Gifted Students Deserve More Opportunities

[General Mung Beans]

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/19/opini ... wanted=all

Op-Ed Contributor
Young, Gifted and Neglected
By CHESTER E. FINN Jr.
Published: September 18, 2012

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BARACK OBAMA and Mitt Romney both attended elite private high schools. Both are undeniably smart and well educated and owe much of their success to the strong foundation laid by excellent schools.

Every motivated, high-potential young American deserves a similar opportunity. But the majority of very smart kids lack the wherewithal to enroll in rigorous private schools. They depend on public education to prepare them for life. Yet that system is failing to create enough opportunities for hundreds of thousands of these high-potential girls and boys.

Mostly, the system ignores them, with policies and budget priorities that concentrate on raising the floor under low-achieving students. A good and necessary thing to do, yes, but we’ve failed to raise the ceiling for those already well above the floor.

Public education’s neglect of high-ability students doesn’t just deny individuals opportunities they deserve. It also imperils the country’s future supply of scientists, inventors and entrepreneurs.

Today’s systemic failure takes three forms.

First, we’re weak at identifying “gifted and talented” children early, particularly if they’re poor or members of minority groups or don’t have savvy, pushy parents.

Second, at the primary and middle-school levels, we don’t have enough gifted-education classrooms (with suitable teachers and curriculums) to serve even the existing demand. Congress has “zero-funded” the Jacob K. Javits Gifted and Talented Students Education Program, Washington’s sole effort to encourage such education. Faced with budget crunches and federal pressure to turn around awful schools, many districts are cutting their advanced classes as well as art and music.

Third, many high schools have just a smattering of honors or Advanced Placement classes, sometimes populated by kids who are bright but not truly prepared to succeed in them.

Here and there, however, entire public schools focus exclusively on high-ability, highly motivated students. Some are nationally famous (Boston Latin, Bronx Science), others known mainly in their own communities (Cincinnati’s Walnut Hills, Austin’s Liberal Arts and Science Academy). When my colleague Jessica A. Hockett and I went searching for schools like these to study, we discovered that no one had ever fully mapped this terrain.

In a country with more than 20,000 public high schools, we found just 165 of these schools, known as exam schools. They educate about 1 percent of students. Nineteen states have none. Only three big cities have more than five such schools (Los Angeles has zero). Almost all have far more qualified applicants than they can accommodate. Hence they practice very selective admission, turning away thousands of students who could benefit from what they have to offer. Northern Virginia’s acclaimed Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, for example, gets some 3,300 applicants a year — two-thirds of them academically qualified — for 480 places.

We built a list, surveyed the principals and visited 11 schools. We learned a lot. While the schools differ in many ways, their course offerings resemble A.P. classes in content and rigor; they have stellar college placement; and the best of them expose their pupils to independent study, challenging internships and individual research projects.

Critics call them elitist, but we found the opposite. These are great schools accessible to families who can’t afford private schooling or expensive suburbs. While exam schools in some cities don’t come close to reflecting the demographics around them, across the country the low-income enrollment in these schools parallels the high school population as a whole. African-American youngsters are “overrepresented” in them and Asian-Americans staggeringly so (21 percent versus 5 percent in high schools overall). Latinos are underrepresented, but so are whites.

That’s not so surprising. Prosperous, educated parents can access multiple options for their able daughters and sons. Elite private schools are still out there. So are New Trier, Scarsdale and Beverly Hills. The schools we studied, by and large, are educational oases for families with smart kids but few alternatives.

They’re safe havens, too — schools where everyone focuses on teaching and learning, not maintaining order. They have sports teams, but their orchestras are better. Yes, some have had to crack down on cheating, but in these schools it’s O.K. to be a nerd. You’re surrounded by kids like you — some smarter than you — and taught by capable teachers who welcome the challenge, teachers more apt to have Ph.D.’s or experience at the college level than high school instructors elsewhere. You aren’t searched for weapons at the door. And you’re pretty sure to graduate and go on to a good college.

Many more students could benefit from schools like these — and the numbers would multiply if our education system did right by such students in the early grades. But that will happen only when we acknowledge that leaving no child behind means paying as much attention to those who’ve mastered the basics — and have the capacity and motivation for much more — as we do to those who cannot yet read or subtract.

It’s time to end the bias against gifted and talented education and quit assuming that every school must be all things to all students, a simplistic formula that ends up neglecting all sorts of girls and boys, many of them poor and minority, who would benefit more from specialized public schools. America should have a thousand or more high schools for able students, not 165, and elementary and middle schools that spot and prepare their future pupils.

With their support for school choice, Mr. Romney and Mr. Obama have both edged toward recognizing that kids aren’t all the same and schools shouldn’t be, either. Yet fear of seeming elitist will most likely keep them from proposing more exam schools. Which is ironic and sad, considering where they went to school. Smart kids shouldn’t have to go to private schools or get turned away from Bronx Science or Thomas Jefferson simply because there’s no room for them.

Chester E. Finn Jr., the president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, is the author, with Jessica A. Hockett, of “Exam Schools: Inside America’s Most Selective Public High Schools.”

While the high school I go to isn't an "exam" one it does offer plenty of AP and honours classes and thus strikes a good balance IMO.

[Simon_Jester]

Part of the problem is that when you look at this from a public policy standpoint, you have to ask yourself:

Which is more important:

Creating a whole new school system in parallel that will give an optimal education to the 95th percentile and up? Or making sure the 20th percentile and down actually get a high school education?

If as a society we were willing to really write off about 20% of the population, and tell their parents "I'm sorry, but we can't be bothered to keep hanging onto your child and trying to teach them, it's too much work, but keep paying local taxes to support the schools anyway!" it would be a lot easier to raise standards for the system as a whole. Not needing to worry about the kids who get off on being a behavior problem, who have ADHD and forget to take their meds,

Of course, the taxpayers would start kicking a lot of school districts rather hard at that point. I can't blame them.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Part of the problem is that when you look at this from a public policy standpoint, you have to ask yourself:

Which is more important:

Creating a whole new school system in parallel that will give an optimal education to the 95th percentile and up? Or making sure the 20th percentile and down actually get a high school education?

If as a society we were willing to really write off about 20% of the population, and tell their parents "I'm sorry, but we can't be bothered to keep hanging onto your child and trying to teach them, it's too much work, but keep paying local taxes to support the schools anyway!" it would be a lot easier to raise standards for the system as a whole. Not needing to worry about the kids who get off on being a behavior problem, who have ADHD and forget to take their meds,

Of course, the taxpayers would start kicking a lot of school districts rather hard at that point. I can't blame them.

Well, the problem here is that...well... that is a false choice. What if, say, were to to give school districts extra funds earmarked for the creation of magnet schools like Bronx Science. We could do this over and above monetary efforts to shore up failing schools by doing so at the federal level where state budgetary (and for that matter, social) priorities dont matter. In fact, you dont even really have to go through the states. Do it completely federal through the DOE. Feds buy up some land in or near major cities, set up a high-end tuition-free boarding school (boarding optional so as to accommodate kids from rural areas and such) that takes people in on the basis of an academic portfolio, letters of recommendation, etc.

Shit, you could even set up a collaboration with universities. University of Texas: Junior Academy or something like that.

At least then, the Elitism would be on the basis of the kids talent and not the size of their personal trust fund.

[TheFeniX]

Force politicians at the State and Federal level to send their kids to public school and you'll likely see problems like this work themselves out. It's gets kind of old to see shit like this:

Currently, President Obama's two daughters, Malia and Sasha, attend Sidwell Friends School, a private Quaker-inspired institution with an annual tuition of around $29,000, according to a report at Take Part.

30 fucking grand a year? I'm not picking on Obama, they all do this shit: Bluster about improving education (or claiming teachers are overpaid like Scumbag Kerry did), then ship their kids off the private school. Why vote to improve public education when few of them use it?

[Losonti Tokash]

Well, would you send your kids to get an inferior education just on principle, even if you could afford them a better one?

[Magis]

Why vote to improve public education when few of them use it?

Maybe because they're not thrilled that they have to spend so much money out of their own pocket? Maybe because they'd prefer if public education was improved to the level where they could stop spending tens of thousands a year on private school?

Your question is equivalent to, "Why would someone want universal healthcare if they're already paying a fortune for health insurance?" I think the question answers itself.

[spaceviking]

Except that for the extremely wealthy, Universal health care will never be as good private healthcare.

This does not mean that these people can not see the practical benefit of improving schools, but they do not have to experience their failings on a personal level.

[Max]

Why vote to improve public education when few of them use it?

Why use something that you feel is broken? If they were claiming that public education is super awesome and is better than a private education, but turn around and send their children to private institutions, than I can see where the eye raising would come in. But claiming something is broken and needs fixing, and using the alternative until it is fixed seems normal to me. Unless I'm missing something, which is entirely possible.


*edited in a missing word*

[Terralthra]

Force politicians at the State and Federal level to send their kids to public school and you'll likely see problems like this work themselves out. It's gets kind of old to see shit like this:

Currently, President Obama's two daughters, Malia and Sasha, attend Sidwell Friends School, a private Quaker-inspired institution with an annual tuition of around $29,000, according to a report at Take Part.

30 fucking grand a year? I'm not picking on Obama, they all do this shit: Bluster about improving education (or claiming teachers are overpaid like Scumbag Kerry did), then ship their kids off the private school. Why vote to improve public education when few of them use it?

The policy effects of better public education span far more than one politician's children.

[TheFeniX]

Well, would you send your kids to get an inferior education just on principle, even if you could afford them a better one?

Irrelevant since I'm in no position to either change the way schools are run and funded and I don't go up on stage to promise that I'm all for improving public education but instead ship my kids off private school while expanding on bullshit like No Child Left Behind or claiming teachers wanting less students per teacher is "a union thing, they just want to hire more teachers."

Maybe because they'd prefer if public education was improved to the level where they could stop spending tens of thousands a year on private school?

Haha, no. Whatever they "prefer" is irrelevant because they directly have the power to change the system. Besides, even if they improved the system to where it was equal in education to private school, they'd still use private school.

Why use something that you feel is broken? If they were claiming that public education is super awesome and is better than a private education, but turn around and send their children to private institutions, than I can see where the eye raising would come in. But claiming something is broken and needs fixing, and using the alternative until it is fixed seems normal to me. Unless I'm missing something, which is entirely possible.

You guys are fucking with me right? What incentive is there to fix a system you aren't using? I'm not talking about the average person who gets the money together to send their kids to private school. I'm talking about lawmakers at the state and federal level, who actually have the power to change a system, instead just opting out of it by sending their kids to private schools. Those that choose public school are likely sending their kids to the more affluent ones and would fight against something like "Robin Hood" school financing.

And if there is incentive and they are trying to fix it, why the fuck does this thread even exist? Shit, Rick Perry tried to "fix" the Texas Public Education system by slashing funding and turning down millions in Federal Aid. What the fuck does he care if Texas education is shit? He's not using it.

The policy effects of better public education span far more than one politician's children.

Read the fucking link.

Specific figures showed that 41% of representatives in the House and 46% of U.S. senators send or have sent at least one of their children to a private institution. That contrasts with the rest of the country, where only 10% of families send kids to private schools.

According to a report at Black Voices, the last president to send his child to a public school was Jimmy Carter. Carter's daughter Amy attended Stevens Elementary and Hardy Middle School in Washington DC before enrolling in Holton-Arms, a private school in Bethesda. Amy was constantly flanked by security during her public education years, and she wasn't allowed to play on the playground at recess because it was too close to a street. However, those in the city who saw the President utilize the public schools in his area were more likely to believe him when he said he was advocating for a better school system for all American children.

One politician my ass.

Forcing them to use public schools won't fix the problem overnight. Hell, it might not fix the problem at all because they'll just do what all people with money do: consolidate themselves into an area and pour millions into their specific ISD/school.

[Losonti Tokash]

It's not irrelevant, I am literally asking you what you would do if you were in the exact same position. Just saying "well I'm not!" is not as answer.

[Magis]

Maybe because they'd prefer if public education was improved to the level where they could stop spending tens of thousands a year on private school?

Haha, no. Whatever they "prefer" is irrelevant because they directly have the power to change the system.

Who does? What individual in, for example, the United States, has the authority to unilaterally improve the public education system to private school quality?

Besides, even if they improved the system to where it was equal in education to private school, they'd still use private school.

Please justify this claim with some sort of evidence.

[Terralthra]

The policy effects of better public education span far more than one politician's children.

Read the fucking link.

Specific figures showed that 41% of representatives in the House and 46% of U.S. senators send or have sent at least one of their children to a private institution. That contrasts with the rest of the country, where only 10% of families send kids to private schools.

According to a report at Black Voices, the last president to send his child to a public school was Jimmy Carter. Carter's daughter Amy attended Stevens Elementary and Hardy Middle School in Washington DC before enrolling in Holton-Arms, a private school in Bethesda. Amy was constantly flanked by security during her public education years, and she wasn't allowed to play on the playground at recess because it was too close to a street. However, those in the city who saw the President utilize the public schools in his area were more likely to believe him when he said he was advocating for a better school system for all American children.

One politician my ass.

Forcing them to use public schools won't fix the problem overnight. Hell, it might not fix the problem at all because they'll just do what all people with money do: consolidate themselves into an area and pour millions into their specific ISD/school.

Way to have the point sail way the fuck over your head. Every legislator in the country, from Congress to state Houses to your local city council, could ALL send their kids to private schools, and it still would not change the point: the quality of public education continues to affect their daily lives. Literacy and numeracy rates in communities directly impact the employment numbers, crime rates, etc. People who read contribute more to charity and vote more often. And so on.

[Simon_Jester]

Well, the problem here is that...well... that is a false choice. What if, say, were to to give school districts extra funds earmarked for the creation of magnet schools like Bronx Science. We could do this over and above monetary efforts to shore up failing schools by doing so at the federal level where state budgetary (and for that matter, social) priorities dont matter. In fact, you dont even really have to go through the states. Do it completely federal through the DOE. Feds buy up some land in or near major cities, set up a high-end tuition-free boarding school (boarding optional so as to accommodate kids from rural areas and such) that takes people in on the basis of an academic portfolio, letters of recommendation, etc.

Shit, you could even set up a collaboration with universities. University of Texas: Junior Academy or something like that.

At least then, the Elitism would be on the basis of the kids talent and not the size of their personal trust fund.

I'd really love to think education funding in this country isn't a conserved quantity, that we can pay Paul without robbing Peter.

Why vote to improve public education when few of them use it?

Why use something that you feel is broken? If they were claiming that public education is super awesome and is better than a private education, but turn around and send their children to private institutions, than I can see where the eye raising would come in. But claiming something is broken and needs fixing, and using the alternative until it is fixed seems normal to me. Unless I'm missing something, which is entirely possible.

*edited in a missing word*

The criticism is that they avoid fixing the broken system because they personally have no stake in it. Everybody else does, but that doesn't affect them much, not when they can just rant about the broken system, blame the opposing party, and get free votes without changing anything significant by providing resources or flexibility or anything.

You can talk about the indirect effects, but a lot of politicians don't think about the problem that deeply, or don't appear to. Statesmen are a very rare, precious commodity in modern politics. There aren't enough of them.

[Irbis]

Besides, even if they improved the system to where it was equal in education to private school, they'd still use private school.

Please justify this claim with some sort of evidence.

Simple - a lot of rich people would send kid to private school even if it had the same level as public one because A) by doing that the kid will hang out with other rich kids, not with that 'plebeian trash' other schools have, B) director/teachers of private school are much more likely to kneel before parents demands than that of public one. Yes, idealists or people who don't think Africans doing stuff for 2$ per day are better workers might send children to public schools, but sadly, they are minority of the rich.

[Zaune]

Well, would you send your kids to get an inferior education just on principle, even if you could afford them a better one?

No, of course not. But there's more to education than what happens in the classroom. My mum was privately educated and I don't think she even met a black person until she was in her twenties, or interacted with a working-class person of any ethnicity for longer than it took to order in a restaurant until Dad introduced her to his grandparents.

[DarkArk]

B) director/teachers of private school are much more likely to kneel before parents demands than that of public one.

And you base this assertion on what exactly? Given my own personal work with schools, I'd say it was the opposite. Private schools might give parents more avenues of communication, but in terms of changing school policy good luck. If the president wants to change something, it's likely to change.

What individual in, for example, the United States, has the authority to unilaterally improve the public education system to private school quality?

No one does. You couldn't get a more decentralized system if you tried. Which is why US public instruction is all over the board. Some areas of it are incredibly well funded and rate among the best schools in the world, others significantly less so. Ironically for this discussion private schools are not always better than public, it really depends on the individual schools.

[Alyrium Denryle]

I'd really love to think education funding in this country isn't a conserved quantity, that we can pay Paul without robbing Peter.

If people gave a shit, it wouldn't be. Not to be pedantic, but we did kinda spend >3.4 trillion USD in order to kill a million people in Iraq displace something like ten times that many etc in revenge for 3k deaths committed by Saudi members of an organization based in Afghanistan. With that money we would have set up an endowment to end world hunger (30 billion per year), provide everyone on the planet with clean drinking water (12 billion to start, 5 billion a year therafter by way of current generation water filters), treat all AIDS, Malaria, and TB Infections... in perpetuity. Oh, and Eradicate Polio.

We could have done all of that, and had enough money left over to do what I proposed above, start addressing climate change and build Gingrich's Moon Base for shits and giggles.

[Simon_Jester]

Simple - a lot of rich people would send kid to private school even if it had the same level as public one because A) by doing that the kid will hang out with other rich kids, not with that 'plebeian trash' other schools have, B) director/teachers of private school are much more likely to kneel before parents demands than that of public one. Yes, idealists or people who don't think Africans doing stuff for 2$ per day are better workers might send children to public schools, but sadly, they are minority of the rich.

Thing is, if you're truly upper-crust and spending huge sums on a private school education you expect results, and have enough money to get them. You can get pretty damn good teachers for a private school by offering six-figure salaries, and the Richard J. Butterworth Academy for Budding Multimillionaires can probably afford to pay that kind of salary.

So the school ends up being better by default. It's got enough money to hire the best, it can reject any individual students who disrupt the teaching environment, and it can keep together a strong support staff which helps keep the teachers from becoming overworked and ineffective.

Public schools have problems with all three of those things.

[amigocabal]

I'd really love to think education funding in this country isn't a conserved quantity, that we can pay Paul without robbing Peter.

If people gave a shit, it wouldn't be. Not to be pedantic, but we did kinda spend >3.4 trillion USD in order to kill a million people in Iraq displace something like ten times that many etc in revenge for 3k deaths committed by Saudi members of an organization based in Afghanistan. With that money we would have set up an endowment to end world hunger (30 billion per year), provide everyone on the planet with clean drinking water (12 billion to start, 5 billion a year therafter by way of current generation water filters), treat all AIDS, Malaria, and TB Infections... in perpetuity. Oh, and Eradicate Polio.

We could have done all of that, and had enough money left over to do what I proposed above, start addressing climate change and build Gingrich's Moon Base for shits and giggles.

Uh, l get your facts straight. The amount spent on the invasion of Iraq is far less than 3.4 trillion USD.

If you want a better comparison, use the 700 billion USD bank bailout, which was more than what was spent on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to date. That was surely a waste of money.

[Terralthra]

I'd really love to think education funding in this country isn't a conserved quantity, that we can pay Paul without robbing Peter.

If people gave a shit, it wouldn't be. Not to be pedantic, but we did kinda spend >3.4 trillion USD in order to kill a million people in Iraq displace something like ten times that many etc in revenge for 3k deaths committed by Saudi members of an organization based in Afghanistan. With that money we would have set up an endowment to end world hunger (30 billion per year), provide everyone on the planet with clean drinking water (12 billion to start, 5 billion a year therafter by way of current generation water filters), treat all AIDS, Malaria, and TB Infections... in perpetuity. Oh, and Eradicate Polio.

We could have done all of that, and had enough money left over to do what I proposed above, start addressing climate change and build Gingrich's Moon Base for shits and giggles.

Uh, l get your facts straight. The amount spent on the invasion of Iraq is far less than 3.4 trillion USD.

If you want a better comparison, use the 700 billion USD bank bailout, which was more than what was spent on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to date. That was surely a waste of money.

Or you could get YOUR facts straight.

[amigocabal]

If people gave a shit, it wouldn't be. Not to be pedantic, but we did kinda spend >3.4 trillion USD in order to kill a million people in Iraq displace something like ten times that many etc in revenge for 3k deaths committed by Saudi members of an organization based in Afghanistan. With that money we would have set up an endowment to end world hunger (30 billion per year), provide everyone on the planet with clean drinking water (12 billion to start, 5 billion a year therafter by way of current generation water filters), treat all AIDS, Malaria, and TB Infections... in perpetuity. Oh, and Eradicate Polio.

We could have done all of that, and had enough money left over to do what I proposed above, start addressing climate change and build Gingrich's Moon Base for shits and giggles.

Uh, l get your facts straight. The amount spent on the invasion of Iraq is far less than 3.4 trillion USD.

If you want a better comparison, use the 700 billion USD bank bailout, which was more than what was spent on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to date. That was surely a waste of money.

Or you could get YOUR facts straight.

Seriously, Vanity Fucking Fair?

I know for a fact that the total spent on Afghanistan and Iraq was less than seven hundred billion dollars in 2008, less than the ill-advised bank bailout that year.

Hereis budget information as of 2011.

the cost of war is here. The total cost of both wars is about a trillion. total spending since 2003 is twenty trillion.

Even with Vanity Fair's outlandish estimate, there would still be seventeen trillion left to "set up an endowment to end world hunger (30 billion per year), provide everyone on the planet with clean drinking water (12 billion to start, 5 billion a year therafter by way of current generation water filters), treat all AIDS, Malaria, and TB Infections... in perpetuity". Therefore, blaming the war for not being able to "set up an endowment to end world hunger (30 billion per year), provide everyone on the planet with clean drinking water (12 billion to start, 5 billion a year therafter by way of current generation water filters), treat all AIDS, Malaria, and TB Infections... in perpetuity" is inaccurate.

[Terralthra]

Or you could get YOUR facts straight.

Seriously, Vanity Fucking Fair?

I know for a fact that the total spent on Afghanistan and Iraq was less than seven hundred billion dollars in 2008, less than the ill-advised bank bailout that year.

Hereis budget information as of 2011.

the cost of war is here. The total cost of both wars is about a trillion. total spending since 2003 is twenty trillion.

Potential future costs, such as future medical care for soldiers and veterans wounded in the war, are not included. These figures also do not include additional interest payments on the national debt that will result from higher deficits due to war spending.

"Seriously, Vanity Fair?!" is the DEFINITION of an ad hominem.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Seriously, Vanity Fucking Fair?

I know for a fact that the total spent on Afghanistan and Iraq was less than seven hundred billion dollars in 2008, less than the ill-advised bank bailout that year.

Hereis budget information as of 2011.

the cost of war is here. The total cost of both wars is about a trillion. total spending since 2003 is twenty trillion.

You are an idiot. 3.4 trillion includes a projection of future costs, which is a better measure of how much something costs. We took out massive loans to go to war, those loans have interest payments. We have soldiers who will need medical care due to physical and mental injuries for the rest of their lives.

Even with Vanity Fair's outlandish estimate, there would still be seventeen trillion left to

<snip>

Therefore, blaming the war for not being able to "set up an endowment to end world hunger (30 billion per year), provide everyone on the planet with clean drinking water (12 billion to start, 5 billion a year therafter by way of current generation water filters), treat all AIDS, Malaria, and TB Infections... in perpetuity" is inaccurate.

That is not how it works, numbnuts. We have a lot of non-discretionary spending. Medicare, SS, other social programs and entitlements. We also have discretionary spending that goes toward critical functions and other social goods. Funding the FBI, keeping the lights on at the CDC that sort of thing. The war is truly discretionary. It generates opportunity costs. Costs like massive social goods.

It is not that I am blaming the war for our not doing all of those things. I was countering the notion that we CANNOT pay for those things. We can. Our society would just prefer to kill children rather than educate them.

[amigocabal]

"Seriously, Vanity Fair?!" is the DEFINITION of an ad hominem.

If someone cited the National Vanguard as an authoritative source on the Holocaust, I would have that same reaction.

You are an idiot. 3.4 trillion includes a projection of future costs, which is a better measure of how much something costs. We took out massive loans to go to war, those loans have interest payments. We have soldiers who will need medical care due to physical and mental injuries for the rest of their lives.

By that logic, we are still paying for WWII and the Korean War.

Currently, President Obama's two daughters, Malia and Sasha, attend Sidwell Friends School, a private Quaker-inspired institution with an annual tuition of around $29,000, according to a report at Take Part.

I do not find that blameworthy.

Public schools have been known for many things, from punishing students caught with a piece of pizza shaped like a gun to kicking cheerleaders off cheerleading squads for refusing to cheer for their rapists. I fail to see how additional spending would solve those.