When reading all the uninformed opinions in these type of discussions, it is easy to understand why schools don’t want to open up their books to everyone and anyone! That being said, I have no doubt that if someone who intends to make a large donation asks to see the books, he would be shown them.
But more to the point, zehavasdad, your numbers are very confusing. Generally speaking schools that are charging over $10,000 in tuition are paying their teachers SIGNIFICANTLY more than your numbers. (Generally the schools with higher tuitions are the more MO schools or the out of town schools. I taught secular studies in a somewhat MO school in the NY area 10 years ago and was making over $30,000 for the 3/4 of a day that I worked. I’m sure it’s more now.) Even the more “yeshivish” schools, whose tuitions are much lower, and who, contrary to your accusation, do give significant breaks, especially to families with many students in the same school pay teachers much more than $10,000! The operating expenses of schools are also often misunderstood.
Of course there are always ways to be more efficient and save money, and some schools are run better than others. But the crux of the tuition crisis is that it is expensive to run a school, even in the most efficient way. Just to give a frame of reference, as of 2005, in the public school system, NY spent $14,119 per student, and NJ $13,800! And this does not include Limudei Kodesh obviously. . . To be fair, NY and NJ are among the highest spending states, and government can’t do anything efficiently, but the point remains that education is expensive.
The Catholic school system is suffering financial difficulties of their own, despite the fact that the schools are mostly funded by the church hierarchy. In fact just 2 years ago the NY Diocese closed a number of Catholic schools in Queens as they could no longer afford to run them. They also converted quite a few schools throughout the city into “parish schools” where the local church becomes responsible for supporting the school, and “academies” where there is some sort of joint support (I’m not familiar with all the technicalities). Additionally, although their tuition levels are much lower, they very rarely give any tuition breaks (although some do have family discounts). Overall the whole model is financially very different.