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August 21, 2008
Public vs. Private
The end of summer vacation is finally here. Yeah, to some of you this is old news. But for my family, school just started on Tuesday. I'm not exactly sure when it happened, but the public vs. private school schedules don't match up at all anymore.
I'll come out and say upfront that I'm a firm believer in the private school system, but then again I'm extremely biased. I went to a private school my whole life (even college) except for my freshman year of high school, which was spent at Maui High and I did not do well. I went from being a 3.8 student to a 1.8. I got kicked off the track team (which made The Maui News, by the way) even though I was a State Champion contender.
I'm not going to completely blame the DOE here. I realize that probably the biggest reason for me doing so poorly for my one year in public school was the shock of leaving a class of eight and joining one of about 400. But on the other hand, one can't argue that there are myriad reasons why a small class is better, way better, for a kid than a big class.
It's a duh that kids get more individualized attention in a small class. Growing up, my teachers knew the name of my pets, my grandma and the size of my shoe. They knew if I was having problems at home, or if my dog died. This is a good thing, because teachers who are emotionally invested in children beyond ABC's and 123's are going to try harder to meet their students' needs.
Also, in private school, discipline usually comes swifter and with more bite. Sure, this kind of sucked in third grade when I was holding my ankles and getting swatted on my butt for not doing my homework; but it's effective.
I still have friends from kindergarten because my class was like a little family rather than a school. Do the math, we've been friends for 25 years. In fact, my two best friends are my longest-running relationships. Our friendships may very well outlast our marriages.
And it's not that a homey atmosphere or corporal punishment meant that we weren't learning anything. On the contrary, the students at my school all scored very high on standardized tests. You can't say that about kids in the public school system.
Oh yeah, I'm going there.
The Maui News recently published Maui County results for the Hawaii State Assessment Test. I'm not going to sit here and retype all the data for you, but for example: 49 percent of Baldwin High 10th graders are "well below" standard in math and a quarter of the students are well below standard in reading.
The Kalama school kids have it even worse. A whopping 62 percent of them are well below the standard in math. Waihee School, Maui Waena... you name it, it's not exactly rosey. Wait, it looks like the 3rd graders at both Makawao and Pukalani are rockin' on the math. Good job!
You know what this means, right? Upcountry kids are smarter! Wrong. It means that it's not the kids, folks. It's not that public school kids are dumb, it's that public school and (according to the results) quite a few kids just don't splice. What's the solution? Hell if I know. I mean, there are kids who do exceedingly well in public school. But according to the numbers, the chances are your kid isn't one of them. This is not a situation that people can bury their heads in the sand about.
Not to get all pop song on you, but these children are our future.
Edumacate them.
Starr Begley admits that private school made her antisocial and a little snooty.
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