Private and Public Schools - Essay Example

Private and Public Schools: The differences and Ultimate Goal A substantial part of a human life is attached to an important place that is called school. Parents try to send their children to the best possible school. The understanding best school is associated mainly with good education, and social atmosphere. A good education provides a foundation for acquiring cognitive intelligence, and a good social atmosphere develops an intellectual individual. The idea of best school has developed two types of schooling; they are termed as “Private school” and “Public school”. One group of people think that private schools deliver the best result while the other group believes that public schools deliver the most prudent results. This essay will review both views and present an opinion on what makes a school good. According to general definition, a public school is funded, maintained, and conducted by a private group other than government while public schools are maintained at public expenses or in other word from the tax money. The proponents of private schools believe that these schools offer high quality of education and stimulate competition among student that act as a catalyst (Strauss) in the learning process. The opponents vow that private schools detract students from their main objectives - education, and create social segregation for the future society. The proponents of private schools also refer to various benefits: (1) students build strong, personal relationship with their lecturers and instructors, as there is a special program planned to increase interaction and dialogue between the two, (2) both private high schools and private colleges have small class sizes, (3) private colleges have a significant amount of extra-curricular programs and activities that develop a strong sense about the community. The proponent of public schools explains that there are more competitions in public schools, and these schools are more innovative. The children of these schools know that they will have to face competitions in lives; family background will not help in achieving success in their future lives (“The Public School Advantage”). The proponents also point to the following benefits: (1) Students have more variety in selecting geographical areas of the nation, (2) Fees are cheaper than that of private schools, (3) Public colleges are much bigger and more equipped than the average private university, and students will be more comfortable with high student population. The effectiveness of private and public schools has been a topic of debate for a long time. Department of Political and Social Science of European University Institute, in this regard published a study (Dronkers) in order to account academic quality and performances in both public and private schools. The study analyzed the effectiveness of private independent, private government-dependent and public schools in 19 nations that belong to the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) organization. The authors of the study conducted statistical analysis on the educational outcome of 15-year old students in reading and mathematics (Dronkers). The researchers used the results of observations obtained from public, private government-dependent and private independent schools. In their study, the researches controlled demographic and sociological characteristics of students and parents, school climate, teaching and learning method of schools (Dronkers). The researchers claim that the private government-dependent schools are more effective than public schools with the same students, parents and social composition (Dronkers). The result is attributed to better school climate. It is known that teaching and learning methods are different in private-government owned and public schools. However, according to the above study it does not have influence on effectiveness. The study also showed that the private independent schools are less effective than public schools with the same student, parent, and social composition. The study pointed out that cultural, social, and ethnicity play role over the effectiveness irrespective of school types. The study of effectiveness of public and private schools in terms of cognitive outcome shows that private funded and private owned schools are less effective when compared to public funded and public owned school with the same social composition. The reason is attributed to the conservativeness in teaching methods of private funded and private owned schools. The above discussion has illustrated opinions expressed by the proponents and opponents of the both sides of the argument. It has also cited the results of empirical study conducted by researchers. This assignment observes that the effectiveness of private and public schools is crucial to almost all OECD countries; however, there is no comparative study undertaken to depict the difference in terms of effectiveness for the different types of schools. It is essential to conduct a comparative study in order to depict the reasons behind differences in effectiveness among private and public schools. It should be noted that a comparative study should be carried out with the adequate variation of school characteristics. A single nation researches may fail to capture the actual effect of public and private schools, because regulations from nation to nation vary to distinguish differences among schools. That is why; variation of school characteristics play importance in conducting researches in this area. Even without results of researches, it is well known that private schools have better reputations for offering high quality education when compared to the quality of educations of public schools. That is why; students from stable background choose private schools thus raising the social composition of the population of private schools. Because of it, we observe that social and financial conditions of students in private and public schools vary. The ultimate goal of both private and public schools is to make the school good. However, there are many objective reasons why many private schools are in real sense good. Administrations, teaching, and learning conditions may be attributed the objective reasons. These objective reasons greatly depend on the finance; public schools fully depend on state fund while private schools depend on charity, tuition, and on occasional state fund. Thus financial variation plays role in the effectiveness of education. As mentioned earlier, expect financial variation, education management variation may also be noted as a reason for effectiveness. In conclusion, it should be noted that the main purpose of education, be it is private or public schools, is to make a school good. What makes a school good has less to do with the school, socioeconomic standard of students’ parents and location of school. The rules of thumb say that good schools have teachers who are knowledgeable, professional and well prepared. The following characteristics depict qualities of a good school. (1) Effective discipline, respect in schools should be maintained with no failure. Students always should be aware of what is expected of them, class rule and regulations which they should observe and adhere to them as stipulated.(2) the second factor is leadership; staff, students and parents should be respected as per the building principal with a vision, ability and expectation to help others prosper. Successful schools outline leadership qualities such as caring and honest. Those other characteristics include; individualized instruction and approaches to students, dedicated teachers, there is a variety of instructional techniques, students want to be there, and highest expectations for the school, teachers and students. Attending effective schools is very beneficial since there is a guarantee of quality education, diverse facilities and exposure in career development. Works Cited Dronkers, Robert. The Effectiveness of public and private schools from a comparative perspective. European University Institute, 2003. Web. 21 May 2014. www.researchgate.net/publication/ Strauss, Valerie. Are Private Schools better than Public Schools. The Washington Post, 2013. Web. 21 May 2014. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/11/05/are-private-schools-better-than-public-schools-new-book-says-no/ “The Public School Advantage.” Stanford Social innovation, n.d. 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