Public Vs Private Secondary Schools

“After teaching in the public school system, I am honestly considering sending my kids to a private school”

I have probably raised a few eyebrows with the comments I have made on our site here at My University Money, as well as those I have made on comment boards around the blogosphere concerning the argument of public vs private schooling.  I have a pretty unique perspective on the situation that is enlightening in some ways, yet limiting in others.  The secondary education experience that I had was not typical or average in anyway.  I grew up in a small rural area, and went to a very tiny K-12 school (around 160 students… yes, these schools do exist).  This meant lots of one-on-one teacher time, and a strong push to take part in many extracurricular activities.  I was also fortunate enough to be in a very strong and competitive (academically) class that set the achievement bar very high for all of us.  While I enjoyed this experience very much, I don’t believe it is at all representative of the vast majority of public high schools in North America right now, and it certainly has no correlation to a private school experience.  Now obviously any discussion about the public vs private school systems has to acknowledge the caveat that there is a massive range of experiences within those two categories.  Obviously lots of what I have to say will be anecdotal, and conclusions will likely be drawn from generalities as opposed to scientifically-collected data.  My experiences in the private school system have been limited to a couple semesters of student teaching, three years of coaching sports, and talking to several friends who attended private schools their entire lives.  I have also been involved with probably 20 or so public schools at this point, all within Manitoba, Canada, but I will say that I am fairly active in reading the most recent educational research and staying informed on events within the global education community.

Whew, that was a long-winded intro, hope you’re still with me!  Ok Ladies and gentleman, let me begin by honestly stating that our public education system is in big trouble.  There are many, many reasons why, but the foremost reason is that while our standards have slipped a little, international standards are going through the roof.  In this globalized world, that is a major issue.  I’m not sure that private schooling is the answer, but I can say with a large degree of authority that there is a huge difference in the level of education I have seen at private institutions versus those of public schools.

It’s Not The Teachers, It’s The Student Body

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Most people will point out things like “better discipline” and “more qualified teachers,” as the main reasons why private schools see better results.  While these suggestions may have some degree of merit, I would suggest that they are vastly overrated.  There are many relatively well-disciplined schools, and even more well-qualified teachers.  I did much of my student teaching at the most prestigious private school in Manitoba (or at the very least the most expensive!), and the truth is that the teachers weren’t that much smarter than most of the ones I have worked with in the public system.  There was a much higher standard expected of them, and they were able to teach to a very narrow range of students (you have to pass some basic academic tests to get into most private schools).  As a teacher in many places across North America right now, you are expected to teach an incredible range of students.  Students with severe learning disorders, recent immigrants who are barely functional in English, and honours students, are all in the same classroom.  While this may have some great social benefits, there is no doubt that it stunts the academic growth of the top individuals.  Anyone that tells you different is blatantly lying, or has been misinformed.  It is just common sense that if you have two identical teachers, and one is teaching to private school students who all have a fairly high minimal capability level, and one teaches to the massive (I cannot overstate just how large this range is) range of students found in public school classrooms, one is going to appear a lot smarter than the other because the environment allows and encourages them to teach to a much higher level.

 The “Culture of Achievement”

Even with the above differences taken into consideration, there is a valid argument that states that your elite-level students will excel in any environment if you merely encourage their independent learning skills.  This is a good option for public school teachers to embrace out of necessity, but please don’t tell me that it is a substitute for the environment of achievement that exists in private schools.  In fact, that is absolutely, hands down, by far, the greatest difference between public and private schools – A “culture of achievement.”  In public schools there is a tendency for teachers to teach to the middle of their classes.  We continue to educate teachers to “differentiate” instruction to all levels, and while I fully believe teachers should try to make personal connections with all of their students and adapt the curriculum as best they can for different learning abilities, it is just not realistic to believe that a teacher can meet 30 different students at their level in a 60 minute class.  It’s impossible, and the academic-elites that are promoting this view have likely not been in a high school classroom in the last 10 years (at least).  When teachers gear their game plans to the middle of the class in a public high school, and face a lot of pressure to make sure as many students pass as possible, the end result is that the brighter students, and the students that want to work hard, are not challenged at all.  When these students are not challenged they never learn how to climb academic mountains and overcome obstacles.  This is fine for the spoon-fed environment of high school, but then they hit post-secondary education, or a competitive job environments and… well you can see the results on every international test score.

Public Vs Private – How Much Do Peers Affect Your Child’s Education?

The culture of achievement (a term that I made up, so take it for what it’s worth) in private schools is such a huge asset to teachers and parents.  No longer is 50% the sought-after academic standard (as it is in public schools).  Students get used to intense competition against the best and brightest.  They are encouraged to learn how to manage time.  They gain valuable experience in focusing on homework, and multiple extracurricular activities that require extensive commitments and sacrifice.  Deadlines are enforced far more thoroughly (we actually are just coming out of a phase in Manitoba where students didn’t lose any marks for late assignments; there was no penalty of any kind allowed).  While at private school it was not uncommon for me to teach a class that had a chess champion, the 27^th ranked junior tennis player in Canada, a student organizing a missions trip to Jamaica, and a national math contest winner, in it at the same time, and they were likely not even the top students!  I have no idea how you quantify the impact that this culture of achievement has on students.  It appears to soak through their pores and influence everything they do.  Obviously they still have the standard teenage issues that all school environments have to some degree, but this passion to excel in the classroom and whatever else you choose to do – the idea that if something is worth doing, it is worth doing RIGHT – is immeasurable in its value.

What Is The Ultimate Goal of Educational Institutions Anyway?

Public schools are being held responsible for fixing every social problem society has.  While they are a useful tool to introduce students to positive social values, I believe the focus of public schooling has been so far removed from its core responsibility – making people smarter – that we are failing our most basic responsibility, and we are definitely seeing the results.  I do not deny that there are a ton of social problems that need help and require fixing in North America.  I just don’t know if a 6-hour school day leaves us enough time to fix all those problems and still teach students to a high level.  Private schools offer an environment that is relatively free of all these problems (or at least has them to a much lesser degree).  I admit that there is something to the idea that students that attend private schools will suffer from “living inside a bubble” because they don’t get exposed to a lot of the “real world.”  While this is true to some extent, I believe the solution on an individual level is pretty simple.  I have thought about the benefits of having a child attend public school until grade 8 or so, then switching over, while at the same time taking part in many activities outside of the school in order to stay away from the “elitism” that I find very unappealing.  I am definitely not saying that students cannot succeed coming from the public school system, or that all private school students are going to be Einstein and are superior to their public school counterparts.  I am simply stating that for parents and students that are committed to having youth reach their full academic potential, private schools offer some undeniable advantages, and that the gap is growing every year.

 You Tell Me How To Fix It!

I am very interested in hearing what everyone has to say about public vs private schooling.  A lot of personal finance blogs talk about investments and rate of return.  I honestly believe that in some cases the investment in a private school education will have an unbelievable rate of return, and one far greater than any other investment.  Am I just a cynical public school teacher?  How do we fix the public school system (trust me, it needs fixing).  Do we go to longer hours or more school days (most schools across North America are at about 180 days right now)?  Is standardized testing the answer?  Are teacher’s unions too strong, and counterproductive to the good of the overall education system?  Have you considered private or home schooling?