Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, February 14, 1991 TAG: 9102140490
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RAY L. GARLAND
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
A major pitch is the extent to which students at its schools exceed the performance of public-school students. The kicker is that the Catholic schools claim to do it for less than a third as much money. News releases for the campaign claim that the 140 schools have a 1 percent high-school dropout rate; send 90 percent of their graduates to college; and spend only $1,900 a year to educate each student. New York City's public schools, by comparison, have a 30 percent dropout rate and spend more than $7,000 per student.
The charge will be made, of course, that the Catholic schools obtain these results by getting the best and most motivated students, and there would certainly be a strong element of truth in that. But the archdiocese also says that 85 percent of its 51,428 students are black, Hispanic or Asian.
What caught my eye was the claim of $1,900 a year, a figure I have no means of verifying and which I am loath to swallow whole. But even if you double that figure the result is still astonishing. That would still be not much more than half what New York's public schools are spending, and less than what is being spent in virtually every school division in Virginia!
But this isn't intended as yet another exercise in public-school bashing. They have a lot to contend with and I'm personally convinced that the vast majority of parents of public-school students in this state are satisfied with the education their children are getting. Whether they should be so satisfied is, of course, another question. But public-opinion surveys consistently demonstrate that they are and also show a considerable appetite for still higher levels of expenditure.
Whether this public appetite for more public-school spending would be so keen if it realized that average, per-student expenditures in this state now exceed $5,000 a year can't be answered by me.
The thing to hold in focus here is that private education in a high-cost place like New York is delivering a public service for a lot less than it's costing the public sector to deliver that same service, and is probably doing a superior job into the bargain.
With annual, per-inmate operating costs in the Virginia prison system now standing well above $20,000 a year, it's time to examine the role that private enterprise can play in corrections, and the 1991 assembly has wisely authorized a limited initiative to test the waters. Under legislation now awaiting Gov. Wilder's signature, the state would enter into contracts with private companies to build and operate a women's prison and a men's pre-release center.
The larger point here is that the fiscal crisis now facing Virginia may not be a temporary blip, soon to disappear. It's everywhere and it doesn't look as if it will be solved by another round of major tax increases at all levels of government.
If private schools can deliver an equal or superior output for less money, they should be encouraged to do so. Ditto for prisons, road maintenance, data processing and mental hospitals.
Until elected officials get an inside report from an independent source as to the reasons behind all these costs, however, they will be flying blind, alternating between throwing money at problems or taking a meat-ax to agency budgets.
Right now, they are forced to rely upon what the bureaucrats and their advocacy groups tell them, which always translates to the same refrain: "We can't do more until we get more and it would be madness even to try." It's possible, of course, that they are correct in what they say, but we'll have absolutely no way of knowing until a comprehensive management study is undertaken of all major functions and institutions of state government.
Let's suppose, just for the sake of argument, that such a study found the average professor at a state college meeting with classes nine hours a week, down from 12 or 15 hours a week 25 years ago. And that the typical academic year now consisted of only 36 weeks.
If we are going to experience an increase in college enrollment during the '90s, as many claim, wouldn't it be possible to accommodate most of that increase at very little additional cost by establishing a professorial standard of 12 class hours a week and by compacting undergraduate education, as the British do, into only three years?
Gov. Wilder has taken a somewhat heroic stand in the tax collectors' door, but his actions to date have fallen mainly under the heading of borrowing from the future. That's fine if things pick back up and the state can return to business as usual.
But if these revenue shortfalls reflect a structural problem in our economy, such as an erosion in the value of tangible assets, then the governor is storing up a world of hurt for himself, his successor and taxpayers in general.
The hour is late to do what hundreds of private companies have been forced to do, which is to examine relentlessly (and justify) every aspect of their operations. The state of Virginia should not come back on the people for more succor until it has done the same thing. After all, even with such cuts as have actually taken place, we will still see a level of state spending next year representing an increase of more than 100 percent in only 10 years.
by CNB