacity and, where allowed, are beginning to compete for students in neighboring districts.

Better quality education is often the reason parents elect to go to the trouble and expense of finding an alternative to the local public school for their children. Many public schools, especially inner city ones, are notorious for the low quality of education they provide. There is also growing evidence from standardized tests, college admissions tests and the performance of graduates of alternative schools in college which shows that these graduates perform better than their public school counterparts.

The desire for a better education for their children is often sufficient reason for people to go to the trouble and expense of paying for an alternative education while also continuing to pay taxes for the public schools that they don’t use.

However, other considerations also come into play. A big reason involves the values they want to impart in their children. Many religious and/or politically conservative parents choose to home school or send their children to a church sponsored school because that type of schooling reflects their values and beliefs. Similarly, many liberal parents choose the same because they feel the local public schools contain too many conservative and/or religious ideas that they disagree with.

Safety and fear of undesirable peer pressure are additional reasons for choosing alternatives to a public school education.

Finally, there is the the matter of choice. Public schools are typical monopolies in which parents are forced to take as is. Complaints or change generally involves the investment of considerable time lobbying, sometimes up to the Federal level, in an attempt to get policies changed.

Alternative schools are market oriented and if one doesn’t like the services offered they can simply move their child to another school. Because alternative schools are dependent upon parents choosing to pay and send their children to them rather than public schools where the law mandates that parents (and everyone else) both pay for public schools and, in the absence of alternatives, legally mandates them to send their children to public schools. Americans like choice and are willing to pay for it.

With the exception of publicly funded charter schools and publicly funded neighboring school districts, parents have to either have to pay to send their children to private schools or give up a paycheck and home school them. While church members often contribute to help subsidize the church sponsored schools parents using such schools still have to pay the majority of the cost.

Unlike college, some of the expenses of which are tax deductible, there are currently no federal tax deductions for the cost of non-public K-12 schooling.  Most states also, do not provide any tax relief to parents paying to educate their children in non-public schools.

However, for low income households, there are a growing number of scholarships available to help pay the cost of private school tuition.  Both companies and individuals contribute to these scholarship funds and in some states individuals can get a tax credit (i.e. a deduction from state income tax due) on their state income taxes for contributions to these scholarship funds as well as a charitable contribution tax deduction (i.e., deduction from income used to calculate income tax due) on their Federal income taxes.

Despite the extra cost, many parents find it preferable to choose an alternative form of K-12 schooling for their children’s education.