As any phenomenon, attending private school has its advantages and disadvantages comparing to alternatives to public schools. Of course, attending public schools is affected mostly by family’s choice and such factors as residential choice influences the choice of school including family’s income, the number of children in a family, children’s age, inclinations and travel preferences. Families choose a school to maximize a family utility including using all extraneous factors in the most beneficial way. From this point of view, there are those who find private schools better than public ones because of the all benetits they possess, but private schools do not.
A pure public school is conventionally defined as a good, which has two characteristics: the marginal cost of an additional person consuming it is zero and the cost of excluding an individual from its benefits is infinite (prohibitive). There are several groups of benefits of a good private schools: location, quality, teachers, student’s environment, non-academic facilities and school services. Non-academic aspects of the school include sports programs, religious vector and concetration, music and arts courses, safety, and other aspects.
Private schools are mostly managed by a non-government organisation, such as a church, a trade union or a private institution. Of course, it influences what and how students learn. Government-dependent private schools are managed independently but receive more than 50% of their core funding from government agencies. Private schools that are independent of the government have less than 50% of their core funding coming from government agencies. Funding influences greatly school’s facilities and equipment of media labs, classrooms and libraries.
Location counts when a family decides to buy a home or pay rent in a specific place and that usually equals purchaing the right to send child to a school that is close to the home. Usually, the school in vicinity is preferable, especially when a child is small. Hovewer, for any family a decision to take a child in private school can be their best option to involve less family’s consumption and more humn capital that the child can acquire. Private school diminishes risks related to the cost of school’s land: even though going to closest excellent public school may provide better academic services but that family may encounter an increase in the cost of land. Therefore, there may not be any savings a family might have because of not paying to private school.
Great and sometimes very specific school services are mostly associated with attending private school. These families may care about religious vectors, sports and arts programs, or moral instruction given by a particular private school. In such case, families may sacrifice human capital, the family’s consumption, or both for school’s services that better fits their preferences.
On the other hand, families may deliberately choose private schools that are far from the home. In most cases it happens when parent decide to send their children abroad. Life in the private school abroad, away from their parents helps children to become more responsible and learn to make their own decisions. They learn to cope with difficulties, to understand other people. All of this takes place under the strict supervision of teachers who act as a mentor. Living abroad changes student’s outlook drastically, benefiting in bright experiences and new languages learning and imbibing another culture.
Most private schools boasts excellent sports facilities. Here students can find everything from squash to rowing, from hockey to basketball. Gyms can compete with the best equipment in health clubs worldwide. School teams compete in regional and national championships. Students have wide opportunities to travel abroad. Some schools offer professional programs for hockey, figure skating, tennis, etc. Among the graduates of these schools, there are often prominent athletes. Sports achievements can play a crucial role while applying to college, for example, such universities as MIT of Ivy League universitites want to see students who can contribute to college’s sports teams.
Theatre, dance, music, visual arts, in general, any artistic direction are belonging to many of the opportunities that await students in most of the private schools. Some schools can be justifiably proud of splendid arts center, art galleries, and even their own museums. The road from such schools lies directly to the best Arts programs in the best universities.
Teachers are usually chosen thoroughly for private schools. Private schools employ teachers with advanced degrees in the subject. As a rule, they are obsessed with their work and the lessons are very enthusiastic. As a private school discipline problems are rare, teachers are able to teach, not by applying police measures, as sometimes happens in public schools. Such teachera provide the extensive program of training. The volume and diversity of the studied material in most of these schools is really impressive. Students are vigorously trained in general school material aswell to entrance examination. The result is admittance to highly ranked universities and programs. Some schools will pay teachers extra for facilitating extracurricular activities and sports, in the other case, others teachers are encouraged receive additional compensation for advanced degrees and certification. Becoming a public school teacher generally requires advanced degree and obtaining a license or certifications that allow teachers to demonstrate advanced expertise.
The atmosphere in a private school is a very competitive one. Students there are studying at their best because they want to get into a good college. Most of the private schools are very selective to whom they take on education and admission may include tough entrance examinations. Moreover, while in the public schools, the number of students in a class may be up to 30-40 people, the cass to be in classes with fewer can be only two: when a student is very smart, or is infamous because of bad behavior. The private school has usually 10-15 students learning in the one class. Therefore, everyone has homework checked and everyone participates in classroom activities. Also in case of problems or misunderstandings, a student gets immideate thorough explanation on unfamiliar material. According to the NCES study, students attending private schools performed better than students attending public schools.
While public schools may not have complete equipping of classrooms, libraries and media centers, private schools can offer best educating environment to the students. For example, a typical private school library is a place fully equipped with the latest technology in addition to conventional printed materials.
To sum up, families vary greatly in terms of the private schools and public schools that they view as their best options within each sector, and while it is obvious that not all private schools are the same, available data suggest that the public schools different families choose for their children are incredibly heterogenous as well. There are disadvantages of private schooling as increased inequality, limited regulation and these schools are costly, but the benefits gained overwhelm all disadvantages. The benefits of private schools include innovation and overall flexibility in teaching and learning, obtaining programs and practices best suited for students, it is an alvernative to local public school, increased competition, viewing parents and students as clients, responding to their needs and concerns. Advantages are also location, quality, teachers, student’s environment, non-academic facilities, equipment, competitiveness, better prepatarion for colleges and school services.