<p>Because many private schools are religiously affiliated and none are operated under direct government control. The government funding a religious school would violate separation of church and state stuff, the whole point of private schools is for your paid tuition to fund them under their own guidelines separate from direct government control, and if tax money went to private schools as well, the already crappy funding situations in many public schools would be made even worse.</p>
<p>Wow, I'm proud of myself. I read through all 15 pages of this repititive, sometimes insightful, & sometimes disgusting posts.</p>
<p>I reached the decision that the most important thing for any ethical, meaningful messageboard debate, & probably debate in general is to STAY on topic! Stay relevant to the actual issue.</p>
<p>I think the overall thread has improved in regards to Public School vs. Private School battle. But I feel it could make it much simpler & less controversel <em>sorry just can't think of proper spelling</em> if you guys would disregard the whole private vs. public school debate. Let's avoid making generalizations, assumptions, & over how public schools are & how private schools are. If you want to talk about Grade inflation, talk about it, it occurs on both sides of the spectrum. Not that discussing the merits of going to a private vs. a public isn't interesting, but it would help us we didn't have to lose the focus of the real issue at hand, High School Grade Inflation, because of the bias, emotional responses, & complications that come with involving institution type. </p>
<p>I realize that after spending 15 pages of talking of just that it might be hard to tear yourself away from the headed duels, the topic has spun off into. But maybe it would be best if those discussion were best moved into a topic more approriately named like, Private vs. Public ** The Ultimate Showdown.
Or maybe some person dedicated to discussing the actual topic Grade Inflation, will be willing to start a new thread that is willing to forgo all the rubbish. 'Cause if you still don't understand what I'm saying, I believe intermixing a discussion Grade Inflation with High School Institution Type will never produce valid, logical results & conclusions based on the supposed actual topic Grade Inflation.</p>
<p>But since when an Internet messageboard debate ever actually reach conclusions?</p>
<p>
[quote]
Unfortunately, many standards aren't high.</p>
<p>Texas is trying to up its standards with the TAKS...making it to where you must past the state standardized exam to graduate high school. There are incentives to schools that have high enough district/school-wide scores and the such, as well.</p>
<p>It still doesn't come close to solving the problem of underfunding and crap teachers, but at least it's an attempt at improving education.</p>
<p>I have my own opinions about educating illegal immigrants but would rather not get into that whole can of worms.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>IT ISN'T UNDERFUNDING. WE ARE OVERFUNDING COMPARED TO MOST OTHER COUNTRIES WHO ARE BLOWING US OFF LIKE WE WERE SITTING STILL.Check the link in my previous post. Countries spending LESS are doing BETTER than us.</p>
<p>The problem is STANDARDS. </p>
<p>Kids are not learning enough or fast enough. The mom in the video who was a teacher previously herself stated how she taught her granddaughter to do what the school couldn't teach her in months in weeks.</p>
<p>If she could do months in weeks maybe the problem lies in the management of the schools and the standards the school sets for its teachers and curriculums.</p>
<p>By the way I'm not saying to set a standard of overkill but definitely a higher more productive one. I doubt the loving grandmother herself would put her granddaughter to an extreme point. Just good effort can produce much better results.</p>
<p>I agree with pgtori, I think. The issue was grade inflation. It's true that a 4.0 means vastly different things depending on where you go. But for those of you worrying about it, don't. For reasons I basically already stated.</p>
<p>With that said:</p>
<p>I'm not talking about the way in which the American government misuses funds. Whether the issue is not having enough money or not taking advantage of the money we have, public schools ARE underfunded. With elective subjects being discontinued and a severe shortage of resources like text books and computers, it's hard to argue otherwise. With no money comes lower standards. I do think that part of the problem is Americans are too complacent with their "king of the universe" position and not enough is expected of kids, but money is another huge component.</p>
<p>Just wanted to add that I went to a private school and a public school. The public school gave me a much better education than the private school. At the private school the teachers knew they had to keep the rich students happy otherwise their big rich parents were going kick and spit until there child had what they wanted. Really pathetic if you ask me. Also my husband went to a private prep academy in Hawaii and he graduated with a 4.4w (maybe it was 4.3) so it is not just public schools giving out ridiculous grade point averages. </p>
<p>And just for the record..NO tax dollars should not be given to private schools. Maybe you should look into the definition of private.</p>
<p>...right.</p>
<p>Anyway, I'm not sure throwing any more money at public schools is going to help any. All the extra computers and textbooks in the world would not help the public HS in my town because it already has all of that. It's really not underfunded, we certainly pay enough taxes for it. It's just not a challenging or competitive school because the spoiled wealthy kids don't want to work hard or do homework, and the town is run by the (truly) wealthy. It's not just private schools that have teachers threatened by parents etc. All the kids in my town that are serious about getting a good education and working hard go to private school unless they can't afford it, but a great majority can.</p>
<p>"IT ISN'T UNDERFUNDING. WE ARE OVERFUNDING COMPARED TO MOST OTHER COUNTRIES WHO ARE BLOWING US OFF LIKE WE WERE SITTING STILL.Check the link in my previous post. Countries spending LESS are doing BETTER than us."</p>
<p>Um, some schools are dreadfully underfunded. I know this because I spent six months on this boring topic for LD and had to read page upon page of numbers and percentages, so I'm not even going to waste my time arguing something I know for a fact is true. </p>
<p>I will agree, however, that how the funding schools recieve is used makes huge differences. One of the biggest arguments in that whole debate was that the school in Texas with the absolute lowest funding per student ratio did the best on our state's standardized test. Funding is important, but you're right that proper use of funding is even more important.</p>
<p>The whole "other countries are better" argument is basically crap as far as I'm concerned, though. I don't care enough to explain why since I know I'll just have to defend it for two pages, but that argument holds no water when we give absolutely everyone a free education.</p>
<p>A recent study found that public schools in the US do just as well as private schools at educating students.
<a href="http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/view.php?StoryID=20060718-010537-9733r%5B/url%5D">http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/view.php?StoryID=20060718-010537-9733r</a></p>
<p>That study used 8th graders, we're talking about high school</p>
<p>it depends on the school. it's stupid to generalize and say that privates are better than publics.</p>
<p>Martha "it depends on the school. it's stupid to generalize and say that privates are better than publics."</p>
<p>No, it really isn't. you can be politically correct or you can be honest.
of course there are exceptions here and there (heck i went to one) but it is far from "stupid" to state the obvious fact that private schools are better, if you can afford it. </p>
<p>AS FOR WHY AMERICA IS FAILING. IT ISN'T REALLY ABOUT UNDER-FUNDING. IT'S ABOUT THE KIDS. THE MAJORITY OF AMERICAN KIDS WHO GO TO THE MAJORITY OF AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS DON'T REALLY CARE ABOUT EDUCATION. TOO LAZY IS THE WORD. AND THATS PART OF THE REASON WHY PRIVATE SCHOOLS ARE BETTER. ITS BECAUSE THE KIDS WHO GO THERE CARE ABOUT SCHOOL. ITS NOT THAT THE TEACHERS GET PAID WAY MORE AS MUCH AS IT IS THAT PREP SCHOOLERS WANT TO GO TO COLLEGE MY $0.02 FOR THE DAY</p>
<p>Ok, I can speak with absolute certainty when I say that a LOT of kids who go to public school care about learning. To say otherwise is a completely unfair generalization. Most people cannot afford private school. And it IS largely about underfunding. It's a lot easier to be disengaged when there are severely limited educational oppurtunities available. You simply can't argue that money plays no part in the private school experience.</p>
<p>Exactly. Public school systems have limited resources, with which they have to pay for:
--paper
--toner
--teachers
--janitors
--cafeteria personnel
--food
--school bus drivers
--school buses (60,000 a pop)
--gas for buses
--air conditioning
--textbooks
--substitutes
--computers
--computer programs
--phone bills</p>
<p>and the list goes on</p>
<p>It IS stupid to generalize and say all private schools are better than public schools. Plenty of kids go to public magnet schools (like i did) or even regular public schools and are enthusiastic about learning and do great. We're not ALL able to pay +20K a year for prep school and some of us are too in the middle to qualify for financial aid. For me, I think staying in my particular public school was the better choice. Its like choosing a college, they're not ALL going to be good for the same person.</p>
<p>ps. How many of you private schoolers have even spent an extended amount of time in a public high school? Or are you just repeating things you've heard about public school?</p>
<p>...and seen on TV. Oh, yes, the inner-city school full of back-talking kids, alcoholic teachers, and no lessons.</p>
<p>You know, there are times when College Confidential sickens and absolutely disgusts me!!!</p>
<p>This is one of those times.:(:mad:</p>
<p>I went to Catholic school for 9 years. I didn't like it. Then I went to a big, public high school for a year, and I didn't like it. So I got the best of both worlds, a PUBLIC Boarding School in my state. I don't love it, but I like it.</p>
<p>There's something to be said for both types of education.</p>