Private schools are only better because students come from richer families apparently

So the newest headline on CBC today says whether a school is public or private doesn’t really matter, what matters is how rich the parents of the students are. We’re supposed to believe this? I haven’t done specific research for this yet, but I intend to. Basically this new report by StatsCan says the main contributing factor to student success is what demographic they come from. The article, which is found here, doesn’t really go into much detail, except to say private and public schools are very similar in terms of:

 

-          Student-teacher ratio

-          Annual instructional hours

-          Number of computers per student

-          Percentage of teachers with an undergraduate degree.

 

But these data points don’t tell us much. I want to know more about the quality of education. There are factors which are not accounted for here. Private schools must accomplish the goals of its clients. Really terrible private schools will not persist, they must be the best in order to stick around. No such limitation exists for public schools which continue to exist regardless of how terrible they are.

 

Same goes for teachers. While it’s relatively easy to discipline or fire a private school teacher, this is simply not the case in public schools. Basically once teachers are in, they’re in. Firing them is very difficult and most schools don’t even bother.

 

Another point is that the study could have easily accounted for differing income levels. Anyone with a basic understanding of statistics could easily adjust the results. Interestingly this study didn’t bother to do that. Either they did and didn’t like the results, or they simply didn’t bother. Either way it’s an obvious omission. By doing so, they could have a clearer picture of if their hypothesis is correct.

 

This all reminds me of a report which came out a couple of years ago which showed kids in BC from a polygamous sect attending their private schools did the best out of the whole province in every measure. The Fraser institute, a world-renown think-tank (ranked Canada’s best), declared Bountiful School in BC to be the best. After the report came out, the BC school board immediately lashed out saying the report didn’t measure everything and made up some nonsense about how it didn’t measure “all factors”. What these factors were depended on who the reporters asked, but they were certainly things you couldn’t measure.

 

I also question the data about the costs being the same. In NL, the government spends around $12,500 per student per year for K-12. It’s my understanding that St. Bonaventure’s, the capital city’s only private school, costs far less than this. Yet they outcompete government schools in every single category.

 

Public schools are a waste of time at best and dangerous indoctrination zones which are causing societal breakdown at worst. At the very least there should be school choice and school competition. The only reason for the current system is teachers like holding everyone hostage to pay their exorbitant salaries and to never be fired. Also, it allows (mostly perverse) activist groups to shape the opinions of children. That’s why the government is so desperate to take over daycare as well.

 

We should oppose government indoctrination centres at all costs!