Cross-posting a reply: public vs private schools

[Bucky]

I wrote the following rant in response to an excellent post in GD by Proud2BlibKansas, "http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x5251132">My unofficial history of education in the US," which runs down the chronology of Republican attacks on public education over the last 40 years. Other than the question of merit pay, I entirely agree with everything P2B says, even if she/he has too crowded a user name.

Sadly, as usual I wrote too much and started falling in love with my own words. To make this seem less awkward as I post it to my DU blog, I've edited it a bit and made it an OP in the education forum.

Very insightful overview. Thanks, Proud2B. I never realized that the standardized testing of other countries' students wasn't quite "as standardized" as ours--that explains a lot. If we're testing all our students while India/China/Germany (or whatever bete noire du jour we're being scared with) is only testing their college-bound kids, we're actually doing pretty good. I've been an administrator at a community college and a classroom teacher in a public school for 10 years--I've participated in the education game at every level from elementary to post secondary. I've always felt that any student could get a great free education at most public schools. The major difference always comes down to the individual student's commitment to her own success. Public schools, despite the conservative-sold reputation for being chaotic madhouses, are able to compete with private "elite" schools in large part because we pay teachers better than most private schools and have more money for support materials (altho it's still not enough). Private school education isn't really better than public schools'; it's just less noisy.

The two biggest advantages private schools have over public happens to be the most important factors that exists in any educational environment: the students' parents and peer groups are more committed to receiving a good education. These are kids who here faux horror stories from their parents about how ghetto and violent public schools are along with hearing from their folks about how much money they're paying for their kids' education. Those parents, most of whom are college educated themselves, have bought into the academic success of their kids. When a private school tells a kid acting up he's going to get kicked out and he'll have to go to a (*gasp*!) public school, he straightens his ass out.

Yet even without that leverage over the disruptive or lackadaisical learner, public schools still deliver about the same quality bang for the buck that private schools do. The biggest factors don't change--it's just a matter of whether parents want to acculturate their kids to an elite mindset or not--or rather whether these parents were themselves bought into the belief that public schools are all "jungles" (as conservatives like to put it). I recently had a discussion with an extremely conservative teacher about the quality of education in the country. The only thing we could actually agree on that would seriously improve the performance of public schools would be to outlaw private schools--it's the one way to get the whole community to feel that "buy in" to the success of everyone's education. Of course being a liberal, I had to point out that this is an unconstitutional and unconscionable solution.

But the point stands that if public schools do show improvement, it would be a direct attack on the elements in society who culturally simply like feeling like they're elites. They have a vested interest in making it seem like public schools are failing. Inciting a moral panic and keeping teacher pay as low as possible is the best available strategy for achieving that end. This is where conservatives come up with ridiculous phrases like "You can't throw money at a problem." What an utter wad of baloney. Of course you should throw money at a problem! What the hell good is even having money if you don't use it to fix your problems?

Any problem you won't throw money at is a problem you don't want to solve. Which is why I kind of like merit pay. I don't think it should be allowed to replace a good base salary for all teachers. But I can tell you that after three years of getting merit pay bonuses, it's done wonder for my commitment and personal sense of accomplishment on the job. For a job that has a lot of frustration, it's nice to see a few extrinsic rewards hung out along with the traditional intrinsic rewards that go with the job.

  --Thanks for reading it all (or at least thanks for jumping down to the bottom of the page to post your attack on my viewpoints)

[sallylou666]

1. Solution = smaller classes

A former secondary school teacher here. The solution for public schools is easy. More money for smaller classes. That would allow the teacher to give each child more attention. At the secondary level, a teacher has at least six periods and at least around 32 kids per class. That's over one hundred kids per day through each teachers classroom. No one can keep up with the progress of that many kids.

It's the industrial model of education. Prepare a lesson, police kids while teaching lesson, have kids do homework, have kids check homework, and test at the end of the unit. Put lots of kids in one class for economy scale. Herd kids in the hallway like cattle.

Forget inspiring the kids or tailoring the curriculum to the kids' needs. It's assembly line education.