What do you see when you think of private school when you have gone to
public school most of your student years or vice versa? The idea of a
private school conjures up images of elite groups of well-to-do folks,
but many parents who choose private schools for their kids are far from
rich and famous. The point is for many families, it takes a combination
of scrimping and borrowing. Many north american families sacrifice
college money to send their children to expensive pre-college private
schools that can cost from $10,000-$15,000 annually. They consider the
education superior and the chances of admission to a good college
better.
Why do people chose private schools? As one student said, I came to
private school with a lot of expectations. My mind was filled with
urban legends and stories I had heard from middle school lunch tables.
Visions of ruler-wielding nuns, daily Mass and affluent boys armed with
trust funds and SUVs became tales that engulfed my head on my first day
of Catholic school. some may have similar kind of images before going
to some public schools as well.
As parents, we want to protect our children and that could be one of
the reasons we see private schools as we think that it would be a safe
environment. Studies were done on interaction with differents ethnic
groups and research findings, which suggest that private schools
currently do a slightly better job than public schools of encouraging
interethnic friendships and developing support for democratic norms.
Well, many public schools throughout the country can claim rightly that
they have a very diverse ethnic groups and relations have never been
better. That would be the truth.
The media has portrayed some public schools as a haven for
disadvantaged children going into school gun blazen and knife wielding
as if they were going to a combat zone. That type of behaviour has
resulted in the implementation of a metal detector system in some
public school. I am sure that some private schools have had their share
of bad behaviours as well but was dealt with far away from the media
scrutiny.
Students who wants to be more academically challenged, exposed to
clearer value systems should perhaps attend a private school. In some
instances, the access to teachers can be a bit better at private
schools. Start the research process early if you do decide to go for
private schooling for your child since admission can be somewhat
competitive. The process of finding a good school for your child where
he or she will be also be accepted, may take some time as well.
The accepted wisdom is that private schools serve the privileged;
everyone else, especially the poor, requires public school. The poor,
so this logic goes, need government assistance if they are to get a
good education. All that is left to be said is that the keyword here
should be education, since a lot of talented people of this world, be
it politicians, athletes, musicians, scientists, inventors, etc came
from humble public schooling.
Fritz has a web site dedicated to private school education: private schools