As a talented and odd ball kid I suffered the same frustrations,
exclusions, and alienations in public schools, but I also was supported by
some hard working, decent, and caring teachers and occasional programs
that actually offered some of what I needed. I don't think I would have
done better in any private school, each of which has its own negatives to
balance its supposed advantages. And all of which create great social
distance between the elect (whether of class, religion, or ideology) and
those who do not join that particular club. I certainly came away from
high school with great relief at escaping--but as life goes on, I am
increasingly glad I did not get an elite private education (and I have
also come to appreciate that most private education is hardly elite
except in its PR).
And as a parent of a child who regularly and rapidly outstripped
the resources of his school and found the same boredom and alienation I
had at school, I still regularly found his teachers doing their best with
good will and their various talents and training (talents and training
that again are more than the equivalent of than found at all but the most
exclusive of the privates), with the usual exceptions that are always part
of the human mix. And they did this in the face of the bizarre California
lack of funding of schools and overabundance of political interference.
And again the results were positive. My son knows far more about the range
of people that he shares this country with, how organizations operate, how
one finds niches within our society, the kinds of barriers that make life
difficult for some, and a thousand other things that are an important part
of learning to live a good and decent life. And he didn't have to give up
the advantages that come from being part of an educated, well-placed
family, because we were able to provide additional resources and
opportunities as well as to guide him to get the most from the public
schools at the least psychic cost.
So because we find we can't have things exactly as we want it, we
should steal resources from a system committed to the education of all, to
provide support for those who wish to distance themselves from the common
life and project of an inclusive American society. Nonsense. The schools
of this nation are a great achievement, despite the visible troubles they
have and the regular scapegoating, distrust, penny-pinching that they
endure by people who seem to have no idea what is truly valuable.
And let me further add, that my experience as a student, a teacher
at all levels from k through 20 (in inner city distressed schools and
priveleged elite insitutions), and as friend and mentor to teachers of all
levels, that the ideals of public education regularly bring out greater
creativity, motivation and commitment of teachers and institutions than do
the profit-making of private school. Saving souls does bring out
commitment in the religious privates, but that I leave that for them--and
not at the public expense. Community privates are the only ones that have
some of the same ideals and motivations that the publics have.
Maybe I am too old to get the liberterian ethic of the more recent
generations, but the only way I know to live in a decent society is to
constantly be part of it and contribute to it.
Chuck