After reading another post, this teacher explained why she would not teach in a private school again:
I taught at a private school once in my career. The owners micromanaged us like vultures circling. We were told in so many words not to give grades below a C. While they were in the early years they were not super selective as long as your parents could pay the $10,000 tuition. I still never saw a true special needs student. They asked me to teach subjects I was not qualified for until my speciality had enough kids enrolled. I have never been that stressed in my life. 2 years of that and I quit teaching and took a job traveling. Then I came back and took a job in a public school. While it is not perfect I prefer it far more than the private school. I believe in public education and I would not spend one dime on any private school for my daughter ever after that experience.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Like public schools, there are good, adequate, and poor private schools. Within each school (public pr private) are good, adequate, and poor aspects. I am a believer in public education and I am a product of it from K through graduate school. I have worked mostly in public schools and I am likely to resume working in them again after my current stint in a parochial school. However, I would not dismiss all private schools as bad any more than I would dismiss all public schools.
I have to concur with this post. I taught in both public and private schools in NYC and I came to the conclusion that private school is the biggest con/hoax out there. It was such a relief to go to finally get a public school job and work with mature, qualified professionals, instead of spoiled, trust-fund babies. The atmosphere in the public school was so much nicer: collaborative and respectful instead of tense and competitive.
The curriculum was the same, but in the public school the principal was in charge, instead of the parents. Also, I couldn’t agree more about special needs students. Not only are private schools not equipped to meet the needs of children with learning or emotional disabilities, I can tell you that there was more than one meeting with parents where I was told to keep my mouth shut while the school psychologist not so subtly guided parents towards the conclusion that they should medicate their child. In a public school, such a child would have been evaluated, and put in a CTT class with an IEP. Instead, I watched them suffering from fatigue and dry-mouth after they began taking medicine. Heartbreaking.
My first year teaching public, I was constantly comparing each professional’s counterpart in private school and shaking my head with disbelief. 30K a year for what…? Oh yeah, so their children could go to school with other rich kids. Now that’s a great education right there.
Lest you think this was some second or third rate private school, let me assure it was not. You would choke if I told you which one. Parents do anything to get their children in there. What a joke.
The private education we had for 5 years for our hearing impaired son made a huge positive difference in his learning and behavior. I am grateful for that particular school and the sacrifices we made for him to attend were worth it. The public school for hearing impaired schools were adequate, but would have not given him the intense foundation he needed when younger.
The private school was also able to tailor his education to his individual needs. This was impossible in our public schools.
Sorry, should read “The public school for hearing impaired students was adequate, but would not have given him the intense foundation he needed when younger.”
I was once offered a job at the most exclusive prep. school in my area. I was burned out by public school teaching and really wanted a change, but the pay they were offering was so low I could not have begun to support my family on it. A single colleague ended up taking the job after I turned them down. When we spoke about half-way through the first semester, she told me, “This is all smoke and mirrors. The kids all come from very good homes and most are fairly bright, but the school just doesn’t have the resources for me to do anything but lecture and drill and kill. We did such a better job in public school–these kids are only successful because of the enormous peer pressure and pressure from parents.”
The tuition at that school is nearly double the average per pupil spending at my public school and they had almost no special needs kids, while our population is 23% special ed. including a number of profoundly handicapped children. I wondered how it could be that we could educate more expensive students on half as much, while investing in much more infrastructure and paying our teachers about 40% more in salary and benefits. I was doing some consulting work at this prep school last summer and I got the answer while I was walking down a hallway. I noticed an office complex bigger than the entire administrative office for either that school or my own. It had a sign out front that said “Development”. I asked someone what that meant and they said, “We’ll basically it’s the sales department.” No wonder we public schools can educate kids for so much less . . . all we do is educate kids!
Although the parochial school where I teach at the moment is a pleasant place to work, I have to admit that I have files and files of great, rigorous lessons that I used regularly in public schools that I can’t do here due to time constraints, scheduling, resources and other issues. Also, the students all have laptops issued/leased to them and we are strongly encouraged to incorporate them as much as possible. This excessive gadgetry becomes an obstacle to mnemonics, attentiveness, and all sorts of skill building. I am no Luddite but the best teaching and learning I have experienced with my students was with books, pencils, and chalk. I have been making my students put their computers away so we can develop some real “19th Century Skills” like memorizing (where appropriate), attending deeply to written texts, and developing ideas.
Just as there are great public schools, there are great private schools. I think that, in general, what a private school offers is an escape from the track that efficiency experts have put public education on. (A track that Diane Ravitch points out.) One of the strengths of a great private school is often its size: At its best, it can be a small community in which children (and faculty) are known and loved. It’s a small town in a larger world. How many public schools offer pre-K-12 under one roof? How many moody sophomores interact with chatty 4 year olds trying to learn to use the water fountain? A small pre-K-12 school is like the slow-food movement: Efficiency has nothing to do with what’s happening. But a human being feels like less of a cog in a larger machine.
I regret that public education is on a path of larger and larger consolidation of schools. Larger public schools, because of their size, are able to offer more language choices, band, drama, art, and different math tracks for less money. So, like the food industry, the education industry is being pushed into a more efficient model. I hear calls for larger and larger schools. Think of the administrative savings! But in the midst of dual career families, parents forced to work overtime for job security, divorce and remarriage, blended families, and other modern stresses, a small school can be a significant haven for children. It is a lot like a small town. Small towns don’t offer the same opportunities as big cities and it’s hard to quantify the peace that comes from a smaller scale. A smaller scale might not be for everyone, but for the right child, it can be a blessing.
If I had my way, I’d put TINY neighborhood public K-12 schools in every school district with high drop out rates. I’d staff them with teachers who taught, at most, 80 students in the course of a day in middle and high school. I’d make sure that the interiors conferred dignity on everyone inside the walls — faculty and students. There would be healthy family-style shared meals. There would be fresh air and natural light. These schools wouldn’t offer as many options as larger public middle and high schools, but students and faculty and staff would be known and supported. It’s what nuns have been doing for a long time. It’s why some parochial schools work despite the odds.
The Waiting for Superman argument about the superiority of private schools is obviously ridiculous: If teacher unions were what was holding back public education, one would expect anti-union states in the South to have exceptionally strong schools. I hope that public and private school teachers and administrators won’t bite that hook. And it’s false to assume that private schools only accept students without learning differences. Private schools are full of students who might require an individualized education plan if they were in public schools. Some students get extra services in private schools. But teachers in the trenches (both public and private) know the horrible role that anxiety and depression play with learning differences. And often, in private schools, the smaller scale can help a student on the edge.
So let’s not forget the importance of human-to-human small-scale interaction. I think that what sets great private schools apart (and great small liberal arts colleges apart) is the scale and the resultant community-centered program possibilities.