I aplogize in advance for the length of this treatise, but I can't take the whole private vs. public lack of advantage debate that this has turned into any longer.
I am a product of a private, Catholic high school, and have been a teacher and coach in the public high school sector for over 20 years.
Anybody who says the privates (and I include charters as privates, because they are - discussion for another thread, I suppose) don't enjoy a significant advantage over the publics is simply delusional.
I read above (paraphrased), "Publics have a budget and they know what their budget is going into a school year, whereas the privates don't." That is simplistic at best, and ill-informed at worst. Does the poster understand that publics MUST have a three year balanced budget projection that is okayed by the their county offices of education? Does the poster understand that not a single dollar of the approved budget has to go toward athletics? And during the recession, not only were budgets slashed, but positions were cut: teaching, coaching, and administration? It is only in the last two-three years that many of the publics, especially in urban areas, have been able to somewhat rebound with regards to improved budgets. Yes, I understand that at a private, part of the budget does not "need" to go to athletics, but most privates have a MUCH greater idea of where their budget stands (especially during the recent recession).
Privates enjoy a distinct advantage in that they are allowed to recruit. Period, end of story. Middle schools hold "high school information nights" where any private or charter school, no matter where they are located, can present. Yet the only public high schools that can present are those within district boundaries, and sometimes, are even more restrictied, with only the "home boundary" high school allowed to present. Private supporters can say they don't "recruit athletes", but that is semantic disingenuousness at its finest. Privates recruit. Period.
DLS has 24 paid football coaches? Wow. The schools in my district have 10, and can add an 11th if there are 45 players on the varsity team. That is quite a discrepancy.
To say that the privates have to pay for their education, while the publics don't, while on the surface is true, we all know that the privates all offer aid to students. My alma mater gave out over $3 million dollars in tuition grants last year. Student population of roughly 1000. That is about $3000 per student or 20% of the tuition. That means 20% of the student population is subsidized. I am not saying it all goes to athletes, or that any of it is specifically earmarked for athletes, but we all know that many athletes benefit from tuition grants. That is a fact.
Privates generally are able to raise more funds. The DLS situation is just one example. At my alma mater, the annual appeal raises a million dollars a year. One year, an alum, an NFL player, wrote a check for $250K at the annual gala night. The capital campaign at my alma mater, much like at DLS, raised an incredible amount of money for the physical plant - athletic facilities being a part of it. Anybody who has been involved in athletics at the high school level or higher knows that facilities plays an integral part in recruiting athletes.
I don't begrudge one bit what the privates are able to do (charters on the other hand...). In fact, I applaud it. They generally provide highly competetive schools, academically and athletically. They generally do a great deal of community service. They generally send a greater proportion of students to four year colleges and universities than the publics - especially moreso than the urban/inner city publics. As such, the alumni base is generally more well off, and usuallly more willing to contribute to the alma mater. All one needs to do is look at the financial statements that most of the privates send out to their alums every year. Then there is that whole Catholic guilt thing (I joke...). Additionally, with many public schools, there isn't the tradition, or history of many of the privates, as they simply haven't been around as long (look at the growth of the SacJoaquin Section for example), and because of that don't have the alumni base.
So, please don't try to say that the privates don't have magnified advantages over the publics because they do. Plain and simple.
