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Private School vs. Public School: Parents have much to consider, from test scores and class sizes to diversity and costs. https://www.usnews.com/education/k12/articles/private-school-vs-public-school
Yes. But I will say I am not a US citizen.
I think we should regard public spending on a child's education as a bursary for each child not as a subsidy for the parents. The answer becomes entirely different then.
Public schools are pretty much non competitive and the standards progressively drop. Throw private schools into the mix and you start getting private enterprise competition. The only reason for private schools existing is they deliver better outcomes.
My own country, Australia, does this to a degree but we haven't got to the bursary concept yet. I don't have children and I really resent my tax dollars funding poor quality teachers in public schools. I don't resent my tax dollars funding the Catholic schools which deliver better better education results to Catholic kids and non-Catholic kids who are sent by parents who want better education for their children.
Yes, school choice will do a lot towards fixing the public school system. Nothing like a little competition to wake everyone up.
Opinion
14Opinion
They were asking exactly the same question 50 years ago. It's still being debated. I remember it from a mock congress in high school. At the time, I was in favor of private schools getting the same funding as public schools. In theory I still agree with that, but in practice it basically means that public schools will get less. It will also mean that kids from lower income households will have a decrease in the quality of their education, which is the opposite of what should happen.
You are spreading available funds even thinner. This happens in college also, but for a different reason. It's one reason why college is getting so expensive. There are more and more people going to college, which means the available funds are spread thin.
I think for this to work, it should be some sort of voucher system where private schools must be run on that money alone. Any school that charges extra will not qualify for the funds. They can potentially give a better quality of education without siphoning funds from public schools. This would basically amount to contracting out public schools, but with competition.
One problem with that is how you measure effectiveness. That probably means getting into standardized testing, which I'm against.
Public schools would have less money but that would be offset because they would have fewer students. If a district loss half the students they would combine and close half the schools so the money per school would remain the. They would actually have more money because they would have the money from the selling many closed schools. Any poor students that remained would receive the same educations and extras they received before. Actually, they would be better off because competition would force public to improve.
Yes. If it cost $10,000 per annum per student at a public school then it doesn't cost the community any more to give a $10,000 ps bursurary to every child. Some public schools will close if there is a major exodus and be bought up for private schools. Only not so good public school teachers will suffer. The good ones will go to the private schools.
In Australia competition hasn't had that effect and student competencies are dropping with more funding of public schools. Here if every child went to a public school they would need to build a lot more of them so it was decided it was cheaper to fund the catholic school system and other private schools.
Every budget there are loud squeaks from public school teachers that because they are doing such a bad job of teaching more money is needed fr more bad teachers and private schools are robbing money from public schools.
A voucher system has been advocated for awhile but sadly we haven't got there yet.
Here funding does come from our federal gov't but we have a union socialist gov't so It isn't going to happen for many years. They even want to fund bad teacher's housing.
Loss of students at public schools will not equate to an equivalent decrease in cost. I think if the decrease in students was not large, like 10-20%, I think the decrease in costs would be almost insignificant.
If you start getting a large enough decrease in students at public schools, it can become very expensive shutting down schools.
Most day-to-day expenses in the US come from local and state taxes. The federal funding is a minimal token amount. Where I live state and local funding is split roughly evenly.
For large expenses like new schools, they are paid for with bonds, which I *think* are 20 year bonds. If a school is closed, the district will continue paying that bond for years to come, whether the school is used or not. Aside from the cost of starting a school, there are usually many years of planing. It can take 10-15 years or more to plan, fund, and build a new school.
I don't think you can count on private schools buying the old public school buildings. With the exception of Catholic schools, which are already well established, the large majority of private schools are small. They'd have no use for large school buildings, and probably wouldn't want them anyway. They can build their own schools, without the huge amount of planning and costs associated with new public schools.
The private schools will mostly get the best students. The public schools will mostly get the worst students, with extra costs per student associated with that. With the worst students, they will never be competitive at multiple levels. The student themselves won't be as good, but it's likely that the best teacher will leave the public schools and go to the private schools.
We already see something similar in urban schools vs suburban schools. For the most part, urban schools just can't keep up with suburban schools.
All of that is true, but so what? There would be a net improvement. Instead of 20% getting a good education, perhaps 50% would. The empty schools would be located on prime property so they would sell. If a private school purchased a school, they might demolish the school and build another. The construction cost per square foot vs. the number of square feet per student is not all that great.
I don't know if it would be a net improvement or not. It might be. But the thing is that as long as the parents pay some portion of it, there will be an increasing gap between the haves and have nots.
With vouchers, if schools accept the vouchers, they could not charge the parents additional tuition. That would give everyone access. But if schools don't accept the vouchers, they can remain like they are now and charge as much as they want. So the vouchers would be available, conditionally.
I think there would still be advantages to public schools. Even today, a lot of parents who can afford the best private schools still send their kids to public schools.
Another thing to consider is funding. Where I live roughly half of funding is local. That means property tax which people vote on. Property taxes are hard to pass. Until recently, I'd guess that approximately two out of three school levies failed. How would the voting pattern change if people knew the money was going to private schools? I think it would be even more difficult to pass the levies. Other types of funding like local income tax and sales tax are also voted on, and are even more difficult to pass.
More complicated funding and I can see the difficulties you would have. Plus I acknowledge it is not as one to one as I suggested for simplicity.
I think the important first step (at least where I am) is to fund public schools on a per student basis and get that bedded in as a child's entitlement rather than as a parent's subsidy as it is mostly seen. Then start working on the portability of that entitlement.
I think there must be some pain for public schools and a measure of failure otherwise public schools won't improve and that is sort of the objective. Again (where I am) mediocrity is actually rewarded with more funding. Poor results might be due to a lack of English in some areas and I happy for funding to overcome that. But if it is due to poor teaching than there needs to be negative results for the teachers and school.
No.
I have no children yet I happily pay school taxes.
Why?
Because education is critical toward having a thriving society and public education - education for everyone - continues to be an important aspect of America's success.
If you want private education, fine. Pay for it just like any other commodity you pay for - like your car or a Coke. But you have to pay for public education because it is every bit as important as the public defense that you pay for.
The private sector is fine for all sorts of things. But there should always be public sector versions that everyone has access to if they can't afford the private sector versions. And maintaining those public sector versions is the obligation of all citizens via their taxes.
@SoIcyGang
As a product of it and being a realist about it, I am not saying it is without flaws and cannot be improved. But private education isn't necessarily all that better - especially since some of them are "indoctrination centers" as @adaeva likes to say.
I do believe in public education though...
Just like I believe in public militaries and public H-bombs.
Yes, the wealth of a nation is now very much in its collective citizen's minds and capabilities. And it behooves us to ensure our children get a good education to the limit of their capacity. This applies to every country (mine is Australia).
So we are all agreed, whether parents or not (like you I have no children yet), we want our children to be well educated because it is critically in everybody's interest.
I think there is a critical question which is whether education subsidies are to the parent or the child? Children are citizens too even if not a
Damn, the cat submitted that by walking on the keyboard. To continue...
Children are citizens too even if not adults. The child is the direct focus and recipient of the education product.
The critical question is whether we give education subsidies to be the child or the parent rather than the questioned asked here.
The answers that result are quite different based on if it is the child's subsidy or the parent's. If the child's then an education voucher or bursary is a natural result. If the parent's than a socialized noncompetitive education institution with a monolithic monopoly is the natural outcome.
@SoIcyGang It certainly can be. The problem is a lot of people think that spending more money on it will make it better (particularly the left who think spending more money fixes problems which it doesn't).
I received a really inferior education in English because after basic grammar it wasn't taught anymore or corrected. Instead the focus was on appreciating literature and reviewing books.
In the real world what is needed is to be able write precise instructions & requirements and concise concepts that other people will understand and grasp. I had to teach myself that later in life. The literature stuff was largely BS. Sure an Earnest Hemingway is great but how many students will be writing novels in adult life so why ineffectively try to train them in that?
Most children will end up as adults writing confusing business emails that are misunderstood.
What are your thoughts on how to improve?
Holy hell that's screwed up that they didn't teach you English.
And yes that's some leftist shit right there. It's sad that it doesn't surprise me.
They probably determined it was racist to promote "white" grammar. What about all the black kids who don't talk like that? Now they're marginalized.
I'm sure that's the argument lol. I don't know. I do study the left so I bet I'm right about that. (Used to be a leftist myself)
Anyways my views go utterly opposite to the left. I think the ideal system is a free market in education.
That is the shining light at the end of the tunnel but how to get there requires the population to abandon leftist thinking and adopt a completely different mindset. It requires a reanalysis of their morality.
Which will probably never happen. Morality stands in the way of the most moral systems in my opinion.
Competition would in the long run mean that the best school receive the most money.
Other schools would aim to copy the curriculum of the top schools.
The best curriculum would be determined by competition basically.
What people are worried about though is not whether the best possible schools exist. That does not matter.
What matters is that those people at the bottom of the income distribution are equally as educated, or at least meet some minimum standard.
The next issue is people go back in time in order to imagine how such a thing could be implemented. They think it could not have worked in the past therefore will never work in the future.
Look at the technology we have. Kids can be educated online. The possibilities are endless.
Competition could create the best schools and then those could be copied. In the meantime we can find a way to get the poor kids in. Pay their tuition or whatever.
But ultimately as long as completion does not exist in schools there can only be stagnation.
Intelligent leftists cannot work all the strings and determine how everything should be. They think they can science their way to the best possible education.
It's absurd.
@SoIcyGang You tell it like it is.
@SoIcyGang It is not that they didn't run English classes. It is they didn't teach writing in an effective way that would be useful later in life for business communication. Instead they wanted to create little Earnest Hemingways.
Maths is white supremacy. Oh my. Written English is quite different to spoken English but there needs to be a standard written English that anyone can read and understand. It is a nonsense to suggest otherwise. I will pronounce words differently to you but you should at least be able to read an understand what I write.
I'm pretty much in violent agreement. To have a competitive education environment, then private schools need to be in the mix. I use the word bursary deliberately because it pertains to a student and helps to avoid the left claim that money is being given to rich parents.
God knows the left likes equal misery for all or equally poor education for all in this case.
I'm not at all opposed to have unequal funding if it helps deliver better outcomes. Immigrant children might not have homes where English is main language spoken for example. Also boys have different learning mechanisms than girls have, so sex differentiated teaching could be quite beneficial.
No, this a free public service provided to the citizens to give their children a required education that the government demands each child gets.
Private schools is a alternative to public schools, that provides the same service, for people who rather pay someone to educate their children. Because they believe it will give a better educational experience.
that would be pretty bad, cause that would increase the gap between public and private education. cause this would end up getting private shools get even more money. cause parents who can affort private schools have the money.
That is the way it has always been. Children of rich parents have more than children of poor parent and there is no reason that it shouldn't be that way. Poor parents have the right to equal opportunity to earn more. However, they will not if they lack the motivation, brains, talent, or skills. Therefore, they don't have the right to equal outcome.
Equal outcome is fascism. Equal opportunity is what public schools are for. Pumping more money from the state into private schools increases inequality. If inequality is what you want, then this is a good idea.
The idea behind school vouchers is to make private schools accessible to more parents—instead of just those who “have the money.”
@adaeva, you wrote:
"... Poor parents have the right to equal opportunity to earn more. However, they will not if they lack the motivation, brains, talent, or skills."
That's all well and good, but you forgot a key word: Opportunity. So, let me correct that for you...
"However, they will not if they lack the motivation, brains, talent, skills, or opportunity."
Ask any woman of 150 years ago who had the same motivation, brains, talent, and skills to be every bit as successful as a man, but she never could be because she didn't have the opportunity to do so.
You are right that no one has a right to equal outcome. But they should have a right to equal opportunity...
Even if you are the fastest runner, it's hard to win the race when the other runners have a head start.
@Paul_in_Indy private schools aren't meant to be accessible. That's like subsidizing first class tickets to cost the same as economy class.
Ah, I see. Privileged people like you should be protected from the less fortunate? So, it’s a good thing that we siphon money away from the working class via taxes to fund public schools; leaving them with less money they might spend on sending their kids to schools that are too good for them.
I’m glad that is working out for you.
Rather than that, it would greatly increase the number of private schools because many parents that cannot afford the full cost of private schools would send their children to private schools. Furthermore, that would give public schools the competition they need to improve. Without competition, public schools have evolved into indoctrination centers that place indoctrination ahead of education.
@Paul_in_Indy When does any private business not maximize income? The rate they charge is the most they can get away with. If they can charge $15K now. They’ll charge $25K if the government subsidizes them $10K.
There’s also the issue of how much to subsidize. The amount public schools get now covers school lunches for the poor, teacher pensions, district offices, &c. Should a private school get the full amount? If they don’t have those administrative costs?
@Paul_in_Indy who said I'm privileged? I'm just not an idiot who doesn't understand anything about the world. The world doesn't care whether you like how it works or not and whether your poor or rich.
@adaeva, you wrote:
"Rather than that, it would greatly increase the number of private schools because many parents that cannot afford the full cost of private schools would send their children to private schools. Furthermore, that would give public schools the competition they need to improve. Without competition, public schools have evolved into indoctrination centers that place indoctrination ahead of education."
This is horseshit, but I will cut you a lot of slack because you are way too young to have the real world experience regarding human nature.
So, let's take this piece by piece:
"it would greatly increase the number of private schools because many parents that cannot afford the full cost of private schools would send their children to private schools. "
It would increase the number of private schools... shitty private schools... because companies will spring-up overnight making chains of McSchools which do a bare minimum and will cut corners for profits. This ALWAYS happens when there is government subsidy of private enterprise. Look at the medical field... Are costs controlled? Nope, because the private sector just raises prices. Private prisons have other problems about quality. Stuff like this happens all the time. Conservatives love this idea of public subsidizing private business for just these reasons: free money. The best way to address them is with price and other controls... in other words, like public schools.
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"Furthermore, that would give public schools the competition they need to improve. "
That's not quite correct.
With public schools, you don't need competition to improve.
You can MANDATE improvements because it is a government service.
The US military doesn't need competition to get better. It does so as part of it's fundamental mission. Public schools can do that same thing. The only problem with public schools is where there is not enough money to properly fund them and, unfortunately, this is primarily because of the disparity of the income of the people in the district. For instance, I was fortunate and lived in a district which had many wealthy people living in it. So, our public schools were great because the property taxes on these fabulous properties owned by these wealthy people were so high that the schools got all the resources they needed. However, in a poor district with no rich people, if the schools are funded by property taxes, there are not going to get much money to operate and the kids suffer in comparison. This is why public schools should not be funded by property taxes.
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"Without competition, public schools have evolved into indoctrination centers that place indoctrination ahead of education."
This is just outright horseshit and it is apparent that you are the one being indoctrinated by being homeschooled.
One of the great things about schools is that you must interact with others and this provides a type of education which cannot be gained in homeschooling. Furthermore, and just as important, is that you are exposed to all sorts of new ideas from many different teachers and different students. It is akin to the famous travel quote by Mark Twain:
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.”
Schools are a focal point for kids to go to... In a sense, they are a way to travel.
Colleges are especially good for this.
>>> You will learn all of this when you finish growing up and have to go into the real world.
@abc3643 You make assumptions that are not logical. You are assuming that parents don't compare the quality of education and performance from different schools. Unfortunately, that may be true for a significant number of parent. However, there are enough parents that do compare for competition to effective.
You claim that "companies will spring-up overnight making chains of McSchools which do a bare minimum and will cut corners for profits" may or may not be true. However, if true they wouldn't survive because parents would choose to send their children to the best private schools for near the same money. If what you said was true people wouldn't consider quality when they purchase food.
No, because public schools are funded by taxpayer dollars. If we start funding private schools too, first of all they won't be private anymore, but it would put more burden on taxpayers
I get you're only 14, so I'll go easy on you, but this is a fucking stupid idea
That would be reasonable. Please note that some private schools are cheaper than public schools.
Often, yes. A small church school runs on a shoestring budget; while a public school has many more required expenses to meet.
I used to think so but now I believe it's more complicated.
Of course private school students perform better. They are wealthier.
No, that's not how it works. When you get money from the government, they tell you what to do. Private schools would lose their autonomy.
Yes and the state should not over step the right of the parent to decide if they even go to school at all or not. Some parents especially in today's time wouldn't even want their children near their schools.
That’s a good question but I’ll say no because I worry it’ll just take money away from the public schools and they need it.
That may make it easier for people that can't afford it to get their child into private school especially if their child is intelligent and motivated.
That is called subsidized or contracted schooling. I think if you choose to you pay for it. But if the state had no other option then they should let pay the difference
Then by definition, what would be the difference between public and private?
... I have not read the article yet. So...
Private schools may not follow the state curriculum, some would be more hands on learning which is better for boys, most would be more expensive so the parents would pay the difference, some would be religious schools, some would be single sex schools, and a few very expensive private schools would be boarding schools.
Government-run schools should at the least be made to operate on equal footing.
That's a good idea. It would make it easier on the parents.
Public funds should not go to private schools
I agree with that. Private schools should be protected from the government’s control. …but taxpayers should not be forced to subsidize schools they don’t want while also paying for the schools they need. That’s why we need a compromise solution.
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