i've been going to private school since pre-k. this september, i'll be going to a public high school while my twin sister is going to a private one. the Public High school is rated the #1 best high school in the entire state of New Jersey & it's really hard to get into. You have to beat out 1000 other 8th graders so you can be accepted in the freshman class of 140 students. if you're a middle class family [or lower], the only education you can afford is a free one here where i live, so i had to work extra hard to get in so that my parents didn't have to worry about paying for both me & my sister's tuition. & as luck would have it, i got in. if i didn't, that would be a different story.

i was doing research the other day, wondering why my parents still paid taxes when i went to private school, when i stumbled on some information about tuition costs. It just outraged me. The government spends $9,000+ for each student in New Jersey, while private schools spend only around $5,000 - $7,000. Seeing as I've never went to public school before and my parents were still paying taxes, they were possibly putting a kid i didn't know through public school.

i hate to sound selfish, but i honestly don't think this is fair. each family whose children goes to private school should be reimbursed for the money that the government doesn't spend on them. that's why everyone should start petitioning for school vouchers. what about public school students who would rather go to private school, but don't have the money to attend such an institution? it just doesn't make sense. of my 10 years in private school, some kid has been getting a free ride off of my parents tax money. it's outrageous.

if i had to go to some other public school in my city, i would rather stay home. everything is just out of control in those places. & i'm lucky i got into the good one. that's why my parents r sending my twin to a private school. since they only have to send one of us, they can afford it... besides that, they're afraid for her safety. whereas, everyone in my future high school are bookworms, so i don't have to worry about it. if any of the 2 presidential candidates propose tuition vouchers. they've got my vote... or @ least my parents'. start writing letters to your CITY HALLS & put an end to this unfair habit of the government. they think they can get away with it.

"That's what taxes are for. For the governments use. "

So what you're saying is that the government can do whatever they please with taxes? Like...engage in an unneccessary war? What really annoys me is that with school vouchers, they send kids to private schools or already very highly funded schools such as upper middle class suburban schools. As a student at an urban high school, what I see is not the need to pay for kids to go to other schools, but to use the money to improve the schools that are doing poorly. So instead of shipping kids out, let's buy new books, expand the schools so there is enough room, get new equipment.
If anyone who goes to a school like mine...too many kids, not enough books etc, see how many disagree with me. I love my school and my AP program, I wouldn't want to be shipped out of the district or go to one of the local private schools, what I want is for those resources to go to my school to improve it. PLEASE SOMEONE WHO HAS SOMETHING CLOSE TO THIS RESPOND AND SHOW ME THAT THE ONLY PEOPLE HERE AREN'T AT PRIVATE SCHOOLS OR SCHOOLS THAT SPEND 10 GRAND ON EACH KID.

It costs even more where I live. The schools in my county are mostly very good, but severely overfunded! The kind folks at our local school board decided a few years ago to give each HS senior a free all-expense-paid trip to Europe. Oh, well not free, but it's just the taxpayer's money...

In many cities, though, the schools are beyond hope. Schools which do not perform need to be shut down; throwing more money at them won't fix them anymore now than it did last time they got a funding increase, and parents need vouchers to ensure that their kids get out of the garbage-dump schools.

Really, the government needs to get out of the schools racket entirely. they've become too much of a cash-cow for the likes of the NEA, and, even more importantly, due to the nature of present public schools, public schools face some pretty severe limitations which private schools do not. For example, private instutitutions have every right to suspend or expel troublesome students, while public school systems are forced to educate them, even if it means moving them into special schools, often a long and arduous proposition. It often takes a year or more to remove a troublemaker from a public school barring something egregious, and that's not factoring in if the parents sue the school district.

A kid in a private school, however, is there on the SCHOOL'S terms, and the school has no obligation to keep kids who ruin everybody else's education. That glaring difference between public and private schools is a perfect example of why government cannot run schools efficiently, even if government wants to.

There are actually tuition vouchers fore parents on a fixed income (mainly minorities) who would like to send their children to private schools. The government pays for it. My cousin goes to a private school for free because she is a minority and because her grandma takes care of her. I don't care abot having to pay taxes toward public school funding. It's getting kids of the streets because if every parent had to pay for school then their would be a lot of smart kids not in school right now.

I'm glad that someone helped "fund" my education because if they wouldn't have, then I might have not ended up going to school. My parents didn't have money for that. They hardly had money for my field trips back in elementary school.

We have to pay taxes. It's just like how they built a new stadium for the Brewers in Milwaukee but no one wanted to actually pay for it with their tax dollars because they weren't worth a new stadium. The money should have gone elsewhere. But that's because the government passes those bills that says we have to pay that stuff.

Okay I might sound like I don't know what I'm talking about...Hope I made sense.

oh i dont think taxes are bad...so long as its reasonable and we arent getting ripped off by the education system. in my experience, in Wisconsin, teachers get paid way too much money. heck, if i had a wife and she was a teacher, i could retire and move to italy.

Ummm.. That's what taxes are for. For the governments use. It doesn't matter whether you go to private or public school. You pay the money because you are a U.S. citizen. You aren't homeless, but money goes to programs for helping the homeless. You may cover your own health care, but money still goes to pay someone else's health care. Where's Joey Dauben? He could say this loads better than I could. You can't just apply this to education. It applies to every other thing that your taxes pay for.

i have a school by me where they pay ten grand per student and they want more money!!!!! like that will go through.

The money that the government would spend sending kids to private schools would be better spent making the public schools better. I've gone to public schools in an urban area all my life, and it is my experience that it would be more beneficial to use the money on books (which we never have enough of), new computers, and fixing up the schools so there is enough room for everyone. Unfortunately not all of us have the ability to go to a number 1 rated school, but love our schools. It seems to me that the government shouldn't spend peoples money on sending kids to privately funded schools, but should improve the schools that they put into existance, because honestly, I get a better AP level eduacation at my public school than I could get at any one of the surrounding private schools.

Lanna