Index of SPPS Budget Discussion http://www.e-democracy.org/stpaul/spps-posts.html _________________________________________ A few reactions to various themes in other emails:
Some of the comments on this list have said that private school is cheaper and better than public. We looked at a private school prior to sending our son to Como high. As I recall, the cost was about 18,000 per year, 50% more than the $12,000 per year I understand is spent per student in public school. We might have sent our son to this school, except that I had the chance to talk to a student, a 16 year old daughter of a friend of mine, about how she felt about the school. She said she loved it, except for the culture of parties and drugs that was the expected behavior among the more privileged students at the school. She drew a picture of kids who had their own cars, their own money, and parents who were often not at home, commonly leaving 16, 17 and 18 year olds alone while the parents took weekend vacations. She said parties where LSD, Ecstasy and Cocaine were available were frequent. We knew that drugs are a problem everywhere, but we found the picture of privileged kids bent on self destruction to be very disturbing. We didn't want our son to have these upper classmen as role models. In the public schools, we knew that there are lots of kids pursuing an opposite path. Kids from hard working families who want to be the first one in their family to go to college. Kids who struggle to learn even though they come from backgrounds that would discourage most of us. We thought that the private school might offer a better academic environment, but we felt that the public schools offer a better group of kids to be emulated, and we decided that was more important. Bob Treumann Como Area. _____________________________________________ SPPS Budget Reduction Forum - Feb. 23-27 Co-Sponsored By NEAT: http://www.stpaulneat.org/ _____________________________________________ NEW ADDRESS FOR LIST: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To subscribe, modify subscription, or get your password - visit: http://www.mnforum.org/mailman/listinfo/stpaul Archive Address: http://www.mnforum.org/mailman/private/stpaul/
