For whatever reason, people ignore a lot of factors when comparing the operating costs of private and public schools. Private schools are designed to make a profit. Public schools are not. Their operating structures are completely different. Here are three examples.
1) Public schools have to serve every area in the country (including rural towns) and do not just operate in larger cities where it is easier to be profitable.
2) Public schools cannot reject people based on their academic or other problems like a private school can. Public schools have to take everyone, no matter what problems they have. This drives up cost as some of these kids need a lot of extra academic attention.
3) Public schools have to accommodate people with every type of handicap. The amount of extra personnel, classroom space, and equipment this requires is substantial.
We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers…Also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls. The only thing that really worried me was the ether. There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge. –Raoul Duke
It is hard to shed anything but crocodile tears over White House speechwriter Patrick Buchanan's tragic analysis of the Nixon debacle. "It's like Sisyphus," he said. "We rolled the rock all the way up the mountain...and it rolled right back down on us...." Neither Sisyphus nor the commander of the Light Brigade nor Pat Buchanan had the time or any real inclination to question what they were doing...a martyr, to the bitter end, to a "flawed" cause and a narrow, atavistic concept of conservative politics that has done more damage to itself and the country in less than six years than its liberal enemies could have done in two or three decades. -Hunter S. Thompson
