Governor O’Malley stepped in the pile of poop many politicians step into when they try to relate their personal problems to the problems of “regular folk”. His family’s choice to rack up debt is vastly different than the choice of a student at a for-profit “career” school and it just makes him look out of touch and entitled to try and compare them. What he is proposing may or may not be good policy but his personal situation is definitely not the poster child for it. And unfortunately, it takes away from a real discussion of the issue.
But that is how politics goes in the US anyway…
“Hmmm, what I can find on the web indicates that Baltimore is no longer predominantly Catholic. Of the approximately half who indicate a religion other than “none”, Catholics are about a quarter of those (or about an eighth of the total population).”
But what about the white population of Baltimore? From what I read during the riots recently, the population of Baltimore is about 30% white. The Baltimore city schools are about 90% black, 4-5% white, and the rest ‘other.’ So are the 30% of the white population still predominantly Catholic? I think so, and their kids still do not go to Baltimore public schools.
Even if all Catholics in Baltimore are white, that still makes up fewer than half of the white population.
Also, those stats make it look like white people in Baltimore (including non-Catholics) do not want to send their kids to public schools where there are lots of black people.
Why would you jump to that conclusion? Isn’t it just, if not more, likely that folks in Baltimore who can afford to send their kids to Catholic Schools are doing so because the city’s public schools are considered unsafe “failure factories?”
Yes, I believe that is correct, that white people who live in Baltimore do not want to send their children to public school and that was my point in the beginning - O’Malley’s kids attended Catholic school even when he was mayor of Baltimore because catholic kids go to catholic schools and the cost is just as much an expense as electricity and insurance. Some have argued that he could have saved the tuition money from those early years for college, but that’s just not going to happen in Baltimore. I do believe part of choice of Catholic school is tradition and not racially based, that parents attended Catholic schools as children and want their kids to also. In fact, many go to the same school their parents, uncles, aunts and grandparents attended, especially for high school. Part of the decision is that Baltimore schools are not highly rated.
When we moved to Baltimore, my parents never considered living in the city and thus the city school system because they still had kids in grade school and high school. We lived pretty far out in the county. One brother graduated from a catholic hs, but the other two ended up in public high school. That was/is an option in the county, but not in the city. There are some gorgeous homes in the city, some really nice areas, but the school system is not acceptable for many, so they turn to an affordable alternative, catholic schools. I looked at moving back some years ago when my kids were still young, and the first thing I checked out was the cost (and availability) of schools in each area.
"Also, those stats make it look like white people in Baltimore (including non-Catholics) do not want to send their kids to public schools where there are lots of black people. "
Newsflash – that’s how it is everywhere. Public schools across the U.S. are more segregated today than at the time of Brown v. Board of Ed. Has more to do with the very bad public schools in bad neighborhoods than race. Black parents don’t want to send their kids to those bad schools either. They just don’t have many good options.
In many of those places, the Catholic schools that remain are often one of the few good options. The blue collar Catholic school I attended was almost all white when I was in first grade; it was majority black by 8th grade.
I’m sure O’Malley’s kids aren’t attending those kind of urban Catholic schools. I’m guessing Loyola or Georgetown Prep for his boys and ND Prep for his girls. Pricey; great lacrosse teams…
I don’t assume Catholics send their children to Catholic schools to avoid a diverse public school education. Perhaps they do so because they want their children to have an explicitly Catholic education. I know my husband and I wanted that for our daughter (until the administration made its disapproval of her commitment to figure skating clear). Until then, it was a great experience for her.
Why would the school disapprove of her doing figure skating?
Affluent urban parents (black and white both) in the U.S. don’t send their kids to tough urban public schools. They ALL go to private schools (Catholic or otherwise). Or maybe a charter school. Chelsea Clinton and the Obama daughters all enrolled at Sidwell Friends. None of them are Quakers although neither family is Quaker.
Affluent parents will use public schools in affluent areas. I think the Bush daughters attended public high school in Austin.
Pretty ridiculous to seriously suggest that O’Malley should have sent his kids to a tough public school in the hood. No one with an alternative would do that.
It has very little to do with race. Everything to do with the quality of the education, class and safety.
Gov. O’Malley’s decisions, in my opinion, reflect a lack of good judgment about money.
First, why in the world would someone take out loans to go to the College of Charleston from out of state? UofM is a more highly-ranked school. If you want to go to a public college in South Carolina from out of state, go to Clemson; it’s much more highly-ranked as well.
Second, who in this day and age borrows $339,000 at 6-8.5% interest rates, regardless of reason? He couldn’t take out a mortgage (3.5%) or borrow against an investment account (also 3.5% or so)?
Of course, it’s those greedy, terrible Republicans who caused this whole mess. (Tongue in cheek.)
I think that’s pretty accurate, @northwesty, at least where I live in suburban Philadelphia. But it can also be about the specific values these schools teach. Many non-Catholics, non-Episcopalians, and non-Quakers choose these schools because they want something deeper than a completely secular education and they also want schools where teachers aren’t constrained by endless testing requirements. Even within highly-touted school districts in this area, many families elect to send their children to parochial or independent schools.
And to be frank, if Quaker schools were dependent on practicing Quakers to fill their ranks, they’d be out of business–there aren’t nearly enough practicing Friends to keep all the excellent Quaker schools in business. (Quaker schools also tend to offer very generous financial aid, so these schools often offer more cultural diversity within their student bodies than the local public school.)
“First, why in the world would someone take out loans to go to the College of Charleston from out of state? UofM is a more highly-ranked school. If you want to go to a public college in South Carolina from out of state, go to Clemson; it’s much more highly-ranked as well.”
He did it because his daughter got in and wanted to go there and he could afford to pay for it. Duh. CoC, despite being a state school, is a pretty popular destination for OOS affluent kids with meh academics. A different je nais se qua than home-townie UMD or redneck Clemson (even if both are higher ranked) which are much bigger and not located in a historic colonial coastal location.
The CoC daughter probably got merit aid and so the net cost probably wasn’t much more than attending UMD ($25k COA in-state). The big nut was Georgetown – no merit aid and no financial aid available for the O’Malleys. Readers of CC know all about these kind of “doughnut” hole families. Those families flock to merit aid schools like CoC.
“Second, who in this day and age borrows $339,000 at 6-8.5% interest rates, regardless of reason? He couldn’t take out a mortgage (3.5%) or borrow against an investment account (also 3.5% or so)?”
This would be dumb. Perhaps he doesn’t have enough equity in his house to borrow against. Unless he winds up as Hillary’s Veep, he’ll be making plenty of dough soon and so will pay down those loans soon enough.
If OMalley borrowed $340k that probably was $240k for Georgetown and $100k for Charleston.
So Charleston OOS (with merit aid) cost basically the same as attending UMD in-state. That would be a choice most on CC would understand.
Paying full sticker for Georgetown was the tough financial call. That kid could have gotten a good slug of merit aid at the usual suspects (USC, Miami, etc.).
Honestly…I don’t give two hoots about this. His money…his decision.
But I will say…Clemson is a very different school than College of Charleston. My own kid had no interest at all in Clemson, but liked Charleston…which has the feel of a LAC. I can totally see choosing College of Charleston over Clemson.
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Hmmmn, to say the loan was not an issue is not entirely true. Both the governor and his daughter have said it was a hardship...
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What was the hardship? signing loan docs?
@ucbalumnus You may not understand how some Catholic families view Catholic school attendance. Some never consider it, some consider it a given. It’s mostly how we were raised. I never considered not sending my kids to Catholic schools.
The decision isn’t based on what color the kids are in the public schools. Besides, there are a lot of children of color in Catholic schools. I never went to an all-white Catholic school (and I went to 3 different ones) and neither did my kids (who also attended 3 different ones).
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Why would the school disapprove of her doing figure skating?
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I don’t know ladylorna’s story, but I would guess that they had no objection to the sport of figure skating. More likely, they balked at any practices or attendance at competitions that meant missing a lot of school.
Some Catholic schools will work with those issues. In Calif, Catholic schools were totally used to dealing with various issues, from sports to acting gigs, taking kids away at various times. Much depends on the whims of the principal…which isn’t unlike public K-12.
What are they claiming the “hardship” to be? Paying the piper now that the loans are due?
And who is paying? The teacher-daughter or the parents?
In the one quote, it sounded like the DD is responsible for at least some of the loans. If she’s only responsible for Direct loans, then no biggie.
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"Do I go to the college we can afford or do I take out loans to go to the college of my dreams? At the age of 18, I made the decision to follow my dreams. My family and I now face years of debt -- and we know we're not the only ones."
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Why shouldn’t his daughter, if she is going to be a teacher, be eligible for the program which allows people to get their loans dismissed after 120 payment? Are you saying that a kid with rich parents should be ineligible for this program?
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If she were attending her instate public (or somewhere else for similar net cost) that would be one thing, but why should tax-payers get stuck with the balance of her loans just because she opted for a pricey school? It sounds like most of her loans are private loans, not federal loans.
And what if some/most of her loans were her parents’ EFC that they chose not to pay? Are taxpayers supposed to “eat that” as well after the 120 months of payments (which it sounds like would be adjusted down for her lower income).
I don’t care what they do/did, but he’s got 2 younger ones to put thru…wonder what he’s going to do with them? Borrow more?
I just have to chime in here and explain the mindset of Baltimore in terms of 9-12 grade schooling. Where you went to high school is EXTREMELY important in Baltimore. I know of very few people our age (40-50s) who went to public school there. It just wasn’t “done” by most families, perhaps for the reasons raised above about integration or the predominance of Catholic schools. And families used to be able to pay for private schools on a solidly middle class income.
My DH is from Baltimore and I had to really sell him on sending our kids to the public school. I know his family thinks we were doing something akin to neglecting them by doing so. Everyone he knew went to some sort of private school even if it was the local parochial high school.
For more info, check out this article - I was so excited when Baltimore magazine covered the topic. In Baltimore if someone asks where you went to school, they do NOT mean college. They mean HS. Even if you have a graduate degree!
http://www.baltimoremagazine.net/2006/3/power-schools