My thoughts on / possible class discussion on private schools

I wanted to share some of the concerns and thoughts I have on private schools. I'm hoping that this can turn into a class discussion and that we can talk about some of the problems in the education field. I hope this blog post isn't too political in nature to talk about for this class, but seeing as it relates especially to Michigan and the Detroit area, I thought it may be important to this class.

Private schools in the US are not necessarily all bad. On paper, there seems to be nothing wrong with them. Problems arise however, when the public education systems are negatively affected or disadvantaged by the prevalence of private schools, and when the private schools fail to hold high standards for education.

Public schools are entirely supported by state and federal taxes, while private schools are companies or corporations. The major flaw behind private schools, is that they are a business, and that their priority is profit and not the well-being of the students or the employees. Simply put, public schools are designed to serve and help students, while private schools are designed to make profit.

Most of this profit is accrued in two scenarios: 1. Private schools become popular in low-income areas where public schools do not have enough funding or political support to function (as we've seen throughout urban Michigan). Since Private schools must be paid for like any other consumer product, this ends up costing those low income areas more money. 2. Private schools can also become popular with well-off, affluent, and mostly white areas. These schools normally have great buildings, sports teams, infrastructure, etc. that is supported by the upper-class incomes of the families. These families pour money and loyalty into these schools in order to give their children the best education. This is understandable of course, everyone wants their child to have the best education. However, this siphons money and resources from the public schools. Instead of the money from these rich families going to the public school, they are going to private schools that essentially become informally segregated, with the rich white students getting the best of everything at the expense of minorities and the poor. The public school system is and was designed in order to provide everyone with an education. It gets even worse in states where parents with students in private schools don't have to pay taxes that benefit public schools. Because of all of these factors, public school students inherently have less opportunities than private school students.

These private schools are sometimes not held to the same standards or expectations of public schools, with highly detrimental results. Many private schools are sponsored by religious organizations, which of course is not a problem in itself, it's just that in my experience religious schools tend to push a religious or right-wing agenda onto their students. Many schools decide not to teach basic anatomy, biology, etc. as they are opposed to the ideas of evolution, global warming, and comprehensive sex education. This is of course a major disadvantage to students, since they will be ill-informed on these issues.

I would personally prefer that all k-12 schools be public, with far more taxes going into our school system to ensure everyone gets the education they need.

Here are the sources I used:

http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2013/08/private_school_vs_public_school_only_bad_people_send_their_kids_to_private.html

http://www.forbes.com/sites/learnvest/2014/09/25/confessions-of-a-six-figure-father-why-id-never-send-my-kids-to-private-school/#fe901e0244a4

http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2009/08/the_trouble_with_private_schoo