To the editors:
Permit me to clear up one misimpression from Ben Joravsky’s otherwise accurate story on TEACH America [Neighborhood News, February 14].
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One of Chicago’s best-kept secrets is that we have the nation’s largest private-sector market of education providers: 448 private and parochial schools offering safe, values-oriented, cost-effective learning environments to more than 125,000 youngsters, to one out of every six school-age children here. Forty-six percent of Chicago public school teachers with school-age children send their kids to these nongovernment schools. Quite an endorsement, isn’t it?
For the same amount spent in the private sector, we could put nearly four kids through grammar school ($1,500 average), nearly two kids through high school ($3,000). Our parental choice plan would put all but a handful of Chicago’s 448 nongovernment schools within reach of most parents. These unflattering cost comparisons have some serious implications for all of us concerned about equity for the taxpayer as well as for the student.
