The statistics that reveal most private and charter schools are very open to accepting students regardless of their ability to pay or their overall GPA. Just take a look at the thousands of different Internet schools and independent study groups that have flourished over the years. Their entire existence is based on reaching out to kids to need a little extra help or need an alternative based education and then tailoring the learning process to fit their individual needs and wants. By golly, it's been going on for decades. When my father kept dropping out of school and doing poorly on his exams, the school board gave him a choice. He could straighten out his school career at the public school immediately or he can enroll himself into an alternative, vocation-based technical school. He chose to learn to fly airplanes and almost received his pilot license. Of course, he ended up taking a completely different path as a nurse anesthetist in the Air-Force but his example just goes to prove my point. There are other options. I've been to two different high schools in extremely different parts of the country. Both had a system where troubled and under-performing youths could find an alternative at a technical school and immediately begin to learn a trade while simultaneously finishing their high school degree. I almost felt jealous of my friends who were learning carpentry and masonry while I was stuck learning theoretical concepts.
Was your grandfather African American?
What does that have anything to do with it? Some of the absolute best high schools in our history were all-black private schools that served the African-American community who were excluded from the mainstream public schools. Some of the absolute best colleges and universities to date are HBCUs.
How many different ethnic groups
Are you suggesting a person's ethnicity has an immediate effect on their learning capabilities?
and individuals with learning disabilities attended his school,
I really don't know the answer to that question, but I can't imagine they would turn students down simply for a learning disability. Learning disabilities are a fairly newly discovered phenomenon and people in my grandfather's generation never really understood or acknowledged such conditions. The answer today is just to drug the kids and turn them into zombies. Or, the learning staff and parents can take the more difficult method of patiently spending more time and energy tutoring them. With such a small teacher-to-student ratio, such extended tutoring is quite possible.
what were the class sizes,
Generally small as they should be. The difference between private and public schools is that the private schools have all the freedom in the world to build as many educational centers as humanely possible. The public schools are extremely restricted in the manner of constructing new schools. They'll overspend their budget to produce lavish buildings filled with administrators and empty departments with a shortage of teaching staff, but they're bureaucrats! What do you expect? The major difference is the amount of money wasted in the public school as opposed to the amount of money wisely utilized in a private school.
and was the church subsidizing some of the cost?
Of course they were! My grandfather, as much of a stern liberal democrat he is, can thank private charity 100% for his wonderful and empowering primary and secondary education.
You have to look at all the factors involved with the task that underfunded public schools must deal with.
Underfunded?! We've doubled the amount spent per pupil (AFTER adjusting for inflation) over the past twenty years and we've seen nothing but flat line results. When we're spending, on average, close to 12 thousand dollars per public school student with no real results, I'd say you're going to have to qualify your use of the term "underfunded." Little private schools in the deepest part of an inner-city will spend a third of what the general public school spends per pupil and will get twice or triple the level of performance results.
You can send your child anywhere you want to under our present system.
Bull****. It is completely based on the wealth of the parents. If you're wealthy, you can send your child anywhere you want, either by spending twice for their eduction (once in taxes for an education they don't receive and second in tuition for the education they do receive), or by moving your entire family to an area with a higher-performing public school. If you're middle class or working class, you're screwed. Your zip code will dictate your child's education. I don't believe that is fair.
You get what you pay for. You put as much money per student into public schools you would get the same results.
As I've already mentioned, private schools spend far less per pupil than general public schools while producing far greater results. Many even allocate a large portion of their revenue to hire competent, experienced teachers and to pay them more.
I have never said that, nor do I think that. But, I do believe a college education is a minimum requirement for teaching our children, and I don't expect a teacher, who has one of the most important, and most difficult jobs in our country to be paid less than a college educated professional would be paid in any other field.
You're missing the tremendous benefits of being a teacher. It is a privilege to be a teacher or a professor. This profession, more so than other in this nation, has the ability to shape the entire personality of the next generation. It's not easy, but the rewards are very fulfilling. This is why some of the best teachers are found in private schools that happen to pay them less than public schools and who don't offer them tenure. Despite the lower pay and the fear of competition, these remarkable teachers live to teach. Since a large portion of WI kids in the public schools are currently on leave because their teachers care more about their pay and their tenure than they do about teaching, we can see who possesses the genuine passion for teaching.
And your expectation that educated teachers ought not to be paid any less than a college educated professional in any other field is absolutely ludicrous. Take a citizen with a degree in soft science philosophical pondering like sociology and compare him to a citizen with a degree in hard science engineering or mathematics. You honestly believe a person with a bachelor's degree in sociology should automatically receive the same or near-equal pay of a person with a bachelor's degree in civil engineering? Heck, I don't even think a person with a PhD in sociology has the same entitlement to the salary of a person with a bachelor's in civil engineering. They both have very radically different backgrounds and skills. These skills produce very radically different results of invention and innovation. Just because a student sat in class for four extra years and wrote a dissertation does not automatically entitle him or her to the wages of an equally educated student. Degrees produce different real results and your idea stems from the equalization of education and wages.
That is NOT a straw man. Let me quote what you said: " I don't expect a teacher...to be paid less than a college educated professional would be paid in any other field."
You're proposing the equalization of education and wages. It's no different than claiming ALL citizens with a certain kind of degree (be it a high school diploma, bachelor's degree or PhD) must be paid the same wages regardless of their job, their skills, or the specific degree they pursued. That's a very socialistic tendency, don't you think?