Reply to Protest Hogan's diversion of public funds from public schools into private schools

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]In December 2016, the Baltimore Sun reported that 3,000 students received BOOST scholarships totaling $5,000,000 (or $1,666.67 per student average). See http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/politics/bs-md-hogan-boost-funding-20161213-story.html

Maryland PTA President Elizabeth Ysla Leight stated that "78%" of these 3,000 students were already attending private school, so 22% were not previously attending private school.

Let's say that the 3,000 students were evenly distributed between K-12 (13 total grades) and that every K student would have gone to private school anyway. That's 270 K students we can exclude.

Additionally, the 78% of 3,000 = 2,340.

Therefore, 390 (3,000 - 2,340 - 270) children who would have been in Maryland public schools instead went to private school at a cost of $1,666.67 each to the state, instead of $12,000 - $15,000/year each for public.

Let's assume the state-wide average public school cost is $13,500 per student.

390 x $13,500 = $5,265,000.

In other words, providing BOOST scholarships totaling $5,000,000 saved $5,265,000 in public school spending, and therefore effectively SAVED taxpayers $265,000.

In other words, all the complaining over BOOST is a farce.[/quote]
It's not a good thing that 78% of those receiving Maryland taxpayer subsidies for private school were those whose parents already chosen to and had the resources to fund a private school education, even before the subsidies.  What a waste of $.  5mn$ in taxpayer funding could have paid for a lot of teachers to reduce class sizes in my county.[/quote]

+1 There are NO taxpayer savings here. If PP is saying that 78% of students receiving these subsidies were already in private school, why pay 5mn$ to subsidize them?  [/quote]

People have a right to make their own private choices--my tax dollars should not go to subsidize people who have made those choices.[/quote]

[b]The point of the post originally quoted is that BOOST has SAVED taxpayers money[/b], despite covering a very small amount of costs for students from low-income families who were already enrolled in private school.

$5,265,000 was saved from being spent by public schools in losing 390 students to private schools.  The program cost taxpayers a total of $5,000,000, which is $265,000 LESS THAN what it would have cost to educate those 390 students in public school.

You can argue whether students already enrolled in private schools should be eligible for BOOST funding, but BOOST in its current form results in a net savings for Maryland.  Any arguments pertaining to BOOST shouldn't be about its costs.[/quote]

That's great, but not the only purpose of funding education, don't you think? Vouchers have been shown to take support away from vulnerable student populations who need it the most. If we're saving money, it mustn't be on the backs of the poorest or the disabled children.

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