Things we can learn from- Private schools get millions in tax dollars and teach kids at half the cost of public schools (May 2, 2012): In the realm of education, Lakewood is unique in New Jersey. Four-fifths of the school-age children in Lakewood attend private schools, with tens of millions of public dollars funneled to private schools and their students each year. Some 5,600 students attend Lakewood public schools, and an estimated 22,000 other students attend private schools. This school year, an estimated $30 million or more of the district’s $133 million budget will go to private schools and students. That’s roughly a quarter of the budget, and it’s fully sanctioned by the government. A big chunk of the money — an estimated $15 million-plus — will be spent on transporting kids to dozens of largely Orthodox Jewish private schools. Larry Simons, a 12-year Lakewood resident and retired accountant who regularly attends school board meetings, said “the public school system has been shortchanged with the monies that should have been allocated to it. These monies are being diverted to other areas outside of the public education system.” “It bothers me tremendously that there’s so much money being spent on private transportation,” said Simons, 75, who noted that he is Jewish. But Rabbi Meir Hertz, dean of Tashbar of Lakewood, a private K-8 school for 367 Orthodox boys, said private school students in Lakewood are the ones who are being shortchanged. If the Lakewood school district wasn’t failing, the private schools in town would be getting 60 percent more federal funding for disadvantaged children, Hertz said, referring to funding called Title I. “Who’s suffering? The children that need those funds in my school,” he said. If all the private school children attended Lakewood public schools, the educational costs would balloon by an additional $432 million a year, boosting local property taxes by about $302 million, based on 2010 figures, according to Hertz. While property taxes would soar, the school district doesn’t have room for 22,000 more kids. In the 2009-10 school year, it cost $19,652 to educate each public school student. That’s 26.5 percent higher than the state average of $15,538, partly because of transportation and special education costs. Lakewood’s cost is two-thirds higher than in the Toms River Regional school district, where the price tag was $11,756 per pupil in 2009-10. The cost of educating Lakewood public school students is also 24 percent higher than in Bridgeton, Cumberland County, and 9 percent higher than in Long Branch, both similar-sized districts. Tashbar of Lakewood, a growing school, will receive at least $580,965 in federal and state public funding this school year, or at least $1,583 per student, according to Hertz. The funding includes $314,704 in transportation costs, $87,035 for auxiliary services (reading and math), $56,913 in Title I low-income aid, $56,880 for speech, $22,063 for nursing and $15,446 for textbooks, according to Tashbar data. Local taxes for courtesy busing cover less than half of 1 percent of Tashbar’s annual budget, according to Hertz. Beyond the public funding, it costs $6,200 a year to educate a student at the school, which offers intensive Hebrew and Judaic studies along with general education studies, including math, English, social sciences and geography, according to Tashbar leaders. The total cost, including public funding: nearly $8,000 a year, or roughly 60 percent less than the Lakewood district’s cost per pupil. Rivky Birnbaum, curriculum coordinator at Tashbar, said “I just think it’s interesting that we’re able to educate children at a cost of $6,200 a year (not including public funding) and our children do very nicely on the testing, where at $19,000, they’re still failing” in the Lakewood public schools. Todd B. Bates: 732-643-4237; tbates@njpressmedia archive.app/article/20120502/CHEATED/106130012/Private-schools-get-millions-tax-dollars-teach-kids-half-cost-public-schools
Posted on: Sat, 22 Nov 2014 22:15:43 +0000
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