Just as Monk Space rents out unused space for film and TV shoots, and Relay Rides rents out unused private cars, so too American public schools are aggressively renting out empty desks. This came to my attention via Stephanie Simon’s excellent Reuters story, Insight: Public schools sell empty classroom seats abroad. The idea has at least pragmatic merit in light of widespread and painful state education budget cuts.
Moreover, it works splendidly for moderately well-off foreign parents who’ve been priced out of the American boarding school market. Top U.S. boarding schools routinely charge over $40,000 year (some in excess of $50,000) in room, board, and fees. That number typically excludes costs for tutoring, remedial language training (essential for most foreign students), special instruction in music, certain athletic programs, textbooks, course supplements, medical expenses, and organization dues. When a clothing, travel, food and entertainment allowance is included – not to mention the cost of flying Mandy, Fahd, and Fabio home for holidays in London, Riyadh and Rio -- foreign parents are looking at a yearly nut of at least 75 grand. A number that can cause even the growing cadre of foreign masters of the universe in the Forbes list of global billionaires to do a triple take.
While costs at private non-boarding schools are less, the costs at an American public school are less still: between $10,000 a year on the low end and $30,000 a year on the high end. This why an increasing number of foreign families, keen on getting their child admitted to a top American college (the lone educational arena in which the U.S. still rules the world), are sending their charges to U.S public high schools. While a record 725,000 foreign students enrolled at U.S. universities last year, only 1,135 foreign students, according to the Department of Homeland Security, are currently enrolled in U.S. public high schools. Simon says, “that’s a huge jump from the 309 enrolled five years ago,” and evidence of major growth potential.
Against the looming backdrop of widespread urban and rural school closures, over a 1000 public schools have passed the federal certification process, enabling them to bring in foreign students. According to Simon, that number is only going to increase because the U.S. does not impose caps or quotas on student visas. And it will skyrocket if the "Strengthening America's Public Schools Through Promoting Foreign Investment Act" is passed by Congress. The Act would allow foreign K-12 students to enroll for more than one year at U.S. public schools, as they are currently able to do at private and parochial K-12 schools.
While some small town public school parents have raised red flags about unwelcome competition from foreign students for precious educational resources, not to mention spots in AP honors classes and on school sports teams, school principals argue that foreign students keep teachers employed, electricity bills paid, and needed technology upgrades in motion. Most important, foreign students make up for huge shortfalls in state and local funding, while helping cash-strapped host families make an extra $500-900 a month, depending on their geographic locale.
In response to critics, Shane Murray, superintendent of the Jamestown Area School District in western Pennsylvania, counters that “competition is good.” Murray notes that, in a global economy, it’s important for American students to get used to competing against their peers from around the world. With U.S. high school test scores stagnant against our global peers, it's an admirable notion. Moreover, according to Simon, schools rarely experience academic or discipline issues with foreign students. A bit of needed role modeling that many public school attendees don't get in the home.
While there is concern that foreign parents may be hoodwinked into thinking that educational quality at an American public high school is as strong as at a top U.S. boarding school, the flip side, notes Simon, is that foreign parents are not sending their kids to America simply for the academics. Foreign parents believe that the cultural and language experience is just as important, however hard the adjustments to diet, climate, and remote locale. Moreover, foreign parents believe that a recommendation from an American high school teacher could make all the difference in their child gaining acceptance to a top U.S. university.
Here’s how the process typically works. According to the Council on Standards for International Educational Travel (CSIET), which promotes “international youth exchange,” a student is recruited by an exchange program in their home country that is in a contractual agreement with an American recruiting agency. The recruiter identifies a host family for the student to stay with and a school that is willing to sponsor the student. A vig of between $1000 to $3000 goes to the recruiter to cover the cost of school match and placement, host family match and placement, host vetting, guardianship during the stay, visa support, and a meet and greet at the airport upon arrival..
Recruiters also act as the liaison in room and board payments to host families and in payments to school districts for tuition and more. Maximum stay is one year. And most students are required to get at least a 45 score on the ETS-created SLEP, the Secondary Level English Proficiency Test, the less rigorous high school equivalent of the TOEFL.
Families can get more proactively involved by perusing a catalog of schools that most recruiters proffer. For example, Sweden-based Educatius International, through their F-1 Public High School Program, allows students to apply directly to the school district they wish to attend. According to President Tom Ericsson, Educatius prides itself on more "personalized service" than its competitors, which include Study Group International, ISES, Quest, EF, and STS. To that end, Ericsson says that Educatius has "permanent trained staff overseas that meet students and parents several times in person before the student leaves his or her home country."
Ericsson noted that a key to recruiter success is transparency. "I have met so many parents with false expectations and incorrect views about study in the USA. We tell the students and the parents upfront what they can expect." To encourage transparency, Educatius asks parents and students to Skype with existing students at the school campus who are from the same country and to virtually "touch" the school by taking online Google Campus tours (though I couldn't find any such tours for high schools).
However, unlike the small town experiences championed in the Reuters piece, the Educatius website pushes schools in "attractive areas" like Los Angeles. A quick perusal of the Educatius database of so-called "Los Angeles" schools, alas, includes the Antelope Valley School District in the military-industrial enclave of Lancaster. While technically just inside the boundaries of Los Angeles County, Lancaster is a 90-minute drive from the city of L.A.., its sunny beaches, and cultural attractions. Educatius also lists the Birmingham Charter School in Van Nuys (hardly the idyll most foreign parents have in mind when they think of the City of Angels). The only other L.A. option that Educatious offers is via the Los Angeles Unified School District or LAUSD (and you know how the Department of Education views the education quality at that sorry district). Bel Air, this is not.
For all the good work of recruiters like Educatius, my gut tells me that there is a less-than-pedagogical reason that large urban school districts are actively seeking out foreign families. While there are certainly non-mercenary schools and altruistic hosts in all parts of this country, I recommend that cautious foreign parents avoid big city public schools. Instead, I would explore small town public schools in prosperous suburban or ex-urban areas of the Midwest, where a premium is placed on service, family, and community, and where the price of tuition can be up to $20,000 less a year than in the northeast and west. That said, I would eschew schools in rural Tea Party strongholds. Nothing against the Tea Party per se, but the last thing a foreign parent wants is for Hassan, Wei or Ping to become a poster child in some jingoistic crusade for smaller American government.
Of course, beneath this entire pragmatic discussion lurks a philosophical question not addressed by any stakeholder: by aggressively marketing to high-paying foreign students, are American public schools opening the door to widespread privatization? Or, to put a finer point on it: to what extent should American public schools be reserved for Americans?
Now there's a subject bound to get your blood boiling.
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