Do you think kids that attend private schools such as catholic schools are more intelligent, better morals, or in any other way more than kids that attend the public schools?

Question

There is this one co-worker I work with who brags how her kids are the smartest in their class because she pays an expensive tution for her kids to attend a private Catholic school. She states that kids in the public school system are way behind and her kids are like 2 or 3 grade levels ahead of kids that are the same age as hers.

Answer

This is not a yes or no question. There are special needs children in private schools who would never compare to children without special needs in public schools on standardized tests. I have spend years teaching in both the private and public sector. I like that private schools can limit class sizes so as to give more one on one time with each individual. Public schools are great because of the variety of programs they offer and that there is more than one teacher for each grade. You will have high achieving and low achieving students in each, that's just variation in human brain development.  As long as you support your child and fight for the things they need to succeed then they will succeed. It is the parents that make some of the greatest differences in education. (a great teacher can only do so much without support for the parents)

Answer

As a public education reading specialist teacher, I have to test all the students that come to our school. At least in my area, the ones that come from private, religious, or charter schools are usually a grade or two behind our students. It could be different depending on the schools, but this is what I continually see in the past nine years.

Answer

There is so much more to it than public vs private... location, the individual teachers, and of course the parents at home! Where my cousin lives, the private Catholic school is hands down the best school - they have great teachers and wonderful parent involvement and the students have really great test scores. 
In the small town where I live, everyone I know that has had serious problems with drugs and/or alcohol were the kids that went to the private Catholic school. They consistently have lower test scores than the public high school too. 
Public or private doesn't matter - the people teaching and raising the kids do.

Answer

As a normal student who attended both, I think it depends on where you live. When I lived in a rural area my parents enrolled me in the local private school and they were undoubtedly ahead of the local public schools. However when we moved to a more residential area I went to well-funded public schools and received an excellent education... when I arrived at college I was far more prepared than most of my peers and already a sophomore by credit hours. My husband went to private schools throughout his life and because of their smaller size, they just didn't have the resources to offer the same AP and dual credit classes as my high school... so short answer, I think it really just depends on the situation of local schools.

Answer

It depends. In some areas, I'd say private schools are better. I just moved to a place in Pennsylvania with an amazing public school. That's why we chose this town was for the school. In terms of morality, I think that's up to the parents. Schools are big factors of socialization, but I think familial values and morals take the cake with this one.

Answer

It depends on the school district whether the kids in public schools are behind. There are some Terrible districts out there where I know the private school kids are getting a better education. In my city, we are in one of the top 3 public districts in the state and the public school achievement is equal to that of the pricey private schools. Either way It doesn't make one child more intelligent than another- but absolutely there are schools where the private kids are achieving at a much higher level than the public schools.

Answer

That depends on the state but I highly doubt it (states like NY have some really fantastic public schools, some others do not). Also, I'm catholic and know a lot of people that went to catholic school - they were all the wildest, most sexually active at the youngest ages, and drank the most of any of my friends I went to public school with. Soooo that morality bit was not the case in my experience. This was in upstate NY.

Answer

I went to private school and education wise, I learned stuff as basic that my husband was never taught in public school but that doesn't mean all our students were smarter. We did have more opportunity for 1 on 1 since most classes were only 10-20 students each. We still had kids that weren't necessarily "smart" so they received private tutoring or a class more suited to their learning level.

Answer

If you look purely at grades then yes private schooled kids probably do achieve higher grades. If you look at morals then no. There was a Cambridge student in the news the other day (one of the top universities in the UK) who burned a £20 note in front of a homeless person. How charming! I'd rather my kids have average grades and be nice decent people than have excellent grades but no morals or compassion.

Answer

It honestly depends on the school. I lived in a small/suburban town, I had a friend who went to school in the next district over (which was a city), and a friend who went to the local catholic high school. We all got a very different education, but I ended up going to college with my friend who went to catholic high school, and she was definitely behind on a lot of subjects. Meanwhile, my friend that went to the inner-city school was almost on the same level that I was... which was still above the level of the people we knew at the private school.
But it really does depend on where you live and what the schools are like. Everywhere is different- just because the public schools in my home state happened to be better than the private ones could be the exception.

Do you think kids that attend private schools such as catholic schools are more intelligent, better morals, or in any other way more than kids that attend the public schools?

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