Um, You Missed Some Evidence: A “Thought Experiment” Fails Private Schooling

Toparaphrase John Lennon, imagine there are no public schools, or private ones, too. That is what writer Julie Halpert ostensibly does in anewAtlantic article in which she purports to conduct a “thought experiment,” first imagining a world of all private schools, then one of all public. But rather than coming off as a true, objective experiment, the piece reads more like a dystopian novel depicting the horrors of an imagined all-private system, while comparatively glancing past the man y real, actually experienced stains and injustices of public schooling.It ’s not auspicious that the article, before the “experiment” is even proposed, begins with a description of the posh Detroit Country Day School, which likely reinforces the impression that many people seem to have that private schools are snooty preserves of the uber-rich. Halpert notes that th e price of Detroit Country Day for high school is about $30,000 per year, but doesn’t mention that the average tuition at a private high school, according to themost recent federal data, is only about $13,000. That average price is high when you ’re comparing it to “free” public schools for which you’ve already paid taxes, but not Detroit Country Day high.With commencement of the experiment we are given a little history …very little. Halpert completely bypasses American educational history prior to Horace Mann’s crusade for common schools starting in the 1830s, noting only that some of our oldest high schools...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs