Private schools

Private Schools Losing Ground to Public Schools - How is this a Good Thing?

Anyone who took one look at a private school and all the amenities that a child is afforded there, would quickly jump at the chance. Who wouldn't salivate at a campus filled with wonderful manicured gardens, well-stocked libraries with new books, arts programs, and science and arts workshops - all at the bargain basement price of just $30,000-$40,000 a year.

Families that have been sending their children to these luxury schools for years, are beginning to reconsider what it is exactly in real-world advantages that their dollars are buying their children. After all, with half the country either unemployed or working at rolled back salaries, who has the money for inessentials?

Isn't it possible that even with all this wonderful schooling, that the child will only grow up to find a world that has no jobs?

When parents pull their children out of their private schools and show up at the doorsteps of publicly-funded schools, they're often surprised at how they aren't the dull cement holes that they show them to be on TV shows about violent schools. Public schools have administrators who are really helpful and approachable, and the racial balance is wonderful. Some parents who are really well off, just regret not having made the move earlier.

Public schools often have dedicated teachers, admirable libraries, and a vibrant extracurricular system. Still, a certain amount of loss of luxury, of cleanliness, and the feeling of used textbooks, is too much for some parents, who will sell the family silver to keep their children in their pleasant surroundings at their private schools.

But having all these middle-class families moving their children to public schools, can be a good thing. It helps improve the atmosphere at any school, to have more children from the middle of society. To begin with, parents of these children who were formerly at private schools are going to be looking beady-eyed at what the district cuts back on in a recession.
And they're not going to put up with it, intelligent and solid citizens of the community that they are. And this will benefit all students.

Having children from rich families mingling with children from lesser financial backgrounds, is a wonderful thing. The rich families give their children ambitions that are probably not available in poorer families. And when the poorer children make friends with the rich kids, they'll probably learn of all that it is possible to hope for.

And middle-class parents are always going to be active in the PTA, because they are so much more aware than poorer less-educated parents of how important it is to keep an eye on the management and direction the school takes.

They are likely to have better contacts around society, and to be aware of better ways to influence the school administration, to do what is best for the children. Enrollment at public schools in the last five years has gone up, while at private schools, admissions have dropped 5%. This is thought to be very good for the public schooling system.

Some parents will move house, to be able to pick a school district that is better. Sometimes just moving a couple blocks will make all the difference in the world. Sometimes private school children will miss their friends who've moved to the public system, and will pester their parents to allow them to do the same. And that is where the hope lies.