Re: Do public schools look down on private schools?

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Susan. I think you spelled it out pretty well yourself: less pay,
easily manipulated administration, vindictive helicopter parents
and ones who expect miracles because they are paying for education.
To all this, I would add, in the realm of catholic schools,
declining enrollment.

Two things happen when that occurs, neither of them good. First,
the school becomes desperate for students, ANY kind of student,
even the ones that the school cannot help. the goal is just to fill
up the classes. Second, the moneyed parents become quite powerful
(as if they aren't already) and their every demand is met.
Administration does not want to lose their support (or their bucks)
and so they sell out. The entire school community goes into
decline as a result of these developments. Standards are lowered so
that more students appear to "succeed<' and the mission of the
school takes a backseat to all else. In the last catholic school I
taught in, the "gospel" values we were supposed to be imparting
were gradually, but effectively, supplanted by the values of the
"nuevo riche" or, as I called them "yuppiedom." Rather than the
values of Jesus, our students were shown and many were absorbed by
a culture that taught them to lie, to cheat, to slander and to back
stab. Sorry, but that is what happened and there is no nice way to
say it. Things like the corporal works of mercy and the beatitudes
took second place to what cut of clothes someone wore, the kind of
car they drove, the kind of house they had.... And the Good Lord
help you if you dared question anything these "yuppie" parents did!

I layered it on pretty thick, didn't I? An inconvenient truth is
like that.

But something else that is true is that NOT ALL parochial schools
are like the ones I was in. Not all private schools are. You're
gonna have to deal with the nuevo riche crowd, regardless, as
attending private school gets steadily more expensive each year.
Those folks often have more money than sense. But leadership is the
key. Good leadership can effectively neutralize the things I have
identified. Sadly, just as in the public schools, good leadership
is a rarity anymore.

I left private school and went to public school 18 years ago and
have NOT looked back with anything akin to regret. When I retire,
which I can do anytime now, I will have guaranteed medical coverage
and a pension. That is something else one does without, in many
cases, in private schools. A former associate of mine became
disabled, five years after leaving private school and going to
public. Had she not done that, she would have had almost no
medical benefits at all.

I think you recognize that there are problems in public schools too.
It just seems to me like there is more legal protection, more
recourse in the public sector. But this is a choice you need to
make for yourself. Best of luck
 

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