Christopher Cervantes
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According to the comparative website nationmaster.com, the amount of schooling an adult in the United States receives averages 12 years. Nearly the entirety of one’s young life is devoted to receiving education. Upon first glance, the overarching struggle of one’s school days is getting a diploma. However, there is a larger conflict that has been fought behind the scenes and between professionals: the conflict of public school versus private school.
Anyone in the education profession will tell you how heated this can be. On this battleground, the lines are firmly drawn with little to no room for those in the middle. Each side has its own list of stereotypes to deal with. Public school is often depicted as an unruly playground in which students reign supreme. On the other end of the spectrum, private schools are typecast as snooty and run by the dollar of the parents rather than the professionalism of the administration. Still, stereotype rarely translates to fact.
In my attempt to find statistics concerning this issue, I hit a wall. A majority of the statistics was sponsored by organizations that were strictly for or against one of the given sides. The statistics that are without bias are even more infuriating though, with a leading percentage being undecided on the matter.
In order to gauge public opinion, I turned to social media and asked people to give their own opinions/experiences with the debate. The amount of criticisms of private schools was staggering, yet inconclusive due to a majority of the commentators having experience in the public-school field. Conversely, there remained a recurring subject that was cited by a majority of the commenters. Apparently, private schools have no federal requirement to hire teachers with credentials, a.k.a. no degrees that pertain to the job of teaching.
At first, it seemed unbelievable. After all, why would any school even dream of employing someone without the proper training? But it’s true. However, that does not mean that private schools are actively searching for unqualified teachers. It depends on who does the hiring. And that produces the true problem behind private school.
When it comes to public school, academic content is federally guided. With private school, the core curriculum as well as the requirements for staff members are left up to whomever owns the school. With each private school being ran by a different person, this creates a level of inconsistency that may be detrimental to the development of the child as well as the weight of the parents’ pocketbook.
At the end of the day, the perfect, cookie-cutter answer does not exist, at least for this question. The true answer depends on the child’s needs, as well as the desires of the parent. From that point on, diligent research and work is required. There will always be people who prefer public school, just as there will be those who prefer private school. Because of that, the battle of the schools will wage on.
