I want to say a few words about the private/public opposition because that's what people in public education are always talking about, in particular they are always seeking out studies that prove that public schools are better than private schools, or at least can hold their own in the comparison. People in private education don't seem to much care about this sort of thing, don't have this public/private opposition very much on their minds. Perhaps they are too busy with their students.
How many times have we seen just during the past year, in the few newspapers still published and still read, such as the Washington Post and the New York Times, this or that study that shows public schools doing better than private schools? And along with that judgement commentary making sure that everyone is aware and knows the significance of the findings. This private/public school thing, that draws so much of our attention in this country, baffles me. Aren't these categories, private schools and public schools, so vast that any comparison between them is either of so general a nature as to be meaningless, or of such a particular nature that general conclusions are not warranted? Aren't the proper categories successful schools, not so successful schools, failing schools and everything in between, and might we not with profit look at how schools succeed, how schools fail, whether or not they be public or private.
Private schools want to be good schools, and they want their kids to succeed because otherwise their paying parent customers would put them out of business. Public schools want to be seen as somehow inherently better, more American, or as American as apple pie. They want to be seen as embodying the American dream, creating equal opportunity for all comers, and they enlist the politicians, rather than the parents on their side because their jobs are assured by government, not by the parents of their children.
I would say that I have known good public and good private schools. But the good public schools are nearly all either exam schools, magnet schools, or schools in affluent suburban communities. In this country's large cities with large minority and poor populations the politicians and everyone else with the means to do so will send their kids to private schools. For even the public figures recognize that the public district schools in our inner cities are failing. And so far no one seems to know what to do about it. And public/private comparisons are of little or no help.
