America's Private Public Schools
10.20.10 – Michael J. Petrilli, Janie Scull – This new analysis by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute finds that more than 1.7 million American children attend what we've dubbed "private public schools" — public schools that serve virtually no poor students. In some metropolitan areas, as many as one in six public-school students
America’s Private Public Schools
by Michael J. Petrilli, Janie Scull
Teachers unions and others love to hide behind their fealty to “public education” when arguing that charters or vouchers will lead to “exclusive” schools, whereas their beloved public schools “serve all comers.” Except, it turns out, when they don’t.
This new analysis by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute finds that more than 1.7 million American children attend what we’ve dubbed ”private public schools” — public schools that serve virtually no poor students. In some metropolitan areas, as many as one in six public-school students — and one in four white youngsters — attends such schools, of which the U.S. has about 2,800. Read on to see whether there’s one in your neighborhood.
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Comments
So what is your solution, not have public schools in wealthy suburbs? I know, this is a justification for charters and vouchers but there is no evidence that they do better or that the ones who cream for students are scaleable.
In the USA you often spend 10X the amount on these schools due to the local tax base. In Canada, we give these schools less money than poor schools so that they have much larger classes. They don't qualify for many "opportunity" grants. We do everything we can think of to level the playing field while you give more to those who already have the most. This is what is wrong with your entire country. You keep trying to reinvent the wheel with charters, vouchers and testing while the educationally successful nations go the other direction.
The definition of madness is to keep doing the same thing and expecting a different result. NCLB is a giant failure so we get Race to the Trough RTTT, the same formula. WAKE UP. Finland has every answer you need.
Why do most of the articles on this site have such "slimy" introductions by the authors?
I hope in hiding behind our fidelity to public education for all, that you can at least respect that we are attempting to teach all, rich or poor.
Which "slimy" introduction are you speaking about? Are they from EdWeek, Fordham, NY Times, ASCD, articles? Yes, public education takes all and fails half the students across the board. As one who is in public schools on a weekly basis I see the failure of schools to address the needs of children all the time. Watch Houston ISD and the changes that are occurring.
Jimmy Kilpatrick
Editor, EducationNews.org
"Yes, public education takes all and fails half the students across the board."
This statement alone speaks of your unfair bais against a group of people who are working very hard to make this country a better place. What dose it say about you that you need to post a defence of your actions?
The Houston experiment is a tragic joke. You do not pay teachers anything like what they are worth and you try to up the demands. I don't know if you have even noticed that nobody even wants to work in your inner city schools. Houston will soon have a severe teacher shortage as word gets around the teacher grape vine "don't go to work in Houston, they are teacher bashers." When you set up idiotic systems like Houston, the message you send to good teachers is that we don't want you here, we hate teachers, we think teachers are the problem." Will you get a clue, POVERTY is the problem. The USA allows far more poverty than any other developed nation so its international test results put them in 36th place. The right wing solutions (testing, charters, vouchers, teacher testing) are not the solutions used in successful countries.
The Houston solution is the solution of the teacher bashers. Don't worry, nobody wants to work for a board that gives off that vibe.
Mr. Weaver, how do you spell bias, does and defense? 3 mistakes in 2 sentences? Not an impressive defense of public education. Mr. Little, all over the United States, outstanding district and charter public schools are overcoming poverty. And just incidentally, charter public schools started in Minnesota and were created by liberal Democrats. Charters are not by themselves the only answer – but they do give public school teachers and parents a chance to create new options like a Montessori junior-senior high, a Chinese immersion elementary, a downtown arts magnet, etc, none of which the St. Paul, Mn public schools had created. And for what it's worth, our 3 children attended and graduated from integrated, non-magnet urban public schools, and I have been a local PTA president.
Joe Nathan
Joe choice is no solution at all. Look at Canada where I am from. We beat your pants off on international tests because you don't give a rats backside what happens to inner city black and hispanic kids and you never have. We give less money to wealthy neighbourhoods and more money to poor neighbourhoods. You do the reverse. How stupid is that? You have uncertified teachers all over the place. How stupid is that. You allow levels of poverty that no other developed nation can stomach. How stupid is that.
As Linda Darling-Hammond so elegantly says when confronted with testing and choice as reforms, "that is just not the way successful nations do it."