The p/p hegemony continues unabated

[cloudofdust]

3 minutes ago, FastpacedO said:

No he is telling you P/P's are not controlling their enrollment to remain in a certain class for football so they can win blue ring.

Most are hoping to have more applicants to fill to capacity. Those who wouldn't be good candidates to enroll likely aren't enrolling in the first place because their parents aren't going to take the risk.

I wasn’t really talking so much amount numbers as I was quality.  Read the line next to what was bolded. 
The quality of the student/athlete is different. 

Who would not be a good candidate specifically? I’m genuinely curious what you P/P guys consider a “risk”. 

[FastpacedO]

5 minutes ago, cloudofdust said:

I wasn’t really talking so much amount numbers as I was quality.  Read the line next to what was bolded. 
The quality of the student/athlete is different. 

Who would not be a good candidate specifically? I’m genuinely curious what you P/P guys consider a “risk”. 

Unfortunately there are those on here that honestly believe they control their enrollment to a certain number so they can stay in a certain class just for football so they can win a State Championship. In simple terms more students in the classroom equals more tuition being payed. More tuition being payed equals more money to pay the bills, salaries, etc. So if High School Little Sisters of the Poor has a building that can hold a capacity of 1,000 students and they have the staff to take that on, they are not going to restrict their enrollment to 500 students so they can be in 3A just to win a State Football Championship.

A student that doesn't want to complete the essay required, the placement test required. More than likely a parent isn't going to fork out $16,000 (less with Financial Aid) if their child can't make the grades. Any student who won't abide by the code of conduct, most likely a parent isn't going to fork out the money if they are at risk of not aboding by the code of conduct.

By the term "risk" I mean a parent isn't going to fork out money for their child to attend a Private or Parochial school if they are at risk or in danger/capable of failing or disobeying the code of conduct. 

[gonzoron]

Well, at least we all know the P/P's won't ever dominate the Unified Flag Football tournaments.

[foxbat]

5 minutes ago, cloudofdust said:

Again, what causes enrollment to be an issue?

Surely students wouldn't be turned down or left out for any reason would they?

I've posted this in many threads over the years.  Most people who make the statement that you've made operate from the idea that private school demand is much more than the supply and thus private schools are "obviously" gaming the system to stay in various sports enrollment classes.  The reality is that demand is way under the supply space available. 

There are many things that drive lower demand than seats available, but let's start with some general demographic info about folks that MIGHT consider private school education.  incidentally, I'm going to speak about the idea of religious private schools because that's the bulk of private schools in Indiana and that's also where my response came from and also likely where @coachkj's coming from as well.

• The VAST majority of people who attend faith-based schools in Indiana are members of that faith.  That is, the vast majority of kids at LCC are Catholic.  The vast majority of kids at Faith Christian tend to be Protestant.  I'd suspect that the vast majority at Indy Lutheran are Lutheran.  I don't know about Indy Lutheran for sure because my experience with them has typically been as a visitor on their campus, but I know that locally, the vast majority of kids that attend St. James Lutheran are Lutheran.  Are there kids that crossover?  Sure.  There are a couple of kids from St. James that attend LCC.  St. James only has K-8, so kids from St. James that play football might attend LCC if their folks want a Christian schooling and they want to play ball, but that's about 50/50 at best ... see below.  There are kids from Faith Christian that played youth ball at LCC because Faith didn't have football up until this year when they started playing 8-man.
• Now let's get to the demand side of things.  For you to attend LCC, there are MANY things that have to all be true to get you in the door that have nothing at all to do with test scores, etc.  Those kinds of items cloud the very basic fact that the front of the funnel is wide, but there aren't that many that even end up in the funnel:
  • As mentioned above, the first thing is that the VAST majority of people entering LCC are going to be Catholic.  That takes out a LARGE number of people from the "potential" attendees.  Yes, there will be some that aren't Catholic that will attend, but it's not a very large number and most non-Catholics self-select out before they get anywhere near the funnel.
  • Secondly, Catholics in general don't attend Catholic schools ... PRACTICING Catholics do.  So while Tippecanoe's Catholic population is around 11-12% Catholic, the practicing Catholic population is less.  Note, practicing Catholic population doesn't necessarily mean registered parishioner either.  There are plenty of registered Catholics that are what are referred to as Creaster Catholics ... they attend Mass only at Christmas and Easter annually and, sometimes, just one of those.
  • The next step involves money or DESIRE for Catholic/Christian education.  You can take them in either order, but I'll take desire first as, if the desire isn't there, then the money part really doesn't matter.  If you are Catholic and practicing, you then have to have the desire for the kids' education to be served by the Catholic school.  The idea behind Catholic education is that faith is an aspect of every part of life, including the education, and thus the focus on faith is present, in a Catholic education, across the board at all times in education.  It's not the only way, but it is a way where that idea is baked in to the process.  My kids were/are homeschooled for part of their education.  We have a pretty good faith life, so for my kids, faith was always part of their day whether they were at Catholic school, homeschooled, public school, etc.  For others, they have that desire to have a more structured education and a more structured infusion of faith during that time.  If you don't care about the faith part as part of the daily education process in non-religious coursework, and I don't mean that in a bad way, then even if you are Catholic and practicing, you aren't going to worry about Catholic school as a vehicle.  With that said, there are also varying levels of desire which impact "exit point" in Catholic education even with practicing Catholics with desire. 
    • Some are interested in general foundation, so they enroll kids up until they make their First Communion in Catholic school.  Typically through 2nd or 3rd grade.
    • Some take the foundation further and have their kids in Catholic schools through various break points ... like 6th grade or 8th grade to build a faith foundation.  This also comes into play sometimes where parents want a hybrid education for their kids ... i.e., some Catholic and some public.
  • Next is money.  You can be Catholic, practicing Catholic, and have the desire, but money can be an issue too.  Vouchers help with some of the cost offset, but depending on the number of kids and other issues facing you, the finances just may not work out.  Also, even if you have the money, you may want to spend it on something else or, in making a cost benefit decision, even with desire, might decide that tuition is something that you want to start spending when your kid gets to college.  There are a decent number of people who would probably send their kids to Catholic school if it was free, but have made a cost-benefit decision against that option.  There are also some, like desire above, where there are "break points" for financial impact.  Typically price breaks take place between elementary and junior high and junior high and high school in most Catholic education environments that can have impact on exit ramps in Catholic education.

So now we get back to the original question and also to the fact that, while the argument is that Catholic/private schools can get students from "all of the state" and from everywhere, more realistically, you have to typically find:

• Someone who is Catholic
• Someone who is practicing Catholic
• Someone who has the desire for Catholic education compared to the alternatives
• Someone who has the willingness to pay for the option
• Likely, in most cases, in closer proximity to the school ... although the desire aspect above can sometimes overrule the money and distance aspect

Using the items above, and applying them to the VAST majority of people, even if you are talking about the entire state, you see that the demand side is the constraint in the equation.  Just a quick number exercise for TippCo:

• Tippecanoe County has around 180,000 citizens
• The county has 27,390 school age kids aged 5-17
• Assuming that 12% of those kids are Catholic, that leaves LCSS a "pool" of 2,739 Catholic kids to work with.
• About 4 in 10 Catholics say that they attend Mass at least once a week.  We can use that as a surrogate for practicing Catholics.  That's 40% of 2,739 or roughly 1,095.  And that's BEFORE we get to desire and money.
• LCSS, across five schools and K-12, has about 900 kids enrolled.

That's the enrollment issue in a nutshell for almost all of the religious private schools that you will see.  And, as you can see, the enrollment capping stuff pretty much happens before a family even gets a hold of an application form.  Most of the argument from folks about enrollment control tends to address it from the county population or the school age population in the area, but the pool is, realistically, much smaller than that.

 

[Bobref]

On 11/28/2023 at 7:37 AM, Muda69 said:

Sorry that "hegemony" is too high brow for you.

It’s “highbrow,” one word. 🤣😅😂

[tango]

1 hour ago, foxbat said:

I've posted this in many threads over the years.  Most people who make the statement that you've made operate from the idea that private school demand is much more than the supply and thus private schools are "obviously" gaming the system to stay in various sports enrollment classes.  The reality is that demand is way under the supply space available. 

There are many things that drive lower demand than seats available, but let's start with some general demographic info about folks that MIGHT consider private school education.  incidentally, I'm going to speak about the idea of religious private schools because that's the bulk of private schools in Indiana and that's also where my response came from and also likely where @coachkj's coming from as well.

• The VAST majority of people who attend faith-based schools in Indiana are members of that faith.  That is, the vast majority of kids at LCC are Catholic.  The vast majority of kids at Faith Christian tend to be Protestant.  I'd suspect that the vast majority at Indy Lutheran are Lutheran.  I don't know about Indy Lutheran for sure because my experience with them has typically been as a visitor on their campus, but I know that locally, the vast majority of kids that attend St. James Lutheran are Lutheran.  Are there kids that crossover?  Sure.  There are a couple of kids from St. James that attend LCC.  St. James only has K-8, so kids from St. James that play football might attend LCC if their folks want a Christian schooling and they want to play ball, but that's about 50/50 at best ... see below.  There are kids from Faith Christian that played youth ball at LCC because Faith didn't have football up until this year when they started playing 8-man.
• Now let's get to the demand side of things.  For you to attend LCC, there are MANY things that have to all be true to get you in the door that have nothing at all to do with test scores, etc.  Those kinds of items cloud the very basic fact that the front of the funnel is wide, but there aren't that many that even end up in the funnel:
  • As mentioned above, the first thing is that the VAST majority of people entering LCC are going to be Catholic.  That takes out a LARGE number of people from the "potential" attendees.  Yes, there will be some that aren't Catholic that will attend, but it's not a very large number and most non-Catholics self-select out before they get anywhere near the funnel.
  • Secondly, Catholics in general don't attend Catholic schools ... PRACTICING Catholics do.  So while Tippecanoe's Catholic population is around 11-12% Catholic, the practicing Catholic population is less.  Note, practicing Catholic population doesn't necessarily mean registered parishioner either.  There are plenty of registered Catholics that are what are referred to as Creaster Catholics ... they attend Mass only at Christmas and Easter annually and, sometimes, just one of those.
  • The next step involves money or DESIRE for Catholic/Christian education.  You can take them in either order, but I'll take desire first as, if the desire isn't there, then the money part really doesn't matter.  If you are Catholic and practicing, you then have to have the desire for the kids' education to be served by the Catholic school.  The idea behind Catholic education is that faith is an aspect of every part of life, including the education, and thus the focus on faith is present, in a Catholic education, across the board at all times in education.  It's not the only way, but it is a way where that idea is baked in to the process.  My kids were/are homeschooled for part of their education.  We have a pretty good faith life, so for my kids, faith was always part of their day whether they were at Catholic school, homeschooled, public school, etc.  For others, they have that desire to have a more structured education and a more structured infusion of faith during that time.  If you don't care about the faith part as part of the daily education process in non-religious coursework, and I don't mean that in a bad way, then even if you are Catholic and practicing, you aren't going to worry about Catholic school as a vehicle.  With that said, there are also varying levels of desire which impact "exit point" in Catholic education even with practicing Catholics with desire. 
    • Some are interested in general foundation, so they enroll kids up until they make their First Communion in Catholic school.  Typically through 2nd or 3rd grade.
    • Some take the foundation further and have their kids in Catholic schools through various break points ... like 6th grade or 8th grade to build a faith foundation.  This also comes into play sometimes where parents want a hybrid education for their kids ... i.e., some Catholic and some public.
  • Next is money.  You can be Catholic, practicing Catholic, and have the desire, but money can be an issue too.  Vouchers help with some of the cost offset, but depending on the number of kids and other issues facing you, the finances just may not work out.  Also, even if you have the money, you may want to spend it on something else or, in making a cost benefit decision, even with desire, might decide that tuition is something that you want to start spending when your kid gets to college.  There are a decent number of people who would probably send their kids to Catholic school if it was free, but have made a cost-benefit decision against that option.  There are also some, like desire above, where there are "break points" for financial impact.  Typically price breaks take place between elementary and junior high and junior high and high school in most Catholic education environments that can have impact on exit ramps in Catholic education.

So now we get back to the original question and also to the fact that, while the argument is that Catholic/private schools can get students from "all of the state" and from everywhere, more realistically, you have to typically find:

• Someone who is Catholic
• Someone who is practicing Catholic
• Someone who has the desire for Catholic education compared to the alternatives
• Someone who has the willingness to pay for the option
• Likely, in most cases, in closer proximity to the school ... although the desire aspect above can sometimes overrule the money and distance aspect

Using the items above, and applying them to the VAST majority of people, even if you are talking about the entire state, you see that the demand side is the constraint in the equation.  Just a quick number exercise for TippCo:

• Tippecanoe County has around 180,000 citizens
• The county has 27,390 school age kids aged 5-17
• Assuming that 12% of those kids are Catholic, that leaves LCSS a "pool" of 2,739 Catholic kids to work with.
• About 4 in 10 Catholics say that they attend Mass at least once a week.  We can use that as a surrogate for practicing Catholics.  That's 40% of 2,739 or roughly 1,095.  And that's BEFORE we get to desire and money.
• LCSS, across five schools and K-12, has about 900 kids enrolled.

That's the enrollment issue in a nutshell for almost all of the religious private schools that you will see.  And, as you can see, the enrollment capping stuff pretty much happens before a family even gets a hold of an application form.  Most of the argument from folks about enrollment control tends to address it from the county population or the school age population in the area, but the pool is, realistically, much smaller than that.

 

The best explanation I've ever seen and accurately describes what Memorial and Mater Dei experience here in Evansville. Our enrollment declined during the time we were appearing at Lucas Oil.

Edited November 30, 2023 by tango

[Titan32]

Georgia uses “school zones” with a per student multiplier for students who come in from outside the zone.  P/Ps also have to establish reasonable zones around their feeders.

https://outsidethehuddle.net/2023/11/27/blitz-the-eternal-public-vs-private-debate-and-what-should-change-if-anything/?fbclid=IwAR0Q78ZTExHYdHUjv1C85DBaPfyIFddb_3EqshR-GiVDlvZGXLaMEzCGhdU

 

[Tippy]

42 minutes ago, Titan32 said:

Georgia uses “school zones” with a per student multiplier for students who come in from outside the zone.  P/Ps also have to establish reasonable zones around their feeders.

https://outsidethehuddle.net/2023/11/27/blitz-the-eternal-public-vs-private-debate-and-what-should-change-if-anything/?fbclid=IwAR0Q78ZTExHYdHUjv1C85DBaPfyIFddb_3EqshR-GiVDlvZGXLaMEzCGhdU

 

Should South Bend St. Joseph's, Mishawaka Marian, Hammond Bishop Noll, and Indy Ritter have to do that?  Those teams were good at one time, but they don't win many football games anymore.

[foxbat]

13 minutes ago, Tippy said:

Should South Bend St. Joseph's, Mishawaka Marian, Hammond Bishop Noll, and Indy Ritter have to do that?  Those teams were good at one time, but they don't win many football games anymore.

How about FW Blackhawk?  They've been good in baseball historically, but after their first season in football have discovered that p/p success in one sport may not be nearly as transferable to other p/p sports.

[Titan32]

20 minutes ago, Tippy said:

Should South Bend St. Joseph's, Mishawaka Marian, Hammond Bishop Noll, and Indy Ritter have to do that?  Those teams were good at one time, but they don't win many football games anymore.

If they aren't very good they probably won't have kids come in from outside the zone.

[tango]

7 minutes ago, Titan32 said:

If they aren't very good they probably won't have kids come in from outside the zone.

We've been pretty good and haven't seen any kids from outside what would be a reasonable zone from our feeders. Certainly less distance than what GS had a couple of healthy OLinemen travel from in 2021....

[WWFan]

23 minutes ago, foxbat said:

How about FW Blackhawk?  They've been good in baseball historically, but after their first season in football have discovered that p/p success in one sport may not be nearly as transferable to other p/p sports.

Pretty damn good in basketball too

I'm sure football is coming

[tango]

21 minutes ago, WWFan said:

Pretty damn good in basketball too

I'm sure football is coming

For the most part, in the smaller classes there is little correlation to success in football with success in basketball, and vice versa.

[WWFan]

16 minutes ago, tango said:

For the most part, in the smaller classes there is little correlation to success in football with success in basketball, and vice versa.

Good in baseball. Good in basketball. I'm sure they will be good in football in due time. 

[Tippy]

1 hour ago, foxbat said:

How about FW Blackhawk?  They've been good in baseball historically, but after their first season in football have discovered that p/p success in one sport may not be nearly as transferable to other p/p sports.

They might win 5 years from now, so to be on the safe side, they will have to move up.  🙂

[jets]

On 11/28/2023 at 10:42 AM, US31 said:

 

To be clear...I was never a proponent of SF or a class "bump" for p/p's.  I would have preferred a "clearninghouse" method of counting enrollment (i.e. kids who want to participate in ANY extracurricular - football, sports, music, student gov, or even those parasitic robotics and chess club kids you despise, would be "counted" as they fill out an inschool clearing house form.). Most schools already have a code of conduct form that extracurricular kids have to complete (or something similar) so its not a hard number to determine.  This number would be used for classificaiton.  The percentage of kids in the clearinghouse would probably be very similar between Chatard, Zionsville, Brebeuf, Carmel....but drastically different at Elkhart, IPS, South Bend, etc.

 

 

This might actually be the best idea I've read on this subject in a long time. 

[cloudofdust]

13 hours ago, foxbat said:

I've posted this in many threads over the years.  Most people who make the statement that you've made operate from the idea that private school demand is much more than the supply and thus private schools are "obviously" gaming the system to stay in various sports enrollment classes.  The reality is that demand is way under the supply space available. 

There are many things that drive lower demand than seats available, but let's start with some general demographic info about folks that MIGHT consider private school education.  incidentally, I'm going to speak about the idea of religious private schools because that's the bulk of private schools in Indiana and that's also where my response came from and also likely where @coachkj's coming from as well.

• The VAST majority of people who attend faith-based schools in Indiana are members of that faith.  That is, the vast majority of kids at LCC are Catholic.  The vast majority of kids at Faith Christian tend to be Protestant.  I'd suspect that the vast majority at Indy Lutheran are Lutheran.  I don't know about Indy Lutheran for sure because my experience with them has typically been as a visitor on their campus, but I know that locally, the vast majority of kids that attend St. James Lutheran are Lutheran.  Are there kids that crossover?  Sure.  There are a couple of kids from St. James that attend LCC.  St. James only has K-8, so kids from St. James that play football might attend LCC if their folks want a Christian schooling and they want to play ball, but that's about 50/50 at best ... see below.  There are kids from Faith Christian that played youth ball at LCC because Faith didn't have football up until this year when they started playing 8-man.
• Now let's get to the demand side of things.  For you to attend LCC, there are MANY things that have to all be true to get you in the door that have nothing at all to do with test scores, etc.  Those kinds of items cloud the very basic fact that the front of the funnel is wide, but there aren't that many that even end up in the funnel:
  • As mentioned above, the first thing is that the VAST majority of people entering LCC are going to be Catholic.  That takes out a LARGE number of people from the "potential" attendees.  Yes, there will be some that aren't Catholic that will attend, but it's not a very large number and most non-Catholics self-select out before they get anywhere near the funnel.
  • Secondly, Catholics in general don't attend Catholic schools ... PRACTICING Catholics do.  So while Tippecanoe's Catholic population is around 11-12% Catholic, the practicing Catholic population is less.  Note, practicing Catholic population doesn't necessarily mean registered parishioner either.  There are plenty of registered Catholics that are what are referred to as Creaster Catholics ... they attend Mass only at Christmas and Easter annually and, sometimes, just one of those.
  • The next step involves money or DESIRE for Catholic/Christian education.  You can take them in either order, but I'll take desire first as, if the desire isn't there, then the money part really doesn't matter.  If you are Catholic and practicing, you then have to have the desire for the kids' education to be served by the Catholic school.  The idea behind Catholic education is that faith is an aspect of every part of life, including the education, and thus the focus on faith is present, in a Catholic education, across the board at all times in education.  It's not the only way, but it is a way where that idea is baked in to the process.  My kids were/are homeschooled for part of their education.  We have a pretty good faith life, so for my kids, faith was always part of their day whether they were at Catholic school, homeschooled, public school, etc.  For others, they have that desire to have a more structured education and a more structured infusion of faith during that time.  If you don't care about the faith part as part of the daily education process in non-religious coursework, and I don't mean that in a bad way, then even if you are Catholic and practicing, you aren't going to worry about Catholic school as a vehicle.  With that said, there are also varying levels of desire which impact "exit point" in Catholic education even with practicing Catholics with desire. 
    • Some are interested in general foundation, so they enroll kids up until they make their First Communion in Catholic school.  Typically through 2nd or 3rd grade.
    • Some take the foundation further and have their kids in Catholic schools through various break points ... like 6th grade or 8th grade to build a faith foundation.  This also comes into play sometimes where parents want a hybrid education for their kids ... i.e., some Catholic and some public.
  • Next is money.  You can be Catholic, practicing Catholic, and have the desire, but money can be an issue too.  Vouchers help with some of the cost offset, but depending on the number of kids and other issues facing you, the finances just may not work out.  Also, even if you have the money, you may want to spend it on something else or, in making a cost benefit decision, even with desire, might decide that tuition is something that you want to start spending when your kid gets to college.  There are a decent number of people who would probably send their kids to Catholic school if it was free, but have made a cost-benefit decision against that option.  There are also some, like desire above, where there are "break points" for financial impact.  Typically price breaks take place between elementary and junior high and junior high and high school in most Catholic education environments that can have impact on exit ramps in Catholic education.

So now we get back to the original question and also to the fact that, while the argument is that Catholic/private schools can get students from "all of the state" and from everywhere, more realistically, you have to typically find:

• Someone who is Catholic
• Someone who is practicing Catholic
• Someone who has the desire for Catholic education compared to the alternatives
• Someone who has the willingness to pay for the option
• Likely, in most cases, in closer proximity to the school ... although the desire aspect above can sometimes overrule the money and distance aspect

Using the items above, and applying them to the VAST majority of people, even if you are talking about the entire state, you see that the demand side is the constraint in the equation.  Just a quick number exercise for TippCo:

• Tippecanoe County has around 180,000 citizens
• The county has 27,390 school age kids aged 5-17
• Assuming that 12% of those kids are Catholic, that leaves LCSS a "pool" of 2,739 Catholic kids to work with.
• About 4 in 10 Catholics say that they attend Mass at least once a week.  We can use that as a surrogate for practicing Catholics.  That's 40% of 2,739 or roughly 1,095.  And that's BEFORE we get to desire and money.
• LCSS, across five schools and K-12, has about 900 kids enrolled.

That's the enrollment issue in a nutshell for almost all of the religious private schools that you will see.  And, as you can see, the enrollment capping stuff pretty much happens before a family even gets a hold of an application form.  Most of the argument from folks about enrollment control tends to address it from the county population or the school age population in the area, but the pool is, realistically, much smaller than that.

 

Thank you for the very thorough explanation of the rigorous enrollment procedures. It's not an exaggeration when I say I actually  read most of it.😉 Narrowing 27,390 students down to just 900 (3%) is no small task indeed! 

The law of supply and demand is basic economics. When demand is low and supply is high, you lower the cost and/or standard. If numbers are truly at the top of the list, I would suspect that strategy would be in place.

It's apparent that a student/athlete's decision to attend one of these schools and their dedication and commitment to their faith, school, teachers, administrators, parents and self is truly unparalleled. 

Conversely, public schools have registration day. Five minutes of filling out forms gives you a genuine ticket to ride!

[Just a dad]

12 minutes ago, cloudofdust said:

Thank you for the very thorough explanation of the rigorous enrollment procedures. It's not an exaggeration when I say I actually  read most of it.😉 Narrowing 27,390 students down to just 900 (3%) is no small task indeed! 

The law of supply and demand is basic economics. When demand is low and supply is high, you lower the cost and/or standard. If numbers are truly at the top of the list, I would suspect that strategy would be in place.

It's apparent that a student/athlete's decision to attend one of these schools and their dedication and commitment to their faith, school, teachers, administrators, parents and self is truly unparalleled. 

Conversely, public schools have registration day. Five minutes of filling out forms gives you a genuine ticket to ride!

Additionally the State of Indiana pays a little over $10k per public school student per year (your tax dollars). A school accepting the voucher is only paid $7k. This starts the accepting school off in a $3k hole per student (they then make this up with the additional tuition) and benefits the State by the same amount. A P/P of 800 kids starts with a deficit of $2.4M.

The IHSAA is a business (google “IHSAA salaries”) that works in conjunction with the State of Indiana. All of these discussions about separating P/P from public would likely cause the P/P schools to leave the IHSAA and form their own organization. This would be a not insignificant hit to the IHSAA’s bottom line. Do you think the IHSAA wants to see their $150k salaries be reduced?

Also, there might be a few families that then decide to send their kid to the public school (if they are chasing a ring) which would cause the State’s expenses to increase. 

This is a symbiotic relationship that benefits the parties that make the money. As George Carlin said “It’s a big club and you ain’t in it!”

[FarmerFran]

15 hours ago, foxbat said:

 

• • Secondly, Catholics in general don't attend Catholic schools ... PRACTICING Catholics do.  So while Tippecanoe's Catholic population is around 11-12% Catholic, the practicing Catholic population is less.  Note, practicing Catholic population doesn't necessarily mean registered parishioner either.  There are plenty of registered Catholics that are what are referred to as Creaster Catholics ... they attend Mass only at Christmas and Easter annually and, sometimes, just one of those.

 

We call them the submarine Christians because they surface twice a year

[Impartial_Observer]

21 minutes ago, FarmerFran said:

We call them the submarine Christians because they surface twice a year

We refer to them as Chreasters. 

[HHPatriots]

21 minutes ago, Impartial_Observer said:

We refer to them as Chreasters. 

or CEOs.....Christmas and Easter only.

[Titan32]

12 hours ago, tango said:

We've been pretty good and haven't seen any kids from outside what would be a reasonable zone from our feeders. Certainly less distance than what GS had a couple of healthy OLinemen travel from in 2021....

Any?  I don't think 2 would have pushed us to 4A.

[Titan32]

16 hours ago, foxbat said:

• Someone who is Catholic
• Someone who is practicing Catholic
• Someone who has the desire for Catholic education compared to the alternatives
• Someone who has the willingness to pay for the option
• Likely, in most cases, in closer proximity to the school ... although the desire aspect above can sometimes overrule the money and distance aspect

And therein lies the issue: an undeniable, ridiculously homogenous student population that in itself should completely disqualify these institutions from being classified on that measurement alone.

Edited November 30, 2023 by Titan32

[foxbat]

1 hour ago, cloudofdust said:

Thank you for the very thorough explanation of the rigorous enrollment procedures. It's not an exaggeration when I say I actually  read most of it.😉 Narrowing 27,390 students down to just 900 (3%) is no small task indeed! 

The law of supply and demand is basic economics. When demand is low and supply is high, you lower the cost and/or standard. If numbers are truly at the top of the list, I would suspect that strategy would be in place.

It's apparent that a student/athlete's decision to attend one of these schools and their dedication and commitment to their faith, school, teachers, administrators, parents and self is truly unparalleled. 

Conversely, public schools have registration day. Five minutes of filling out forms gives you a genuine ticket to ride!

In most circumstances, that would be true, but there are a couple of things to consider that make Catholic education, or any religious education for that matter, not the same as a standard commodity and so those standard economic rules don't fully apply or can't fully be applied. 

First, as has been pointed out above, at any cost, there has to be a desire/need for a product.  In the case of religious education, the argument by the masses is that it is a desire situation and not a need ... although there are many who might argue that it is a need.  It is also up against another product that delivers its primary benefit for a perceived "free" price.  As such, it it on a very different economic playing field to begin with.  That means that the desire has to be very strong.  Toss in the fact that there are certain standards/goals etc. that are part of constraints that have little or tangential proximity to the main deliverable and its a different animal, economically, from its public counterpart.

Ultimately, imagine that public school is McDonalds and private school is Five Guys.  Big Macs and nuggets are "free" and Five Guys, well, is not.  You have $25 in your wallet.  Where do you go?  Some folks will spend the money and go to Five Guys for the uniqueness and the quality ... perceived or real, but the vast majority, will take "free" either because the outright cost, cost/benefit, or the fact that a meal is merely seen from the lowest level; sustenance.  Five Guys could certainly lower the standard of its burgers or service or alter the brand to be more "common," but that also impacts demand as well through perceived/real value.

I'd argue the fact that most religious institutions have already done what you've suggested on the cost side.  Most religious school teachers will tell you outright that their pay level is statistically lower than their public counterparts.  I recall one year when I served on the tech committee for LCSS we pretty much had to forgo any tech for a year, across the system, due to expected heating/energy cost increases for the coming year and the tech "budget," what little there was to begin with, was diverted to energy that year.  Saw an article several years back that pointed out that, at LCSS, tuition payments from families covered roughly about 45% of the cost of the education with other tuition sources, like vouchers, parish support, tax-credit scholarships, covered about another 35%.  They referred to the remaining part as "The Gap" and it equated to somewhere around $1,800 per kid that had to be covered by things like fundraising, additional parish support, the Spirit Fund which is an annual giving campaign, etc.

As for the standards part, again, it becomes problematic from a marketing standpoint.  Private schools, for better or worse, are viewed in the real world as generating a particular product.  Sometimes that's based on perception, but often that tends to be based in some level of reality ... e.g., some high percentage of student body that attains a certain test score level.  By dropping the standards/requirements, the demand for OUTPUT drops as well which in turn also plays on the INPUT demand.  

Most religious high schools don't work on a true economic model the way that we think about burgers and other products.  Most end up at a point of semi-equilibrium precariously balancing keeping the doors open with maintaining a particular set of faith and performance values that don't have a lot of wiggle room.  As I mentioned in a previous post, locally, St. James Lutheran runs K-8.  I don't know for certain as I've only been very loosely affiliated with the school through friends and my son playing soccer there a couple of years, but I suspect that the reason that there's not a Lutheran high school in TippCo is that there just isn't enough critical mass to sustain one.  I think St. James has a tad over 200 kids K-8.  Tuition pricing to sustain that number might be way too much on such a small base and cutting tuition cost would not be able to cover the standard operating cost.  As such, again, I'm not completely sure of it, but that leads me to believe why there isn't a St. James Sr. High in the area.  BTW, most folks don't realize that LCC nearly closed down back around 1990 due to numbers.  It took an 11th hour appeal and a major re-commitment to have the Bishop keep the doors open. 

[Titan32]

2 hours ago, Just a dad said:

Additionally the State of Indiana pays a little over $10k per public school student per year (your tax dollars). A school accepting the voucher is only paid $7k. This starts the accepting school off in a $3k hole per student (they then make this up with the additional tuition) and benefits the State by the same amount. A P/P of 800 kids starts with a deficit of $2.4M.

The IHSAA is a business (google “IHSAA salaries”) that works in conjunction with the State of Indiana. All of these discussions about separating P/P from public would likely cause the P/P schools to leave the IHSAA and form their own organization. This would be a not insignificant hit to the IHSAA’s bottom line. Do you think the IHSAA wants to see their $150k salaries be reduced?

Also, there might be a few families that then decide to send their kid to the public school (if they are chasing a ring) which would cause the State’s expenses to increase. 

This is a symbiotic relationship that benefits the parties that make the money. As George Carlin said “It’s a big club and you ain’t in it!”

It's a travesty the state subsidizes any $$ via vouchers.