Manhattan Institute's New, Strange, Appeal for Private Schools

Tuesday, April 25, 2006
By Marty Solomon

Sol Stern and the Manhattan Institute are now complaining of the demise of 22 Catholic Schools in Brooklyn and Queens because of---get this---competition from the public schools.   That's a new one!

Appearing in the Manhattan Institute's magazine, City-Journal, Stern continues to perpetuate the myth that private schools do a better job than public schools, claiming that:

"in last year's state reading and math tests for 4th and 8th graders, Catholic school students scored from 7% to 10% higher than their public school counterparts. And the Catholic high school graduation rate is nearly double that of the public high schools. Moreover, Catholic schools deliver these stellar results with per-pupil expenditures remaining about a fourth of the costs of the public schools."

When they talk about higher scores, people like Stern never want to account for the demographics of the children in private schools when comparing academic performance. And when it comes to graduation rates, neither Stern nor anybody else knows the true percentage of New York City high school graduates because it is virtually impossible to determine that, especially in inner cities where student mobility is so high.

Another falsehood that privatization wonks repeat ad nauseam is that Catholic school tuitions are their costs even they know, full well, that nobody outside the Church knows the full costs since Catholic schools are heavily subsidized. And here, Stern trips over his own illogic. On the one hand he brags that Catholic schools deliver these stellar results at one-fourth the cost of public schools---then he decries their closings because they are going broke. Gotcha, Mr. Stern.

Finally, he is upset because of a small amount of philanthropy for public schools, decent salaries for public employees and an excellent leadership academy for principals and administrators. So what Stern is really saying is that if the public would let their schools go under-funded without adequate programs and resources, the private schools could compete. This is a strange, new type of appeal for private schools that we have never heard before, but then leave it to the Manhattan Institute to attempt anything to discredit public schools, no matter how garbled and disjointed.