Re: Why do so many students attend non-public schools -- Dracut Weekly Roundtable

[ Show ]

Support VoyForums

[ Shrink ]

VoyForums Announcement: Programming and providing support for this service has been a labor of love since 1997. We are one of the few services online who values our users' privacy, and have never sold your information. We have even fought hard to defend your privacy in legal cases; however, we've done it with almost no financial support -- paying out of pocket to continue providing the service. Due to the issues imposed on us by advertisers, we also stopped hosting most ads on the forums many years ago. We hope you appreciate our efforts.

Show your support by donating any amount. (Note: We are still technically a for-profit company, so your contribution is not tax-deductible.) PayPal Acct: Feedback:

Donate to VoyForums (PayPal):

[ Login ] [ Contact Forum Admin ] [ Main index ] [ Post a new message ] [ Search | Check update time | Archives: 1, 2, 3, [4] ]

Subject: Re: Why do so many students attend non-public schools

Author:
Dennis

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Date Posted: 13:13:30 08/20/03 Wed
In reply to: Rick 's message, "Why do so many students attend non-public schools" on 15:10:43 08/19/03 Tue

First of all, not sure I would use the term excessive. It's a value-laden term. One person's excess is another person's skimpy. What's more, according to nces.cd.gov, the overall average in the US was 16%. So how would 17% be excessive -- or rather -- outside a normal distribution statistically?

Secondly, not sure the Massachusetts average is 10%. Massachusetts DOE website makes specific reference to a Grade 9-12 percentage statewide at 13%. The website sreb.org (with some computation needed) puts the K-12 rate at 12% for 1999 (the last year actual enrollments are published).

So if Dracut is at somewhere between 16 and 17%, and the statewide average is between 12 and 13%, what's the point? The difference has to be because of factors other than minor-league transportation costs (but I've already posted about that, so enough!). Question: Do the population characteristics of Dracut parallel the population characteristics of the state as a whole? I sincerely doubt it. So why compare this rate to the state-wide average?

Finally, it would be interesting to compare Dracut to other local towns (not cities like Lowell or Methuen) such as Billerica, Chelmsford, Tewksbury and Tyngsboro. I would think their population characteristics would be at least closer to ours. You said, "If you compare our districts private/parochial population versus our neighbors (Tyngsboro, Methuen, Lowell and Chelmsford), than Dracut still is above average in non-district students." Is that a statement of fact? Do you have the numbers for the Towns I mentioned? (Not Lowell or Methuen.) That would be interesting, but if there is just a percentage point or two's difference, then it's statistically meaningless.

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Replies:

Subject	Author	Date
Re: Why do so many students attend non-public schools	Rick	15:14:47 08/20/03 Wed