Claims on Private Schools Unfounded

* It would seem that either David E. Miller (Letters, July 11) doesn’t read The Los Angeles Times regularly or that he has selective recall.

In responding to Carolyn Ellner’s essay on the voucher system, he ballyhoos the private school system as being gun free and gang free. In the past six months The Times has run stories on a gang shooting outside Montclair Preparatory School involving one of its students and another (story) on weapons being taken from three students at Notre Dame High School and the failure of the administration to report the incident to the police.

Mr. Miller also commented on the high standards of discipline in private schools. Where would he speculate the above-mentioned students now go to school? It’s easy to have high standards of discipline when students abrogate all rights upon entering a private school and expulsion is simple: “You are no longer wanted here.”

Both Mr. Miller and the other respondent, Thant Tessman, also discuss the quality of the education available in private and public schools. To quote Mr. Tessman, “ . . . all the public schools have to do to keep students enrolled is provide the quality of education that private schools do already.”

All private schools select the children with whom they will work, either by entrance exam or academic progress. Why then are standardized tests held up as proof that private schools are better? The test scores released last year by the National Assessment of Educational Progress showed that private schools did only slightly better--between six and 15 points on a 500-point scale--than public schools.

But, in fact, when comparing the kind of students the private schools like to select, “the highest-achieving public school seniors actually did a little better than the private school’s top seniors. (L. A. Times, March 29, 1992). That same article also pointed out that “an extensive examination by The Times of private schools . . . shows . . . parents choose private schools for a variety of reasons, and academics is often not the prime consideration.” Need I remind you of the exodus from Los Angeles public schools in the early ‘70s because of busing?

Only seven private independent secondary schools (out of 39) charge less for tuition than California spends per pupil. And private secondary tuition does not include books and other miscellaneous fees that are taken for granted in public schools.

The average tuition for independent secondary schools is over $7000. Religious schools get financial support from their respective churches to keep their tuitions low, and/or have required fund-raising requirements (sic) for students and parents, and most charge a higher tuition to non-members.

How many private schools are going to do exactly what Jerome Porath, superintendent of schools for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, is considering: using the “breathing room” of school vouchers to raise tuition without jeopardizing enrollment?

JAMES H. BURR

Tujunga