<p>This article reminds me that quite some time ago, many kids within the public school system were "bus"ed across the city in order to level the ground.</p>
<p>What did this experiment give us?</p>
<p>Our kid went to public schools except college. This is mostly because we could not afford the alternative. But we did spend more on our housing in order to live in a not so bad school district, otherwise our kid would haven be screwed by the education system. In a not so good public school, it is even not politically correct to have different tracks for students. Every student is equally gifted and talented, with the exception of sport.</p>
<p>I sent my kids to a private school, a private school of three kids. Very exclusive. This argument has been used against homeschoolers as well. I never understood how someone else’s kids would benefit from mine being in school. I didn’t have kids to sacrifice them for the greater good. When people are no longer allowed to make the decision about what is best for their own families…</p>
<p>I heard that in “recent” years, among the Presidents, only Jimmy Carter and G.W. Bush sent their kids to the public high school.</p>
<p>I heard G.W. Bush did not like his alma mater. It is not surprising that one of his twins (Jenna) attended UT Austin. She likely had a quite good time in her 4 years there. Austin is a good place for college kids and many of her classmates and friends would attend the same college that is not many blocks away. So why not attending that public college ?! (It is somewhat hypocrisy for me to say this though as I did not send my kid there - but my kid’s future path will definitely be very different from a kid from THAT kind of family.)</p>
<p>Calm down, it’s just an analogy. Ever heard of the concept of using an analogy to make a point? </p>
<p>The analogy is a pretty accurate one. If the students coming into a school do not value education, the school will produce students who are not bright. If the students coming into a school value education, the school will produce students who are bright, on average.</p>
<p>Parents who put their kids in private schools typically value education more than average parents. </p>
<p>I would love to see a test where the teachers of the best private school are switched with the teachers of worst public school in the same large city or county. I bet the quality of the students graduating would remain the same.</p>
<p>Your analogy is weak and your logic is sorely lacking.</p>
<p>Kids aren’t born valuing education. They come to value it through many avenues–their parents, great teachers, an inherent curiosity about a subject.</p>
<p>And this is just flat-out stupid:</p>
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<p>How about in places where the public schools are better than the privates?</p>
<p>People are always willing to pay more for something they value. Education is no different. If a parent can get something for free in the form of public schools, he will not pay for the same education in a private school. If he can get a much better education in a private school, he will pay for it only if he values education.</p>
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<p>But families do value education at different levels. Parents who read to their kids from birth value education more than parents who expect schools to teach the kids to read. Whose kid do you think is most likely to do better in school?</p>
<p>People are willing to pay more for things they value IF they can afford them. Many people who live in poor-performance school districts don’t have the resources that more affluent people do. That doesn’t mean they don’t “value education” or do things at home to compensate for what the schools may not be able to provide. </p>
<p>You are correct that people won’t generally pay MORE for the same education from a private school that their publics can provide. Where I live, the public schools are better in most cases than the privates. The people who put their kids in the private schools generally do so for reasons that are not related to the quality of the education their kids will receive.</p>
<p>Sally305, I don’t disagree with what you just said. I am speaking of private vs public in general. There are parents who put their kids in private schools because their children have learning disabilities and they get a better environment than they would get in public schools. There are regions where some public schools are better than some private schools. There are regions where public school parents would kill to have their kids in a better private school if they could only afford it. But, in general, parents who greatly value education are willing to pay the extra cost to give their kids a better education in private school. </p>
<p>A rich parent who can afford a private school but puts his kid in a lesser quality public school is an absolute idiot.</p>
<p>“Parents who put their kids in private schools typically value education more than average parents.”</p>
<p>We would need statistics to know if this is true, i.e., how many do it for religious reasons, to avoid gangs, to avoid minorities, to join minorities, for language immersion, for a particular curriculum, for a specific cultural fit, etc., and then compare these to parents who value education just as much or more but can’t afford a private school.</p>
<p>"*But, in general, parents who greatly value education are willing to pay the extra cost to give their kids a better education in private school. *"</p>
<p>Only about ten percent of families choose private school, so I am not confident that their presence in public schools would cause anything but crowding, and when we talk about parent involvement, we are really talking about informed, cooperative and effective involvement. The number of that type of parent who would appear in a public school is very tiny, indeed, and probably wouldn’t show up in a public school with poor and at risk kids. My D went to a public school in a poor, gang-infested area. She got a fantastic education. Loved it there, but the more affluent kids with involved parents almost never mixed with the poorer and less successful kids. I have posted about this before, but I was shocked when I found out that all the grants and perks and partnerships that are publicly touted as having been donated to that school actually went only to the kids like mine who didnt 't need them. It sounds great on paper, but the reality is often very different.</p>
<p>When she proves that whatever uplifting effect bringing private school parents back into the public system outweighs the drag of a PS education on their kids, she might have a point.</p>
<p>(I thought the piece was parody when I read it the other day and I’m still not sure it isn’t.)</p>
<p>I’m a bad person. Sometimes. I’ve been in and out of the public school system with my kids. Wait – actually, right now, since my youngest is in a public high school, I guess I’m a good person? Okay, sure! Yay me! I can’t believe I was such a bad person and sent some of my spawn to private high schools. Wow. What was I thinking?</p>
<p>Or wait. Maybe I’m not a good person. The public high school I’m sending my daughter to is not considered a bad public school (except by the people that live in nearby suburbs). So, maybe I’m not a good person after all. Because, it sounds like the really good people send their kids to bad public schools.</p>
<p>Mstee, I am currently a bad person. I was a good person at one time but before that I was bad and I am bad again now. We have a responsibility to bestow our wonderfulness on the wretched, pathetic losers who can’t handle the bake sales and holiday fairs without us, and whose children suffer for the lack of our presence.</p>
<p>Then I’m totally mixed up. DD1 went to public HS (by choice) and DD2 went private (by choice). We saw no difference in quality (anecdotal only!).</p>
<p>How bad a person am I if I sent my kid to private school K-8 and then a public high school…but that public high school is really super-highly ranked nationally? Am I slightly better than someone who sends their kids to mediocre private schools K-12? Would I be better if my kids started in public schools that were just ok but then went to really good private high schools (but only 4 years vs 8)?</p>
<p>Well Joblue, I think the high ranking school does make you a bad person because you were neither sacrificing your child’s future, nor acting in the proper manner of noblesse oblige in providing for the needs of the masses.</p>
<p>I’m thinking of all the geniuses who took all the children away from their parents, because it was better for the collective. The names & places that come immediately to mind are Pol Pot, Mao Zedong, Charles Taylor, Sierra Leone, Congo, Sudan, Taliban, FARC…</p>
<p>I have no problem with someone making an argument about why we should send kids to public schools, but that argument has to account not only for personal freedom but individual circumstance.</p>
<p>Here are a few examples.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Really good public schools but the kid needs more of a challenge. The schools are already considered near the top of heap, which means no real pressure can be put on them to improve. That was me. By contrast, my kids went to public school because they found the kind of enrichment we didn’t have. Some of that is the times: AP classes didn’t exist and the only tracking was “advanced” math, which wasn’t advanced. </p></li>
<li><p>Kids who live in areas with poor to mediocre schools. Our high school had more kids take AP’s than some entire urban school districts … and I mean large ones. That speaks to availability and social pressure for achievement, etc. It is not the job of a kid to be a social lever for change. It is the job of that kid to do well for him or herself.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Putting aside issues of liberty and choice, there are good, simple reasons for parents to send their kids to private schools. That said, I see lots of people who pay for private schools because they can. It is somewhat of a joke that in parts of my town people pay huge sums for houses in a very desirable K-8 school district that feeds into a terrific high school and they all send their kids to private schools. A few go to religious schools but most go to the big name BB&N, etc. around Boston. I think many of them are making a mistake.</p>
<p>I was a good person when my child was K-12.
How bad a person am I because I sent my child to a private college and beyond?</p>
<p>Or, a person is not bad if he only sends his child to private school after high school? Even if I am not considered as a bad person, there appears to be many people (in the CC virtual world or in my real life) who try very hard to convince me that I have made a bad “investment” as if I were throwing away my money carelessly.</p>
<p>BTW, I once heard that some top college like Princeton would routinely send almost 40% of their graduate class to the Wall Street or the alike. Are these people bad people?</p>