Why fund private edu with public dollars?

I’ve been researching a story for this week’s Catholic Spirit on the Equity and Opportunity in Education Tax Credit Legislation. As I’ve written here before, the legislation — through a tax-credit-based incentive giving program — would provide a pool of money to help low-income students bridge the education gap.

Though special foundations created to distribute the funds, the money could be used to pay for a tutor, a field trip, or even better clothes — whatever will help that student succeed. It could also help low-income students pay for private education, if their current school situations are not meeting their needs.

So, low-income kids could get a tutor in a challenging subject, or go to private school? Is private school that much better than public school, that they could skip the tutor and succeed anyway?

Maybe.

I'll disclose that I'm the product of 12 years of public education, so I was ready to challenge this. And I’m sure that the Coalition for Kids, the organization created to pass this bill in Minnesota, wouldn’t say that private schools are "better" than public schools, but there’s a good handful of evidence suggesting that when it comes to getting high schoolers their diploma, private schools have a leg up.

Each year, around 25 percent Minnesota kids attending Catholic school transfer from a Catholic school to a public school between eighth grade and ninth grade, presumably because of cost. Many of these students are from low-income families.

“If we can keep some of those poverty kids able to go to Catholic school, there’s a 99 percent chance they’ll graduate,” said Jim Field, president of the Minnesota Independent School Forum.

It also saves Minnesota money. For every kid in Catholic or private school, it saves Minnesota about $10,000 per year. Between kindergarten and 12th grade, private schools lose almost 12,000 kids. “If we kept just 1,000 of them in the [Catholic/private school] system, that would save the state almost $10 million per year,” he added.

And why, besides moolah, would want to keep kids in Catholic schools? Because private schools have that 99 percent graduation rate. In 2006, Minnesota had a 99 percent graduation rate both for white and minority students. However, Minnesota public schools graduated 83 percent of their white students, but only 44 percent of their black students.

It’s the low-income kids that drop out. This legislation will try to give them whatever it is that they need to get their diploma and not be held back by their poverty.