Please understand I don't want to cause a flame war, only to get folks to think and realize things. I agree, there are some fine private schools for special needs kids, but too many factors, extrinsic and intrinsic, to really discuss now. Factors aside, you can still kick kids out of a private school. I have seen it done.
For some kids, the public school is not the last choice, but the only choice. Homeschool, while on the surface is a viable option, but again, those factors kick in.
You make good sense, don't get me wrong, but I have been on both sides and I am a public school teacher, (gasp!) NEA member, and parent.:) I will have my kids in a public school with no concerns.
Shag,
I understand that many people have few options, however far too many don’t even explore options. I am not trying to blindly bash everyone and everything in the public school system as evil. I have many personal friends who are teachers and administrators in public schools.
I am also not naive enough to believe that no child can be educated in a public school setting. Obviously they can.
However, in the general sense you cannot compare the education recieved in a public school to that of a private school. On average there is just no comparison. Case by case, yes you can find instances that buck the norm, but typically the two are not in the same ballpark.
I have many criticisms of the public school system, from the ungodly price tag. I pay more in property taxes to my school district on a 150k house than I do tuition for my childs private education.... I do so to a district who pays teachers a 60k a year pension for life after 20 years served, thanks to rediculous contract capitulations by the district. (Yes pension commitments alone are a huge portion of the budget. So I am being raped over the coals not to educate (poorly I might add based on test scores) the children of my community, but to ensure that people who work 1/2 a career can retire making 1.5 times the median household income for life, with of course lifetime health benefits that go up about 10% a year that I’ve gotta pay for, etc etc etc.
The entire Middle school system is a joke and needs gone, whoever thought that one up single handedly did more harm to education than anyone else. Lets see take the children who are just at an age where where they need structure and responsibilities and some mentoring the most and put them in a completely artificial environment and let them run amok. K-8 is the only way a child should be, with 6-8th graders earning more responsibility and mentoring of younger students as they move into the top grades, not shipped into a closed system with nothing but other 6-8th graders so no responsibility is required of them... so the beginning of the transition to teenager is stifled into self absorption and self fed rebellion.
Mainstreaming is as well one of the dumbest things ever forced upon children. It aids neither the child nor the class in general to do such things with children who cannot keep up for whatever reasons. They will not be educated effectively to reach their personal potentials, and at the same time will be outcast and ridiculed throughout their schooling. A specialized school will aid these children in reaching their potential far more than plopping them into a system that they cannot function in, just for PC feel goodism.
Problem kids belong in military academies, not in mainstream schools where they will do nothing but disrupt and harm others.
I am absolutely amazed that in a country that generally accpet without question one size and type does not fit all for their morning coffee, believe absolutely stupidly that it is how education should be.
Gender schools traditionally deliver far supperior education to their coed counterparts, particularly for girls, but that’s not PC, so forget that... etc etc etc.
I don’t think all teachers and administrators in public schools are evil uncaring or radical leftist (though there definate are some of each) I don’t believe someone who is so mentally ill that they dress as though they are a member of the oposite gender that they are should be in front of a classroom of children. I don’t believe someone who is mentally ill and engaging in self destructive behaviors such as homosexuality should be in front of children. I don’t believe that gradeschoolers should be talking about homosexuality at all as part of their education, particular in a way that portrays this pitiable mental disorder as “just another lifestyle choice”
I do not believe you can raise a moral child in an environment that is openly hostile to the very foundations of western civilizations morality. Attempts to teach morality without the religous context are half a$$ at best.
I am not saying public schools are not a neccessary evil, they are, but they are the base, the absolute last option, the welfare check of the educational system if you will. It should not be the option of first choice ever.