As a former principal of a private school I suppose I can be accused of being biased on the issue of private “vs.†public schools, parental choice, vouchers, etc. The school I served was in Miami with a 93% minority student population and a 99.5% minority faculty (we had one anglo faculty and three anglo staff persons). The students consistently scored an average of 1.5 years ahead of national standardized scores across the board, with many grades consistently averaging two years ahead of the national norm. The families that made up our school were not affluent. They were low income, blue collar, to middle class whose only commonly shared value was a commitment to their children’s education and a will to do whatever they needed to ensure they got it.
“Just the facts, Ma’m.” Sgt. Joe Friday
So, I have little patience for any excuses about why the public education system “doesn’t work.†And I have little patience for the rhetoric and false dichotomy about public vs. private schools. I find the reactive voices on either extreme of that debate to suffer from the myopia of ideology. Below: two items from the “News†section of the July/August 2007 issue of Touchstone magazine:
Despite the … arguments that diversified schooling will divide communities and create social tension, programs giving parent vouchers they can use to send their children to private schools “are running in several different countries without ill effects for social cohesion†reported The Economist. Studies show that children with vouchers “get a better education than those who do not [have them]†and that having to compete for students because the families have vouchers improves education in American public schools. Sweden gives parents the most freedom to choose their children’s school.
Poor students who attend religious schools do better academically than those who attend public schools, reported William H. Jeynes of California State University, writing in the Interdisciplinary Journal of Research on Religion. Going to a religious school also narrowed the gap between white and minority students and between wealthier and poorer students. The students in the lowest quarter of socioeconomic status benefited most from religious schooling.
My sense is that the ideological debate about the polarized “public vs. private†school is carried on by academics, ideologues, and politicians who are more wedded to their ideology (or purse strings) than they are to the welfare of the children potentially impacted. Both extremes tend to ignore the facts and realities of a complex issue if they are inconvenient for their side of the argument. Parents are more pragmatic—they want the best education for their children. Period. I always thought it most telling how many children of public school teachers we had at our private school. Even for teachers who made their living teaching in the public schools, loyalty to an ideal went only as far as the welfare, or perceived detriment, of their children was involved.
Another wrinkle to the philosophical debate on private schools has to do with the reluctance of “moderate” Baptist churches to enter into the Christian School movement as part of their educational ministry. Despite the fact that parochial schools have a long and noble history, many moderate Baptists are either caught up in the ideological polarity of the “public-vs.-private (religious)” school debate, or they associate Christian schools so closely with conservative-fundamentalist groups that they don’t entertain thinking about the value and validity of a church-related Christian school.
During a conversation with a dean of a moderate theological school he commented that there would never be a curriculum for a Masters in Christian School Administration at his seminary. I responded that I could provide a rationale for such a degree at a moderate seminary or theological school. I said that if moderates choose, out of their reactivity, to not participate in the Christian schools movement, then they are willingly giving over the minds and hearts of a whole generation or two of children to the more conservative-fundamentalists churches and bodies who are in that enterprise.
