Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Thinking private.

According to a new NCES survey, private school teachers with one to three years’ experience have an attrition rate more than double their public school peers. Who knew? And why?

Gets me thinking that in all this discussion about teaching quality, nobody ever addresses private schools. How are their teachers hired, evaluated, measured? Obviously reporting on privates is hard, because they are, well, not public, but they do educate more than one in ten American children, and might hold some important lessons.

3 Comments:

Anonymous shorter college lawrenceville said...

Private teachers should be more knowledgeable than public teachers because parents and students expect higher quality education. I studied in a private school and I think the difference is the additional curriculum they follow. Maybe discipline is the next key.

August 11, 2010 at 9:11 PM  
Blogger caroline said...

It baffles me that private school parents don't seem to pay any attention at all to the consumer-smarts issue: Is it really worth paying $20-$35K (the going rate in my community) for something you could get for free? Yes, for $35K vs. free, private school teachers SHOULD be more knowledgeable, but are they? And if it's not clear, why would you be forking over $35K? It's your money, but I'm just sayin'. (And folks who are taking out second mortgages and spending their college and retirement funds --OK, mincing no words -- that's just incredibly stupid.)

August 11, 2010 at 10:05 PM  
Anonymous bronxmathteach said...

private school teachers do not have to meet the same standards of certification that public school teachers have. this can mean they are less qualified...or just differently qualified - for an example, a person who worked in the music industry could teach music without having to be certified to teach. however, since they have real world experience, they could be more knowledgeable.

but really, private school is almost more about the quality of the other students than the quality of the teachers, because the biggest advantage privates have over publics is that they can kick bad students out!

August 16, 2010 at 12:03 PM  

Post a Comment

Considerate comments are welcome. Uncivil remarks will be deleted. Anonymous comments -- including those unaccompanied by the author's first and last name -- are not permitted.

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]

Links to this post:

Create a Link

<< Home