Posted By:
CyI am a professor at a Community College in Virginia and I am amazed at how some people here and out side the board view education. Someone brought up the point that a religious schools out score public schools by a wide margin. The should score better. My college has an open door policy. That means that anyone can come to my school and we have to teach him. Could this school compete with Harvard with its entrance requirements? That is the same thing with religious schools vs public schools.
The parents of the children that are going to religious schools are paying a hefty tuition to send them there. Don't you think that these parents will have more hands on help with their children since their investment is higher? Of course they will. Piggybacking on Ken Cohen's remark, having parents involved does absolutely wonders for the child's educational development. Plus, in many cases, these private schools are getting the cream of the crop to work with, rather than a grand mixture of abilities. So this comparison is truly apples and oranges.
I have had an evil thought that Warren Buffet or Bill Gates would pay the tuition of twenty inner-city troubled youths and send them to one of these private schools so that half of the class is made up from these children. Then let's see what happens to the dynamics. Plus in a public school you cannot kick a student out for misbehaving as you can in a private school. So to reflect on my point, if the private school doesn't do better with their grades, then something is drastically wrong with the private school.
The other point that is brought up is that the teacher unions are telling us what to do about education. Who should we ask, coal miners? And before people start saying that teachers have their own agenda to support themselves, I will counter that you don't know many teachers. Pre-college teachers work hard and usually are underpaid and they still strive to enhance the lives of their students. Not allowing major input from teachers in the educational system would be absurd. These teachers are constantly striving to better themselves so that they can help the students. And before I get bombarded again with people trying to contradict me, let me ask you this. If the government gave $100 million to teachers to better the schools or to oil men to better oil, in which case do you think the money would be spent more wisely to help the public? Teachers on a whole work hard to do the best that they can to help their students. If you truly disagree with that, then I will wager that you don't know too many teachers.
Sincerely,
Cy