Public vs. Private Education
I have examined and compared public versus private education. Also, this collection of information should help you understand differences between public and private schools. Aspects of equality and achievement in private and public education will be dissected and evaluated.
Observations
I have evaluated and examined both public and private education instittutional systems.
Public Education
Public schools are in crisis, and not because of any shortages of public funds (more money is spent on public education than ever before, but with declining results). Many people like to think the problem with our schools is precisely that they are public: "Government schools" are run like the rest of the government, poorly and inefficiently. Teachers are not primarily to blame, because they are also victims of bad conditions of schools and their profession.
The solution is to get government out of the business of education and to run education in a more businesslike way. However, education is not a business like other businesses; it does not turn out a product whose value can be expressed adequately in terms of market price. Education does impart business or workplace skills, of course, but the value of reading and writing well cannot be captured fully by a future salary. The love of learning and growing as a student mentally is what shapes each individual's identity in public life.
Before much progress can be made, Americans will have to be persuaded that public schools are a public failure -- that they are turning out not just poorly educated students but bad or indifferent citizens. However statistics show that Americans have confidence in public education. In 1997 Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup Poll of the Public's Attitudes Toward the Public Schools was the first in which an effort was made to determine whether the public wants to place its confidence in the public schools or to start looking for an alternative system. In that poll, the public clearly indicated its preference for the public schools.. The results clearly affirm the public's belief that our national commitment to educating all our children through the public schools should be maintained. 71% of Americans indicate that the focus in education should be on reforming the existing system. This compares to 27% opting for finding an alternative system such as p...
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... school also generally increased with family income.
Children from the lowest income families (less than $15,000) were more likely than those from families with incomes over $30,000 to attend a chosen public school. However, the net result of the various types of choice was that children from families with incomes over $50,000 were much less likely than children from families in lower income categories to attend an assigned public school over which they had not exercised any choice.
Reference
The Condition of Education 1997, 182, based on NCES, Schools and Staffing Survey, 1993?94, and the Teacher Follow-up Survey, 1994?95.
14/ NCES, Schools and Staffing in the United States, 1993?94, 107.
15/ V.E. Lee and J.B. Smith, "High School Size: Which Works Best, and for Whom?," paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, New York, 1996.
16/ F. Mosteller, R. Light, and J. Sachs, "Sustained Inquiry in Education: Lessons from Skill Grouping and Class Size," Harvard Educational Review 66 (4) (1996): 797?842.
17/ The Condition of Education 1997, 136, based on NCES, Schools and Staffing Survey, 1987?88, 1990?91, and 1993?94.
Some of the advantages to this new public school choice option include: offers a way out of a low performing school, supports educational innovation because it supports alternatives to the traditional school day, school choice can match child and parents needs thus parents will be involved and more committed to the school and their child’s learning experience. (O’Neil, 1996) There are some restrictions when one thinks about the public school choice option. Restrictions include claims that all schools are too crowded, short windows of opportunity for parents to exercise choice, when parent can choose if they want to use school choice or not, and outright restrictions on which schools can participate in public school choice program. (Snell, 2002) Other disadvantages include: create inequalities by taking the more desirable students, fewer opportunities to learn from students of different backgrounds, and changes the focus from education for the public good to education for the private good. Education is no longer being seen as providing ‘some common experience in common se...
One major affliction of the American public education system is money, or the lack thereof, and the impact funding inequality has on educational quality. Benjamin Barber, in his article “America Skips School,” says the federal government only funds about 5% of public education (121). Public school funding comes primarily from local property taxes, meaning suburban schools can have up to twice as much money to spend on education than those in urban areas (Barber 122). Increasing federal financial aid in public schools could solve the problem of funding inequality by providing lower income schools with more available resources without taking money from other schools or increasing local taxes. Increasing funds would allow schools to provide better facilities and repair “leaky, broken-down habitats” often found in impoverished school districts. More money would allow all schools to hire better teachers and improve ...
In February 2010 Chicago Public Schools (CPS) reported their shockingly large budget deficit which will affect the 2010 / 2011 school year. The decreased state funding, increased salary and benefit costs, and the increase of operational costs for Chicago Public schools leaves a deficit of $700 - $900 millions dollars. This deficit of funds will have drastic affects on teachers including teacher and staff layoffs, school closings, and loss of teacher benefits. More importantly the effects of budgetary issues hits hard on our students’ increase the inequities of especially poor urban schools. These children have nothing to do with poor management of the funds for their basic right of an equal and highly performing education. There are an increased number of dilapidated school buildings, an increased number of charter schools, and a loss of afterschool programs such as music and sport activities, minimal school supplies, no transportat...
Public schools in the United States are provided by the state, and federal funding. More than 90 percent of children attend public schools. Private schools in the United States include schools in which religion is a priority. Clearly, public schools provide more education than private schools in the United States. Private schools are built were created for the administration, and parents to communicate, and a priority to involve parents in the child’s learning environment. From frequent parent-teacher meetings, social events, and family events, and fundraising initiatives, families become an important part of the child’s education. This also creates a strong bond between parent, and student. Also qualified teachers are making a difference
California is one of the largest states in the country and has one of the biggest state budgets, but in the past several years, its school system has become one of the worst in the nation because of enormous budget cuts in efforts to balance the state’s enormous deficit. The economic downturn at the end of the 2000s resulted in even more cuts to education. It is in environments like this one in which students from poor backgrounds become most vulnerable because of their lack of access to support in their homes as well as other programs outside of schools. Their already financially restricted school districts have no choice but to cut supplementary programs and increase class sizes among other negative changes to public schools. The lack of financial support from the state level as well as demands for schools to meet certain testing benchmarks by the state results in a system in which the schools are no longer able to focus on students as individuals; they are forced to treat students as numbers rather than on an individual case by case basis. An article from the Los Angeles Times showed that majority of Californians give California schools “a grade of C or below” and half think that the quality of schools will continue to decline (Watanabe).While the economic downturn affected the public school system in a negative way, it was not the sole root of its problems. It just simply exacerbated already existing issues.
Bushaw, William J., and Shane J. Lopez. "Public Education In The United States: A Nation Divided." Phi Delta Kappan 94.1 (2012): 9-25. Academic Search Premier. Web. 17 Apr. 2014.
America’s public school system started off very rough, but through the dedication of many hard-working Americans, it was starting to shape into a system that allowed all children, regardless of race, gender, religion, or nation of origin, to have an education.
The idea of school choice is not a new one. Since the late 1980s school choice has become a popular strategy for “reforming American education and equalizing educational opportunities” (Hadderman, 2002). School choice is a broad term that is used to describe charter schools, home-schooling, for-profit companies, and vouchers. Parents who wish to select schools for their children do so for academic, religious, or moral reasons, and usually select schools that reflect their own beliefs.
To begin with, the problem with the American system of funding schools is the variations that exist among different districts or states. Underfunding exists because the United States federal government allows it to exits by allowing state and local governments to decide what their contribution to education will be. Such variation is exemplified by the state of Hawaii, “the whole state is a single school district and only 2% of funding comes from local sources”(Connell) and the state of New Hampshire, “the state shares only 8% of the costs of public education, so schools depend almost entirely on local property taxes”(Connell). Each state has its own funding policy and even among districts there are wide variations in spending. Urban and suburban schools with a high student population who qualify for free or reduced typically receive less funding for schools than their counterparts due to the differences in each districts’ local property taxes. Variation of this type and of this degree hinders American education.
Public schools today face several issues that affect the standard of education our children are receiving. They face issues such as teachers with limited experience. Budget cuts, dilapidated facilities, not enough teachers, and school violence, lack of parent participation, and
Education reform in the United States has recently come under scrutiny after many recent failed proposals. President George W. Bush implemented one of the most popular choices of education reform with his “No Child Left Behind” system. However, that policy reform in the past five years has faded to nothing more than a mistake. This mistake has haunted the education systems in America, but it is not the only reform proposal to shake up the school systems across the States. One new proposal that has caught the eye of some current state politicians is the idea of school choice. School choice is giving the option to parents to take their children to different schools, which is different from assigning children to schools based on the location of their houses. Does giving the parents of children an option to choose what school their child goes to create a spirit of competition? That is partly the goal with the school choice reform policy proposal along with many other facets that can completely revitalize the education system in the United States. The stipulations of this proposal involve a variety of suggestions to help strengthen the core of our education system.
Sadly over 40 years later, the the educational revolution still hasn't taken off. The “pieces” are still lying around unassembled and the education in the schools is still tolerated. The need for change of public schools in the United States has been emerging since of the the passage of Pennsylvania's Common School Act in 1834. The Common School Act of 1834, set up a "general” system of education by common schools. People are continuously saying how children are the future and we must nurture them in order to ensure a bright future for our country. However, we are failing at a very basic level. The current education system in the United States is extremely poor. Drop-out rates for high school students continue to rise and student performance has been steadily declining. An article published in 1999 showed exactly how much of a crisis the American education system is really in. The article was written by William J. Bennett, former U.S. Secretary of Education, and it ranked high school seniors form 21 industrialized nations based on their performance in math, science, and advanced physics. American high school seniors ranked 19th in math, 16th in science and last in advanced physics.
Public education has been able to provide the necessary education to students, despite its limited capabilities. Students are offered the same education in public schools as they are in private schools. Students make their choice on whether or not they want to apply themselves, and learn from the teachers in front of them. In private schools students are excited to learn. Maybe that is why they have better test scores. Students enrolled in public schools have a tendency to fail, or some succeed. These options are taken by students who who either try, or do not care. Either way, every student has an equal opportunity to gain an education.
United States Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. (2004). The condition of education 2004. Washington, DC: United States Government Printing Office.
Many people in today’s society believe it’s wise to send their children to private schools. In making the decision on whether to put children in public or private schools, they look to four main factors: curriculum, class size, the graduation rate, and cost. When people have to pay for something, their first thought is, “Will I be getting what I’m paying for?” With a private school education, the amount you have to pay is usually well worth it. Public schools offer diversity. Here students can find people who are just like them and can associate better. Wherever you live, you have to send your child to the closest school. There’s no choice on what public school you can send your child to, whereas for private schools you can pick to send your child there. It’s not an easy choice for parents to decide, but many factors point toward a guarantee that a good education would be achieved, which is most important.