Thread: Your thoughts about private schools

Originally Posted by Wildtim

This power of enrollment is most often used to enforce stricter discipline than the public schools are allowed to use, and oddly enough with greater discipline come higher student achievement.

Imagine that! And I thought keeping God out of school and throwing money at our education system was what was needed!

There are significant differences in discipline between schools, but that is not related to being public or not.
There are schools where the kids are in charge (some kind of social experiment gone whack) where it is really a matter of the inmates running the asylum.

But there are also schools where it is the other way around.
My high school used to be run by nuns. Discipline was very strict. Walking from playground to the class in single file, no talking allowed in the hallways, no running in the hallways, not jumping the last 3 step of the stairs (this earned me a detention once )... things like that.

I do agree that discipline is for the better. You need discipline in real life as well if you ever want to achieve something.

I am a product of city (not suburb) public education. I went to public schools all the way up untill college where I made the choice to go to a private school. I believe I came out better by going to public school than private schools. There were a lot of programs that I was part of that do not exist in most private schools.

At a young age I was diagnosed ADD and highly gifted and talented. For grade 3-5 I was in a program called Twice Exceptional. There were two teachers and no more than 12 students.

In middle school (6-8) I as in the highly gifted program. The public schools also had shop class which I know the local private schools did not have. My middle school, during the years I was there, was rated the third most dangerous school in the state of Colorado. I saw some fights, got in a few myself, but I believe I am better for it. I learned to not let things get to me. The new principle now requires uniforms and the state of the school as gotten better.

In high school I as in the Computer Magnet Program. It was rated the top magnet program in the country during the time I was there. I had the option of becoming certified so that I could get a good job directly out of high school. I was also part of JROTC in high school. My school made the news for kids having sex in school and we also had a fairly high percentage of drug and alcohol use. The big difference is that the private and suburban schools had the same problems, but they had harder drugs. We had a majority of our graduating students go on to college including Harvard and other highly rated schools. My school district also has a school called Career Education Center, which I took one auto body class at, where students who have no plans for college can go and learn a trade or start getting certified to be a nurse. They offered classes in welding, auto repair, auto body, culinary, news production, and others. We have a very large Latino population in Denver and this helps them and others that have no urge to go to college (a tangent is laying here for another day) get skills that can help them get jobs.

In my opinion the idea that you get more discipline in private school is not always true. I learned discipline both at home and at school. I learned how to respect people in school, which from what I saw of the private school kids, they did not always learn. The parish I attend has a school attached to it, and more often than not the kids coming out of it are very clique and over all jerks. I was very much an outsider in my Cub Scout troop because I did not go to the private school at my parish.


I would look at what the schools and school districts offer in the way of programs and opportunities. I would also spend some time walking the halls, playgrounds, and after school if possible to see what the over all attitude is at the school. Most importantly remember that faith, discipline and respect are primarily taught (through example) in the house not at school.

In Switzerland we have a very different system from the one in the US. We have a federal agreement for the obligatory school (roughly from 4 to 16 - I am talking here about age) and high school (from 15-16 to 18-20) establishing the requirements that must be met in term of teachings, but each states has its own laws...

I made all my studies from 4 to 20 in public schools (obligatory school than high school: 4-6, 6-12, 12-15 / 15-20) in a catholic environment in a bilingual (French - German) state of Switzerland, the Valais (one of the highest ranking state concerning eduction, but without a university!). The reason for the catholic environment is that my state is one of the few states that remain catholic after the reformation; it is not that the schools are catholic, but more that Catholicism is a quite diffuse environment in the whole state (for instance one of the three public high schools in my state is under the direction of Canons); in catholic states, the schools have almost always been of a higher quality than in the protestant states... for instance, in Geneva where I made my University years, the protestant Rome, the schooling scheme is 4-6, 12-15, 15-18 (two years less for high school)... Geneva is the worst state - "schoolingly" speaking - in Switzerland.

The private schools (I am not speaking here of professional schools like the hotel school) in CH are usually designed for two kind of students: for those with difficulties (behaviour or/and learning ), or for those with a lot of money; but their quality is usually less good, or equivalent, but very rarely superior than the public schools. Disciplinary problems are usually issues for both, and drugs and posh behaviour for the latter.

The story is quite different for the Universities and higher grade schools (like Polytechnique); they are state based (not every state has one) and all public (they are no private universities in Switzerland, only private institutes) with no religious orientation, with the notable exception of Theology Faculties (for instance in Geneva there is a protestant faculty and in Fribourg a catholic one).

There are disciplinary issues everywhere nowadays, drugs, violence and the like... stupid teachings theories are hitting hard both private and public schools (imagine that in Geneva some very "learned" people in child psychology said - and it came into application from the 90ies until last year - that grades must be left aside because bad grades are traumatizing young school boys... *hitting head against desk*) as are financial problems; but one in another, public schooling still remains the best option for the "regular" students in CH.

An interesting subject that can become passionate long before it suffers from being articulate.

My children went to some of the most diverse schools in Iowa, all public. They were well known for all the social and cultural problems that have been listed, drugs, gangs etc. But, my kids learned to live in those environments and to find their own way. Mostly because I had to learn to talk to them. This left an avenue of discussion about how to handle some of the stuff they were being introduced to. The schools are not very good at that part and sadly, a lot of parents just dump their kids into the system (whatever kind) and expect the teachers to work magic.

This is where I advocate public education. It's a wonderful thing to have a school where your kids are protected ideologically and get a good education. If they both occur in the same building it's a bonus. But, eventually, they will have to enter the world of work and deal with the bullies in the real world, who can't read their graduating diploma and can only talk sports, who have been Peter Principled upward to a high level of incompetence. Moving into that world suddenly can be very harsh, nearly abusive.

We moved when two of the youngest were transitioning from K-6 and 7-9 and entered a system where it was all white and seriously biased against anyone that wasn't born in that town. It was a disappointment all around. The oldest did okay and being a natural leader (sorry, bragging) survived by taking over her social group. But it set her behind and took her a couple years after school to realize that some education was not the best for her.

When the youngest was making a transition into the upper grades, instead of allowing her to stall like her sister did, we took her to a charter school. Here it's a semi-private arrangement where the school can get money from the state to support their program and they can provide an alternative to a traditional classroom.

She absolutely blossomed for the next four years. The lock-step, treat everybody the same (stupid) traditional classroom of lecture (if you don't care about learning, go ahead and lecture), was painful because they ignored a bright kid in favor of the behavior problems. Her new school was based on Project Learning. They still have the graduation standards to meet, history, math etc. but the entire responsibility for learning rests on the student. They pick what they are interested in doing and have to make sure that they include some history, some math, some hands on, whatever the list of requirements are. The teachers function completely as facilitators helping them find resources and staying on track. But the student has to manage their time, and do what we, as adults, all recognize as the world of work. Think about it. The boss says, I want you to take on this project. You have to organize your resources, plan, execute, evaluate, correct, re-execute and then do a presentation. The program was modeled on what we have to know to succeed in university and the world of work. Once she realized she could go as fast or slow as she wanted, she took off. She could feed her interests and still realized the responsibility of not necessarily liking everything that had to be done.

Example: She's very much interested in drama, video, stage arts. One of her graduation requirements was Home Economics. Usually something like kitchen or making clothing and not one of the most fun classes in a traditional school. She combined that with a history credit and a stagecraft credit and made a Victorian period dress for a play they were doing at the school. She wore it to a Renaissance Festival and was astounded by the number of offers to buy one when she explained she'd made it. If she was more interested she probably could have retired as a costumer. Even now, when she's involved in a play, she's always pulled out to keep an eye on the costumes as a side job.

The Bill Gates Foundation has seeded money all over the US for programs of this model. It'd bet you have one nearby and don't know it.

IF your kids are bright (meaning they come home bitching about being bored to death in school), this kind of program will set them up to take over the world. The teachers are happier because the students are learning. Parents are happier because it's obvious about how much happier the kids are and how much they work on things that are interesting for everyone.

To quote our current president: It's much easier to succeed with success than it is with failure.

I attended a private, liberal arts focused school until the 9th grade. While I know some public schools are excellent, and they play an important role socializing you into your community, I wouldn't trade my by private school experience for anything. It exposed me to a lot of things many kids my age, or older, would never know. Its an important part of who I am. If it feels right, and you trust yourself, give it a try.

Jordan

I went to private school and now i am all ****ed up. I blame the system! No no, private school is great to n exten IMO just like there are pro's and con's to public school, in a private school you take the good with the bad.

I went to private school (properly called parochial school since it was Catholic affiliated) and got a much better education than I would have if I had gone to public school in my area. Additionally, the college application process was much easier on me as I had built in public service (my school required it), and the diploma requirements involved more credit hours than the public school graduation requirements. Grade school was in uniforms, high school had a dress code. There are some incredible public schools and there are some crap factories too. Same with private schools. On the whole, do the research for what is available to you in your area and price range. Interview everyone, sit in on some classes, find out graduation rates, college acceptance rates, and extra curricular participation. The higher the better on these. Ignore test scores. That is my opinion.

-Rob

Sent my youngest to a private(christian)school for her first 6 yrs, I wished I could have done it for the others. The private school taught kids to question and prove/disprove for themselves, critical analysis, very unlike the public schools which simply teach kids to follow the herd and act like the mob. Learning by rote if they learn anything.

I think it depends on the area to be honest. There are quite a few private Catholic and Christian schools around here that I am familiar with that I would think twice about sending a child to. From what I'm used to, I would still rank certain private schools over most public ones. However, tops to me is homeschooling.

Don't let the "lack of socializing" trash fool you when considering even private schools. The fact remains that there are a ton of really screwed up kids in this country that are products of the "great" social environments of public schooling. To me, if you don't have enough faith in your parenting skills to believe that you can equip your child with the abilities to socialize well with others, maybe school choice isn't your biggest problem.