PRIVATE SCHOOL JUSTIFICATION

I was introduced to a clarifying thought concerning private schools this weekend. The circumstances were personal meaning someone very dear to me has been teaching for a couple of years in a private school and she was in the position of defining her job, which she did beautifully. Her school, a full boarding school for junior and senior high school students, is located in one of the richest areas in the country and perhaps the world. Always before, I looked at private schools verses public schools in a competitive sense, a fight for scarce resources in a “cut-taxes at all costs” environment. There is a greed driven national drive championed by Republican lawmakers to shift taxpayers’ money to private schools through voucher programs, which in my opinion are generally devastating to public educations. These are the private schools I do not like.

My stand has always been and remains that education and a legal system should be functions of government—the axiom is government does for us that we cannot do for our selves especially in creating equal protection and equal opportunity. The law protects the weak from the strong; strength evolved from bestial physical strength alone into group strength and then into economic strength. Equal opportunity for education is a big contributor to creating equal opportunity. It should be obvious that equal opportunity does not translate into equal class room success.

Education for profit will fail because educational efficiency is not equal to economic efficiency; in fact, they are often polar opposite. For example, the Socratic log with one student setting at one end and the professor setting that other end is educationally ideal. Almost everyone accepts the idea that tutoring works; it is the principle of the tutoring.

Economically, the most efficient school maximizes the number of students in a classroom. A private school based on the concept that administrators can reduce the number of student per teacher; thus, increase educational achievement has merit. It is very expensive. This is not the “for profit” principle most “private schools” are based on. Public schools should also try to achieve that same goal but obviously cannot given constraints on tax-financed public school budgets. If rich parents want that for their children then they should pay for it. A private school based on religion, social beliefs, or one that is for ethnic minority groups does not represent equal opportunity; however, I would strongly support, in fact would encourage, “extra hour” schools devoted to any of these things as long as parents and the community treats them as private schools. They contribute to our rich cultural diversity.      

Private schools should not receive any taxpayer money—zero. The parents of students in private school students should pay taxes the same as everyone else and not less because they have a freely chosen a private school tuition burden. They do not deserve to pay fewer taxes because their children go to private school any more than parents who do not have children should pay fewer taxes. We built our Nation on the idea that everyone pays to support government; education is a government function and is for everyone no matter whom or where they are. Students have different aptitudes and talents. Some students are smarter than others are; some are not as smart but are willing to work harder while others are smart but are lazy. That is their choice. It is true that in a small class the less intelligent or the lazy will receive more encouragement but the government cannot be “all things to everyone”—but it is should try.

The bottom line is simple; if a private school is maintained at the parents expense to provide a better educations for their children, good for them but not at the expense of everyone else’s children—not one penny.  

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