Private schools are indefensible

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you want to help, get the unions out of public schools.

You don't know what you are talking about.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you want to help, get the unions out of public schools.

You don't know what you are talking about.

+1

[Anonymous]

I think it’s human nature that when we see a problem, we want to find a villain who is responsible for it. But with bad schools, there’s a clear problem, but no one knows who the villain is or how to fix it, so that’s frustrating. Flanagan is just harnessing that human nature to suggest that private schools are the villains, even though that makes no sense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Query: If you can afford to purchase a luxury car with all the bells and whistles, why shouldn’t you if you so choose, or should you allow society to shame you into purchasing a more modest vehicle? So if an elite private school offers a superior educational experience, and you can afford to send your child to one, why wouldn’t you? Why should society shame the parents who send their kids to such schools or the kids who attend? Perhaps society should a examine how the public schools have failed our kids and misspent all the public funds allocated toward public education.

The only problem is that the choice increasingly seems to be between the luxury car, and taking Metrobus. The latter is crowded, inconvenient, and sporadically doesn't show up. We don't need to shame the people with cars but we do need the bus to function much much better than it does. We need it to be safe, reliable, accessible, and even pleasant and enriching to ride. Unfortunately there are people who feel that if the bus is nice to ride, that makes their luxury car less special.

This is a great analogy. My kid was lucky enough to get a Mercedes for the price of a Yugo, but it still grieves me that it I couldn’t feel good about letting him take the bus.

For what it’s worth, after spending many years rubbing elbows with Mercedes owners, I honestly have yet to meet one who doesn’t support improving buses. I have literally never heard one express anything but good will and support towards the bus system.

Nah, I hear a lot of people who don't want to pay more in taxes, or who want vouchers and "school choice" because they don't want to pay for the public schools. I also get a lot of side eye because I'm still involved with the (small, starved) PTA at our old public school.
Good will and support needs to be backed by money and action.

+1 The side eye and wonder I got for being involved with our local school PTA was amazing. As though they couldn’t believe that folks actually believe in helping out and being part of their local school community. The kids that attend this school live in our neighborhoods and surrounding community. They are your neighbors. Or did you just leave the behind when you went private?

[Anonymous]

So much of the poor performance of public schools boils down to the sad really that there is no safety net for families with young kids. So, poor children are disadvantaged from the time they are in utero - their mothers often don't have optimal pre-natal care, they don't have support when the children are newborns, and daycare is often both sub-optimal and expensive. Contrast this with kids in private schools and in public schools in expensive neighborhoods, who were born with advantages that wealth can buy. Good health insurance, reduced stress, health food options (no food deserts in NW DC), child care, etc.

Teachers in the US also are poorly paid unless one happens to get a job in an expensive school district and/or has tenure/seniority. The brightest, most motivated college students generally don't want to become teachers. Compare this attitude to education in high-performing countries.

We have a broken public system. Private schools are not to blame. Private schools only put into stark relief what is possible when the chips fall into place.

[Anonymous]

Public school teachers are paid much more than private school teachers. Some point to this as evidence that public school teachers are better. I think it’s evidence that the job of being a public school teacher is much more difficult.

The pay’s not bad though. In Baltimore $80k is a good salary.

[Anonymous]

I lost interest in attending my local public school meetings after I got hit a few times with “why are you here if your kids don’t go to school here?” and “why should we listen to you if you don’t even send your kids here?”. I told myself I was there because I wanted to contribute and still cared about the issue of education, but I realized that any position I took was either ignored as irreverent or even mistrusted because my kids didn’t go there. As a result, I wasn’t really able to help the conversation in any way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Public school teachers are paid much more than private school teachers. Some point to this as evidence that public school teachers are better. I think it’s evidence that the job of being a public school teacher is much more difficult.

The pay’s not bad though. In Baltimore $80k is a good salary.

But private school teachers are willing to put up with the lower salary because they have more support, fewer students, and a better work environment. Even with the occasional entitled parent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I moved my severely dyslexic DS to a private school after his public elementary school teacher mocked his writing in front of the class and would not post something he laboriously hand-wrote up on the wall with the work of the other students because it was too messy. He's a resilient kid -- he had to be -- but after years of hearing "you are lesser" from the public schools, that was the last straw.

The private school saw a brilliant child with a reading disability and acted accordingly. In contrast, the public school saw, and treated him as, a failure. Watching my previously beaten-down child soar has been emotionally wrenching, because I can see just how badly he was treated at the public school, and how many kids suffer just like him. He has turned into a confident reader and writer, and genuinely loves school. The private school has changed the course of his life. The entire experience has made me a supporter of income-limited vouchers, because other children should have the ability to escape, especially kids with SNs. It is heartbreaking and flat-out wrong how many kids suffer like my DS did, but who can't escape.

Caitlin Flanagan has a long history of being a shoddy and untrustworthy writer, but this article goes beyond her usual trolling drivel. I wonder if the Atlantic did any fact checking at all, maybe not because they seem to be more into truthiness rather than truth these days.

That is awesome. I was on a ClubHouse talk about how to fix our education system last night and a point was made about how the one size fits all model created in industrial times doesn't work anymore. Kids need to go to schools that meet their needs and interests and strengths. Not everyone is the same type of learner so through different types of learning styles together and teaching with one learning style is a disaster.

PP here. Yes, the biggest win for my DS was being in an environment that recognized his learning profile as a strength, not a weakness. It has literally changed his life.

[Anonymous]

I want my child to be a good, resilient, strong person. I would never send them to private school to be surrounded by those kids and families. I'm sure many of them are fine, but so very many of them have godawful values and behavior.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think it’s human nature that when we see a problem, we want to find a villain who is responsible for it. But with bad schools, there’s a clear problem, but no one knows who the villain is or how to fix it, so that’s frustrating. Flanagan is just harnessing that human nature to suggest that private schools are the villains, even though that makes no sense.

Huh??? I didn’t see anything or anyone being cast as a villain in this article. It’s amazing how people can read the same thing and interpret it differently.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I want my child to be a good, resilient, strong person. I would never send them to private school to be surrounded by those kids and families. I'm sure many of them are fine, but so very many of them have godawful values and behavior.

Luckily for you this piece is largely a product of Flanagan's florid imagination.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I want my child to be a good, resilient, strong person. I would never send them to private school to be surrounded by those kids and families. I'm sure many of them are fine, but so very many of them have godawful values and behavior.

Luckily for you this piece is largely a product of Flanagan's florid imagination.

Which part is made up? Do tell.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I want my child to be a good, resilient, strong person. I would never send them to private school to be surrounded by those kids and families. I'm sure many of them are fine, but so very many of them have godawful values and behavior.

Do you usually form your opinions from reading a single Atlantic article?

I mean, it's no skin off my teeth if you want to forever reject private schools due to this article. Go for it, follow your bliss. But recognize that your conclusion may be somewhat underdetermined by evidence.

We're a FA family at a pricey private school and the vast majority of other families are just normal, nice people. Most of them have a lot more money than we do, but I don't consider that a character flaw in and of itself. Are there entitled snobs? I'm sure there are. I'm also sure that there are entitled snobs in a lot of public schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I moved my severely dyslexic DS to a private school after his public elementary school teacher mocked his writing in front of the class and would not post something he laboriously hand-wrote up on the wall with the work of the other students because it was too messy. He's a resilient kid -- he had to be -- but after years of hearing "you are lesser" from the public schools, that was the last straw.

The private school saw a brilliant child with a reading disability and acted accordingly. In contrast, the public school saw, and treated him as, a failure. Watching my previously beaten-down child soar has been emotionally wrenching, because I can see just how badly he was treated at the public school, and how many kids suffer just like him. He has turned into a confident reader and writer, and genuinely loves school. The private school has changed the course of his life. The entire experience has made me a supporter of income-limited vouchers, because other children should have the ability to escape, especially kids with SNs. It is heartbreaking and flat-out wrong how many kids suffer like my DS did, but who can't escape.

Caitlin Flanagan has a long history of being a shoddy and untrustworthy writer, but this article goes beyond her usual trolling drivel. I wonder if the Atlantic did any fact checking at all, maybe not because they seem to be more into truthiness rather than truth these days.

But your example fails to mention that there are a number of private schools that would not admit your DS so as not to deal with his SN. Additionally, the private school likely has other advantages like smaller class size, learning specialist, and potentially less kids with SN (unless its a its a SN school) that make helping and supporting your child easier. What happen to your DS is terrible and should never happen to any child, in any school. But we as a society can’t keep acting like public school to private school is an apples to apples comparison when we know its a apples to watermelon comparison. I’m not excusing the teacher’s behavior or your son’s experience as that is inexcusable. What I am saying is that your son’s experience goes beyond just a single teacher.

Example: Potomac has a bit less than 1100 students from K-12. Meanwhile, my local public school has about 650 students in K-6. Potomac has and Language Arts and Reading specialist for each grade K-3. Meanwhile my local public school has 1.5 reading specialist for the entire K-6 school. Expecting the same results from my PS as Potomac would be ridiculous.