Private K-12 Education: Society's Best Investment?
When a nation invests in the education of its children, it invests in its future. For example, young people who receive education and have better job opportunities usually do not engage in criminal behaviors. Also, students with access to quality education often grow up to be productive citizens, which decrease welfare recipient rates. Investing heavily in education not only benefits current generations, but future generations as well.
Even with all the known benefits associated with improving and making education more accessible, private philanthropic organizations do not contribute large quantities of money to improve elementary and secondary education.
Private charities often do not fund many scholarships since elementary and secondary education is funded by governments at the state and federal levels. However, spending more money on education will not guarantee the improvement of K-12 education. Increased public funding of education has not increased math and reading test scores over the last three decades. Likewise, increased public funding of schools in inner-cities or poverty-ridden areas have not led to dramatic educational improvements among people from poorer socio-economic backgrounds. In fact, some students from poverty-ridden regions are illiterate. Increasing the availability of scholarships is futile when students are graduating from high school illiterate.
More charities are setting money aside to provide children from poorer areas scholarship money to enroll in private schools. In the late 90’s, $100 million dollars was committed to provide scholarships for inner-city children by the Children’s Scholarship Fund.
After this scholarship program was announced more than one million people applied for scholarships. Unfortunately, there were only 40,000 available scholarships. A large percentage of students from large cities, including New York, Washington D.C., and Baltimore applied for these private school scholarships. What’s surprising about these figures is that scholarships only covered a portion of the tuition, which is indicative of the desire of many parents to send their children to private schools.
To provide more opportunities for children interested in attending private schools, many charities are offering voucher programs in major cities throughout the United States. Private voucher programs have begun in Miami, Denver, Minneapolis, and the Bay Area.
The scholarships provided by these philanthropic groups are helping children enjoy better educational opportunities throughout the country. Research has demonstrated that students attending private schools often score higher on reading and math exams, receive more personalized attention, and are better prepared for the rigors of college than students enrolled in public schools.
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