Public vs. Private Education Essay -- Compare Contrast School Educatin

Public vs. Private Education   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  I have examined and compared public versus private education. Also, this collection of information should help you understand differences between public and private schools. Aspects of equality and achievement in private and public education will be dissected and evaluated. Observations I have evaluated and examined both public and private education instittutional systems. Public Education Public schools are in crisis, and not because of any shortages of public funds (more money is spent on public education than ever before, but with declining results). Many people like to think the problem with our schools is precisely that they are public: "Government schools" are run like the rest of the government, poorly and inefficiently. Teachers are not primarily to blame, because they are also victims of bad conditions of schools and their profession. The solution is to get government out of the business of education and to run education in a more businesslike way. However, education is not a business like other businesses; it does not turn out a product whose value can be expressed adequately in terms of market price. Education does impart business or workplace skills, of course, but the value of reading and writing well cannot be captured fully by a future salary. The love of learning and growing as a student mentally is what shapes each individual's identity in public life. Before much progress can be made, Americans will have to be persuaded that public schools are a public failure -- that they are turning out not just poorly educated students but bad or indifferent citizens. However statistics show that Americans have confidence in public education. In 1997 Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup Poll of the Public's Attitudes Toward the Public Schools was the first in which an effort was made to determine whether the public wants to place its confidence in the public schools or to start looking for an alternative system. In that poll, the public clearly indicated its preference for the public schools.. The results clearly affirm the public's belief that our national commitment to educating all our children through the public schools should be maintained. 71% of Americans indicate that the focus in education should be on reforming the existing system. This compares to 27% opting for finding an alternative system such as p... ... school also generally increased with family income. Children from the lowest income families (less than $15,000) were more likely than those from families with incomes over $30,000 to attend a chosen public school. However, the net result of the various types of choice was that children from families with incomes over $50,000 were much less likely than children from families in lower income categories to attend an assigned public school over which they had not exercised any choice. Reference The Condition of Education 1997, 182, based on NCES, Schools and Staffing Survey, 1993?94, and the Teacher Follow-up Survey, 1994?95. 14/ NCES, Schools and Staffing in the United States, 1993?94, 107. 15/ V.E. Lee and J.B. Smith, "High School Size: Which Works Best, and for Whom?," paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, New York, 1996. 16/ F. Mosteller, R. Light, and J. Sachs, "Sustained Inquiry in Education: Lessons from Skill Grouping and Class Size," Harvard Educational Review 66 (4) (1996): 797?842. 17/ The Condition of Education 1997, 136, based on NCES, Schools and Staffing Survey, 1987?88, 1990?91, and 1993?94.