When people talk about private vs. public schooling for their children, they think of the annualized cost, and sometimes they do the math for their 2.3 kids and realize that for K-12, they're well upwards of a half million dollars in completely illiquid investment (as opposed to buying a house in a neighborhood with top public schools, where the ROI is more tangible and when necessary immediate).
Though I know plenty of people affiliated with public schools who concern themselves with the loss of talent, financial support and community cohesiveness that the exodus to private school brings, one thing that seems at least as detrimental is that the people who make this choice have a vested interest in propagating the "horrors" of the public school system and the "virtues" of the private one. I have myself been in both public and private schools, and my son has as well. While I strongly believe that each child should be in the right environment -- and sometimes that DOES mean a private school -- and certainly currently in California the level of government funding is appallingly low vis-a-vis every other state in the country, the fact is that public schools teach in addition to the intellectual curriculum, a lot of non-intellectual skills in adaptation, resilience, and eventually tolerance, whereas private schools are typically highly controlled environment that teach implicitly (and explicitly when ties are to the most patronizing community service programs around) that people who don't have your background should be at arms length.
So, my position: I am pro school-choice, and believe that districts should accomodate open enrollment -- preferably across districts -- and that this goes a long way towards enticing districts to carefully determine what is successful and what isn't; effectively what happens is that families "track" themselves, as they already do by "chosing" which neighborhoods to live in. But that's where it stops: I'm vehemently pro-public schools. I'm not only anti-voucher, I think that people who choose to educate their children outside of the public school system should pay a luxury tax, which can be either monetary or in terms of community service by the parents into their physical neighborhood.
(In fact some people I know and respect who have chosen private schools do just that.)
The disconnect between what is truly going on in public schools and what is rumored to be happening will urge future employers to consider our current public school students substandard, encouraging a return to educational (not necessarily intellectual!) elitism that is extremely effective at destroying a labor market, because the perceived market seems far more constrained than it actually is.
And the lesson for public schools: it's not only an educational choice; it's a lifestyle choice. The difference between a private lifestyle and a public one comes down to having a much closer school community (that's what feels safer; usually not the lack of diversity) and full-day programs available. In order to meet this, it would make sense to distribute the power of customization to the schools while simultaneously leveraging the massive intellectual resources of the district through knowledge sharing and program development teams. Instead, it often is structured to work the wrong way around (centralizing resources and leaving classroom teachers in virtual isolation). Last, districts have got to allow parents to select their schools; if nothing else it helps people understand their community at a deeper level.
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