Students do better in public schools

I would love to see the data from the original study, because I think I have an easy explanation for the phenomenon they observed. It is related to, but not quite like "teaching the test".

Public schools teach a core curriculum focused on academics related to those found on standardized tests. Although there are "minor subjects" like music, art, etc. taught in the public schools, most of a public school kid's day consists of math, reading, and when older social studies and science.

A private school might be a fine arts academy or it might be a religious school. I was thinking about a school in Michigan, the Interlochen music school. It's quite famous, and very expensive. They study music. I'm guessing that their average student is quite bright, so they probably have above average math scores. However, they spend a lot of time studying music, and I'm guessing that means they cut back on the math studies. They would be a very high socio-economic class school, and their test scores would be above average, but not as high as the rich suburban public school.

Likewise, a Jewish school that spends an hour a day on Hebrew has to leave an hour a day out of some other subject. Learning a foreign language, even Hebrew, can be quite useful, but it won't show up on a standardized test.

The result is that a "rich" private school might not do as well as a "rich" public school because it might be a specialized school whose subjects aren't tested.

But when considering the implications of the study on schools of choice programs, what has to leap out is that the socio-economic class of the student body is a major contributor to academic success. Moral of the story: If you want your kid in a school with some high-achieving classmates, and you can't afford private school, move out of your lower class neighborhood.
 
A fact about US schools:

All 50 States and the District of Columbia require public school teachers to be licensed. Licensure is not required for teachers in private schools. Usually licensure is granted by the State Board of Education or a licensure advisory committee.

After your 4 years in university, a prospective public school teacher must take an all day exam to get a license. They must also continue to take "development" courses through the years to continue teaching. A private school teacher has no requirements.

In other words, private schools hire teachers who have not been tested or certified to see if they know squat about anything. It's up to the school to determine whether they know enough, or have a criminal record etc.

A teacher I know who used to teach at the local Catholic private school said most of the teachers had other incomes because they couldn't afford to be a full time teacher. The school had no equipment, and even the administration, some of them, didn't have degrees in educational administration.

It's VERY variable as to whether there's a quality education from private fee schools. There are certain schools like this one:

Groton in Massachusetts

GrotonAerial.jpg


A very pretty school, good reputation - not cheap either.

But there are really poorly equipped private schools too. Only a few of them are very well funded, by rich parents donating equipment etc.

Now the American university level is an entirely different story! Harvard, Yale, Stanford are all private schools, and are the best schools in the United States. No question at all about that. There are great public schools with tons of research money, but the top few schools are private.
 
jay gw said:

Now the American university level is an entirely different story! Harvard, Yale, Stanford are all private schools, and are the best schools in the United States. No question at all about that. There are great public schools with tons of research money, but the top few schools are private.
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But the top 20 schools are peppered with public schools (liek Cal, UVA, Michigan.)

How can public schools be ranked so high if they are inherently inferior??
 
a_unique_person said:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,12765746%5E12332,00.html
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Interesting, here it would depend on an area for public schools, but generally private school students tend to be more disciplined to study. Don't have any figures on this sorry, just my personal experience.

Interesting point, here in California family income is taken into account at certain low point when being admitted to University.

I also have no understanding of the Australian University system so I am not sure how similar things are.

I thought you trusted me more than that?
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I would be very skeptical of that claim :)
 
Meadmaker

I think all schools teach to the test right now. Remember Bush implemented those required tests a couple years ago. I don’t know what the repercussions to the school/teacher/student are if the students do poorly, but get the impression it’s severe. Right now the students at the school are studying for this test which occurs in 3 weeks.

My daughter has a friend that attends a private Christian school. Her friend was told this by the Science teacher: “I’m required to teach you evolution for the test, but just remember it’s all lies and the word of the lord is truth”

Just one data point, but since all students are tested, all schools may be teaching to the test.
 
Daylight said:
Meadmaker

I think all schools teach to the test right now. Remember Bush implemented those required tests a couple years ago.
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I didn't realize that private school students are included. Why would a private school with no state funding have to worry about losing its funding?

I go to the PTA meetings, and you can tell from the presentations by the principal and faculty what is important to them. It is very obvious that No Child Left Behind and its required testing procedures have altered the teaching at the school, and I for one don't think it is an improvement.
 
quote:
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Originally posted by Iamme
I was prejudiced into thinking that private schools attracted the best teachers,
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(Tmy)

How??? By paying them less and giving them less benefits? It doesnt make sense.

I went to a catholic school. All the teachers had other jobs cause they got paid squat. Then there were the nuns. OI VEY!!! In 8th grade we had this senile nun who gave us the same assignments over and over. We never said anything cause we already had the work done.

(Iamme)

Really! Interesting. I wonder where the (tuition) money goes? You know...what the 'pie' looks like when they show what income goes where for expenses. Also I would like to know if private schools *also* receive any local, state or federal funding. And, don't private schools receive, often times, big donations from grown up students who went there and made good? I know that goes on in universities all the time and I coud easily suppose this goes on in private schools as well.
 
Tricky said:
Here's something very telling about the article

So public schools actually score better, but when you adjust the figures for other factors, they are worse. What a shocker!

Of course, there are several reasons why people go to private schools in the first place. One is to get a better education, and these students tend to go to more expensive, somewhat elite schools. Naturally, the number of "disadvantaged" kids is somewhat small in these schools.
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And hence, since children from wealthier homes are more intelligent in general (for whatever reasons) private schools naturally tend to have higher score averages.

But when kids of the same wealth range are compared, those in public schools seem to score higher.

Of course, as mentioned, there are other reasons to put kids in private schools, like keeping them out of the violence of public schools. This is very popular in big cities. And it isn't a racist thing since the privates are crammed with minorities, too.
 
Tmy said:
But the top 20 schools are peppered with public schools (liek Cal, UVA, Michigan.)

How can public schools be ranked so high if they are inherently inferior??
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If public schools are inherently superior, why are they afraid of vouchers, especially when they get to keep fully 50% of the leaving student's allocated money?
 
Beerina said:
If public schools are inherently superior, why are they afraid of vouchers, especially when they get to keep fully 50% of the leaving student's allocated money?
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Because it's unfair.

Why should Couple A be allowed to take back half of their property taxes and funnel it into a school that can be used to benefit their kids, whereas Couple B, who is childless, still has to pay but is not allowed ANY choice in how their money gets spent?

We don't have individuals pay taxes to support public schools because it pays for their kids. If that were the case, I wouldn't have to pay anything. The public pays to support education.

If I have to pay to support public education, then you do, too. If you want to send your kids to private school, go for it. But that does not relieve you of your responsibility to support public education.
 
Grammatron said:
Because that's the way at is, pleasing some will anger another and thus be unfair.
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Why does this have to be so? I'm not asking the government to please anyone. In fact, I'm asking the government to NOT please some. I'm asking them keep pissing off everyone equally.



Besides, fair is very arbitrary word.
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It's subjective, but not arbitrary.
 
pgwenthold said:


Why does this have to be so? I'm not asking the government to please anyone. In fact, I'm asking the government to NOT please some. I'm asking them keep pissing off everyone equally.
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You want Philosophy department, two doors down on your left.

You can't piss off everyone equally when no person is equall to another

It's subjective, but not arbitrary.
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I don't want to argue semantics so sure, yeah, ok.
 
pgwenthold said:
Because it's unfair.

Why should Couple A be allowed to take back half of their property taxes and funnel it into a school that can be used to benefit their kids, whereas Couple B, who is childless, still has to pay but is not allowed ANY choice in how their money gets spent?
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There is a fallacy in this argument.

Couple A is not "taking back" anything. It isn't their money.

As you noted, every citizen is responsible for providing money, in the form of taxes, to support the education of the next generation.

Couple A pays money into the system under the same terms as couple B. Whether there is a voucher or not, couple A doesn't "get" anything, nor does couple A "take out" anything. Couple A has a legal responsibility to see to it that their child is educated. The government has wisely decided that government funds will be used for this task.

The only question involved, then, is the best way to distribute those funds. There is no "fairness" involved. Is it more effective to distribute funds to individuals who need the service, and then allow them to procure that service privately, using government funds, possibly supplemented with their own funds, or is it more effective to create centralized, government run distribution points for that service?

Or is there a middle ground, such as government procurement of the services by private organizations? Those would be called charter schools.

Your argument is equivalent to saying that any system other than centralized government controlled distribution of services is unfair. That's obviously wrong.

As for the "choice" aspect of the argument, couple A has a choice and couple B does not because couple A has been charged with the responsibility to make the decision about how to spend the money. (This is under a voucher system.) Let's compare it to food vouchers, which we call Food Stamps. Is it "unfair" that a Food Stamp recipient has lots of choice about where he buys food, but I have no choice about where he buys food. One can argue about the "fairness" of the program, but lack of choice is not what makes it fair or unfair.
 
Meadmaker said:
There is a fallacy in this argument.

Couple A is not "taking back" anything. It isn't their money.
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But this is the problem: why are they GIVING it to them?

Vouchers are not given directly to the private schools, they are given as tuition deductions! Therefore, the parents do not have to pay as much tuition to send their kids to private school as they would without vouchers.

If the government were to just funnel money into private schools, it would be one thing. But it doesn't. It effectively gives the money back to the parents so they can use it to pay tuition of the private school.

Here's something I don't know: are "voucher" sizes tied to the size of tax payments?
 
I’ve seen up to $5000 per kid in most proposals.

If these private schools claim they can do it for less, how much you want to bet all these private schools will “suddenly” overnight require $5000 per student. And the amount over what they used to charge, there is no guarantee it goes towards your kid and not the CEO’s new Mercedes since unlike a Public School, they are not accountable for how the money is spent.

Isn’t this then just another variant of the corporate welfare theme? Seen in this light I’m now even more against vouchers.
 
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