At 10:55 PM 5/12/98 -0500, you wrote:
>I do not think it is a fault administrators, or even the teachers.  In my
>experience, it has been the students that have been at fault.  My education
>in public schooling has been every bit as good as that which I had in a
>private school.  They were both blue ribbon schools, but it seems that the
>quality of the public school has been as good as any other, but it was not
>administration that hurt the private school, but the students.  Every teacher
>that I have known has complained about the lack of caring on the part of the
>student.  The computer education in public schools, although not required,
has
>been better-taught than the required joke that I have seen in most private
>schools, and I have only seen sensitivity/goals setting/peer mediation/uppity
>classes in private schools.  In my experience, public schooling has been the
>only option for actually acquiring an education, whereas attending a private
>school was a good attempt to become a more conforming yuppy.
>

I will keep this real short because of the sheer OTness of it:

        I have been schooled in private schools my whole life, not because my
family is rich(not!) or because I consider myself better than anyone else,
but because of religious affilliation and because my parents(and I myself)
felt that these private schools provided a much better education and
environment. I have friends who attended both public and private schools
and most of them feel that the learning environment in the private schools
is MUCH better.
        Rather than digressing into a lengthy discussion about who's at fault an
d
why, I can propose a simple solution which has often been proposed but has
been prevented from being implemented in most cases: instead of forcing
everyone's tax money to fund public schools (whether they are good or not),
give every child's parent a tuition voucher which could be used for X
number of tuition dollars at ANY accredited school. Not only is this the
most free and democratic way of doing it, but it would break the monopoly
which public schools DO have, and allow all types of schools to compete on
level ground.


Again, sorry for taking up the BW, but I had to get that off my chest! ;)

Sean

BTW, the private school teachers get considerably LESS money where I live.
Average salary for public HS teacher, ~$40K with $30K pension after
retirement. Private school version, ~$35K, unsure about pension, and my
high school was recognized by the US dept of education with its highest honor.


+--------------------------------+
| Sean Breheny                   |
| Amateur Radio Callsign: KA3YXM |
| Electrical Engineering Student |
+--------------------------------+
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