Private vs. Public School
The decision to send a child to private instead of public school is a complicated choice for any family. It is commonly held that private schools offer smaller classes, higher standards, and a great deal more academic pressure, than their public school counterparts. Families considering private over public education should move past these broad generalizations, however, and ask themselves exactly what such distinctions mean for their child.
Smaller classes offer more direct instruction and “face-time” with the teacher. This factor may represent the most significant qualitative difference between a decent public school and a good private one. Most private schools offer a one to twelve or one to fifteen teacher/student ratio whereas public school class-size ratios can range as high as one teacher for every twenty-five students in some locations. Often such factors are governed by tax base and funding issues rather than by any educational strategy. Since there are many fine teachers in both private and public settings, I can think of no more important element than the mentoring, instruction, and guidance potential, generated by more “face-time” with the teacher. This is only possible in small classes where the teacher can spend more time with each individual child. Parents often consider private schools because they believe that their children will be exposed to higher academic standards and more stringent expectations of conduct and development. Private schools do place a premium on academic performance. Ostensibly, children attend private schools because their families care deeply about learning and are paying for something above and beyond what is available in the typical public school environment. However, such pressures may not always be useful for a particular child when examined more closely.
Homework pressure and standards of measurement, in private schools, are often directed at the top ten-percent of children, a pattern that can have the stunning effect of making otherwise bright children feel stupid or slow. This can be particularly true in the middle school years where learning moves from rote response and information gathering to a more analytical and inferential level. When accrued knowledge serves as a basis for insight, students who may be developing at a slower but acceptable pace can feel overwhelmed even if their abilities are strong.
In examining the academic life of an elementary or middle school-age child, parents must pay close attention to the interaction between emotional dynamics and classroom or academic pressures that affect them. Private schools often make the claim that they cater to the learning needs and growth of the individual child. But school cultures vary and such responsiveness does not always occur in practice. Hence, it is particularly important, when looking at a private school, to consider what the emphasis is in that school and the specific ways in which even a motivated child will be guided and challenged. There are vast and significant differences amongst and between even upper echelon private schools. The concept of what is “good enough” for a given child must be the guiding principle for a parent considering the pressures of any individual private school.
Public schools, too, are not immune to non-useful pressures on children. The notion of high standards in public school settings has become synonymous with the educational testing movement – MCAS in Massachusetts – a source of controversy since its inception. Likewise, there is now a raging debate in educational circles about the role that homework plays in the development of children. The high standards movement has generated more homework at earlier ages in public settings as well as private, but has not always generated concomitant changes and development in teacher practices and methodology. A heavy nightly homework load cannot and should not replace interesting, flexible, and dynamic teaching in the class-room, a concern that is all the more prevalent when schools are pressured to meet the demands of the MCAS test.
Ultimately, parents must consider the needs of their particular child. Parents who seek a responsive classroom, based on a high level of intimacy for their child may look critically at various private schools to see if there is a match that will offer more for their child than what is offered in a public school setting. However, for a child who is growing and thriving in a public setting there is no reason to push for the pressures of private school on the basis of reputation alone. Whatever the decision, make sure that it is based on careful thought and analysis and not just on perception and generalization.