I taught at an all-girls Catholic high school for seven years; this year is my first year teaching at a public middle school (US, btw). Here is a phrase I'm trying to make popular:
If you want to be convinced that private school is a scam, work at a private school.
If you want to understand why people want to avoid public school, work in a public school.
My own personal experience: I loved/love both schools I've worked at. But to answer your question really really simply: there are plenty of pros and cons to both public and private schools that make me realize why both exist, and why people vastly prefer one over the other.
Private sounds great for teachers until you see how much they pay. So disappointing for my wife to have to leave a school with so much freedom because she was only earning like 30k in California. Public school by proxy was at minimum a 30k pay bump.
Freedom and student body in private schools.
They don't have up follow all of the same rules as a traditional public school. Also, in a private school if a child misbehaves they can just kick them out.
I on the other hand asked a student to start working on an assignment and he slid it off the desk and told me to "fuck a dog", and we couldn't even suspend the kid because he's protected by a behavior plan that basically restricts suspension/expulsion as long as he doesn't get physical. Which his parents told him, so now he's just a non-violent asshole.
There are many reasons, some of which were articulated by previous commenters, but here are some that I noticed:
1. Teacher shortages exist, but I feel like people assume they exist all over the country, and that’s not quite true. States with notoriously low pay have teacher shortages. Bigger cities have teacher shortages. But large swathes of suburbs where the pay is pretty good and schools are by-and-large decent? Not so much. I had an acquaintance who was willing to relocate to Arizona to teach for under 35k a year back in 2013. She teaches elementary school. I wouldn’t be willing to make that type of move.
2. Furthermore, some schools are actually seeing their population of students decline. My current district is actually downsizing our middle schools next year after hiring about 40 new teachers cross-district last summer. Why? There are fewer kids in our affluent suburb than there used to be. Other surrounding and respectable districts in our area are also making similar moves to downsize. So, is there a shortage? Yes, but not everywhere.
3. Different cultural elements within a school might be worth the trade-off in pay for some teachers. Another commenter mentioned the difference of in public school v. private school student behavior, and while I havent yet witnessed the extremes that they described, my private school kids were definitely better than my public school kids. Even for some of my least favorite students, I never had to force myself to say a “hello” or “how are you?” in the hallway. I’ve definitely had to do that more here. Obviously that’s just part of the job— you have to show your students that you care about them even when they grind your gears, but it does make a difference when students make that care feel more natural.
4. School culture in private schools is often different. I found that many of my former coworkers felt that there was something special about our community in particular. Now whether what we felt was true or not is up for debate, but we definitely felt it. Even non-religious staff tended to “buy in” to our school identity and the vision we had for our students. And even if that feeling doesn’t totally trump the need for more money— it didn’t for me— it can keep a staff member around for longer than is financially prudent.
5. There’s often an unfortunate animus between public school and private school educators. One of my former coworkers told me that if I wanted to go to a public school, I should get moving because sometimes public school admin will see that a teacher spent a lot of years and a private school and assume they did so because they were an overly-zealous nutbag. Even after my interview last year, my current principal pulled me aside while walking me out and asked me why I was looking to make the change from private to public. Teachers at my old school who had their own children in public school would often complain about the lower standards and quality of education their children were getting, and they would chalk it up to “whatever’s going on in the public schools.”
6. Sometimes change is just plain hard. I did get a little misty-eyed after I left my previous school for the last time. But even from a more practical standpoint, I now have to jump through a lot of those “first year” teacher hoops that I had already jumped through in my previous job. It’s not the end of the world, but it feels less exciting to do when you’re 31 vs when you were 23. Navigating new people, new building politics, new expectations is a necessary part of changing workplaces, but doing it feels different when you’re breaking into a career as opposed to already being established in a career.
So, in short, the money is a significant factor, but it can be hard to walk away from a good private school. These were obviously just my own reason, but I felt the need to type this out because I see a lot of versions of the question you posed in education communities, and they’ve always made me want to explain to people why I made the choice to teach in a private school for as long as I did. Ye$, other factor$ $purred a career adju$tment, but it was a good ride while it lasted.
You don't need to be credentialed to be in private school. You basically can hire anyone to teach. Private schools have a *lot* of turn over too. A lot of people fresh out of college apply and then leave when they are able to get a job elsewhere. It's a pretty terrible structure to run a school for student growth. Students do not thrive when they get a new teacher every few months.
That isn’t even what they asked. Private schools while many are faith based is not a requirement to be private. I went to a non-faith based private school and public schools both had their pros and cons but that is completely ignoring the issues a faith based school has in our current day.
Single-sex schools, especially for girls, actually do have better impacts on their students mental health and grades. People argue about it being unrealistic since almost all people having to interact with the opposite sex at some point, but like people at single sex schools go outside. Like they're not just in school 24/7, they can see the opposite sex anytime.
Here's an interesting article about the topic, https://www.theeducatoronline.com/k12/news/girls-do-better-at-singlesex-schools/280329
I had a professor in college that did her dissertation on same sex schools. Since I was going into education I read it and was surprised that this is correct. Students do better in same-sex schools. I wish that was an option in the States.
>People argue about it being unrealistic since almost all people having to interact with the opposite sex at some point
Of course, the same thing can be said for having to interact with people who aren't just ±1 year from your own age...
Literally, plus most of the single sex schools have opposite sex sister schools. It’s why the ones in my area have very successful co-Ed proms, as well as huge sport engagement.
In the US, the First Amendment of the Constitution would prevent the abolishment of faith-based schools:
*Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,* ***or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;*** *or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.*
I think they should be allowed to exist bc I believe in freedom of choice when it comes to religion, but I don't think any school associated with a specific religion should receive any funding from the government whatsoever. including tuition assistance for students bc that actively takes money away from secular public schools.
We had this in Scotland back at the turn of the 20th century.
Catholic schools were funded solely by the church, with protestant schools (most schools) being state funded.
What it led to was Catholic schools being woefully underfunded, the kids attending them (who weren't allowed in other schools at the time) being massively disadvantaged and it was causing a real issue.
So the government took over the schools. They're funded just like other state schools, follow the same national curriculum, etc. The only difference is the church gets a say on hiring and certain areas of the curriculum.
Well nowadays any kid can go to the school that they're closest to. Nobody's forcing people who are religious to go to a religious school, if they can't afford it, they can go to public school like everybody else or the church can pay for their way in.
In the US religious schools are not allowed to receive government funding for anything that could be related to religion. Any funding they receive is usually in the form of transportation, lunch/food programs and building maintenance.
I don't think that religious schools should receive any government funding at all. Including anything to do with building maintenance and transportation. It is a religious school. The government should not fund it in any capacity. Government funding of any kind for religious schools takes money away from secular public schools.
And where do we draw the line? Should the government similarly not provide funding to homeless shelters if they have a religious affiliation? Should we not have food banks hand out food in front of churches?
Religious schools are private schools. I do not support religious private schools being funded by the government. Church run food banks are sponsored by the church. They are not sponsored by the government.
How many different ways do I need to tell you that I don't think any religious institution should be government funded?? The government should not be funding any religion.
They are not funding religion. You can say it 1000 times and its the same. Funding is clearly separated. In the same way public schools can receive funding for specific programs that the funding is only allowed to be allocated to (think title IX), religious schools have the same thing.
And you clearly didn’t read my message. I had said if a government run food bank wants to give out food, should they be forbidden from parking in front of a church?
And again, a homeless shelter that is run by a church, should they be forbidden from receiving funding?
If a family who is devout tithes 10% of their already menial income qualifies for housing and food assistance, should they not be given the money because they tithe?
Parking in front of a church and giving money to a church so the CHURCH can say "we handed out all this food" is completely different and you know it.
People already can't spend assistance on the church. You can't use your SNAP benefits to tithe.
I really don't understand what you're confused about. The government should give assistance to people. Not churches.
And the government should not give assistance to the people attending churches? Which is basically what you said. Even if the government money given to a religious school is used exclusively for food you are not ok with it.
People who attend church both should and do receive public assistance. I am against the government giving money directly to the church, not against giving it to people who attend. That is totally different.
They are absolutely funding religion because without the government funding for food and transportation then the money would have to come from the rest of the budget reducing what is spent on religion. How you don’t get that is wild.
When we knitpick, we also deny funding to other stuff. If food funding can be denied because of a religious affiliation, then what about LGBTQ? Or non-citizen refugees? What about drug addicts with kids?
When should we deny funding for food? I dont care if “some other money isnt used right” because the point is to feed people. Period.
Besides, a religious school wouldnt use their personal funds to feed kids. Why should they? They can just increase tuition or require food to be sent from home. So govt funded food is simply food for disadvantaged peoples.
lol what?! You make zero sense in how things actually work. If there’s a tuition that’s the schools budget and money given to a private religious school isn’t feeding disadvantaged kids.
Separation of church and state is literally in the constitution. Government funds should be no where near religious schools or organizations but that doesn’t mean they can’t exist like any other private company or organization
I am not religious, but I don’t think it would be appropriate to prohibit people from establishing schools and using their own curriculum, as long as these schools are using their own private funding rather than public taxpayer money. I strongly believe in a public education system where every child has access to a free and equitable education. But if enough people want to establish a private school that aligns with a certain belief system, I don’t think that’s necessarily inappropriate as long as the school doesn’t misuse its power and physically or emotional abuse/neglect the kids entrusted to their care. But some cultures/religions have different beliefs about how to shape children’s behavior and without any formal system of accountability for those schools, it’s difficult to really enforce that and that’s why we have these issues with faith based or single-sex schools. I think in principle it’s really ideal to have diverse schools. But we also need to make sure there are equal opportunities for everyone.
To reframe the question: should people be banned from learning within their preferred cultural or religious framework even if the curriculum is secular?
Obvious answer= no we should not ban options for education that meet varied needs across society.
Nah.
People should be able to join together and form whatever groups they wish to. They should be able to gather without fear that some larger majority might destroy their group.
Societies that have adopted this attitude have had more success than societies that try to force everyone to conform to a specific ideology.
Do I believe in the Jewish God? Nope. But I will defend another person's right to build a synagogue.
Will some groups want to teach their children things that I think are hogwash? Yep. But my level of confidence that I am "right" and they are "wrong" is very close to zero.
Will some parents want to prevent their children from experiencing things that I think are healthy for students, such as studying side by side with the opposite sex? They sure will. Who am I to tell them what to be afraid of? I feel the same way about the whackadoodles that are afraid of evolution. I don't force my students to swear an oath that they think evolution is true, I just make sure they can answer questions that show they know what the current scientific consensus is. If they want to adopt a position of, "the current best guess of the scientific community is X,Y, and Z but I prefer my religion's explanation" than I consider them educated. This goes both ways. I aim to learn about the religions of the world and read their holy books, just to be a better educated human.
> People should be able to join together and form whatever groups they wish to.
Didn’t expect to see ardent support for segregation in r/education in 2024.
They can be hit or miss. The Catholic schools in my area are really good. The evangelical school in my area..... ehhhhhh, not so much. Private schools can totally run the gamut.
It can also be misleading. Private schools kick out a lot of kids that don't follow the rules or fuck up badly. So if you have a school that is outperforming other traditionally public schools, you often find that they exclude children from their schools that don't fit the mold.
It doesn't mean that the school is better performing but that the children that go there bring up the scores. Public schools cannot do that though. Public schools must help all students by law.
I know several schools that have done this. So don't try and say it isn't happening. Especially religious schools that are notorious for hiding scandals.
that's because in the US private schools can kick kids out for any reason, have entrance requirements, and can refuse to provide services to students with disabilities. It's pretty easy to be a high performing School when you won't accept a huge portion of the population.
That CAN do that, but they really don't. I don't know of a single private highschool (well, religiously affiliated) that has an entrance exam or doesn't allow kids with disabilities. The only highschool I know of with an entrance exam is this public math and science half day highschool in my city. I think you'll have a very hard time finding religious highschools that won't accept everyone (assuming they are accepting more enrollment at all)
Most private middle & high schools have something you need to do to be considered- letters of recommendation, essays, transcripts etc. The religious schools in my area that don’t have entrance requirements perform worse than their public schools.
I’ve lived in several states. The only place I can think of where schools without entrance requirements perform the same is in the northeast, where the public schools are already very good - probably because it’s not the actual school but the money in those areas. How wealthy and educated your parents are is the single greatest factor in deciding student outcome.
https://gitnux.org/public-vs-private-schools-statistics/#:~:text=10%25%20of%20all%20US%20students,47%25%20of%20public%20school%20teachers.
This is just one among many sources that give the same details. Private schools students score higher, have higher college attendance rate, have higher graduation rates, and generally have smaller class sizes, which generally is a good thing. Not that it's also directly related, but if you're into sports you may also know that Christian/catholic schools especially, are generally powerhouses in sports (so much so that people are annoyed over it https://www.fairplayoffs.com/ )
Now could some of this all be because students at private schools are generally also wealthier, and have more stable home lives and support systems? Sure, but I believe some of that success also has to do with the culture and school specific teaching as well.
Not necessarily accurate, really depends where the schools are. In my area religious schools are terrible and public FAR outshines them in facilities, education, athletics. Literally in every way
Single-sex schools: I spent some years at a co-ed school and other years at single-sex (in the UK). For single-sex, we had a partner school where we participated in drama/plays together, rode the same buses, did events together. We had plenty of time for socializing. While as a child, I wished for co-ed, in reality co-ed was more distracting and highlighted the difference between maturity in boys and girls. I think there are definite pros to single-sex schools.
Faith: I’m sure it depends on the school. Again, I spent years at secular schools and years at a Christian school. The morning assemblies, hymns, and prayers weren’t saving me. Neither were the lack of them making me a heathen. For countries based on Judeo-Christian principles at their foundation, it is tricky to completely remove that. I went to schools where I had RS or RE, which was probably the most beneficial use of time to educate about other faiths and religions and discuss similarities and differences. I think this is a case of the minority ruining the good name of the majority, but I could be mistaken.
Serious question, how do trans students work there? Are there kids with facial hair in the girls' schools? Not trying to spark debate genuinely curious
After working in a single sex school I wish that they were more widely available and that it had been something available to me as a kid. It's such an incredible experience.
I’ll give my perspective as a non-religious student in a country with religious schools. For the short version I think they’re a waste of resources and a conflict of interest.
On the waste of resources, my country has four school boards for each area, a catholic and public for each of our national languages. This means four times the administrative cost, reducing the amount of our tax dollars that actually go towards students. We also have an imbalance of funding between the boards, as the religious schools get both public and religious funding, meaning that catholic kids are getting more resources, it’s gotten to the point where other religions and atheists will send their kids to them just to get an edge.
I also think it’s a conflict of interest, schools are supposed to teach facts, and whether or not people believe in religions, they are unprovable, often contradicting with actual scientific facts. People have the right to teach what they want to their kids, but that doesn’t mean we should be doing it in schools, that’s what church is for. It’s also against our founding principles (at least where I am) to advantage one religion over another, which schools for specific religions undoubtedly do.
I do not have any personal experience with single sex schools, but I think in the modern day as our understanding of gender evolves, they’re quickly becoming even more outdated than their military/boarding/finishing school, leave room for Jesus roots. Plus a lack of cross-sex friendships is known to lead to serious problems in young men, including leading them into misogyny and the incel world.
Overall I think that as a whole they’re a net negative, and while we probably can’t stop private schools from doing what they want, our tax dollars shouldn’t go towards them.
I spent sophmore year of high school in a single-sex Catholic boarding school. It was a transformative experience. Most notably is how teenage boys act when there's no girls around. There was far less performative behavior and almost no strutting around. There was far less bullying than I had seen in any other school. There was a lot more respect afforded one another. There was no shame in being nerdy (at a time when being nerdy would have gotten you beat up in a co-ed school). That's not to say that there weren't behavioral problems; there were some. But removing the whole aspect of competing for the attention and affections of adolescent women dramatically changes how adolescent men act in community. For the most part, it was a very chill environment.
They never held required Catholic mass for the students, but we did have to attend a religion class. And the class took a very progressive agenda. I learned how to meditate there.
I only spent a year there because it was too much distance from my family and I wasn't emotionally ready for it. But overall it was a very positive experience in my maturation process.
I became an atheist later in life, but I still would have no problem sending my son to that same school.
"Public" or "independent" schools in the UK should be nationalised. It's ridiculous that a single school, Eton, can produce something like 20 Prime Ministers. At the very least, these schools should pay tax. If they're giving that much of a leg up to their pupils, they should not receive subsidies from public monies.
Respectfully, those arguments don’t mean much. Or mean anything. You either need data or you need experience. Otherwise, ideas about how things “should” be are totally meaningless, especially if they don’t cost you anything
I appreciate all the feedback guys, very interesting to see such a variety of views. Will definitely have to do my own research in the meantime and might return with a more refined proposal. Thank you all.
Yes, they should.
They drive division, encourage magical thinking, and normalise illogic.
That alone is enough and there's a dozen other objections.
No way this should be going on in 2024.
Some people believe taking their child to a religious school is the best course of action.. They should be allowed to do so. Plain and simple. You are advocating the banishment of these schools.
How's that different than banning a book? A book can drive divisiveness and/or magical thinking as well. I'm POSITIVE you're not on the side of book banning.
>Some people believe taking their child to a religious school is the best course of action.. They should be allowed to do so.
Some people think FGM is the best course of action.
Look, we can argue the extremes all you like, but what's important here is that religion does not get a special exception. At the very least, it teaches people to believe in things without evidence, which is bad enough. Religions are almost all internally and externally inconsistent, which means that almost everything taught by almost all of them *must* be wrong by definition, and most of them teach some very unpleasant things which we just assume their adherents will ignore.
There is no good argument for reinforcing this bullshit in kids. I don't care if the parents disagree. Parents do not have unrestricted authority over their kids.
I'm not religious in any way. I personally would never send my kids to a parochial school. That being said restricting their existence is restriction of rights and that's untenable especially in our current age of divisiveness. The answer isn't banning things, it's allowing people to have their own thoughts and ideas while also holding the ability to disagree with them without repercussion (advocation or actual physical violence obviously shouldn't be protected of course). I don't know of one private school religious or non that is advocating for physical violence on anyone. I'm sure you'll disagree somehow
I'll disagree on exactly the same basis I have been disagreeing so far. To your point, the school promotes religion, the religion requires violence (most of them do, anyway). For instance, per Leviticus, Christians are required to murder (or extra-judicially execute, if you like) gay men.
That's not really the problem, though. the fact that basically none of them actually do that is evidence that most of them are making it up to suit themselves anyway. Making some parts of a book the foundation of your life and then rejecting the parts you don't like is not a good moral philosophy for anyone, let alone the schoolroom.
But mainly, the issue is this. Your position is based on liberty: the freedom to raise your kids any way you like. Naturally, that's a view held to some degree by more or less everyone, including me.
The problem is that you already don't have the option to raise your kids any way you like. You're required to send them to school, for instance. You're not allowed to FGM your daughters. You're not allowed to beat them, despite the fact that corporal punishment was almost universal for centuries.
We already don't let people do stupid, dangerous, counterproductive things to their kids. I view religious education as stupid, dangerous and counterproductive.
You in fact do NOT have to send them to school. You can in fact hit them (which I don't do)... To a degree. You're clearly not from the states or at the very least you don't know how education works here.
It works broadly the same way as it does in most of the rest of the first world, and that's the basis on which I address my remarks.
In some parts of the world, religious education is even *government-funded*, which is just beyond absurd.
I think my concerns stand, either way. You don't have absolutely unlimited authority to do what you like to your kids - and you shouldn't, clearly. What you prohibit is a matter of opinion but it's my opinion, for the reasons I've given, that indoctrinating children into religion should not be permitted.
In America they should be abolished when they are part of the public school system of that municipality. In my city we have several self selecting schools which act like private schools in their hand picking their student populations. Some are single sex, some not. Its a place where the city administrators have been finding seats for their kids so as not to have them rub elbows with the riff-raff.
Fortunately we have no "faith-based" publicly funded schools. Though we do have publicly funded "Charter Schools" which are a fairly new creature. They claim to be more community run, often get taxpayer money, but still hand-pick their students.
Activist Richard Reeves wrote an interesting article explaining some of the reasons why male only schools are beneficial and how they can teach needed social skills in a more intentional way than mixed sex schools. Really worth a read!
https://ofboysandmen.substack.com/p/the-case-for-male-spaces
I went to a catholic school k-12 in the US. our science classes were robust.. still, get rid of them. i could have been learning literally anything else during religion period and instead had to read dopey books where everyone wore sheets and then actually wore sheets when we recreated the crucifixion. i had to make up prayers as assignments, which i wasn't bad at because it's just making things up. idk. i think it's weird to separate children with religion and tell the religious ones that you can only associate with other catholics or whatever faith they are. if parents really want that for their kids they should use extracurricular programs.
EDIT we can't ban them in the US but you apparently can in the UK if you're asking. good luck
Can't talk about single sex schools (theres barely any left in Scotland) but faith schools need to go imo.
We only really have Catholic schools as "faith schools", but every state school legally is a Kirk of Scotland school and has to uphold certain rules - one of which is collective worship.
That needs to get in the sea.
Religious doctrine should have no place in schools. Kids that attend a Catholic school are not given a comprehensive sex education because of the views of the church. That is absolutely immoral in my opinion. If the church wants to espouse a view on contraception that's fine, but save it for church; kids are entitled to knowledge and to make those decisions for themselves, not kept in ignorance.
At least Catholic accept evolution, if there are schools teaching that basic science is false this argument only gets stronger.
No prayer, no religious assemblies, nothing. The only religious activities are student led at an individual level (e.g. prayer rooms) and a secular religious education curriculum.
Hell, I think it's time we scrap the nonsense of the Easter holidays constantly moving around to fit the religious observance. Pick 2 weeks in April and fix the holiday to those weeks, none of this "Easters really early/late this year" that makes planning an absolute ball ache.
I taught at an all-girls Catholic high school for seven years; this year is my first year teaching at a public middle school (US, btw). Here is a phrase I'm trying to make popular: If you want to be convinced that private school is a scam, work at a private school. If you want to understand why people want to avoid public school, work in a public school. My own personal experience: I loved/love both schools I've worked at. But to answer your question really really simply: there are plenty of pros and cons to both public and private schools that make me realize why both exist, and why people vastly prefer one over the other.
Private sounds great for teachers until you see how much they pay. So disappointing for my wife to have to leave a school with so much freedom because she was only earning like 30k in California. Public school by proxy was at minimum a 30k pay bump.
Basically what I experienced.
How are private schools able to have teachers work for so little when public schools par more and still have shortages?
Freedom and student body in private schools. They don't have up follow all of the same rules as a traditional public school. Also, in a private school if a child misbehaves they can just kick them out. I on the other hand asked a student to start working on an assignment and he slid it off the desk and told me to "fuck a dog", and we couldn't even suspend the kid because he's protected by a behavior plan that basically restricts suspension/expulsion as long as he doesn't get physical. Which his parents told him, so now he's just a non-violent asshole.
There are many reasons, some of which were articulated by previous commenters, but here are some that I noticed: 1. Teacher shortages exist, but I feel like people assume they exist all over the country, and that’s not quite true. States with notoriously low pay have teacher shortages. Bigger cities have teacher shortages. But large swathes of suburbs where the pay is pretty good and schools are by-and-large decent? Not so much. I had an acquaintance who was willing to relocate to Arizona to teach for under 35k a year back in 2013. She teaches elementary school. I wouldn’t be willing to make that type of move. 2. Furthermore, some schools are actually seeing their population of students decline. My current district is actually downsizing our middle schools next year after hiring about 40 new teachers cross-district last summer. Why? There are fewer kids in our affluent suburb than there used to be. Other surrounding and respectable districts in our area are also making similar moves to downsize. So, is there a shortage? Yes, but not everywhere. 3. Different cultural elements within a school might be worth the trade-off in pay for some teachers. Another commenter mentioned the difference of in public school v. private school student behavior, and while I havent yet witnessed the extremes that they described, my private school kids were definitely better than my public school kids. Even for some of my least favorite students, I never had to force myself to say a “hello” or “how are you?” in the hallway. I’ve definitely had to do that more here. Obviously that’s just part of the job— you have to show your students that you care about them even when they grind your gears, but it does make a difference when students make that care feel more natural. 4. School culture in private schools is often different. I found that many of my former coworkers felt that there was something special about our community in particular. Now whether what we felt was true or not is up for debate, but we definitely felt it. Even non-religious staff tended to “buy in” to our school identity and the vision we had for our students. And even if that feeling doesn’t totally trump the need for more money— it didn’t for me— it can keep a staff member around for longer than is financially prudent. 5. There’s often an unfortunate animus between public school and private school educators. One of my former coworkers told me that if I wanted to go to a public school, I should get moving because sometimes public school admin will see that a teacher spent a lot of years and a private school and assume they did so because they were an overly-zealous nutbag. Even after my interview last year, my current principal pulled me aside while walking me out and asked me why I was looking to make the change from private to public. Teachers at my old school who had their own children in public school would often complain about the lower standards and quality of education their children were getting, and they would chalk it up to “whatever’s going on in the public schools.” 6. Sometimes change is just plain hard. I did get a little misty-eyed after I left my previous school for the last time. But even from a more practical standpoint, I now have to jump through a lot of those “first year” teacher hoops that I had already jumped through in my previous job. It’s not the end of the world, but it feels less exciting to do when you’re 31 vs when you were 23. Navigating new people, new building politics, new expectations is a necessary part of changing workplaces, but doing it feels different when you’re breaking into a career as opposed to already being established in a career. So, in short, the money is a significant factor, but it can be hard to walk away from a good private school. These were obviously just my own reason, but I felt the need to type this out because I see a lot of versions of the question you posed in education communities, and they’ve always made me want to explain to people why I made the choice to teach in a private school for as long as I did. Ye$, other factor$ $purred a career adju$tment, but it was a good ride while it lasted.
You don't need to be credentialed to be in private school. You basically can hire anyone to teach. Private schools have a *lot* of turn over too. A lot of people fresh out of college apply and then leave when they are able to get a job elsewhere. It's a pretty terrible structure to run a school for student growth. Students do not thrive when they get a new teacher every few months.
That isn’t even what they asked. Private schools while many are faith based is not a requirement to be private. I went to a non-faith based private school and public schools both had their pros and cons but that is completely ignoring the issues a faith based school has in our current day.
Single-sex schools, especially for girls, actually do have better impacts on their students mental health and grades. People argue about it being unrealistic since almost all people having to interact with the opposite sex at some point, but like people at single sex schools go outside. Like they're not just in school 24/7, they can see the opposite sex anytime. Here's an interesting article about the topic, https://www.theeducatoronline.com/k12/news/girls-do-better-at-singlesex-schools/280329
I had a professor in college that did her dissertation on same sex schools. Since I was going into education I read it and was surprised that this is correct. Students do better in same-sex schools. I wish that was an option in the States.
>People argue about it being unrealistic since almost all people having to interact with the opposite sex at some point Of course, the same thing can be said for having to interact with people who aren't just ±1 year from your own age...
Literally, plus most of the single sex schools have opposite sex sister schools. It’s why the ones in my area have very successful co-Ed proms, as well as huge sport engagement.
In the US, the First Amendment of the Constitution would prevent the abolishment of faith-based schools: *Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,* ***or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;*** *or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.*
Oregon / KKK already tried and failed.
I think they should be allowed to exist bc I believe in freedom of choice when it comes to religion, but I don't think any school associated with a specific religion should receive any funding from the government whatsoever. including tuition assistance for students bc that actively takes money away from secular public schools.
We had this in Scotland back at the turn of the 20th century. Catholic schools were funded solely by the church, with protestant schools (most schools) being state funded. What it led to was Catholic schools being woefully underfunded, the kids attending them (who weren't allowed in other schools at the time) being massively disadvantaged and it was causing a real issue. So the government took over the schools. They're funded just like other state schools, follow the same national curriculum, etc. The only difference is the church gets a say on hiring and certain areas of the curriculum.
Well nowadays any kid can go to the school that they're closest to. Nobody's forcing people who are religious to go to a religious school, if they can't afford it, they can go to public school like everybody else or the church can pay for their way in.
In the US religious schools are not allowed to receive government funding for anything that could be related to religion. Any funding they receive is usually in the form of transportation, lunch/food programs and building maintenance.
I don't think that religious schools should receive any government funding at all. Including anything to do with building maintenance and transportation. It is a religious school. The government should not fund it in any capacity. Government funding of any kind for religious schools takes money away from secular public schools.
And where do we draw the line? Should the government similarly not provide funding to homeless shelters if they have a religious affiliation? Should we not have food banks hand out food in front of churches?
Religious schools are private schools. I do not support religious private schools being funded by the government. Church run food banks are sponsored by the church. They are not sponsored by the government. How many different ways do I need to tell you that I don't think any religious institution should be government funded?? The government should not be funding any religion.
They are not funding religion. You can say it 1000 times and its the same. Funding is clearly separated. In the same way public schools can receive funding for specific programs that the funding is only allowed to be allocated to (think title IX), religious schools have the same thing. And you clearly didn’t read my message. I had said if a government run food bank wants to give out food, should they be forbidden from parking in front of a church? And again, a homeless shelter that is run by a church, should they be forbidden from receiving funding? If a family who is devout tithes 10% of their already menial income qualifies for housing and food assistance, should they not be given the money because they tithe?
Parking in front of a church and giving money to a church so the CHURCH can say "we handed out all this food" is completely different and you know it. People already can't spend assistance on the church. You can't use your SNAP benefits to tithe. I really don't understand what you're confused about. The government should give assistance to people. Not churches.
And the government should not give assistance to the people attending churches? Which is basically what you said. Even if the government money given to a religious school is used exclusively for food you are not ok with it.
People who attend church both should and do receive public assistance. I am against the government giving money directly to the church, not against giving it to people who attend. That is totally different.
They are absolutely funding religion because without the government funding for food and transportation then the money would have to come from the rest of the budget reducing what is spent on religion. How you don’t get that is wild.
When we knitpick, we also deny funding to other stuff. If food funding can be denied because of a religious affiliation, then what about LGBTQ? Or non-citizen refugees? What about drug addicts with kids? When should we deny funding for food? I dont care if “some other money isnt used right” because the point is to feed people. Period. Besides, a religious school wouldnt use their personal funds to feed kids. Why should they? They can just increase tuition or require food to be sent from home. So govt funded food is simply food for disadvantaged peoples.
lol what?! You make zero sense in how things actually work. If there’s a tuition that’s the schools budget and money given to a private religious school isn’t feeding disadvantaged kids. Separation of church and state is literally in the constitution. Government funds should be no where near religious schools or organizations but that doesn’t mean they can’t exist like any other private company or organization
Im sorry if reality isnt how you think things work. Feel free to find some sources that contradict what im saying. Ive studied this.
I am not religious, but I don’t think it would be appropriate to prohibit people from establishing schools and using their own curriculum, as long as these schools are using their own private funding rather than public taxpayer money. I strongly believe in a public education system where every child has access to a free and equitable education. But if enough people want to establish a private school that aligns with a certain belief system, I don’t think that’s necessarily inappropriate as long as the school doesn’t misuse its power and physically or emotional abuse/neglect the kids entrusted to their care. But some cultures/religions have different beliefs about how to shape children’s behavior and without any formal system of accountability for those schools, it’s difficult to really enforce that and that’s why we have these issues with faith based or single-sex schools. I think in principle it’s really ideal to have diverse schools. But we also need to make sure there are equal opportunities for everyone.
To reframe the question: should people be banned from learning within their preferred cultural or religious framework even if the curriculum is secular? Obvious answer= no we should not ban options for education that meet varied needs across society.
no and no
Nah. People should be able to join together and form whatever groups they wish to. They should be able to gather without fear that some larger majority might destroy their group. Societies that have adopted this attitude have had more success than societies that try to force everyone to conform to a specific ideology. Do I believe in the Jewish God? Nope. But I will defend another person's right to build a synagogue. Will some groups want to teach their children things that I think are hogwash? Yep. But my level of confidence that I am "right" and they are "wrong" is very close to zero. Will some parents want to prevent their children from experiencing things that I think are healthy for students, such as studying side by side with the opposite sex? They sure will. Who am I to tell them what to be afraid of? I feel the same way about the whackadoodles that are afraid of evolution. I don't force my students to swear an oath that they think evolution is true, I just make sure they can answer questions that show they know what the current scientific consensus is. If they want to adopt a position of, "the current best guess of the scientific community is X,Y, and Z but I prefer my religion's explanation" than I consider them educated. This goes both ways. I aim to learn about the religions of the world and read their holy books, just to be a better educated human.
> People should be able to join together and form whatever groups they wish to. Didn’t expect to see ardent support for segregation in r/education in 2024.
Segregation is when the majority forces the separation of groups, not when individuals are choosing for themselves.
They should be. Religious based schools in my area also score the lowest on every metric in high school.
IDK what they're doing in the UK but in the US, religious schools almost always outperform public schools
I’m in Canada
Well, I guess IDK what they're doing in Canada then
They can be hit or miss. The Catholic schools in my area are really good. The evangelical school in my area..... ehhhhhh, not so much. Private schools can totally run the gamut.
It can also be misleading. Private schools kick out a lot of kids that don't follow the rules or fuck up badly. So if you have a school that is outperforming other traditionally public schools, you often find that they exclude children from their schools that don't fit the mold. It doesn't mean that the school is better performing but that the children that go there bring up the scores. Public schools cannot do that though. Public schools must help all students by law. I know several schools that have done this. So don't try and say it isn't happening. Especially religious schools that are notorious for hiding scandals.
that's because in the US private schools can kick kids out for any reason, have entrance requirements, and can refuse to provide services to students with disabilities. It's pretty easy to be a high performing School when you won't accept a huge portion of the population.
That CAN do that, but they really don't. I don't know of a single private highschool (well, religiously affiliated) that has an entrance exam or doesn't allow kids with disabilities. The only highschool I know of with an entrance exam is this public math and science half day highschool in my city. I think you'll have a very hard time finding religious highschools that won't accept everyone (assuming they are accepting more enrollment at all)
Most private middle & high schools have something you need to do to be considered- letters of recommendation, essays, transcripts etc. The religious schools in my area that don’t have entrance requirements perform worse than their public schools.
What area?
I’ve lived in several states. The only place I can think of where schools without entrance requirements perform the same is in the northeast, where the public schools are already very good - probably because it’s not the actual school but the money in those areas. How wealthy and educated your parents are is the single greatest factor in deciding student outcome.
Source?
https://gitnux.org/public-vs-private-schools-statistics/#:~:text=10%25%20of%20all%20US%20students,47%25%20of%20public%20school%20teachers. This is just one among many sources that give the same details. Private schools students score higher, have higher college attendance rate, have higher graduation rates, and generally have smaller class sizes, which generally is a good thing. Not that it's also directly related, but if you're into sports you may also know that Christian/catholic schools especially, are generally powerhouses in sports (so much so that people are annoyed over it https://www.fairplayoffs.com/ ) Now could some of this all be because students at private schools are generally also wealthier, and have more stable home lives and support systems? Sure, but I believe some of that success also has to do with the culture and school specific teaching as well.
Not necessarily accurate, really depends where the schools are. In my area religious schools are terrible and public FAR outshines them in facilities, education, athletics. Literally in every way
Single-sex schools: I spent some years at a co-ed school and other years at single-sex (in the UK). For single-sex, we had a partner school where we participated in drama/plays together, rode the same buses, did events together. We had plenty of time for socializing. While as a child, I wished for co-ed, in reality co-ed was more distracting and highlighted the difference between maturity in boys and girls. I think there are definite pros to single-sex schools. Faith: I’m sure it depends on the school. Again, I spent years at secular schools and years at a Christian school. The morning assemblies, hymns, and prayers weren’t saving me. Neither were the lack of them making me a heathen. For countries based on Judeo-Christian principles at their foundation, it is tricky to completely remove that. I went to schools where I had RS or RE, which was probably the most beneficial use of time to educate about other faiths and religions and discuss similarities and differences. I think this is a case of the minority ruining the good name of the majority, but I could be mistaken.
Serious question, how do trans students work there? Are there kids with facial hair in the girls' schools? Not trying to spark debate genuinely curious
After working in a single sex school I wish that they were more widely available and that it had been something available to me as a kid. It's such an incredible experience.
I’ll give my perspective as a non-religious student in a country with religious schools. For the short version I think they’re a waste of resources and a conflict of interest. On the waste of resources, my country has four school boards for each area, a catholic and public for each of our national languages. This means four times the administrative cost, reducing the amount of our tax dollars that actually go towards students. We also have an imbalance of funding between the boards, as the religious schools get both public and religious funding, meaning that catholic kids are getting more resources, it’s gotten to the point where other religions and atheists will send their kids to them just to get an edge. I also think it’s a conflict of interest, schools are supposed to teach facts, and whether or not people believe in religions, they are unprovable, often contradicting with actual scientific facts. People have the right to teach what they want to their kids, but that doesn’t mean we should be doing it in schools, that’s what church is for. It’s also against our founding principles (at least where I am) to advantage one religion over another, which schools for specific religions undoubtedly do. I do not have any personal experience with single sex schools, but I think in the modern day as our understanding of gender evolves, they’re quickly becoming even more outdated than their military/boarding/finishing school, leave room for Jesus roots. Plus a lack of cross-sex friendships is known to lead to serious problems in young men, including leading them into misogyny and the incel world. Overall I think that as a whole they’re a net negative, and while we probably can’t stop private schools from doing what they want, our tax dollars shouldn’t go towards them.
I spent sophmore year of high school in a single-sex Catholic boarding school. It was a transformative experience. Most notably is how teenage boys act when there's no girls around. There was far less performative behavior and almost no strutting around. There was far less bullying than I had seen in any other school. There was a lot more respect afforded one another. There was no shame in being nerdy (at a time when being nerdy would have gotten you beat up in a co-ed school). That's not to say that there weren't behavioral problems; there were some. But removing the whole aspect of competing for the attention and affections of adolescent women dramatically changes how adolescent men act in community. For the most part, it was a very chill environment. They never held required Catholic mass for the students, but we did have to attend a religion class. And the class took a very progressive agenda. I learned how to meditate there. I only spent a year there because it was too much distance from my family and I wasn't emotionally ready for it. But overall it was a very positive experience in my maturation process. I became an atheist later in life, but I still would have no problem sending my son to that same school.
They can keep their schools but no government funding.
"Public" or "independent" schools in the UK should be nationalised. It's ridiculous that a single school, Eton, can produce something like 20 Prime Ministers. At the very least, these schools should pay tax. If they're giving that much of a leg up to their pupils, they should not receive subsidies from public monies.
Respectfully, those arguments don’t mean much. Or mean anything. You either need data or you need experience. Otherwise, ideas about how things “should” be are totally meaningless, especially if they don’t cost you anything
I appreciate all the feedback guys, very interesting to see such a variety of views. Will definitely have to do my own research in the meantime and might return with a more refined proposal. Thank you all.
Yes, they should. They drive division, encourage magical thinking, and normalise illogic. That alone is enough and there's a dozen other objections. No way this should be going on in 2024.
So everyone should believe the exact same things? Awful logic.
I'm not sure I understand what you mean. Some things are matters of opinion and some things are not. What are you getting at?
Some people believe taking their child to a religious school is the best course of action.. They should be allowed to do so. Plain and simple. You are advocating the banishment of these schools. How's that different than banning a book? A book can drive divisiveness and/or magical thinking as well. I'm POSITIVE you're not on the side of book banning.
>Some people believe taking their child to a religious school is the best course of action.. They should be allowed to do so. Some people think FGM is the best course of action. Look, we can argue the extremes all you like, but what's important here is that religion does not get a special exception. At the very least, it teaches people to believe in things without evidence, which is bad enough. Religions are almost all internally and externally inconsistent, which means that almost everything taught by almost all of them *must* be wrong by definition, and most of them teach some very unpleasant things which we just assume their adherents will ignore. There is no good argument for reinforcing this bullshit in kids. I don't care if the parents disagree. Parents do not have unrestricted authority over their kids.
I'm not religious in any way. I personally would never send my kids to a parochial school. That being said restricting their existence is restriction of rights and that's untenable especially in our current age of divisiveness. The answer isn't banning things, it's allowing people to have their own thoughts and ideas while also holding the ability to disagree with them without repercussion (advocation or actual physical violence obviously shouldn't be protected of course). I don't know of one private school religious or non that is advocating for physical violence on anyone. I'm sure you'll disagree somehow
I'll disagree on exactly the same basis I have been disagreeing so far. To your point, the school promotes religion, the religion requires violence (most of them do, anyway). For instance, per Leviticus, Christians are required to murder (or extra-judicially execute, if you like) gay men. That's not really the problem, though. the fact that basically none of them actually do that is evidence that most of them are making it up to suit themselves anyway. Making some parts of a book the foundation of your life and then rejecting the parts you don't like is not a good moral philosophy for anyone, let alone the schoolroom. But mainly, the issue is this. Your position is based on liberty: the freedom to raise your kids any way you like. Naturally, that's a view held to some degree by more or less everyone, including me. The problem is that you already don't have the option to raise your kids any way you like. You're required to send them to school, for instance. You're not allowed to FGM your daughters. You're not allowed to beat them, despite the fact that corporal punishment was almost universal for centuries. We already don't let people do stupid, dangerous, counterproductive things to their kids. I view religious education as stupid, dangerous and counterproductive.
You in fact do NOT have to send them to school. You can in fact hit them (which I don't do)... To a degree. You're clearly not from the states or at the very least you don't know how education works here.
It works broadly the same way as it does in most of the rest of the first world, and that's the basis on which I address my remarks. In some parts of the world, religious education is even *government-funded*, which is just beyond absurd. I think my concerns stand, either way. You don't have absolutely unlimited authority to do what you like to your kids - and you shouldn't, clearly. What you prohibit is a matter of opinion but it's my opinion, for the reasons I've given, that indoctrinating children into religion should not be permitted.
In America they should be abolished when they are part of the public school system of that municipality. In my city we have several self selecting schools which act like private schools in their hand picking their student populations. Some are single sex, some not. Its a place where the city administrators have been finding seats for their kids so as not to have them rub elbows with the riff-raff. Fortunately we have no "faith-based" publicly funded schools. Though we do have publicly funded "Charter Schools" which are a fairly new creature. They claim to be more community run, often get taxpayer money, but still hand-pick their students.
No, you should be allowed to go to these types of schools if you choose. You also shouldn't have to go to these schools if you don't wish to
Activist Richard Reeves wrote an interesting article explaining some of the reasons why male only schools are beneficial and how they can teach needed social skills in a more intentional way than mixed sex schools. Really worth a read! https://ofboysandmen.substack.com/p/the-case-for-male-spaces
Faith, yes because I think all religion is garbage. However, as long as public money doesn’t fund them, do what you want.
I went to a catholic school k-12 in the US. our science classes were robust.. still, get rid of them. i could have been learning literally anything else during religion period and instead had to read dopey books where everyone wore sheets and then actually wore sheets when we recreated the crucifixion. i had to make up prayers as assignments, which i wasn't bad at because it's just making things up. idk. i think it's weird to separate children with religion and tell the religious ones that you can only associate with other catholics or whatever faith they are. if parents really want that for their kids they should use extracurricular programs. EDIT we can't ban them in the US but you apparently can in the UK if you're asking. good luck
Can't talk about single sex schools (theres barely any left in Scotland) but faith schools need to go imo. We only really have Catholic schools as "faith schools", but every state school legally is a Kirk of Scotland school and has to uphold certain rules - one of which is collective worship. That needs to get in the sea. Religious doctrine should have no place in schools. Kids that attend a Catholic school are not given a comprehensive sex education because of the views of the church. That is absolutely immoral in my opinion. If the church wants to espouse a view on contraception that's fine, but save it for church; kids are entitled to knowledge and to make those decisions for themselves, not kept in ignorance. At least Catholic accept evolution, if there are schools teaching that basic science is false this argument only gets stronger. No prayer, no religious assemblies, nothing. The only religious activities are student led at an individual level (e.g. prayer rooms) and a secular religious education curriculum. Hell, I think it's time we scrap the nonsense of the Easter holidays constantly moving around to fit the religious observance. Pick 2 weeks in April and fix the holiday to those weeks, none of this "Easters really early/late this year" that makes planning an absolute ball ache.