Graphs of the Day: Texas Private School Enrollments & Expenditures
Below are a series of graphs of the distribution of enrollments and average total expenditures for Texas private schools. I figure these are particularly relevant as the Texas legislature entertains the idea of providing vouchers for private schools in Texas. These data, unfortunately, are from a few years back – based on 2008 IRS tax filings of private schools. Further, because I used IRS filings to determine expenditures, certain groups of schools – most notably Catholic schools – are noticeably underrepresented in the financial analysis. That said, I was able to compile sufficient data on relatively large numbers of Independent Schools (about 75% of all nationally) and Christian Schools (nearly 1/3… not great, but reasonable numbers). Those two groups of schools represent a significant share of Texas private school enrollments.
Here’s the punchline from these graphs. If we have any expectation that a voucher program is going to provide religious neutrality in access to private schooling or to provide sufficient opportunity to attend high quality non-religious, private independent schools, then voucher levels likely need to be much higher than commonly recommended. This then raises the key policy question – if the vouchers would have to be much higher than the average current public school expenditure – and the outcomes unknown – why would we adopt such a policy?
As the larger study (link) below shows, private schools are not uniformly/systematically “cheaper” and/or “better”