Guest Post by John Stossel
Government-run schools fail kids.
Teachers unions and education bureaucrats say, “We need more money!”
But America already spends a fortune on public schools.
My town, New York City, spends $28,000 per student — half-a-million dollars per classroom! Think about what you could do with that money: Hire five teachers? Pay for private tutors?
Where does the $28,000 go? No one really knows. When governments run things, money vanishes into bureaucracy. NYC spends $3 million per year on “executive superintendents” and $10 million on consultants.
Some charter schools offer better educations for less. But NYC politicians limit the number of charter schools. As a result, 48,000 kids wait on waitlists.
Fortunately, some charities have stepped in to help.
My video this week features Student Sponsor Partners, or SSP, a nonprofit that helps low-income students go to Catholic schools.
Jeniffer Gutierrez, a parent in the Bronx, was ecstatic to get SSP’s acceptance letter. “I cried so hard when I received that letter because I knew it was an opportunity for my son. … High schools in the Bronx are violent. There’s no discipline. There’s no education.”
Her son Tyler didn’t feel safe in public school. “One of my best friends was shot and killed right next to me,” he recalls.
Many Catholic schools, even though they spend much less per student than government-run schools, do better. SSP sent Tyler to Cardinal Hayes High School, where, says Gutierrez, teachers helped her son “excel in life.”
Tyler now attends St. John’s University on scholarship. He and thousands of other SSP students are on a path to success.
That’s why I support SSP. I’m not Catholic, but I’ve paid Catholic school tuition for dozens of kids and personally mentored five.
That mentoring makes SSP different. SSP assigns an adult to every student. Often these relationships continue after students graduate.
Jorge Aguilar says his mentor “planted seeds in my brain that I could do big things in life.” Aguilar then became the first person in his family to go to college. Now he’s a doctor.
“SSP helped me break the chain of poverty,” he says.
Eighty-five percent of SSP kids graduate high school, twice as many as their public school peers. Most are accepted by colleges.
All this happened because decades ago, philanthropist Peter Flanigan wanted to give parents an alternative to government schools. He hoped that would help at-risk teenagers escape poverty.
He started SSP. One of the first kids he helped was Debra Vizzi.
“I had been homeless,” she tells me. “I left an abusive foster home and was sort of hopping around from shelter to shelter.”
She met Flanigan at a soup kitchen. He told her he’d pay for her to attend Cathedral High School.
“I was suspicious, especially as a kid on the street, but he was legit,” Vizzi laughs. “He paid $350 for me to go to one of the best high schools in New York City.”
Flannigan’s mentorship gave Vizzi more than a better education. “He helped me trust men, believe in people, helped me have a future. Even helped me become a mother later … something that I hadn’t had.”
Vizzi is now executive director of SSP.
“If you would have told me when I was 12 years old, I would run this organization, I would have said you were crazy.”
This year, SSP has a thousand students attending different private high schools.
Want to help? SSP seeks more people who will mentor a student and more donors who’ll help pay for it. You can get more information at sspnyc.org.
Maybe you’ll join us and help more kids escape bad government-run schools.
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My school got a bunch of fake Biden Bucks from a COVID package. hired millions of dollars worth of new admins who do nothing we can detect. Director of so and so. A few extra assistant directors of this and that. “Resource” specialists, whatever that is.. curriculum advisor yadda yadda.
How much does the average school system spend on complying with federal mandates? I would guess it runs well into 7 figure$ for a city of 50,000, probably several hundred billion$ for one the size of NYC.
When Prop. 187 (I think….its been a long time) was getting on the ballot in CA (vouchers – which I now completely object to), I spoke with the Superintendent of the Riverside County Schools who told me that in 1980, he had a staff of 5, and now he had 300 (1994), all just to comply with federal regulations. He said that somewhere along the line, the Congress decided it needed to micromanage the schools at the federal level. Not only did they write countless laws, but then the assholes at the state level felt the need to seem like they were doing something (more or less his words), so more regulations started coming in force from the state level too. Compliance is MOST of the cost of schools these days.
What sort of guaranteed retirement are all of these administrative staffers supposed to be guaranteed? Is it part of a federally backed pension plan?
what government agency isn’t a complete waste of tax payer money, riddled with incompetence, and lead by some diversity hire
Okay, this is not going to make any sense but since I went to the trouble to find it and bring it here, just leave it and I’ll try to retrieve my comment that led to this.
Too many of the schools in northern Illinois have teachers making way over $100K, with great benefits, weeks of sick time, insane amounts of holidays and the ability to retire in their mid-50s. They will justify it by saying they won’t get social security. I always tell them I’d be happy to see them exchange their pension with the built in 3% annual raise for social security. That always ends the conversation. I checked on a couple teachers pensions and they are making almost twice as much in their pension when compared to their last year of teaching.
Laura Ingalls was a schoolteacher. Her future husband, Almanzo Wilder, took her home on weekends to see her family; they would cross the frigid plains in his sleigh. Laura was 15, I believe.
I have zero doubt any one of her students could compete academically with the average college graduate of today. I include myself in this estimation.
The public school system is such an obvious scam that anyone who sends their kids into its maw is either a fool or a…. well no, they’re a fool. Anyone working for it is a and a parasite.
“Anyone working for it is a –fool– and a parasite.”
That’s a brutal assessment. Ever heard of John Gatto?
Yes, ma’am! He did an heroic job of exposing the deliberate Stupid-ication of American school kids. Neal Postman also had invaluable insight into the Mind Rape of TV and public skoo’z..
However, I believe Postman’s primary observations were gathered in the 70s and 80s; JTG’s possibly even earlier than that.( I’m too lazy to double check.) So let us say these men have exposed the rot for at least 40 years.
Nowadays it is common knowledge that the open demonization (as a step towards genocide) of Whites is de rigeuer in these government slave beds. I invite anyone on this flaming platform to name a single Dept of Education policy which encourages or supports a single belief, attitude or assumption that benefits themselves, their principles, or their nation.
White kids are surrounded by surly, intractable POCS who have been assiduously trained to hate them. Incessant brainwashing and degeneracy is touted each and every day. The students cannot read; they cannot think; they are crushed and ground down and mentally assaulted daily with a web of lies that even functional adults cannot always easily refute.
If you ignore all this in exchange for dot Guv butter on your bread then FY too. You are enabling this system by volunteering your shoulder to propel the wheel
If nobody would agree to work for the IRS, the IRS could not exist. The same is true of these soul killing ‘schools’ run by people who very obviously hate you
Postman’s ‘Amusing Ourselves to Death’ is also highly relevant to this topic. I wince every time I see some lazy parent handing their infant a cell phone.
Thanks for your thoughtful reply, Ivor. I don’t disagree with anything you said. I realize this is a weak argument, especially in light of recent events (from the last year or so), but can one not do good work within the system?
Even though they don’t agree with the system, can it not be considered a mission field, so to speak. The students in the system usually don’t have any other option, whether financially or because their parents are indeed fools. Can we not consider that it’s possible to reach hearts and minds through the hands of the enemy?
Even though things have changed considerably since I was in public school, I was impacted greatly by Gatto-type teachers that pulled me aside and challenged me. Those people have my eternal gratitude. I would have been lost without them. Is that not possible in today’s world?
For kids who have no other options for schooling, how else do you reach them?
Btw…I love the Ingalls series. It is amazing their level of education vs. the level of today’s kids.
“I’m not Catholic, but I’ve paid Catholic school tuition for dozens of kids and personally mentored five.”
So modest and self-effacing, too!