...Children in public schools generally performed as well or better in reading and mathematics than comparable children in private schools. The exception was in eighth-grade reading, where the private school counterparts fared better.The best take on this comes from Black America Web, so I'll just let them speak for me [Emphasis added]:
The report, which compared fourth- and eighth-grade reading and math scores in 2003 from nearly 7,000 public schools and more than 530 private schools, found that fourth graders attending public school did significantly better in math than comparable fourth graders in private schools. Additionally, it found that students in conservative Christian schools lagged significantly behind their counterparts in public schools on eighth-grade math." [Emphasis added.]
[...] The report separated private schools by type and found that among private school students, those in Lutheran schools performed best, while those in conservative Christian schools did worst.
Any other administration would have made a big deal of it: A fresh, "meticulous" study by the U.S. Education Department has found that, in reading and math, public school students are performing as well or better than private school students.I know one Republican who won't be happy about this news: Michigan gubernatorial candidate Dick DeVos.
Normally, that kind of news would leave the president's people drooling and breathing heavily. They'd lunge for the phones and faxes. They'd order one of those tiresome banners with a boastful theme to hang behind the inevitable presidential speech before a carefully selected audience of well-wishers. A good report card on public education that is, for a president, like fixed potholes for a mayor; it's bringing home the bacon -- a "your tax dollars at work" achievement.
But, in this case, all is quiet at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. The White House all but deep-sixed the findings by the National Center for Education Statistics, which compared reading and math progress among fourth and eighth graders from about 7,000 public schools and more than 500 private ones. Nothing, either, from Education Secretary Margaret Spellings -- who, Lord knows, is in dire need of something to brag about.
Rather than get a hullabaloo, the release of the report was banished to Friday afternoon, which, as every administration knows, is the graveyard hour because folks are focusing on summer and weekend activities. That's why firings, resignations "to spend more time with the family," indictments and economic downturns are usually announced then.
The Bushies are hoping you and I have been too busy at the barbeque grill to learn of this. For them, the findings amount to another rip in the coattails that presidents like to keep sturdy so that members of Congress from their party can ride them smoothly to reelection. Nothing hurts a presidential legacy like tattered coattails.
The GOP's base -- the rich, the redneck and the religious right -- will not be happy with the report. They prefer vouchers (public dollars for personal privilege) or at least charter schools (public sector dollars in private sector hands), and both need public schools to fail in order to justify their existence. It would raise enough dander for them to hear that public schools are doing well. But, beating private schools? Shut your mouth.
Meanwhile, U.S. public schools deserve a strong round of applause over this news. For five years now, they've struggled to stay afloat in a sea of hostility, encouraged by an administration that only talks about caring for average folks while consistently enacting policy and supporting laws that punish the poor and middle class. Its so-called No Child Left Behind law was a set-up, imposing strict new standards while low-balling funding for public schools, again to make the case for vouchers.
The survival and even success of public schools in the face of those obstacles is remarkable, but don't expect them to get any props from the Bush administration. As we know all too well from the Iraq War experience, this administration is practiced at ignoring reality and truth when it suits them, which is tragically often.
They and their friends would rather invoke their own version of reality -- a scam that has already begun. Although the officials who managed the report say it's clean as a whistle, the head of the Council for American Private Education has asserted that private schools are superior to public schools -- precisely the opposite conclusion of the study.
According to the Grand Rapids Press, "Since 1999, DeVos, his wife, Betsy, and their immediate family have poured at least $7 million into expanding school choice -- vouchers, tuition tax credits and charter schools -- and promoting candidates who back those causes."
7 comments:
The preference for private schools, as well as the voucher program to fund them is all part of the Republican agenda of breaking the back of the teacher's union. How well a child does in school is directly proportionate to the amount of time and effort the parent puts into their education at home, instead of placing the burden entirely on the teacher. perhaps that's why private schools don't fare so well, parents who are paying more feel that the teacher should be doing more work.
My boys (who attend a charter school) do well because their mom and I devote time to them, while their friends who don't do so well have parents more concerned with extra-curricular activities that take time away from schooling.
The right can't accept that public schools offer quality education because it rubs against their infatuation with the idea of privatization.
God forbid that tax-supported institutiions perform on a par with or better than the sacred private sector.
not surprising. Like others have said, parents play just as much a role as teachers do.
Fear is the mindkiller. Game over!
They'll never sell those vouchers for religious schools if the public schools are doing too well.
I've read multiple references that American students are ahead of international students through the 4th grade, are on-par with them in the 8th grade, and then are among the poorest performers by 12th grade.
I can speculate that in lower-grades children often go to schools closer to home, with kids from socio-economically familes similar to their own, and as they get older their schools get bigger with more kids from more diverse backgrounds. Finally, they're in high school where hormones are rampant, teachers haven't tools to keep discipline, girls dress like Britney Spears, and the school nurse hands out condoms.
Academics aren't the only reason parents choose private over public schools.
Parents of all political stripes choose private schools. Vouchers are a mechanism to make that choice more affordable.
Or perhaps it's only marketing, and private schools are simply perceived as better, safer, and better disciplined than public schools in the same way marketing leads us to believe we should buy any product over another.
For the sake of argument, let's assume public schools perform better than private schools on-average. How does that help the Detroit School District? How does it help a high-school student in the DSD? What does a parent do about their DSD child when they only get once chance to educate them?
A popular graduating class song is Seals & Croft's, We may never pass this way again, which for school age children isn't may, but will.
Like many other things, it's a game of he-said, she-said:
According to a new Harvard study, private schools outperform public schools in reading and math skills, and the US Department of Education's report was based on flawed data.
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