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Friday, April 8, 2011

Public vs. Private Schools


Public vs. Private Schools


The national education reform effort has long suffered from magical thinking about what it takes to improve children’s chances of learning. Instead of homing in on teacher training and high standards, things that distinguish effective schools from poor ones, many reformers have embraced the view that the public schools are irreparably broken and that students of all kinds need to be given vouchers to attend private or religious schools at public expense.

This belief, though widespread, has not held up to careful scrutiny. A growing body of work has shown that the quality of education offered to students varies widely within all school categories. The public, private, charter and religious realms all contain schools that range from good to not so good to downright horrendous.

This point was underscored last week when the United States Education Department released a controversial and long-awaited report comparing public and private schools in terms of student achievement as measured on the federal math and reading tests known as the National Assessment of Educational Progress. As with previous studies, this one debunked the widely held belief that public schools were inferior to their private and religious counterparts. The private schools appeared to have an achievement advantage when the raw scores of students were considered alone. But those perceived advantages melted away when the researchers took into account variables like race, gender and parents’ education and income.

The National Education Association, the nation’s largest teachers’ union, quickly asserted that the study showed public schools were “doing an outstanding job.’’ That seems absurd, when we consider the dismal math and reading scores that American children racked up on last year’s national tests.

What the emerging data show most of all is that public, private, charter and religious schools all suffer from the wide fluctuations in quality and effectiveness. Instead of arguing about the alleged superiority of one category over another, the country should stay focused on the overarching problem: on average, American schoolchildren are performing at mediocre levels in reading, math and science — wherever they attend school.

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9 comments:

  1. I'm trying to choose now for a K program between public and private. Both have serious strenghts and weaknesses. It's a tough one!

    Daryl - Germantown, MD

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  2. It's a difficult choice. Teachers in private schools don't even have to be certified to teach their subjects.

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  3. Public school is definately the way to go!

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  4. I just made the decision myself. Public school.
    Jesse

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  5. My vote is always for public. Places like so called "academy's" tote greatness while costing an arm and a leg and the only thing academy about them is the name - pre-schools do this too!

    Beth, MD

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  6. I guess we will wait and see if my decision was correct - keeping my finger crossed.

    Mary, Bethesda

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  7. With school starting I'm nervous. I'm hoping it will be a good year!

    Bethesda, MD

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  8. now that school has started - I have to say I made the right choice choosing public schools - more qualified and trained professional teachers than in private schools!

    Anna - Nebraska

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  9. good article and im interested to know more about it...

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