Nancy Bailey taught for many years but retired due to the misguided reforms that now plague our students, teachers, and schools. She lives in Tennessee. She now devotes her time to writing in support of public education and sensible reforms.
In this post, she asks a simple question: if our public schools are “failing” (PS, they are not), why is that the majority of freshmen at our nation’s most prestigious universities come from public schools?
Consider a few of her examples:
Princeton University: 26,641 Applicants; 1,939 Admissions; 61% are from Public Schools.
Brown University: 30,432 Applied; 2,619 Admitted; 63% are from Public Schools; 37% are from Private or Parochial Schools.
Stanford University: 42,167 Applied; 2,145 Admitted; 60% are from Public Schools; 30% Private Schools; 10% International.
Vanderbilt University (Class of 2017) 31,099 Applied; 3,963 Admitted; 64% are from Public Schools; 36% are from Private Schools; < 1% Other.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I’m all for public schools, but I’m also for careful analysis. So there’s rought a 60%-30% public-private split in admissions. But that’s misleading. I think a far greater percent of high school students are in public schools. So the question should be whether students from public and private schools are equally likely to be admitted? I don’t know, but these data don’t answer that.
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You beat me to it. Very misleading use of the numbers.
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This comment does not make any sense because it is lacking critical data. What was the percentage of public/private school applicants? If 95% of the applicant pool was from public schools and only 61% (Princeton) was admitted it would reflect poorly on public schools. Another bit of helpful info is the ratio of public to private nationally. And these two bits of info leave unsaid a whole host of other data that is critical to make any sense whatsoever of Bailey’s conclusion.
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Tom, what is it exactly that does not make sense? If you read the original post that is referenced, you can see exactly what is being said and is not being said. The main question being posed is: if you have the majority of students who enter the Ivy League who are from public schools, what can one infer? Now, you can certainly look at other data, such as what percentage of private school students enter Ivy League. But, that would not be useful to determine quality of school–because private schools exclude the act of preparing ALL students, only ones that are subsets of the population. You cannot soundly compare the student population from a public schools and private schools. You are comparing apples and oranges. You may be able to compare small subsets, but you cannot compare nationally. For multiple reasons. However, you can soundly analyze of college entrants. It won’t allow one to actually compare quality of education between private and public schools, but it will allow one to infer that if so many public school students are getting to Ivy League, there is a lot of “right” things happening there. Is such a high percentage representative of aberration? Students who just happen to succeed in spite of a horrid public education?
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Elaine,
What if every single private school student was admitted to these elite universities and only a small fraction of public school students were admitted? The numbers as presented don’t rule this out. I think that is the point that folks are making here.
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Tom,
It is possible that every private school student gets into an Ivy League. But that is not the case. Failing students get expelled from private schools before they have an opportunity to apply to elite colleges. But, I will try to find the numbers you seek. Do you have them?
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Tom,
It is possible that every private school student gets into an Ivy League. But that is not the case. Failing students get expelled from private schools before they have an opportunity to apply to elite colleges. But, I will try to find the numbers you seek. Do you have them?
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And here’s the most critical distinction: “how do you define charters?” They are not even on the same platform as boarding schools or private schools that follow same accountability as public schools.
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How do we define charters?
Corporate Charters are a hybrid—a genetically manipulated (fraud and other forms of white collar crime) cross between Ebola, Marburg, Hantavirus, Lassa, Rabies, Smallpox, Dengue, and Influenza.
Unlike traditional private schools that receive no funds from taxes, these Charters are funded by taxpayers and once the money crosses their threshold, they become private schools that are opaque and operate by another set of rules separate from the democratic public schools that must be transparent and follow the Ed-Code that was developed through the democratic process.
The only focus of these corporate—profit or non-profit—Charters is to make money, a profit—not to teach children. The children become a product on an assembly line that in the end will turn out robots and along the way, rejects with any flaws that cause children to be difficult are tossed from the assembly line back to the real public schools.
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Lloyd,
What do you think about non-corporate charter schools like Community Roots in NYC or the Walton Rural Center charter school in Walton Kansas?
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TE,
No thoughts because I’ve never heard of these charters, and I’m not interested.
But I have heard of the Waltons and that’s enough for me to distrust any results from any Charters they support. The Waltons have spend $700 million in the last few years pushing vouchers and charters.
The Waltons, who inhered their great wealth and power—from a father who I understand did not believe in using that wealth to manipulate democracy—have been waging war against the public schools for decades, and I have read that the Walton Foundation supports charter schools that push creationism in their curriculum.
What do you think about creationism versus the science of evolution?
In addition, have you read the four books I’ve recommended to you several times? Every time I ask you if you have, you ignore me and that causes me to think you don’t even bother to read Diane’s posts. In fact, I suspect that you show up here and just troll the comments dropping questions. If you read all of Diane’s posts, you would already know most if not all of the answers to your questions.
Just in case you forgot the books I recommended, here they are again:
The Teacher Wars: A History of America’s Most Embattled Profession
By Dana Goldstein
http://www.danagoldstein.com/
“Ms. Goldstein’s book is meticulously fair and disarmingly balanced, serving up historical commentary instead of a searing philippic … The book skips nimbly from history to on-the-ground reporting to policy prescription, never falling on its face. If I were still teaching, I’d leave my tattered copy by the sputtering Xerox machine. I’d also recommend it to the average citizen who wants to know why Robert can’t read, and Allison can’t add.” —New York Times
Reign of Error
By Diane Ravitch
https://dianeravitch.net/
Diane Silvers Ravitch is a historian of education, an educational policy analyst, and a research professor at New York University’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development. Previously, she was a U.S. Assistant Secretary of Education under President G. W. Bush. She was appointed to public office by Presidents H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton.
A Chronicle of Echoes:
Who’s Who in the Implosion of American Public Education
By Mercedes K. Schneider
http://deutsch29.wordpress.com/
Schneider says, “Corporate reform” is not reform at all. Instead, it is the systematic destruction of the foundational American institution of public education. The primary motivation behind this destruction is greed. Public education in America is worth almost a trillion dollars a year. Whereas American public education is a democratic institution, its destruction is being choreographed by a few wealthy, well-positioned individuals and organizations. This book investigates and exposes the handful of people and institutions that are often working together to become the driving force behind destroying the community public school.
50 Myths and Lies That Threaten America’s Public Schools:
The Real Crisis in Education
By David C. Berliner, Gene V Glass, Associates
http://nepc.colorado.edu/author/berliner-david-c
David C. Berliner is an educational psychologist and bestselling author. He was professor and Dean of the Mary Lou Fulton Institute and Graduate School of Education. Gene V Glass is a senior researcher at the National Education Policy Center and a research professor in the School of Education at the University of Colorado Boulder.
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If a fewer private schools have a larger % of the pie … That is a concern.
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Private schools cherry pick only students (and parents) they want to teach, excluding children with more difficult challenges or families with limited wealth. So that factor, too, must be considered when analyzing the data, making the public school percentages even more impressive.
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From what I can find from various sources, all say that about 10% of K-12 students nationwide attend private schools.
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In 2012, 1,068K students in private 9-12 schools divided by 15,5515 students in public 9-12 schools = 6.9% enrolled in private schools (from: http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d12/tables/dt12_003.asp )
Yes, one would expect the majority of freshman to be from public schools. That’s a no-brainer.
Now, discussion of the percentages being what they are is the fun part. As I tell my students when they take a quiz or test: Have at it and have fun!!!
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That 15,5515 should be 15,515K.
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“Yes, one would expect the majority of freshman to be from public schools. That’s a no-brainer.”
It is also a no-brainer to infer that public schools are doing much that is right when most good universities are populate with public school graduates.
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Be certain as other matters play out in this thread: Not a single one of these kids–not to mention all the rest–will benefit from having more robo-scored, feedback-free, standardized tests (PARCC, etc) jammed down their throats throughout their academic careers. They will in fact be harmed by the loss of many hours of instruction time.
Ideologues in bed with opportunists in state capitals are the big problem.
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I don’t think anyone is against private school. If parents determine it is in the best interest of the child and can afford it, they have a right to choose private school. The concern is that the charter business is a hybrid monster backed by dark money while governors with corporate agendas starve public education. What they are creating is not another “Dalton School,” but a cheap Walmart product, the kind that breaks before it gets home. The urban public-private charters have few successes, and many failures. Worst of all they not based on American principles of democracy. They increase segregation, provide opportunity for only a few survivors, and reduce diversity in the workplace. All of this comes at a major cost to the America taxpayer while fraud is rampant, and there is little oversight and accountability. .A much better investment would be in American public education with professional teachers. As you can see, at least two thirds to students at top universities come from public schools. We know this model works when implemented correctly. We need to change how we fund public schools, and we need to be willing to offer flexible options to students. What do they say,”Innovate or die.” This may be this time!
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I think it’s reasonable to “be against” private school. At a minimum, I think it’s worthwhile to question the assumption that almost everyone seems willing to make that people have some kind of natural right to anything they can afford to pay for. I think that as long as private schools exist, we will have a two-tiered education system.
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FLERP,
I am not against private schools or Catholic schools as long as parents or external funders pay for them.
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That’s a reasonable position. It’s also a position that favors the wealthy and perpetuates inequality and segregation in education. It’s also a position that is so deeply ingrained in our culture that anyone who disagreed with it would be viewed as a dangerous radical or a fool.
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The wealthy always have advantages because they are wealthy. Right now, I think we need to change tax rates so no one has billions. And please, hands off the public schools. Stop trying to monetize them, stop turning them into profit centers. Let teachers teach. End high stakes. Testing. Ban standardized testing. Teachers should write their own tests. Let educators run the schools, not politicians.
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“The wealthy always have advantages because they are wealthy. Right now, I think we need to change tax rates so no one has billions.”
We could change tax policy so that no one has multiple millions, either, although that might hit too close to home for many. We could also cap the max tuition that private schools are allowed to charge so that they’re affordable to all, and require that all schools, public or private, enroll numbers of ELLs and students with learning disabilities and minorities that are representative of their states. We could pursue policy that actually ends segregation and reflects the principle that no child has a right to a better education than any other child simply because his parents are wealthier.
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FLERP, I will happily settle for a cap on income and on wealth. So would FDR and TR. where are they when we need them?
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Flerp!
I don’t think the facts add up to support your thinking. While there is some truth that private schools foster segregation, the number of children to grow up thinking this way would be minimal through exposure in private [I’m not talking about the corporate Charter school movement because it doesn’t fit within the context of the established private schools that were here first] and/or public schools, Instead, racist thinking comes mostly from the family and community where the child lives.
Only 6 percent of kids in households with incomes under $50,000 attend private schools, compared with 26 percent of kids in households with incomes of $200,000 or more—reverse that and 74 percent of kids in households with incomes of $200,000 or more attend public schools.
In addition, just 20 percent of private school students attend non-sectarian schools; the other 80 percent are in religiously-affiliated private schools, of which half are Catholic.
http://www.citylab.com/housing/2014/08/where-private-school-enrollment-is-highest-and-lowest-across-the-us/375993/
If a household earns $200,000 or more, they are in the top 5-percent of the population or about 15.8 million adults and children.
Instead of worrying about segregation, I suggest the focus should be on ways to deal with poverty, because poverty is a reliable predictor of child abuse and neglect. Among low-income families, those with family exposure to substance use exhibit the highest rates of child abuse and neglect (Ondersma, 2002); Lower SES has been linked to domestic crowding, a condition which has negative consequences for adults and children, including higher psychological stress and poor health outcomes (Melki et al., 2004); all family members living in poverty are more likely to be victims of violence. Racial and ethnic minorities who are also of lower SES are at an increased risk of victimization (Pearlman, Zierler, Gjelsvik, & Verhoek-Oftedahl, 2004); children in impoverished settings are much more likely to be absent from school throughout their educational experiences (Zhang, 2003), further increasing the learning gap between them and their wealthier peers, and while national high school dropout rates have steadily declined (National Center for Education Statistics, 2002), dropout rates for children living in poverty have steadily increased. Between 60 and 70% of students in low-income school districts fail to graduate from high school (Harris, 2005).
What do you suggest should be done to deal with this challenge?
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Lloyd, I’m not sure I follow why you think the facts don’t support my thinking. Actually I’m not really sure what you think “my thinking is” — are you taking issue with my statement that private schools benefit the wealthy and perpetuate inequality and segregation? I didn’t think that was a very controversial statement, at least one gives the words in that statement their ordinary meaning.
I take your point that overall, a relatively small minority of children attend private schools, and I agree that eliminating private schools probably wouldn’t have a dramatic statistical effect on overall levels of segregation and inequality in education. (As an aside, I note that Tim made a very similar point with regard to charter schools and segregation elsewhere on this thread, and was roundly dismissed as a worshiper of charters and an ignorer of facts.) But I think focusing on aggregate stats misses my bigger points, or what I intended them to be. These points are:
First, elite private schools function as what you could call a “pipeline-to-power,” by which the extremely wealthy and/or extremely connected are able to ensure that their children retain their social status, wealth, and power. These schools replicate the ruling class. Their significance is much, much larger than the number of students who attend them divided by the total number of students in the US. The elites will gladly pay any marginal tax rate they’re asked to pay before they agree to give up their ability to give their children unfair advantages over other people’s children.
Second, there is an argument that the biggest impediment to economic and racial integration in schools is choice — or, more specifically, choice within the framework of a fragmented school system that permits parents to move their children out of certain schools and into other schools that are governed by different rules, funded from different sources, and immune from the reach of courts. Whether this dynamic is motivated by “racism” by whatever definition is largely beside the point. It’s just how the world works, based on the evidence.
Obviously banning private schools and requiring all parents to participate in a unified public school system is not a practical plan. It’s unconstitutional under current law, for one thing. For another thing, I think most people would react to a proposal like this with unease at a minimum, and in many cases with outrage and horror. There is some tension between the principles of equality and freedom.
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Anyone want to guess if Phillips Exeter Academy or Stuyvesant High enrolls a higher percentage of African American students?
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Boy, that’s a good one. It’s hard to imagine it could be lower than Stuyvesant, but now I’m curious.
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Flerp,
My answer was too complex. To simplify, only a quarter of the to top 5-percent send their children to elite private schools. The total number would be insignificant compared to those who attended public schools. Maybe their inherited wealth would one day magnify what they think if they end up doing what Gates, the Waltons and the Koch brothers are doing.
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Exeter is not particularly racially diverse when compared to elite private day schools–9% black and 8% Latino–but it is considerably more socioeconomically diverse, with almost half of its students receiving financial aid.
New York’s elite private day schools have a higher percentage of visibly diverse students, but much less socioeconomic diversity–only 10-20% of their students receive financial aid. Tuition at these schools is $40,000+.
Entry to Stuyvesant, of course, is governed by a single ungameable test, nearly 80% of its enrollment is non-white, and 40% of its students qualify for reduced-price or free lunch.
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Tim,
By 80% being nonwhite you mean that 72.5 % are Asian. For this fall Stuyvesant admitted seven African American students (down from 9 the year before). In fairness there must be some years where African American admission breaks into double figures because a NYT article from a couple years back talks about there being 40 African American students among the 3,295 students at the school.
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TE, the lack of Hispanic and black students at Stuyvesant is a disturbing, unacceptable situation. I think it is safe to say that all forms of school admissions have their drawbacks. I believe there is a solution to this problem that is definitely more of a long play than a short fix–identifying gifted minority students early and ensuring that they have access to schools that will teach to their level–and I would hate to see changes to a purely meritocratic system.
The hue and cry over Stuy isn’t coming from people who are truly concerned about the demographic makeup of the student body; it is coming from people who don’t think it’s fair that you can’t game, appeal, or glad-hand your kid’s way in.
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Charter schools in New York are open to any school-age child living in the entire state, not just a carefully drawn district or zone.
Charter schools in New York City are delivering excellent results, particularly with at-risk learners: http://www.nyccharterschools.org/resources/credo-study-charter-school-performance-new-york-city-2013
Charter schools have not increased segregation in New York City. There are about a dozen or so “progressive” charters and charters located in fairly well-to-do neighborhoods that are actually among some of the most integrated schools in the city–far better integrated than much-ballyhooed traditional zoned public schools like PS 321, PS 29, PS 234, etc. The majority of charters draw their students from apartheid zoned schools and districts that are essentially 100% black and Hispanic and have been that way for years, thanks to hypersegregation’s relationship to traditional district schools.
Charter schools in New York undergo a rigorous and thorough application and renewal process–to say they are somehow less accountable or transparent than district schools is incorrect. The New York City Department of Education is an enormous, impenetrable bureaucracy, and information about schools, budgets, and other matters is actually quite difficult to find. Charter schools are individual, self-contained organisms, and the lack of seemingly infinite layers of bureaucracy makes problem-solving a much less daunting task for parents. Charters that don’t live up to their goals are closed; indeed, many leaders of the charter movement in New York think that the closure rate should be even higher than it is.
I have not seen anything other than anecdotal evidence to suggest that charter school teachers are less diverse than those at district schools in NYC. Given that 60% of the teachers in NYC DOE schools are white vs. only 15% of the students, it seems like this is a problem bigger than just charters.
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Tim,
Give it up. Charter schools are a dual school system. Their results are achieved by accepting fewer ELLs and kids with disabilities. Repeating your line again and again doesn’t make it true.
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Charter schools, with a few exceptions, are frauds.
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I would like to see the attrition rates at the successful charter schools. Since there is so little oversight and accountability, we don’t even know if we would be getting accurate numbers reported. I would also like to know the socio-economic levels of the students at successful charters. Poverty, not race, is the challenge in education.
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The “successful” charters have high attrition and don’t replace those who leave. Their graduating class is far smaller than their entering class. The number of ELLs and kids with disabilities is small.
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Aren’t there at least six tiers in the NYC education system? There are elite private schools, there are catholic schools, there are qualified admission public schools, there are charter schools, there are high quality zoned schools for those with enough money to buy their way into the catchment area, and there are zoned schools for everyone else.
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Tim,
With our One Newark fiasco, public schools are servicing a higher proportion of underprepared students, ELLs and Special Ed. We have classes with over 30 students. It is a recipe for disaster. Give it up Tim. You are convincing nobody.
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Diane, charter schools in NYC serve a comparable percentage of students with IEPs–12.9% to 14.4%. If your complaint is that charters do not serve comparable percentages of students with the most severe disabilities, I’ll point out again that there are many NYC DOE schools that are either educating token numbers of self-contained kids or none at all–PS 321, PS 29, PS 234, PS 41, etc.
Charter schools do educate smaller numbers of ELL students–5.8 to 15%. All charter schools must reach out to ELL communities as a condition of receiving and keeping a charter–the law is what it is. Charter schools in NYC are also highly concentrated in neighborhoods with high proportions of African Americans. The ELL discrepancy is likely due to self selection.
The CREDO NYC study is unambiguous about the results charters are getting here. I assume you are not calling their work into question given that no single person on earth is more responsible for propagating the takeaway from the first national CREDO study–“charters do no better or worse than traditional public school.”
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TE,
The lottery could consist of a computer randomly assigning students from a reasonable “catchment” area – since there are several years worth of data for SA, perhaps for SA, the pool could consist of all students enrolled in the public schools that past SA students would have attended – this could be a way to populate the next kindergarten class. Of course, SA would have to agree not to counsel out students, and I think they would be open to that for the opportunity to prove their practices. Class size should also be similar to the schools in the catchment area.
A lottery that parents choose to enter is not a true random assignment because all the students have a parent involved enough to research schools and enter the lottery.
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Concerned,
Would you not have students apply to particular charter schools? It seems unlikely to me that a student would be equally interested in attending a Chinese language immersion school, a technology oriented charter, a Waldorf charter, and a Montessori charter school.
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TE,
I did not realize most charters are so specialized – they certainly aren’t in my city and I believe SA charters (or KIPPs , most of the for-profits) are anything like you describe.
Charter schools are supposed to be ‘experimental’ schools where new practices are tested. Do you believe charter schools lotteries are truly random and are sound experiments?
Can we determine if SA practices would work with the general population? How many years should we wait for charters to scale up their ‘experiments’.
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Concerned mom,
Most charter schools are not part of any chain of schools. By allowing the students to choose the school (either as a charter or magnet school) the schools can break out of the strict uniformity that the traditional catchment system inevitably creates. No local school board will assign the students on the 500 block of Maple street to attend a Waldorf school and assign the children on the 600 block of Maple street to attend a French immersion school.
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TE,
I will accept that you are unwilling to comment on the lack of randomness in assigning students to charter schools that are supposed to be experimental schools. By the percentage of total students enrolled in charter schools, how many attend chains and how many attend independent schools? Not that it should matter, all charter schools are supposed to be testing grounds for new practices, that once proven to be successful, can be implemented in traditional public schools.
I will still argue that as of today, most charter schools are not so different in their practices than traditional public schools. The charters within my district are not specialized but even if they were, it shouldn’t matter. Assuming we want to reach the students with parents that are not involved and don’t care, I would assume this parent would not care if they were told their child had to go to school x,as long as the child was provided a bus and free lunch if needed.
If schools such as KIPP and SA are supposed to solve the problems of inner city schools. why aren’t they demanding a true randomized class so they can prove their practices once and for all. Why doesn’t Eva march for randomized student assignments for her schools?
You once commented that it is not reasonable from a finance perspective to reduce class sizes, yet now you are advocating for boutique schools? Will all the people on Maple Street be willing to pay higher taxes?
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Concerned,
I am certainly willing to comment on the lack of randomness. I do not think that randomly assigning students to specialized charter schools makes sense. If there is an excess demand for seats at the school, than randomly choosing which students get to fill the seats does make sense. We will just have to disagree on this one, as I don’t think I can be convinced that randomly assigning students to schools that take very different approaches to education is either politically feasible or a good idea.
I don’t believe said that it was unreasonable from a financial perspective to reduce class size. What I likely said was that it was expensive. Sometimes expensive options are the most reasonable thing to do, other times less expensive policy changes (say wrap around social services at high SES schools) might prove more cost effective.
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TE,
Charter schools are supposed to be experimental schools to prove best practices that can then be implemented in traditional public schools in the same neighborhoods as the charter schools.
From an experimental, DOE perspective, do you believe that as students are assigned to charters today:
1) The assignment of students is random?
2) The design of the experiment is valid?
3) We can learn if these best practices will work with the general population in a traditional public school?
Also, what about counseling out students? Isn’t that akin to removing bad data from a clinical study?
Has the goal of charter schools changed? I was told charters are experimental schools that will help traditonal public schools by testing innovative teaching techniques. What can we learn from schools like SA. Gulen, KIPP or any independent charter school if we are not randomly assigning students and keeping class size the same?
If these charters were a research study, do you think they would pass a peer review?
There have been some charters in my city for over a decade, I have asked repeatedly how are best practices shared and how have the charters proven their practices work in the traditional public schools and I never get an answer.
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Concerned,
My view is that charter schools, because they do not use the “all and only” catchment admission policy of traditional public schools, can provide a less standardized approach to education. The citizens in my local school district can choose from a Montessori education, a Waldorf education, or a progressive education if and only if they can afford the private school tuition. I think that students from households might want to benefit from these more specialized approaches even though they come from households that can not afford the $10,000 a year in tuition.
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The orthodox opinion of charter schools is that they have characteristics that are undesirable in a democracy. It seems to me that private schools have many of the same characteristics.
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charter schools = private schools
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Mike,
You think the arguments to close charter schools are also arguments to close private schools?
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Mike, the elite private schools where I live have competitive application processes that require four-year-olds to sit down for lengthy IQ tests and psychological examinations. They also cost $40,000+ per year, award very little financial aid, and may flat-out refuse admission to children for any reason without explanation.
The charter schools where I live are open to any resident of the state of New York, regardless of their parents’ address or net worth, and are absolutely free.
Perhaps things are different wherever you live.
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charter schools = subsidized private schools
Charter schools pick their students first by getting parents who are involved enough to enter a lottery and most, if not all, charter school counsel out students.
A parent at charter school #1 was told by a teacher there to make a donation to charter school #2 so her child could get a spot at the school (the teacher thought school #2 would be a better fit). I wonder why the teacher thought that would work???? How could this teacher not know charters are “lottery schools”. In my area charters conduct their own lotteries………….
Finally, until charter students are randomly assigned, rather than winning a lottery, we really won’t be able to compare charters and traditional public schools.
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Concerned,
How would you randomly assign students to a school other than using a lottery?
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I replied above by mistake. Here’s my reply.
The lottery could consist of a computer randomly assigning students from a reasonable “catchment” area – since there are several years worth of data for SA, perhaps for SA, the pool could consist of all students enrolled in the public schools that past SA students would have attended – this could be a way to populate the next kindergarten class. Of course, SA would have to agree not to counsel out students, and I think they would be open to that for the opportunity to prove their practices. Class size should also be similar to the schools in the catchment area.
A lottery that parents choose to enter is not a true random assignment because all the students have a parent involved enough to research schools and enter the lottery.
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There’s more.
NCLB requires that 100-percent of 17/18 year olds in the United States graduate from high school college and/or career ready.
This is an important figure: In 2013, 143.9 million Americans were employed in the civilian labor force. In addition, most of the people who don’t work are 65 or older or under age 18—-they are retired or dependents.
And according to the stats at bls.gov, if 100 percent of Americans were college educated, then most would be overqualified for 67 – 77 percent of the jobs [96.5 to 110.9 million], and 26 percent of those jobs [37.4 million] don’t even require a high school diploma or its equivalent.
Then there are the jobs that require a bachelor’s degree or better—that number is 23 percent [about 33 million jobs], but according to a special report of The Most Educated Countries in the World, 42.5 percent of Americans [about 90 million] have a college degree. That means for every job that requires a college degree, there are 2.7 college graduates, and Bill Gates and President Obama want more college graduates and are willing to punish teachers by firing them and then turn public schools over to corporations if public school teachers don’t achieve these artificial and unnecessary and impossible demands, because no country on the planet has ever educated 100-percent of its children to be college or career ready.
In addition, it doesn’t matter if countries like Russia and Japan are graduating more young people from colleges than the U.S. is, because many of them end up unemployed or underemployed, and South Korea—according to The Most Educated Countries in the World—-is ranked 6th (with 40.4-percent of adults college educated) while the U.S. is ranked 5th with 42.5-percent.
In Russia, for instance, where 53.5 percent of the adults are college educated, about 30-percent under the age of 25 do not have full time jobs and if they do, it is a daunting task to find one. And often, those jobs do not provide enough to survive on. According to a study by the New Economic School in Moscow, more than 50 percent of young academics who work in the Russian public sector have second or even third jobs in order to make ends meet.
And this is the world, Obama and Gates wants for the United States.
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The debate about whether “public schools” are or are not “failing” has been tiresome for a long time. Nancy Bailey adds nothing to that debate with this post, and may even subtract from it, if that’s possible.
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I would like to thank Diane for re-posting my blog post. I know it is not a perfect statistical study, but I wanted to show that public school students are being admitted into high caliber universities. They are not being rejected in droves.
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The main problem is one of context. It might be the case that all 1200 public school admits to Princeton come from qualified admission public high schools like Stuyvesant in NYC or Thomas Jefferson in Fairfax County for example.
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It would be interesting information to know. I always thought these universities also tried to reach out to lesser known high schools.
I heard a college admissions officer from Vanderbilt once say that they searched for students in high schools across the country who had different hobbies that stood out. One example he used was a student who created crossword puzzles! Of course I’m sure they had to have good scores as well.
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Nancyebailey,
I agree that elite private schools do seek out students with a variety of backgrounds, seek out students with sufficient athletic ability, seek out students with sufficient musical abilities. This is another argument that the raw numbers are not particularly informative.
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“Elite Measures”
“Admittance at elitist schools”
A measure of education?
Or measure of the family jewels
And donor/school relation?
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Say tomorrow, all public schools were eliminated. What would education look like? Besides a spike in unemployment as 3.1 millon teachers lose their jobs, 90% of America’s K12 students would suddenly be looking for a school on the “free market”. Tuition would skyrocket with parents taking out $90,000 student loans before middle school. A few educorps would consolidate power and become very rich running probably the biggest corporations the U.S. has ever seen. Education would become a luxury service available to very few. A massive wealth transfer virtually eliminating the middle class. Are we there yet?
Most private schools need the public schools. They are unable or unwilling to have the open door policies of public schools. Private schools would look very different if they did.
I am beginning to think the best way to save public schools is to propose a constitutional amendment to eliminate public schools. Perhaps this would wake up the general public to the benefits of the schools and teachers so often ignored and demonized.
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These polls mean nothing. It’s happening like that because there are more students in public schools over private schools. I’ve taught in public schools and Catholic schools. I had children that graduated from Catholic schools. Public schools can’t hold a candle to Catholic schools. Catholic and Episcopal schools are among the best and beat public schools to death when it comes to top students.
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Not only that, but count the number of National Merit Finalists, and you will see that the private schools have many, many more than public schools. That tells everything.
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What are the criteria to be a National Merit Finalist? (I honestly do not know).
What exactly does it tell? Does it tell us that private schools create better citizens?
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Concerned,
To be a National Merit Finalist a student needs sufficiently high score on the PSAT, a sufficiently high score on the SAT, and a sufficiently high GPA (the PSAT and SAT scores are the usually binding criteria. The required SAT/PSAT scores differ from state to state.
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“That tells everything.”
And what is that “everything”??
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“National Merit Scorelers”
The test score tells you everything
About the education
The test score is the rightful King
The merit of the nation
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And, Catholic school parents pay taxes to fund the public schools along with the tuition
. So, they pay just like everyone else does.
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So if a taxpayer does not have a child in a public school, does that mean they get no benefit from our society providing public education? What do you think would happen if we did not have public education?
I will never understand the attitude of people who think they are being shortchanged because they chose to send their child to a private school.
Since the majority of people are educated in public schools, the chances are high that they people who contribute to our society (our lives) for example, doctors, teachers, carpenters, child care providers, lawyers, electricians, plumbers, geriatric caregivers, etc.
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I keep hearing that only the wealthy can afford private schools. That’s certainly not the case. I was a mere teacher. My husband a good job, but we were not wealthy, by any means. We just did without to sacrifice for our kids to be in Catholic schools. We didn’t always buy the brand new cars. We bought used and skimped on vacations to be able to put our 3 kids in Catholic schools. I never have regretted it. All 3 went on to be very successful and independent.
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Many people do with less (no cars and no vacation at all) than you did and still cannot afford private schools. My parents couldn’t afford private schools and I didn’t suffer because I attended public schools (in a district shunned by many surrounding towns).
I believe you will find that many successful and (financially) independent people attended public schools.
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I think the criteria is scores on SAT. Might be ACT, also. Absolutely yes, private schools create better citizens. Responsible, hard-working, dependable. I know. I’ve taught in both places. Unfortunately, the ONLY way public schools are going to achieve is to get rid of the poverty in our country. When mamas don’t know who is their baby daddy, daddy is in jail, grandma’s raising grandchildren, families are on food stamps and don’t have a daddy who sticks around and takes care of their families… that’s the only way we can get our poor poverty-stricken schools out of the mess they’re in.
It’s NOT the teachers, ya’ll. It’s the homes these poor children have to come from. When 80% of them get free lunch and free breakfast, what does that tell you? When mama’s in jail because she was on drugs, and those poor babies come up to us teachers and cry because the home life is so bad, you can imagine why they can’t learn. They are very bright, but they are messed up from their poor parents.
Only one thing is going to help, and that is when the leaders in poor communities step up to the plate and talk about crime, poverty and drugs and figure a way out of it for these poor families. It’s so simple, but that is not happening.
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“Absolutely yes, private schools create better citizens.”
Absolute bullshit!!
That comment coming from a Catholic K-12 educated person who has broken out of that elitist claptrap.
Tax all religious properties and incomes as everyone else.
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Don’t forget to add the NFL to things that should be taxed.
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Some might consider the NFL to be the premier American religion!!
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I don’t think Catholic schools create better citizens. To equate public schools with the propagation of “baby daddies” is preposterous. (You do this by suggesting Catholic schools creare better citizens). I agree that poverty and crime must be addressed, but you suggest that Catholic schooling, by creating “better citizens,” somehow works toward that end. That is nonsense. If anything, Catholicism perpetuates poverty by refusing to heed sound birth control practices. Particularly in the Latino communities. This they do here in the states as well as in the Latino countries. Mothers have so many children they cannot afford to feed them and they are forced to exit their own countries to find low paid work and schooling so their children have hopes of a better existence (and hopefully be encouraged to engage in family planning). To toot the Catholic horn when it comes to education about morality and good citizenship is treading an awfully thin tightrope. And as for the African American communities you allude to (by invoking the term baby daddies), when has the Catholic community reached out to them, except as “those poor black people who need our services”? There is such classism and racism implicit in your observations. I have news for you. Single mothers are not morally inferior to married ones. Not all poor people have children out of wedlock. Not all black people are poor. Not all poor people have have fathers in jail. Being in jail for drug use is not worse than white collar crime, when men educated in elite private schools steal billions from the working poor and middle class. Poor people are not morally inferior. And nonCatholics are not morally inferior.
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Call your local public school and ask them how many National Merit students they have. I can guarantee you they probably don’t have more than 1 or 2. Our Catholic and Episcopal schools usually have 8-10 here across the board.
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Anne,
In my town this year there were 12 national merit semi finalists, 11 from the public high schools (we have 2 with a combined enrollment of around 3,000), 1 from the much smaller private Episcopal high school. Last year there were 18 total, 13 from the public high schools and 5 from the much smaller Episcopal high school. In 2010 there were 14 national merit semi finalists, 12 from the public high schools and 2 from the much smaller Episcopal high school.
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Anne,
Bridget Anne Kelly (“time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee”) attended Catholic high school and Catholic college. Is she the exception that proves your opinion “Private schools create better citizens”?
She isn’t “hard-working” now; as of the Sept anniversary of George Washington Bridge lane closures, she didn’t have a job. Who would hire someone w. her judgement?
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Oh, former NJ Governor Jim McGreevey also attended Catholic HS. Maybe it’s the water in NJ?
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“I have news for you. Single mothers are not morally inferior to married ones. Not all poor people have children out of wedlock. Not all black people are poor. Not all poor people have have fathers in jail. Being in jail for drug use is not worse than white collar crime, when men educated in elite private schools steal billions from the working poor and middle class. Poor people are not morally inferior. And nonCatholics are not morally inferior.”
I never said any of the above. I was a single mother. No matter what, I put my children’s education first. I did without to do that. I bought clothes second-hand, made gifts rather than buying them, had no vacations, drove and still do a used car with 120,000 miles on it. I never said all black people are poor or that being in jail is worse than white collar crime.
I’m saying, for the most part, poor students don’t have the guidance from a stable family unit much of the time. Mom may be the best, but daddy may be out doing drugs and using all the family money on that.
Until the leaders in the poor communities do their part, poverty will continue.
Much of the money raised in the Catholic schools goes to the Missions in other countries. It goes to local charities. School fairs are put on for the strict reason to help the poor communities. Students are taught to volunteer in the communities. That is a big part of Catholic education.
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“I’m saying, for the most part, poor students don’t have the guidance from a stable family unit much of the time. Mom may be the best, but daddy may be out doing drugs and using all the family money on that.”
Daddy does drugs in all social classes. Middle and upper classes are huge drug users. They just have the means to not get tangled in the criminal justice system. And there is more “family money” to provide a cushion. Appearances are deceiving. People may look polished and organized, but are suffering from the same disease as those who are not monied. And they can be easily more morally bankrupt. When people avoid a chaotic public school, it is to avoid being classed with an underclass of society. It is really not so they can become upstanding citizens. It is so that one’s children can survive and thrive, and to be associated with those people who “have.”
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Elaine, baby daddies refers to all classes, white, black, Hispanic, rich, poor. If you’re having sex with more than one person, the poor child will never know his real father. I don’t call that racist. I call that pitiful.
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“Elaine, baby daddies refers to all classes”.
Not really. That phrase is typically used to refer to nonwhite minorities and low SES populations.
“If you’re having sex with more than one person, the poor child will never know his real father.”
Well maybe, maybe not. So monogamy will fix poverty and the public schools? And make for civic-minded leaders? I don’t think we want to carry this logic forward.
My main gripe with your initial comment was the assertion that Catholic schools make better citizens, and the suggestion that poverty (your cause of problematic public schools) is the result of women who are sleeping with too many men and having too many babies out of wedlock. While I am an advocate of monogamy on a personal level, I think it is a huge stretch to align public school problems with promiscuous girls. I hope you revisit your thinking.
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Concerned mom, I think the problem is, at least here in LA, that we have such extreme poverty. Most families don’t want to put their kids in public schools depending on where they are. Many other states have high poverty, and that’s one reason people choose private schools. Bad influences there. On the other hand, go to another town, and the public schools are very good. Depends on where you live.
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Also, concerned mom, you have parents who cared about your education and did their best to keep you on the straight road. Many do not do that. That’s why you succeeded in public school. You probably had a family that stayed together.
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If you were able to cut back and afford Catholic schools, you still had a wealth advantage many do not. Plus Catholic schools are supplemented by the Church and local diocese if nothing else building space and endless fund raisers tapping community support. Families unable to donate time and money are not welcome in Catholic schools and the hints to leave are not always subtle. Many inner city parochial schools are struggling.
My family had a very different experience with Catholic schools. Our son is on the Autism spectrum. The teachers were poorly trained to spot this when growing evidence shows early intervention is key. In fact, his first teacher called students by number and was cold and harsh. The school had no concept of intervention finally locking him in a closet as “punishment” on occasions. We tried exhaustively working with the school. Finally, the principal admitted they neither had the desire nor resources to work with our child and asked us to leave. We enrolled our son in a quality public school with outstanding administrators, trained intervention teachers, and skilled veterans. Sure, he is not a National Merit Scholar with all the accolades that brings. But he graduated and is going to college. Where some can sprint to the finish line, my son has to run hurdles.
Ad I said, private schools need public schools. Private schools could not boast their success if they were held to the same standards. In a sense, it is public schools enabling and supporting private schools.
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Why are we school bashing? Are parochial and private schools inherently suspicious merely because they’re parochial and private? That disappoints me. While I get that the goal of this blog is to support public schools–and I do, without question–I would hope that people who support them would not attack non-public schools willy-nilly.
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I am not school bashing. There are comments that private schools are better, I am asking how it is determined that private schools are better.
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“–I would hope that people who support them would not attack non-public schools willy-nilly”
I hope that people do not attack public schools willy nilly. They have a higher aim than private schools — to provide education and opportunity to everyone, without exception. That is a pretty high standard.
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You can’t take a few Catholic educated people and say just because they are not hard-working that they don’t prove the point about being better citizens. You need to go by data. My theory is to call your local public school and find out the number of National Merit Finalists. Then call the Catholic schools. That should be enough proof that private is better.
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Anne,
I reported those figures for my local district for three years in a comment on this thread.
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How do PSAT and SATs scores (the main metrics for National Merit Scholarships) determine if one is a good citizen?
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I’m mystified that a teacher w. 25+ years’ experience would think that SAT scores are sooo important. Years back, Lafayette College (Easton, PA) experimented w. making test score submission optional. By the end of sophomore year, the students who’d submitted SAT scores had a GPA just one-tenth point higher than those who didn’t. Sad to say, they reverted to requiring scores.
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I’m really not public schools bashing. I did work in them for 25 years. I’m just saying that students in public schools are just as capable. Their main problem is poverty. Until the public and religious leaders in the poor communities take control and educate, they are going to stay the same. The poor communities need real leadership, not people who teach and promote racism. It just divides us further.
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To teaching economist, that is wonderful you have such awesome numbers of National Merit. Where my brother lives in Niceville, Florida, they have the same. Everyone wants to live there because of the schools. People avoid public schools here in LA. Too much poverty.
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Anne,
Saw the earlier post before this one (reading email from oldest to most recent).
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Sorry, Elaine, but if people would abstain from sex, they wouldn’t be having babies.
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Anne, thank you for that enlightenment. I did not know that sex led to pregnancy. Now that that is cleared up, what do we do about the married poor who have children they cannot afford? What do we do about families who are taught to believe that God will provide and that the more children they have the more blessed they will be? What do we do about mothers who believe that breast feeding will prevent pregnancy? Because these teachings are real and happening. Sorry, let’s hit poverty where it begins. Family planning. Most educated Catholics who are seasoned “citizens” do not subscribe to the sex education provided by the Catholic church. They go to church, use birth control, and even have abortions, and receive communion. It is the poor, unseasoned, gullible “citizens” who really believe these things: that they should have lots of children and that is the best approach to life. And, they are married and have jobs. And most of them must resort to the public school system because they cannot afford tuition. This does not make them less civic minded. It makes them very very busy and tired. And let’s not forget about those who had children when they were married and the husband has left or is underemployed (most poor people I know do work).
Again, Catholic schooling is not morally superior. And it is not a prerequisite for understanding one’s civic duty.
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I am not talking about the majority of public school students. Most have fabulous lives, do well financially, volunteer in the community and have wonderful families with wonderful values. And, no, Catholic education is not morally superior to public with these families.
I’m talking about the poor… the ones who keep having children and can’t afford them. If they would use family planning or abstain, they would not have as bad financial problems. Many times, drugs come first. That is a major problem in our country and is getting worse. No money for drugs, go steal from someone who has it. Then, they are arrested and wind up in prison, and the family suffers.
It all comes down to education and putting a priority on it. Public or private. Education should be the priority.
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Anne, our dialogue began when I responded to your assertion that Catholic schools make for better citizens. Now you are saying that that is not the case. I agree that that is not the case. Any school, whether public, private, religious, or secular can engage in educational practices that work. It is the specific school and now it copes with societal pressures and demands that will determine its success. And it is possible to teach civic mindedness without religion. I do believe that there are philosophies at work in our world that keep poor people poor and keep uneducated people uneducated. And I would not begin my analysis by pointing to the victims as responsible. I think it is fair game to consider any religion or other belief system or philosophy as being part of the problem. To deflect responsibility is certainly to be part of the problem. What troubles me about the Catholic approach (and I am the product of old school Catholic schooling, and know what Catholic devotion is) is that there are teachings that promote the very poverty it condemns. Very troubling to me. I think it needs to examine its conscience.
Thank you very much for the dialogue. I appreciate the exercise. Best wishes.
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I am not talking about the majority of public school students. Most have fabulous lives, do well financially, volunteer in the community and have wonderful families with wonderful values. And, no, Catholic education is not morally superior to public with THESE FAMILIES.
I think you misunderstood what I said. I still say Catholic schools create better citizens because those students learn to give back to society. Giving back to society in public schools is not most of their missions. They can barely take care of themselves. I know. I taught there.
Thanks for your dialogue. It was interesting.
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“[T]he majority of public school students . . . have fabulous lives, do well financially, volunteer in the community and have wonderful families with wonderful values” is one of the oddest and funniest statements I’ve seen in a while.
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Sorry, flerp. I think you are trying to intimidate me. It makes sense and is just a general overall observation. I don’t think you get the whole picture. Nothing changes until we eradicate poverty. And, the leaders in the poor communities don’t want to do that. They want dumbed-down drones who will say yes to the government. I will NEVER do that. My bloods runs red, white and blue… of course, unless it’s running purple and gold for our Tigers!
Intimidation is not appreciated here.
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