CREME DE LA CREME?
The Wilmington (DE) News-Journal has a longish piece on .public vs private school debate. Delaware has the highest percentage in the country of students not in the g-schools. Of course, the public school teachers aren’t happy about it:
Whenever a family leaves a school, it takes something with it: the parents’ involvement and influence, and the children’s contribution to the classroom.
Because private schools typically attract families with the ability to pay and the desire to push their children academically, they have a larger base of involved parents to draw from.
The phenomenon is called cream-skimming, and when as many students choose private schools as in Delaware, that can have a significant impact.
“I think it’s very detrimental,” said Barbara Grogg, president of the Delaware State Education Association. “If we really believe in diverse populations learning together, we want that to include all children.”
You can’t always get waht you want.
Homeschooling is completely ignored in this piece. I’m not sure where we’d fit in the skimming universe. Economically, we’re probably a bit lower than the average private school parent. But you’re not likely to find folks who are more involved in their kids’ educations than we.
4 Responses to “CREME DE LA CREME?”
 Comment by COD February 19th, 2006 at 9:16 pm |
It’s not the kids they want – it’s their parent’s money. IAATM |
 Comment by Jason February 20th, 2006 at 1:35 pm |
How dare you steal your own children away from the State? Elitists like you are destroying the educational system! For shame. Ms. Grogg would have fit right in with these guys: |
 Comment by Rochelle February 20th, 2006 at 1:54 pm |
The argument that children who are placed in private schools (for the sake of argument, including homeschoolers) are some how the cream of the crop and are therefor “robbing” public schools of the top performers is extremely flawed. First of all, one would have to find out whether or not the children benefited from being in the private school (and that made them perform better) or was innately gifted. In the first case, they would not have performed well in public school and would have hurt their standing if they were forced to go there. Only in the second would it benefit the public schools, assuming they would have still been motivated to do well there. Anyway, this is probably irrelevent as their main goal is to have as many children under their control as possible, not to actually give each child what he or she wants/needs to succeed. |
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Comment by Daryl February 20th, 2006 at 2:59 pm |
The “creme” (or “cream”) in this case are not the best students but the best (i.e., most involved and richest) parents. |