The difference between these listed tuitions and public schools can easily be found in these additional costs which are not listed. Additionally, private schools get cut some slack when mandatory building upgrades are inflicted upon schools. Remember the Standard Q fire and earthquake upgrades? The neighborhood public school was required to be up to Standard Q *five years* before our parochial school in the same neighborhood was.

And, for the price we paid, we had a substandard science education, a school with mold and poor janitorial service, a building in lousy shape, and teachers who couldn’t come anywhere near meeting the standards set in public school.  One thing about moving the kid to public school was that the kid got *literate* English teachers. However, most parents didn’t send their kids to that school necessarily for the education. They sent their kids there because either they or their spouse went there, or they wanted a small school, or they liked the discipline or sports program.

We were there for the small school program and because the kid didn’t want to move until his peers made him absolutely miserable; plus the principal had us hoodwinked that our kid was one who would fall through the cracks in public school. The public schools have consistently been better with him than that school was. That school was one where he was in danger of falling through the cracks.  Then again, what do you expect from a school where a standard teacher response to any request for help/personal attention was

To bring this back to funding, based on my experience, the *real* cost of private schools is pretty dang close to the cost of public school education, when the unmentioned additional income is tossed into the equation (and the costs of things like special needs education are taken into consideration, since dang few private schools support special ed even for mild learning disabilities).