Public or Private schools: What do you think?

Private Indoctrination, excuse me, "homeschooling", should be made illegal as quickly as possible. It is rarely about teaching what school does not, as much as it is preventing children from being exposed to "undesirable" information.

I've seen it again and again, even within my own family, that homeschooled kids have a socialization handicap that they may never overcome, as well as often enormous ignorance of the general scope of human accomplishment (too much blasphemny). And, they so often come out, like, aryan separatist and stuff ...

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You will never regret investing your money in an education for your children. We sent both our children to private schools where they both got stellar educations. It was during their private school years that I began to realize how superior their educations were to the ones my husband and I received in the public schools during the 1960's. If you can afford it, go for it. If you can't afford it, reconfigure your life so that you CAN afford it!

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Both attended and taught in public and private schools. Here's the catch: pick the one that actually believes there is such a thing as critical thinking and strives for that end. If you find such a school, grab it! They are very few and far between. Both public and private schools will pass on, often unconciously, their own private biases on just about every subject. This is also something parents have to be careful about. Many decades ago where I came from there was at least one high school that was the outstanding intellectual school. Yet another school was well known for producing the largest number of kids to go on to engineering, science and architecture programs in college. Oddly enough, this kind of thing was not a structured decision on the part of the Board of Education. It simply reflected the PARENTS of the kids in those schools. As for the majority of the rest of the public schools in that city, the kids came from families where either one or both parents had not graduated from high school and were simply trying to keep their kids in the program until they got their ticket out. No other or higher ambition. Understandable, but very sad, especially for those kids. When it comes to testing, schools already did a lot of testing before No Child Left Behind. It was called pre and post testing plus all the required state tests. Somehow, though, there was enough time left over to actually teach!

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We chose to live in a Boston suburb we couldn't afford because it had high SAT scores and a high 4-year college continuation rate. So, our daughter got a great public education and is now attending NYU on a scholarship. I'd do the same thing again.
We must maintain the best public school system, otherwise, we will create an elite class living off of dead relatives' no dealth tax estates, enslaving the rest of us while they do nothing to further society.
Vouchers will do nothing but undermine public schools and make the weak weaker.

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i went to both public and private schools.. in public school i lost my confidence.. i was a very unhappy person... of course there was alot of other stuff going on too but when my parents put me in an all girls private school i FLOURISHED! i gained back all i had lost and more... girls are so mean in schools now adays.. they were mean back then but now they are really so much worse.. not sure about the boys aspect of it.. i think kids learn better when they are not having to be bothered by the opposite sex, i was in an all girls school with all women teachers.. it was WONDERFUL! i wish i could have afforded to do that for my daughter and my boys too, but i couldn't.. but then again my sister's kids went to private schools they weren't so hot, the sexes went to school together but were mostly segregated from each other in classes.. i think it helped them to learn, but the school was ridiculously strict and a little weird and so i think that hurt the kids too.. so you just have to do the best you can for the time.. just cuz your kids START in public or private schools doesn't mean they have to STAY.. whatever your decision for now doesn't have to be FOREVER.. you can try something and if that isn't working then you can try something else.. my nephew and his wife took their daughter out of public school at age eleven and she is doing unbelievably well, they are homeschooling her, but with a very large and sophisticated support system..home schooling isn't what it used to be...anyway, saying a little prayer that you can make a good decision for now, one that you have some peace about..

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Say what you want that No Child Left Behind "stinks", but I sat in a meeting, off to the back, unnoticed by the teachers in the room, while they met with the regional secretary from the Dept. of Ed to discuss why their school programs are working and to frankly talk about things they didn't like.
There was a good deal of open discussion about many things and then the teachers were asked about NCLB. The teacher who spoke first said she thought there were some problems with the program. He nodded. Then she added that if it wasn't for the program, they as teachers wouldn't have pushed as hard to get their elementary students to the levels they were at now. She said she didn't like the idea of it at all - wished there was no reason to have it - BUT, because of it, they now had programs in place that were helping their children not only improve, but succeed.
"It's like medicine," she said. "You don't like it. It doesn't taste good. But it works."
The other teachers in the room, with one exception, agreed. One said she didn't want to admit that she wouldn't have pushed her kids so hard, especially some of the ones with very uncooperative parents or parents who just plain didn't think education was important.
It was one of the most interesting discussions I'd ever sat in on and, to be honest, I expected far different comments than I heard.

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Responding to #38: Is "private indoctrination" that much different from public indoctrination? (public schools) If you think "professional" teachers don't pass on their religious, cultural,and political views, you haven't been paying much attention. Yes, there are not-very-good homeschool teachers, as well as there are in any type of school. The majority, however, have to really be motivated to stay with it. Check out John Taylor Gatto's The Underground History of American Education. A real eye-opener!

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The debate for public vs. private school (homeschooling is a whole other topic)is always of interest to me. My own kids are still too young to be in the schools. However, I have been a teacher in private schools and public schools (the extreme of both economical sides). I have also had a chance to dabble on the administration side of schools. I have found that all schools truly have a common goal and that is to try to provide the best education possible. The rules that the schools--both public & private--have to follow are impossible and, frankly in my opinion, contradict the philosophy behind education. Unfortunately those rules are made by people that are far removed from the education circles (politicians).

I have no qualms with putting my 4 children into the public school system. I feel that public schools are able to offer a wider selection of opportunities for the children. If a religious spin is what you're looking for then that can be done in other ways. You will find poor quality teachers in either place. You will also find excellent teachers in both places as well. I know that many people are turning toward homeschooling and I just can't imagine that's the best option. There are reasons so many teachers are considered "experts" in their field of study and I don't care how intelligent or dedicated you are, there's no substituting the school experience. At some point the kids need to learn how to be away from mom and/or dad.

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I put my children in private schools after a third grade girl brought a Hustler magazine to school. I didn't want to keep them around for the really rough stuff they come up against in junior high and high school. I am glad I made the switch, but really hated to have to keep paying the public school taxes... oh well, that was 15 years ago...

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So far no one has mentioned homeschooling. I am NOT religious-- but I have 2 preschool children and have been seriously considering homeschooling (for all the reasons stated here in this blog). I do not want to subject my kids to the public school environment. It's not the teachers I have a problem with--it's the other students and the fact that teachers must teach to the lowest common denominator. Plus the kids who bring in all the crappy cultural stuff (music, drugs, having to wear a certain kind of clothes and hairstyle to be cool, a certain kind of toys, etc. etc.) and all the pressure and alienation. I have never met ANYBODY who longed to go through public school again or thought of school days as "the best days of my life." Homeschooling is getting more and more common although it is far from maintream. But once you start looking into it, you realize what a cool and common sense idea it is. Homneschoolers DO commonly out rank and out-achieve public schoolers!!

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