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Independent Schooling
Soars
Above the Public Excuse for Education |
 October
4, 2004
- The movement for school choice has been compared to
the civil rights movement. This is because the leaders of the choice
movement are American-African and there is strong support from
American-Latinos, as well. President Bush has alienated the education lobby
by championing the cause of school choice, yet there are commercials saying
that Republicans are trying to disenfranchise the colored vote. That notion
is almost as illogical as unions opposing parents’ freedom to choose the
best possible education for their children because it will lower educational
standards and accountability. Yet the misconceptions persist.
Another myth that must be put to rest is that teachers employed in
independent schools rather than the public are less competent. The logic
behind this flawed hypothesis is that because independent school teachers
are not recipients of the superior salaries awarded to the public school
teaching elite, they must be inferior in some way. Uncommon knowledge is
that teachers at private schools are much happier in their jobs than public
school teachers. This is because they have greater influence on establishing
curriculum, setting student performance standards and student discipline
policy. A majority are confident that their administration will enforce
school rules and appreciates them for doing a good job. Only half of the
public school teachers can identify with this feeling about their jobs.
Independent school teachers are treated as professionals. They work in
caring, orderly, safe, and nurturing environments where academic excellence
is the priority. They may not pay as well, but this isn’t as high a priority
as the unions would lead us to believe. A Public Agenda study found that
teachers want to work in schools with involved parents, well-behaved
students, smaller classes and supportive administrators. Most would trade
significantly higher salaries to teach in these kinds of working conditions.
The ability to have admission standards is probably the biggest reason why
independent school teachers find significantly less student disrespect for
teachers, alcohol and drug abuse, tardiness, absenteeism, unprepared ness,
lack of parental involvement, and student apathy. They have less reason to
fear being threatened with violent injury or being physically attacked.
Students attending these schools are less likely to be victimized, bullied,
fear attack, targeted by hate crime, need to avoid certain areas of the
school for fear of their own safety, or become gang members.
Academic excellence in independent schools means that students generally
perform higher on standardized achievement tests; SAT scores for independent
school students are well above the national average. They must satisfy more
rigorous graduation requirements; twenty four percent of graduates are more
likely to have taken AP exams for advanced-level courses in math, science,
and foreign language compared to less than 10% of their public school
counterparts. Furthermore, 88 percent of independent high school students
apply to college, compared to 57 percent of public high school students.
Independent school graduates are more likely to complete a bachelor's or
advanced degree by their mid-20s.
Here’s the most interesting statistics of all. Teachers scoring higher on
college entrance exams, over 25% scoring in the top quartile, are more
likely to end up teaching in independent schools. And, the most effective
teachers have a large verbal ability and lots of content knowledge. For this
reason, the U.S. Secretary of Education, Dr. Rod Paige questions the value
in schools of education. Typical enrollees are not as academically
accomplished. Because he believes that the current system of teacher
certification discourages the most talented candidates from entering the
profession and allows too many poorly qualified individuals to teach, he has
proposed alternative teacher preparation and recruitment that includes high
standards for verbal ability and content knowledge. He would like to
streamline the process for certification and offer more choices to meet the
requirements for teaching status.
Parents who can choose an independent education for their children are
empowered by taking personal responsibility for their own child’s education.
They tend to become more involved in the surrounding community, which
improves the school. School choice fosters competition between schools and
spurs more efficient instructional methodology. The result is independent
school parents are more satisfied with the results of an independent school
education than parents of public school students.
Choice in education can take many forms. There are choices involved in types
and amounts of teacher training, textbooks, curriculum, discipline,
religious instruction, entrance requirements, and independent rather than
public school instruction. In order to make choice a more widely available
option, vouchers; tax supported scholarships, have been made available in
some states to provide special needs students and those from failing schools
alternatives to their local public school environment.
But independent schools have the ability to outline certain standards for
their education populace. Some of these schools discourage scholarship
students from applying because it wouldn't be a good fit. The hard reality
is that these students would find it difficult to keep up and achieve
success. Simply put, independent schools don’t have to admit students who
can’t handle the load. In addition, many can’t deal with major special needs
students because they would have to add specialists and aids dedicated to
the learning disabled students. Tuition can’t begin to cover those costs.
Other schools cannot use vouchers because they teach religion. The Supreme
Court in Zelman v. Simmons-Harris ruled that voucher programs must be
neutral towards religion. Universal Tuition Tax Credits would eliminate some
of the problems that are inherent in the voucher system.
With the UTTC, parents receive a tax refund to cover tuition costs. A
voucher is not issued by the government to the alternative school in which
the parents wish to enroll the child. This effectively limits government
regulation because no state money is directly expended on the schools. This
frees parents to choose between either religious or non-religious schools.
This also introduces an incentive to comparison shop for a better value
education. Finally, parents are more invested in the readiness of their
children to attend these viable educational institutions.
President Bush has shown great initiative in the school choice movement. He
recognizes the challenges faced by parents who cannot afford to pay twice
but want their children to have the opportunity to achieve excellence in
education. He understands that there must be accountability held to the
schools, the parents, the students, and the teachers. He has introduced
accountability through NCLB and through choice. He is a leader in providing
the opportunity to achieve the best education available. John Kerry is a
lackey of the unions who are opposed to choice. It is clear the Bush’s
reelection is in the best interests of the nation.
A Brief Profile of Americas Private Schools
http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2003/2003417.pdf
Bush Revives Private School Choice
http://www.detnews.com/2003/editorial/0307/18/a09-217894.htm
Private schools focus on academic excellence, college
http://www.bizjournals.com/tampabay/stories/2003/12/29/focus2.html
School Choice and Ownership Society
http://www.cato.org/special/ownership_society/school-ownership.html
Why Teach in a Private School?
http://www.capenet.org/teach.html
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