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Are private schools really better than public schools?

Red:
I don't recall whether I've shared this before, but I think the voucher thing is more about boosting the fortunes/enrollments at parochial and other fundamentalist Christian schools than it is about education quality. I did some research on that notion. I'll try to dig it up and share it here in another post.


Blue:
NP. I understand. TY for mentioning it, and more importantly, for reading it.

boosting religious schools is a part of it where i live.
 
boosting religious schools is a part of it where i live.

Part I of II

Not surprising because, as far as I can tell, they are the only private schools having tuition low enough that the vouchers cover or overwhelmingly cover. Additionally, a fair quantity of the best secular and religiously affiliated private schools don't participate in voucher programs.

Here's the analysis I did about a year and a half ago. (I haven't updated it.)


  • To boost enrollment and revenue at faith-based schools, many of which seem to be of no-better-than-public-schools' in terms of the education they provide. How do I come to this conclusion? Mostly it has to do with my observation/analysis that suggests that of the top private schools to which one might want to send one's child, it seems none of them is priced so that low income families can expect to make up the difference between what the voucher pays and what the school charges. The only private schools that have low enough tuition are parochial schools. I strongly suggest that others here perform an analysis of their own city/town to see if the same is true.

Based on the above analysis, I see no evidence that a voucher program can do anything to improve the education a student receives over whatever is the quality public school in the area. It's also important to note that not all private schools participate in voucher programs. Even so, I truly don't see the point of implementing a voucher program to send students to schools that, on average, don't really "crank out" grads who are better prepared for college/life than does the public school system. (Private schools don't generally offer trade programs as their raison d'etre is largely to prepare kids for college.)

(cont'd due to character limit)
 
Part II of II

I cannot comment on the quality of curriculum at some of the Christian schools because they don't disclose it. What I noticed about Carroll's classes is that they are what students can get in the public school system. What I can tell you is that students attending the best high schools have the opportunity to graduate from them with the near equivalent of college sophomore status in terms of the breadth of subject matter they've studied. That allows them to either accelerate their collegiate career or study more at the lower cost undergraduate tuition rates, and graduate in four years with a master's degree rather than a bachelor's, or they can just enjoy college and take all sorts of interesting elective courses.

To get a sense of what I mean by that, take a look at Andover's course catalog (or that of any of the other Ten Schools). What you'll find is that students can take courses like differential equations and linear algebra. For students aspiring to engineering, physics or other other sciences, getting those courses done in high school is a huge boon. The other departments as well offer many classes that are typically only found in colleges and universities. Thus it doesn't matter whether the student prefers arts or sciences, they enter college with a huge advantage over their classmates. (Note the pace at which the classes move. Quite often you'll see that courses complete in five, ten or 15 week spans, rather than whole school years, much as do college courses....thus, in part, why it's called "prep school.")

I wanted to point that out because, for most part, I suspect that pretty much any school that makes onto the Top 50 or higher on almost any rating organization's list is quite likely a very good school. That said, there are nonetheless academics that distinguish the very best from the rest. The academic offerings present one quick way for folks who aren't familiar with a given school to get a sense of what kinds of and what levels of academics are taught there and up to what level the students there perform. It's something else, besides test scores and college admittances, that gives one a sense of the teaching level. It also gives one a sense of the learning level kids are capable of if they but apply themselves. (It's worth noting that Thomas Jefferson offers a fairly comparable range of courses as do Ten Schools.)


From my point of view, if a school district is going to offer a voucher program, the reason needs to be to make available to the students something they cannot otherwise obtain in the public school system. From what I can tell, unless a student is going to attend a top private school as a top performer who can avail him-/herself of advantages like those noted above, I don't see there being much s/he cannot obtain from a public school system. Also, I don't think I'm at all keen on the notion of tax dollars, via voucher programs, subsidising faith-based schools, not even excellent ones like Sidwell (Quaker), Prep (Jesuit), Groton and St. Albans (both Episcopal).

(Oddly, though each of the just mentioned schools is Christian, for some strange reason, they, along with many Catholic (Jesuit or otherwise) and other Quaker and Episcopal schools don't appear on lists of top Christian schools. I have yet to discern why evaluators don't generally include such institutions with other so-called Christian schools. Only Niche seems to put them all together.)

Note:
I didn't look through schools that provide K-12 education. There may be some in that list that are highly rated and that have tuition within voucher range.

End of post pair.
 
Things that the majority of Americans don’t need to know to have a decent life. Yeah there is an argument for a more liberal education. Maybe when we can afford and master teaching the basics first.

Yeah, but is university intended to be job training? Technical school, yes, trade school definitely but university?
Finland has one of the most successful education systems in the world. They have a population of about five and a half million and about a dozen universities, which says they must be hosting a lot of foreign students. If they can do it, maybe a look ought to be taken at how.
Find a system that works and do it like that. Sounds simple to me.
 

You would be wrong. Private schools on the whole answer to parents who are usually quite conservative and don't want innovation. As they generally have students with fewer issues, they don't need innovation. On the whole, public schools are always trying to dela with their lareger problems and lead in innovation, your links aside.
 
Red:
Really?
I'm inclined to think the pedagogical leadership flows the opposite direction and that the aim of public schools administrations and boards of education is to adopt methods that have, at private schools, been shown to be successful. (A simple way to fix the woes of U.S. public schooling -- Has the nation the will to make it happen?)

You would be wrong. Private schools on the whole answer to parents who are usually quite conservative and don't want innovation. As they generally have students with fewer issues, they don't need innovation. On the whole, public schools are always trying to dela with their lareger problems and lead in innovation, your links aside.

Red:
In terms of the culture of a given school or given genre of schools, that's so. As goes the pedagogy, it's not so beyond the mere fact that the pedagogy at the best private school isn't "broke," thus they "ain't fixin' it."

Blue:
So you summarily say, and yet against demonstrably clear evidence to the contrary found in the content to which I linked, your "pontifical" attestation -- not credible analysis -- is all you've offered in contravention of that evidence and to support your assertion. Yes, you go with that....


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From here: Are private schools really better than public schools?

Excerpt:


So why mess with success? Here's why:
*The difference in the percentages quoted above is minimal - only 13%. Yeah, OK, so "13%" is not so little and, of course, we want "want only the best for our kids".
*Far too many of us want the best, which is creating both a social and an economic cleavage in society due to the present scheme of financing education - which is outdated. And our kids going to school with kids from the same socioeconomic context is not going to help.
*Whyzzat? Because it is in our youth that we learn to meet/greet/like-or-dislike the people who surround us on a frequent basis in school. The experience forms long-lasting personal opinions of our societal-context, and, unfortunately, our prejudices as well.

And so? So this:
*This is not a monologue against private-school education. Just a word of caution for those who do not want necessarily to educate their children into class-prejudices that can last a lifetime.
*This socioeconomic context of ours is a non-homogenous blend of peoples and families from very different contexts. We are all still Americans and One Nation. Despite the fact that gross-unfairness exists in terms of Income Disparity throughout the nation, east-and-west as well as north-and-south.
*Is that unfairness acceptable? Nope. And it is due largely to our educational system which is NOT FREE, GRATIS AND FOR NOTHING at the tertiary-schooling level. As it should be.
*Whyzat? It happened for the same reason that as America evolved out of the Agricultural Age into the Industrial Age we understood the necessity of assuring a Primary and Secondary Education. (Coming off the farms into better-paying industrial jobs were people who could not even read and write.)
*Most importantly, Age Change is happening once again. We are exiting the Industrial Age and entering the Information Age, for which knowledge and knowhow become key necessities. Both of those attributes comes from a higher educational level throughout the Tertiary Level - vocational, associates, bachelors, masters, doctorate.
*And in order to assure that ALL our people have the same opportunity, Post-secondary Education should free, gratis and for nothing.

It is in Europe. I live in France, and I've sent my two kids to university for less than $600 (in euros) per year plus room-'n-board.

I am thus assured that they have the best chances to make good with their lives. The necessary education is there, the rest is up to their efforts and Lady-Luck.


The schools are not better but often the clientele, the student, is of a better caliber.
 
Last time I looked, we were 13th among the OECD countries, and dropping.

That's a recipe for the rich to have all the power, but it's also a recipe for misery, political unrest, and a crappy economy.

It's a competitive world, and we're losing ground.

No we're not. The good kids are still doing good. We just have more and more kids that used to be average that are falling into the lower levels. The top kids that we need to lead and invent, etc, are still top in the world.
 
No we're not. The good kids are still doing good. We just have more and more kids that used to be average that are falling into the lower levels. The top kids that we need to lead and invent, etc, are still top in the world.

You just blew off my stats (read facts) by writing off kids because they are bad.

Lots of countries take kids like that and turn them into good people, and productive workers.

Maybe that's because they aren't bad if you treat them like human beings.
 
You just blew off my stats (read facts) by writing off kids because they are bad.

Maybe that's because they aren't bad if you treat them like human beings.

Teachers get into education because they like to treat children like sub-human pieces of ****. Bad kids!

Lots of countries take kids like that and turn them into good people, and productive workers.

So do we...
 
So do we...

We're still 13th and falling. We don't have a long way to go before educational achievement is down with the non-developed countries.

You can't have a good economy with a minority that's properly educated. England tried that, a long time ago, and we ate their lunch.
 
We're still 13th and falling. We don't have a long way to go before educational achievement is down with the non-developed countries.

You can't have a good economy with a minority that's properly educated. England tried that, a long time ago, and we ate their lunch.

You are lookint at it wrong, like many do. The middle and top kids are still at the top of the world rankings... what America is facing is different than most countries on the planet... illiterate immigrants both legal and illegal forcing teachers that are not bilingual to try to teach illiterate kids in a foreign language, gangs, a growing number of the population caught in the poverty cycle, etc. Iceland, Denmark, Finland, South Korean, Sweden, Norway... many other countries do not have problems that remotely resemble the United States. Then there is the growing racism in education mostly by the Hispanic and African American areas. The rankings are a statistic and we all know what bull**** statistics can be used for when used poorly. ;)
 
You are looking at it wrong, like many do. The middle and top kids are still at the top of the world rankings... what America is facing is different than most countries on the planet... illiterate immigrants both legal and illegal forcing teachers that are not bilingual to try to teach illiterate kids in a foreign language, gangs, a growing number of the population caught in the poverty cycle, etc. Iceland, Denmark, Finland, South Korean, Sweden, Norway... many other countries do not have problems that remotely resemble the United States. Then there is the growing racism in education mostly by the Hispanic and African American areas. The rankings are a statistic and we all know what bull**** statistics can be used for when used poorly.

Ahh, the old we can't have anything nice because they're not White argument.

https://www.amazon.com/Price-Inequa...preST=_SY291_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&dpSrc=srch
 
Is your posted response actually as stupid as it sounds?

Start with Jane Jacobs' Cities and the Wealth of Nations. Hard to see what's wrong if you don't know what's right.

You have to build the future, and we started screwing up, in that regard, back in the 70s. There was a couple recessions, and there were cuts everywhere, schools, roads, you name it.

Poor parts of cities, parts that didn't have political clout, saw their services go in decline. Education, policing, etc. Republicans were kinda hostile to cities in the 80s, and that made things worse.

This isn't just bigotry, there is a massive helping of incompetence in the mix.

But that isn't to say there isn't racism. We started re-segregating in 1989. We're in a massive wave of racism.

Skin color is just pigment, nothing more. If we do things right, we can get good results, same way we used to, and many other countries still do.

https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_...ty&sprefix=stiglitz,aps,161&crid=F456AD73PXHO
 
From here: Are private schools really better than public schools?

Excerpt:


So why mess with success? Here's why:
*The difference in the percentages quoted above is minimal - only 13%. Yeah, OK, so "13%" is not so little and, of course, we want "want only the best for our kids".
*Far too many of us want the best, which is creating both a social and an economic cleavage in society due to the present scheme of financing education - which is outdated. And our kids going to school with kids from the same socioeconomic context is not going to help.
*Whyzzat? Because it is in our youth that we learn to meet/greet/like-or-dislike the people who surround us on a frequent basis in school. The experience forms long-lasting personal opinions of our societal-context, and, unfortunately, our prejudices as well.

And so? So this:
*This is not a monologue against private-school education. Just a word of caution for those who do not want necessarily to educate their children into class-prejudices that can last a lifetime.
*This socioeconomic context of ours is a non-homogenous blend of peoples and families from very different contexts. We are all still Americans and One Nation. Despite the fact that gross-unfairness exists in terms of Income Disparity throughout the nation, east-and-west as well as north-and-south.
*Is that unfairness acceptable? Nope. And it is due largely to our educational system which is NOT FREE, GRATIS AND FOR NOTHING at the tertiary-schooling level. As it should be.
*Whyzat? It happened for the same reason that as America evolved out of the Agricultural Age into the Industrial Age we understood the necessity of assuring a Primary and Secondary Education. (Coming off the farms into better-paying industrial jobs were people who could not even read and write.)
*Most importantly, Age Change is happening once again. We are exiting the Industrial Age and entering the Information Age, for which knowledge and knowhow become key necessities. Both of those attributes comes from a higher educational level throughout the Tertiary Level - vocational, associates, bachelors, masters, doctorate.
*And in order to assure that ALL our people have the same opportunity, Post-secondary Education should free, gratis and for nothing.

It is in Europe. I live in France, and I've sent my two kids to university for less than $600 (in euros) per year plus room-'n-board.

I am thus assured that they have the best chances to make good with their lives. The necessary education is there, the rest is up to their efforts and Lady-Luck.




Better or more private? Who can easily mosey onto a private school campus without being noticed verses who can easily mosey onto a public school campus and not be noticed?

Skipping class and leaving the campus is much more difficult to do on a private campus than on a public campus.

This goes for grade school level, high school level as well as for university/college level. Practically anyone can go onto a public college campus, enter into a grade classroom and sit it out as if they were part of the student body. But it's a little more difficult on Private college campuses to do that. And with public high schools, all the person would need to do is act as if he or she was a transfer student...

He or she might be the only one on campus with such fine monetary possessions. That's of course because he or she just transferred in. Even the teachers might be fooled. The only one that might not be might be the principle since the principle gets first news and interview with the transfer students.
 
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Better or more private? Who can easily mosey onto a private school campus without being noticed verses who can easily mosey onto a public school campus and not be noticed?

Skipping class and leaving the campus is much more difficult to do on a private campus than on a public campus.

This goes for grade school level, high school level as well as for university/college level. Practically anyone can go onto a public college campus, enter into a grade classroom and sit it out as if they were part of the student body. But it's a little more difficult on Private college campuses to do that. And with public high schools, all the person would need to do is act as if he or she was a transfer student...

He or she might be the only one on campus with such fine monetary possessions. That's of course because he or she just transferred in. Even the teachers might be fooled. The only one that might not be might be the principle since the principle gets first news and interview with the transfer students.

But on a large public high school campus not well attained to? Any person can stop off the side of the road and go on acting like a transfer student, if they can pass the under 18 appearance look. Of course the legal age to get a driver's license is? 16?

•Provisional license: 16 years old WITH completion of driver's education.
•Full driver's license: 18 years old and older.


https://www.dmv.org/ca-california/teen-drivers.php
 
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Better or more private? Who can easily mosey onto a private school campus without being noticed verses who can easily mosey onto a public school campus and not be noticed?

Skipping class and leaving the campus is much more difficult to do on a private campus than on a public campus.

This goes for grade school level, high school level as well as for university/college level. Practically anyone can go onto a public college campus, enter into a grade classroom and sit it out as if they were part of the student body. But it's a little more difficult on Private college campuses to do that. And with public high schools, all the person would need to do is act as if he or she was a transfer student...

He or she might be the only one on campus with such fine monetary possessions. That's of course because he or she just transferred in. Even the teachers might be fooled. The only one that might not be might be the principle since the principle gets first news and interview with the transfer students.

Did your teachers in elementary/high school not take attendance or know their students by name? An additional new person would definitely raise some flags.
 
For my family its the SO and me. Then again we dont do public school.

And how much do you know? I know we think everyone is an expert on every subject or can google it, but it's a serious question. How much do you know?
 
And how much do you know? I know we think everyone is an expert on every subject or can google it, but it's a serious question. How much do you know?

After 45+years on the planet I more than sufficient knowledge and experience to provide a very well rounded and effective collection of tools for the tool box. Just my business knowledge is more than enough for them to succeed. That said the education that is provided is a mix of specialized tutors, hands on experience through various endeavors paid and not, and extensive reading. The children in my clan are taught to read as early as possible basically as soon as they can speak. We encourage voracious reading appetites. We make daily life the school and its in 24/7, everything is a learning experience. Which is how its supposed to be. The only reason they even set foot in a school is for sports and academic completion and make them suffer a year of high school. Going to high school is NOT for academic purpose. Believe me for them its torture. :) We deliberately send them to a crappy school, so they can see close up why they are lucky and what being poor is actually is. They realize that just because its easy for you it aint so much for others as they didnt start at the same line or have the same rigors. They come out of it with some new friends and better appreciation of what they have and can do. When we are done they can go to any college or start their own business and succeed. They dont fear change and challenge. We make sure that Murphy and Life has had their way with them, and they dont come into young adulthood with the know everything syndrome. They can compete with the 1% and win easily. Because thats what they have been doing essentially their entire lives. We dont breed sheep in my clan or sheep dogs or even wolves. We educate our women and men to be the TOP of the food chain, and kneel to no one but those they choose.
 
Last time I looked, we were 13th among the OECD countries, and dropping.

That's a recipe for the rich to have all the power, but it's also a recipe for misery, political unrest, and a crappy economy.

It's a competitive world, and we're losing ground.

TRANSLATION: Private schools are waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyy better.
 
TRANSLATION: Private schools are waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyy better.

Some of the old ones are superb.

But there is a lot of good and bad in the ones built in the last half century, not really all that different from public schools.

We need to get serious about education, and there is a simple truth. The countries with great education systems have either federal schools or federal control.
 
Some of the old ones are superb.

But there is a lot of good and bad in the ones built in the last half century, not really all that different from public schools.

We need to get serious about education, and there is a simple truth. The countries with great education systems have either federal schools or federal control.

Not in the US.
 
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