Public School Teachers Send Their Kids to Private Schools

No one knows the conditions and quality of U.S. government schools better than those who teach in them.

And public-school teachers are putting their kids in private schools at rates far higher than the general public, according to a new study by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, based upon 2000 census data.

21.2 percent of urban public-school teachers send their children to non-government (private) schools. That's almost 75 percent higher than the national average of 12.2 percent of families. That's also much higher than the national urban family rate of 17.5 percent.

But that's just the start. Where government schools are worst, far larger numbers of teachers send their kids to private schools. An incredible 44 percent of public-school teachers in Philadelphia sent their children to private schools. Other figures: Chicago, 39 percent; Baltimore, 35 percent; San Francisco/Oakland, 34 percent; New York/Northeastern New Jersey, 33 percent; Boston, 28 percent; and 27 percent in Washington, D.C.

The study also found that "even when the financial sacrifice required for private education is greater, urban public-school teachers still choose private schools for their children at higher rates than urban families with similar incomes."

Teachers and others may be able to afford alternatives to government schools, but those with lower incomes or less resources don't have that same freedom of choice. They're prisoners of failing government schools, thanks to anti-school-choice laws -- laws strongly pushed by the labor union a majority of teachers belong to.

The 2.7 million-member National Education Association (NEA) -- the nation's largest labor union -- says it opposes "tuition tax credits for elementary and secondary schools; the use of vouchers or certificates in education; [and] federally mandated parental option or 'choice' in education programs."

Whatever the NEA's intention, the result is that, while most NEA members can escape failing government schools, a large enough number of less fortunate children are kept as captives in those same schools to supply jobs for teachers who would never send their own children there.

Source: Washington Times

Teachers and others may be able to afford alternatives to government schools, but those with lower incomes or less resources don't have that same freedom of choice. They're prisoners of failing government schools, thanks to anti-school-choice laws -- laws strongly pushed by the labor union a majority of teachers belong to.

The 2.7 million-member National Education Association (NEA) -- the nation's largest labor union -- says it opposes "tuition tax credits for elementary and secondary schools; the use of vouchers or certificates in education; [and] federally mandated parental option or 'choice' in education programs."

Whatever the NEA's intention, the result is that, while most NEA members can escape failing government schools, a large enough number of less fortunate children are kept as captives in those same schools to supply jobs for teachers who would never send their own children there.

Source: Washington Times
http://washingtontimes.com/op-ed/20041002-102019-6379r.htm

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