Folks, I have long--and foolishly--railed against the "advantages" of private school and a top-notch education. You know me well--spawn of the crack age, class clown, kicked out of high school, college dropout, Rakim taught me as much about English as The Bard. I work in a profession in which, at this level, easily half my colleagues are Ivy Leaguers. Amongst the swank company here on the blog-roll, I'm pretty sure I'm the only one who didn't go to an Ivy. Moreover, at this point, the number of blacks doing long-form magazine journalism is in the single digits. I say "at this point" but it's not like it was better at some other point. Unlike novelists, poets, newspaper writers etc., there are very very few black writers--if any--who were among my spiritual ancestors, the New Journalists.
Often people comment on that fact, and ask me how it feels to be doing what I do, despite who I have been. There is a temptation to take credit, to say that my achievements (whatever their merit) were garnered in spite of "the system," that I wrote my own rules, that I fought the law and I won. That temptation is foolish, and mostly the result of pride, vanity, and a warped sense of the world. If I'm honest with myself, I can say that, for whatever my attributes, I'm a 33-year old writer reading things that my colleagues read in undergrad. I can say that my understanding of grammar reflects the limitations of a kid who stopped paying attention somewhere around seventh grade. I make zero apologies for who I am--it happened the way it was supposed to happen, and I am who I am. But the notion that I should be proud of having, essentially, been a fuck-up for the earlier portion of my life always strikes me as odd.
Getting back to the initial point, I spent 17 hours yesterday driving through New England with a single Dad from the projects, here in Harlem, who was trying to get his son into an elite boarding school, for high school. The son already attends a Junior High boarding school, so he's on the right track. Anyway, we toured a few of the high schools. I helped the young man (a great, great, kid) with his application essay. We got stuck in the snow. Both of us got out to push. I'll be telling you more about these folks over the next couple years, I think, but long story short, yesterday, I got to see what a top notch high school education really looks like. It was stunning. I saw one school that was basically the size of Howard University. I saw schools with art studios spanning two levels, with beautiful chapels nestled in the snowy hills, with classrooms where kids weren't lectured to, but sat together in a circle, discussing lessons with a teacher.
If I'm honest with myself, I know that while, as young man, I laughed off my school failures publicly. But privately, every time I came up short, I lost a little bit of that sense that all children and young people deserve, that sense that I was capable of anything. I spent the last decade recovering from that.
Meh, don't cry for me. I had the sort of family that money can't buy. But yesterday, watching this young black boy from the projects, talking about his love of the Odyssey (and remembering how I devoured the Odyssey in tenth grade), and finishing up his apps to these venerable institutions, seeing all that's really out there, it was a reminder of all that is really out there, and how much work I have to do on behalf of my own son. How will it all turn out? What did the Rev. Lowery say? Who can tell? Who can truly tell?
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
Copyright © 2009 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All rights reserved.
If I'd known you were up here, we could've met up-- well, depending on which academies you looked at.
I have to admit, I went to public high school in the Northeast, and at times I am intensely jealous of the kids who get to go to the semi-private high school that sprang up in the area after I left. It's a good place, and the kids do good things, and I think I would've pushed myself harder in a place where pushing was not just 'fine' but wanted. It makes you wonder, how much chance plays a part, and opportunity, and that whole matrix.
As a Level 32 Underachiever, I often wonder what would be different if I had someone around (Dad?) to push me and an environment that treasured success.
Like TNC, I'm cool with where I'm at, though I don't believe it was supposed to be this way.
It sure would have been nice to crack into Stanford, though. I still think about it.
One quick reaction to this intereresting post:
You may be still catching up on reading some of the "classics" that Harvard kids like Douthat and Yglesias read in school, but I'm fairly certain that growing up in your dad's house you've read a ton of stuff that they know nothing about.
\
I'm a 25 year old eighth grade dropout with a good 'nuff, a small state BA, and a small state law degree. I work in a federal agency where most of my colleagues graduated from Harvard, Yale, or Stanford. I vacillate between Nixonian intellectual/class insecurity and smugness. Sometimes I project both at once. Mostly I'm just glad to get paid to do what I love. I feel ya TNC.
Come sign in DC.
Railing against private schools may be foolish but railing about the fact that not every student in America can not get that same level of education, usually based on income, is not. Now every thing about private schools isn't necessarily better but the quality of teachng is usually never lacking and generally far outclasses their public school counterparts .
That kids in our country, no matter what their ethnicity are barred from experiencing that kind of an education because of their socio economic status inherently helpst to create and foster a class bias and helps to hold those down who have always been down and lift those up who have always been up. There are exceptions and there are some public schools that do a bang up job too but on the whole there simply is no comparison and thats one thing that should change if we really want to continue to lead the world in science and industry.
After universal healthcare how about we try tackling universal education?
From the slums of Shao-lin...no...wrong intro...coming from where i'm from, and u probably know this as well as anybody, you take the chances you're given. It's not smart being ideological and feeling class-resentment (been there, done that). Life's short and all of that, but i cant resist wondering how glad those parents are that they can offer their son the best possible education.
Because u can't spell progressive without progress!!
It's not just private school. I remember as a speech geek in high school how different the kids from upper-middle class, suburban high schools were. They weren't just pushed by their parents but the entire school system and to their peers to strive to get into the Ivy League. I remember specifically talking to a acquaitance/competitor about how many A.P. classes we had. "Two" I replied. "Two?!? We have 10! I'm taking 8 of them now!" He had attend Governor's School that previous summer for bioligical sciences and was accepted as an early decision applicant to Cornell. This was a kid that was my peer and one that I could beat as often as not (we were both Extempers). I still look back and chuckle at how we, a bunch of kids from 'the sticks' could beat these kids on an individual and team basis. But the other thing that sticks with me is how, for a lot of us, this was going to be our crowning academic/extracirricular glory. Unless you were an elite at our school - that is to say an athlete who made the honor role - you were quietly encouraged to set your sights no higher than a Penn State or Pitt (not that there's anything wrong with these schools) or a local liberal arts school like Westminster or Grove City College. Usually, the guidance department tried to steer a lot us to a PA state school like Clarion or Slippery Rock. I remember a buddy who graduated two years ahead of me being enraged by the fact that our guidance counselor never bothered to mail in his application to RIT. The whole system seemed to be rigged. The message seemed to be "Don't try too hard, you'll only fail. And then where will you be?" Institutional mediocrity was the norm for us. For our speech geek peers, it was excellence. And yeah, I know that individual drive and motivation count for a lot, too, but the odds of someone directing themselves from within seem to be that much better when the culture in place encourages kids to just that.
I wish this young man well, but I'm afraid that while his struggles are greater than mine ever were that his situation isn't as far from some us as we'd care to admit.
I went to an Ivy league school, but didn't realize until afterward, driving through Exeter, NH to visit my wife's family, that many of the kids I went to school with had already been to college once before . . . in high school.
I did fine, but in math and science in particular my lousy public school education left me, I think, irretrievably behind my peers.
TNC,
Fascinating post (and the sort of post that will have me hitting refresh all day long to see what your commentators have to say).
This is the sort of thinking that I indulge in often. I'm pretty happy with where I am: Old-ass (relatively) medical student interviewing for residencies right now. I come from the sort of white middle-middle class background that says, "Good enough is good enough. You'll be fine son, don't sweat it- but don't get too big for your britches.” Went to adequate public schools where the OK was celebrated and the truly excellent was looked on as eccentric. Nothing held me back, but nothing spurred me on either. It look me a lot of years of frustrating mediocrity before I found my own motivation and decided to actually excel at something. I sometimes regret that and wonder where I would be if I had been encouraged earlier, instead of finding my own encouragement later.
I also feel lucky that I was allowed to be a fuck-up (although a relatively mild fuck-up) for so long and still be able to jump on a prestigious track with no lasting negative effects. I feel lucky about that, but I recognize the unfairness that had I not been a white man I likely would not have had the opportunity to re-tool like that. I definitely got more strikes than a lot of others would have been allowed. Of course it helps that I’m so damn charming and personable…
Great post. The thing is, while, as you say, there's no point in being proud of educational missteps per say, having so many voices who've gone straight from prep school to the Ivy League to the punditry without missing a beat severely limits viewpoints expressed. Just look at all the hate 'liberal' pundits have for autoworkers and their pensions - folks have not a clue what that retiring after x years on your feet on the line is not the same as x years at a desk.
True, but as some of the other comments hint at, when you hang around Ivy league people, you get a real distorted sense of things. I went to a nice high school, and a nice state school. When I went to grad school (technically it was an Ivy, but my program was sub-par), I met people whose road in life was much soother than mine, who had contacts, who had parents with contacts, that I just could not compete with. They worked hard, but no matter hard I worked (without a tremendous amount of luck) I just would not be able to compete. It is not just poor people, or black people (or any other ethnicity), it is nearly everyone.
I think it was the Ivy league trust fund blogger Matther Yglesias who said that Ivy league people have a real distorted since of the cause of their success. 10% or whatever of the applicants to an Ivy league college get in, but the 90% that don't get in is still like 10% better off than most of the people who apply to college at all, and those who get that that point are better off than those who don't even apply. The Ivy leaguers worked hard, but they don't realize that many many more people work hard as well and still could not even apply to the schools.
Great TNC, i really know what you talking about! But know that the sign of true knowledge is to know what you don't know much, the contrary would be hubris. A great educational setting doesn't give you emotional and intellectual superiority over those of "lower" background. The true sign of intelligence in my book is how well you apply what you know, and not the amount or quality of books you read.
‘how about we try tackling universal education?’
Amen. Education involves more than just schools, but to the extent that it’s about physical plant and staffing levels, we have the models.
I had the sort of family that money can't buy. TNC, I've been looking for an opportunity to tell you that your dad seems so frakkin' cool.
The lad you accompanied is really lucky. I assume that his father didn't go to college. That, right there, is the class dividing line that has bothered me for a long time.
I grew up in a single-mother household, and my mom never went to college. As a result, I didn't know anything about the college rigamarole -- the importance of taking the PSAT and of taking the SAT more than once. And the guidance counselor knew I was in a 12-step program, so he basically gave me up as a lost cause. And so when I didn't take the PSAT, and I scored a 1290 the only time I took the SAT, no one pulled me aside to tell me that I was 10 points shy of opening the doors to a whole new world of opportunity. The guidance counselor didn't care (and he strongly disliked me as a result of an unfortunate cursing incident), and my mother didn't know.
28 years after high school graduation, I'm still kind of pissed off about it. But my life turned out well anyway.
Our 12-year-old son lives with both parents, both of whom have college degrees, so he starts out with huge advantages that my wife and I didn't have. But, TNC, we struggle with how hard to push the lad. He underachieves a bit, and we don't push him very hard. Whether that's out of wisdom or laziness, I don't know. You'll always wonder if you're pushing your son too hard or not hard enough. Be aware of that and accept it.
An excellent high school doesn't have to look like a mini-Ivy league campus. I went to the best public magnet school in Los Angeles. I'd imagine it looked like most high school campuses, neutral buildings, scraggly turf. It was fully in the barrio, and as soon as the kids left after-school sports, the neighborhood soccer games took over the place. The magnet kids were mostly Asian, the home school was latino and black. Of the 2,500 kids at the school, I don't think there were as many as ten blonds.
It was a stellar education and our scores on standardized tests were sky-high. We got that education because the school district gathered up a bunch of very bright kids and gave them the best teachers in the district. (Yes, there are all sorts of equity problems with the model.)
My point is that you don't need the gorgeous facility to get that level of education. Once the grounds are decent, the kids will start responding to the expectations of the kids around them ("See you in calc.") and the quality of the teachers. You don't need a chapel nestled in snowy hills. You can put it in a barrio, if you can handpick the students and the teachers.
I'm of the same age group as TNC, and it's funny but I often find myself arguing that public schools are actually better than they were when I was there, all things considered. I know this often goes against conventional wisdom. And I say this as a libertarian with a deep skepticism of the operations of public education. And I was an honor student at the time.
I relate to alot of what you're saying TNC, mostly because I feel that, while I'm generally happy with the position I find myself in and my resume, I feel like I should have been able to garner more substantive knowledge in both high school and college. I went to the best public school in NYC (it makes national lists every year) and I still recall getting the impression that even though I came from a "magnet" program in junior high that these kids, a good portion of them at least, were light years beyond me as far as substantive knowledge and consistently sky high grades. Same thing at undergrad (although less so) and I got even more of that at law school. These days I think a lot of the gap I perceived was my fault for my journalism major in college. It gave me no substance and I was already a good writer (not that I could prove it with my posts) when I got to undergrad and I ended up missing out on psych, philosophy classes and poli sci (the college basics) because after our required courses (which weren't useless but could have been waaaay better) and my journalism courses I wanted to take some other courses that interested me but may, in the ultimate analysis have added, nothing to my education. I sort of wish I could do it over.
But all that said, the two smartest people I know are two girls who didn't get to be as impressive as they are because of fancy private schools. One girl just took every hard course in high school and got to Berkley at like 16. She's so smart that if she learns to use half her brain she'll have telekinesis, and she comes from a high school in Fresno that steered some kids one way and other kids (mostly white) another. The other girl is naturally brilliant as well and a bit of a taskmaster when it comes to herself (doing ballet professionally at 16 in Amsterdam), but her family raised her in a manner which she'd read everything and more that would've been taught in college British lit courses before she was done with high school.
My point is that after examining what I regret about my own education and what I see in the two people I admire the most intellectually, is that the school system of course matters, but to the extent your formal education is at least decent personal drive and the environment in which you found yourself outside of school can matter far more.
Yeah, I'm with you on the folly of railing against good private schools. In the end it's like Division 1 v 2 athletics.
If you take kids of equal talents, place one at UNC and the other at South Dakota, after four years the kid who played at UNC win the matchup almost always simply because of the increased competition he faced.
k1
ryanculver.blogspot.com
Ugh. What you saw yesterday was the sales pitch. There is another side of the story.
1. You surrender your rights at the door. In public school, there is a legal process for a student when things go wrong. There is no such process in private high schools. One of the reason things go so smoothly at these schools is because they can send their problem students away. When it's your kid being sent away, however, the notion that kids aren't disposable does cross your mind. I also wonder at the message to the students left in the school -- that it's okay to disappear kids.
2. You should check out the lines at the infirmary in the a.m. of any of these schools. How long is it? That's when kids get their meds. Many will be there because they're on antidepressants/ritalin etc. as a condition of staying in the school. Again, the message that it's okay to dope away your problems gives me some concern.
3. Those teachers are caring. But they also work enormous hours and have enormous responsibilities. If you're looking at one of these ivy-covered schools in the hills of New England, know that the small class sizes won't necessarily translate into more individual attention for your kid since the teachers may well be overworked and exhausted.
4. If your child has a special interest, say dance, music, art, etc., make sure that the school's program for that interest receives academic credit, otherwise it will be shed when the stress of work overload falls on the student, and know that that stress will appear about 2/3 through each grading period.
My husband worked at such a school in the snow-covered hills of New England; our kids attended. It's not always what the brochures and visits make it out to be. If it works for your child, it can be a terrific, life-shaping experience. If it doesn't, it will be one of the most costly mistakes you'll ever make.
I went to public school and public university all within an hour of Exeter, Andover & St. Paul's, and would never, ever send my child to those schools, regardless of what their SAT scores will look like when they get out. I'm not against private school per se, but private elite boarding schools are not a place I want my kid to be at.
As TNC seems to be great evidence of, the most important thing to a good education is clearly good parenting. And in my eyes you simply aren't a good parent when you ship your kid off to boarding school and leave the parenting to somebody else.
This post is an example of why I read your blog every day. You are a very good writer, an inspiring writer.
You say:
"...I make zero apologies for who I am--it happened the way it was supposed to happen, and I am who I am. But the notion that I should be proud of having, essentially, been a fuck-up for the earlier portion of my life always strikes me as odd..."
What you have every right to be proud of is the fact you overcame the problems of the earlier portion of your life. You did not let those limitations limit you.
Keep up the good work!
Some neighbors of mine go to Exeter. Its wild to think that in suburban Connecticut, someone would PAY money to go to a private prep school, when the public schools are pretty damn good around here.
Gotta say though, if your young friend goes to one of those schools, its going to be an insane amount of culture shock, and I can bet you he's going to hate it. He'll love the education, but hate the environment. I had some serious adjustment problems after moving to the paper-white suburbs after growing up in a very, very interracial and multi-cultural inner city environment. The realization of how different you are from everyone else is kind of jarring to someone .
Still, I'm glad I had the early childhood I had, and I'm glad I had the education that the suburbs gave me, even though I felt ridiculously isolated.
It really starts earlier than high school. My first child entered day care at six months in a downtown daycare in 1991. Outside of the children under 18 months all of our teachers had teaching degrees(the economy was in the crapper after the first gulf war). By age 3 all of these children could read and write(closer to scrawl but they were sentences). At kindergarten age we had full day kindergarten in a state that was half day. I remember the agony many of the parents had because they had to send their kids to 1st grade in the city. The best magnet schools had classes of 30 or more, parochical school were just under that and private schools wer out of bounds for everybody but the lawyers kids.
The point is that small classes, resources and a system that pushes every kid to succeed is the real measure of educational success. And all of this is built on parents whom care.
I came up through the Baltimore City PS. Graduated from Poly, best public high school in the city, and went on to graduate from an Ivy. There I was surrounded by kids who'd had the best, most expensive educations money could buy. And I can say without equivocation that I didn't encounter any students my freshman year that were better prepared than myself for what we were about to go through. None.
I'm not railing against private schools per se, they do have their advantages- safety being high among them I suppose, and bunch of other things that help a kid develop an appreciation for, or at least an expectation of "the good life" for lack of a better word,but in terms of pure education, I wouldn't sell public schools short.
Yeah, you're the fuck up, but the trust fund baby is the one that we coo over like he crossed the finish line at the Special Olympics when he manages to put up a blog post sans typos...
I wouldn't worry too much.
I screwed myself after college by having "dreams" instead of "goals". But in the process, I helped myself to an education that goes far beyond the books I cracked the first 22 years of my life.
I come from a middle-upper class family, but for the last 4 years I've been near the poverty line with little to no support structure. It was as if I had to be taught what it was like to truly fear homelessness and hunger before I could move on.
The point is that those lessons of perspective, more like earthquakes, have informed my life since and led to a meteoric rise in the ranks where I work. Depth is not something you learn; it comes from the variety of experiences you absorb. Wisdom is not derived from books, but from depth.
And people are drawn to wisdom like fat bitches to a buffet.
It takes a man to write a post like that. Honesty is the rarest coin on earth. That's why you're hot, TNC.
"And people are drawn to wisdom like fat bitches to a buffet."
Awesome.
I was just an average student,a city kid from a high school of 3,000 working class kids,who watched my well-off cousins graduate from the suburban preps and waltz into the colleges of their choosing.
Math tried to keep me from higher eduction; English shoved me in. My ACTs were the best guessing game I played since choosing the Miami Dophins for my last $20 in 1972, (much to the derision of every red-blooded male I knew at the time). I had an incredible vocabulary,thanks to a teacher who demanded we learn 25 college-level words per week,as well as my obsession with my mom's Reader's Digest vocab quizes, and years of Scrabble with a favorite aunt. Math? "B-C-B-C-B-C" for the final 20 questions with a minute remaining until the old lady crowed "STOP!"
Once at The University of Wisconsin-Madison I was in a daze. 'How did I pull this off?' I kept thinking they'd discover the mistake and send me home.'
That didn't happen, yet I noticed that the students from prep schools in Boston, New York,Miami or even suburban Chicago all semed to comprehend the lectures just a bit easier. They confidantly engaged in discussion sections with a fluidity I just didn't grasp until midway through my sophomore year.It wasn't that college was so difficult, it's that the workload as well as the scope and breadth of material generally presented was nothig new to those who had the benefit of myriad AP classes and prep school teachers with PhDs or Oxford pedigrees.
I guess my point is that you are correct in stating that prep schools create familiarity and comfort. They prepare. It's not that public schools don't want to, but they are overcrowded, ill-equipped,(even though many good teachers do try their damndest with the dwindling resources they have) Can some kids succeed regardless? Yes, there will always be the diamonds in the rough, but if one can afford private schools, then that is an educational insurance policy if ever there was one. Again, these schools prepare. And, as Coach John Wooden always says, "Failure to prepare is preparing to fail."
I went to Stuyvesant, a really good PS in New York. All I can say is that college was a breeze after that. I am still kinda a fuck-up though. Hoping to fix that with grad school, but probably won't. Good PS are as good as good private schools, but they'll take you only so far.
@ Holdie
You are definitely right when you say it makes a huge difference how much your parents are in on the rules of the game. I was a pretty smart kid and did pretty well through high school, but there are a few boneheaded things I/my parents did that just seem so stupid looking back on them. Like, after I signed up for the PSAT, I realized I had a conflict of some sort (don't remember what it was, but I think I was out of town for something). There was an alternate day you could take it, but only if your conflict was school related (basically, the band had a competition the Saturday it was scheduled). I asked for permission to do it the other day, but they said no. My mother never called to make a point of it, so I never took the PSAT.
Skip forward a couple of years to a school pep rally where they decide to honor all of the people who were National Merit Scholars and National Merit Finalists. With maybe one or two exceptions, I believe I beat all of them on the SAT. I likely would have beat them on the PSAT, too. So, the fact that I didn't have someone who knew how the PSAT/National Merit Scholar game worked meant that suddenly I was at a competitive disadvantage vis-a-vis all of these students. I was irritated, to say the least.
Now, in my case, it all ended up working out well in the end. But I can imagine there are a lot of kids out there whose parents make the same mistake all the time who don't make it. I wish schools would do a better job of dealing with these issues, but I think they too often leave it up to students or their parents to take responsibility. Which is okay if everyone has full information, but all too often that's not the case.
TC,
As a guy who followed a path kind of similar to your own (college drop out that managed to do OK anyway) I feel you. Like yourself, I was never proud of my missteps but I never disavowed them either because they ultimately took me to where I was supposed to be going.
For years I used my status as a "dropout" as a coarse and crude armor. During my first professional job I found myself often sneering to co-workers, "You're the one with a degree why don't you tell me the answer?" Eventually I realized that I needed to go back and finish what I started not for my career, not for my parents, but for myself. And two Decembers ago at the ripe old age of 38 I became a newly minted college graduate. It wasn't too late for me and it's not too late for you either my brother.
Last week WifeRat and I made the difficult decision not to send our three year-old to our neighborhood public school (DC has free pre-school for all students) and opted to send our daughter to a Montessori school instead. The combination of a seemingly indifferent principal who commanded no respect and sub-par facilities forced us to consider our other options. Rather than seeing sending my kid to private school as a triumph, it felt like a colossal failure. Failure by the principal, the school system, and us as citizens for not demanding better.
I'm not really sure what my point is other than I had hoped to avoid sending my kid to private school but sub-standard schools forced me to do otherwise.
Best,
HR
I understand, Coates. My mother sent me away for summer school to one of these boarding schools. You remember that scene in School Ties when Brendan Fraser's character is seeing his news school for the first time - that's how I felt when Daddy drove up. It's truly stunning. Intimidating. And just opens your eyes to a whole other world that a Black girl from the South Side would never come across normally.
I hated my mother for making me go there. I said my mother, because if I had told my father, in any of the conversations we had everyday for the first two weeks, through my tears, that I wanted to come home - he wouldn't have listened to my mother. He would have gotten in the car and drove nonstop to get me.
In the end, the three summers I spent there were good for me. They were academically challenging, and socially prepared me for the type of White student that I would meet in college.
I respect this father being willing to send his son off to boarding school. That's not something most Black folk are willing to do. I don't think I could send my child off at the age of 13 or 14; that's why I'm going to have to find the best private school here in the city for them.
I'm a youngish woman who was raised in a background best characterized as on the border between poor and lower middle class. My husband is from an upper middle class background, went to a good private college, and is in an Ivy League doctoral program. I have a master's degree from a good school in my field and am satisfied with my work, but the sense of outsider/otherness I feel around my husband's colleagues is something I'll never be able to shake.
I was discussing Social Security with a few of my husband's colleagues the other day, and these mostly liberal folks were referring to it as a redistributive ponzi scheme, etc. I'm like, "but it's the reason my grandma's not eating cat food." There were stunned looks all around. I think I was the first person they had encountered who actually had family members depending on government programs. Which is to say: I think my lack of privilege lends a certain perspective that I wouldn't wish to part with.
another great and honest post. regardless of where someone comes from in order to succeeed you have to own your past. whether you come from beverly hills, south side of chicago, or a town of 300, anyone can find any number of reasons to hate or resent where they grew up, where they went to school, and who their family was. it's not until you own your experience you won't be able to assess what you've learned what what you haven't. only then will you be able to push on and transcend that experience.
that said if you are in the position to offer your kid the best education that will surround him/her with the best and the brightest there is nothing wrong with doing that. all dependent of course if the kid wants to be there. if they don't want to be there then they aren't going to be happy. i bet for half of the kids on the psych meds at exeter/andover, going to those schools was not a choice, it was destiny....
I was able to send my two kids to one of B'more's better known private schools for 5 years, and now this year I'm not. They are in a city elementary school-one of the better ones. But oh the difference! Every time I set foot in that private school I thought, my god, if only every kid in this city had this kind of opportunity and environment. As a nation, we spend our money on all the wrong things.
in terms of pure education, I wouldn't sell public schools short.
I would agree. I was in a good magnet college prep program at a big public high school (Long Beach Poly) located in the inner city but with a very diverse student population. Many of my classmates went on the the UC system, and I went to Caltech. At Caltech, an elite science/math/tech institution, my classmates came from all over the country (and the world) but very few of them went to elite private prep schools. We did have a whole bunch of students from the top-notch public schools like IMSA, Thomas Jefferson, or Stuyvesant, but a lot of others who went to just good public schools, Catholic schools, or other private schools that weren't necessarily Exeter Academy.
I dunno; maybe it's just that the East Coast elites wouldn't bother sending their kids to California, or maybe they knew that their kids had to actually be smart and work hard at Caltech; there's no grade inflation and nobody coasts by on a trust fund there.
yet another great post. this is a topic that has continually bothered me for years. i went to public school but was so bored and unstimulated i applied to local private/boarding schools. in the end, they were so expensive it seemed better to spend the money on college. of course, it wasn't the ivy college i had dreamt of. . .
but maybe it's the fuel generated by the dueling sense of "what if" against "so what" that keeps my fire burning when it would otherwise burn out. it's not worth questioning for me as i do think i am exactly who and where and what i am supposed to be. however, the discussion of improving the quality of public education is one i think is in serious need of attention, particularly if that discussion involves dismantling NCLB. . .
Adam: you could do a whole post on the difference between Caltech (or MIT, my alma mater) and the Ivies. Different subject matter, different students, different expectations. They might as well be on different planets.
And yes, my experience was similar. Kids from all over the place, but not all that many from the prep schools, and those who were didn't actually fit in all that well.
Katherine
I went to a school that was technically in the city, but was more like a suburban High School. We had something like twenty valedictorians, and plenty of people going on to Ivy League schools (I was not one of them). However, I wouldn't say that it was the school offering us limitless opportunities; it was the parents that were doing the pushing. Our guidance councillor basically wanted everyone to go to an in-state school. Our few "AP" classes were a joke. But the parents pushed kids to do things like: take classes at a local college/community college instead. Read a lot. That kind of thing. I'd say THAT environment was a much larger part of people's grades than anything the school did (it was decidedly NOT cool to be smart, except among a small group of nerds).
Oh, and I knew plenty of people who went to private schools on academic scholarship. I'd say that's one more example of where knowledgable parents who push you can help you dramatically.
Fast forward to my second college - I'd gone to one in-state for a couple of years on scholarship, then transferred to a school in the UK where tuition was not that much higher than state schools in the US. We had all these students from Eton, etc. where they truly do things the aristocratic way. When it came to classes in the humanities, these kids had read way more than most public school kids. But in the sciences? No way. A smart kid in science can come from anywhere and has more to do with motivation. A smart kid in the humanities needs way more background knowledge.
So many thoughts after reading this post and the subsequent comments. My father was occassionally out of work or was frequently away from home working for the Dept of Agriculture. He died when I was 14 which was three years after one of my brothers died of muscular dystrophy at age 17. My dad had a college degree and always emphasized education, including living in a town with an excellent public school. I ended up going to Purdue for undergrad because my mother worked in a dorm there so I had half price in state tuition. Eventually went to med school and now live in an area that voted 70% McCain. Annelina, you just described my neighbors and many of my colleagues. Private schools are not the only way to get ahead, but a family emphasis on education is a key ingredient no matter what a person's situation. Now I'm a 47 year old fairly well off white guy, and I will be cheering for the subject of this wonderful post and hoping for an environment where all can find opportunity. Universal education - more Change I Can Believe In!
I went to a well respected public school in New Mexico, that always did well on tests and Ivy admissions because the parents were so involved with education. They were involved because they all had PhD's (National Laboratory town. They made things that go boom)
The things that I took from that experience:
You can be a nimrod and still get an Ivy league education.
You can have an Ivy league Education, and a great career, and still be a lonely pathetic shlub.
Really smart people care about how smart and competent you are, and slightly smart people care about where you went to school.
I had a lot of great opportunities, some of which I pissed away, but my siblings went to Rice, and even though they had much better secondary opportunities, I've made more money done more things and traveled more. I'm married and have two great kids. The only thing I regret is my health, as my kidneys have failed. That was a result of diabetes complications, but my dad (Cornell, Caltech PhD) had the same issues.
I think that educational opportunities are less valuable than they appear from the outside. The real issue is social networks, which can happen in some educational settings, but are more often formed outside of those Ivy covered halls.
Your background is something to be proud of in whatever way you can. I'm not saying you shouldn't see flaws in it. But there are valid points that can be made from it:
1) You overcame it
2) It gives you a different perspective than many others.
3) It provides encouragement to those who have had difficulties in their childhood.
When you write that you're doing this with a father, and what you'll need to do for your son, reminds me of this:
An online friend's son has Asperger's. So he needs special services from the school, both for the areas in which he's very gifted and where he needs extra support. (Gifted services in this school district are strictly pull out and by test placement.) She is a lawyer, and goes in for the IEP and to make sure the school is doing what he needs, because she is extremely well-versed in what it's required to do for him.
At some point a discussion of the NYC schools came up, and it was clear that while there was a lot on offer, parents really had to know the ropes to access it. First they had to be there. Then they had to care. Then they had to be fluent in English. Then they had to have the time and willpower and intelligence to figure out how to make the system work for their kid. Like my friend: the services existed, but to access them it wasn't enough for a kid to show up at school and be bright and motivated and likeable.
A problem of our educational system.
Oh, and one of the more interesting educational experiments in recent years was to put everyone in the gifted program. Works. But requires a lot of adults per kid, which is expensive.
Going to echo a few posters here: went to a good public school, and then an Ivy. I never felt that any of the prep school kids had any advantage over me.
Now, I don't know if that's just me, or how good my highschool was vs. a private one, or a "magnet" school, or whatever, and I'm sure better schools equal better preperation for the most part, but my question is this:
This feeling that "the private school kids were so much better prepeared / understood everything faster" sentiment which was shared by a number of people here, how much of that was real and how much of that was perception based on class anxieties and insecurities?
Not an answerable question, I know, but just want to point out that just becasue we see something doesn't mean we see it as it truly is.
My two nieces have never attended a public school and I see the difference. It's a quiet, solid confidence. It never occurs to them that there is something they cannot achieve.
Their parents tell me that many of their friends seem to resent their enrollment in private school. There seems to be something in the America DNA that requires us triumph over adversity. I think it's getting a little old, don't you?
I went through the public school system, and state college, because my siblings used up the funds with their Ivy League schools. I've turned about more than okay. However, with the passage of time the gaps in my knowledge about certain areas of history and science are striking. I often contemplate - was it discussed at all, or did I forget?
Many of my teachers and professors would comment on my potential and I wonder what would have been different if I had that type of educational environment as a child.
TNC,
"It gives you a different perspective than many others."
Remember what you wrote about Don Draper? From what I've seen, you're past is an advantage that others don't have.
Thank you for posting this, because I am thinking about these issues almost every day. I often feel I am playing catch-up at age 30 with the "western classics," capitalist history, Broadway music references, and anything in French. I grew up a lot like you, and due to having college-educated parents and food every day, had a lot more advantages than many of my classmates.
On the other hand, what I did gain from my broke-ass, public-school, bomb-threat, junior-high-sex-having-classmates, weed, 40s, and ridiculous education is... morals. A sense of social duty. Compassion for others and an impulse to try to change society. Out of my high school friends that did go to college, most are teachers or nonprofit workers or activists. We wanna change shit.
As I am meeting more Ivy Leaguers, consultants, "I-Bankers" (just learned that term), etc. in my so-called successful life, I am constantly surprised that this social responsibility gene seems to be completely lacking. It's all theory, angling, networking, and success, with little concern for the consequences of their actions. Or they have a podunk theory of social change instilled from liberal private schools: "Dish out food at the homeless shelter once a year, and all my sins are absolved! Yay!"
So, I think we need to reform American education to embrace high standards for both intellect and justice. And I'm still a hard-core public school fan.
WRT Andover, which some people have mentioned, I went there and I had a great time. And I am not from Prep-land, I didn't have any legacy there, no family connections or anything.
There has been some bad-mouthing of my high school here, people saying they would never want their kids to go there, etc. It might just be the people I hung out with, but none of my friends (save one or two) fit the stereotype of rich, somewhat messed-up kids from New York or Connecticut whose families are super-important and who had legacy there. Mostly middle-class types who, though down-to-earth, were also smart/driven. I would go there again in a heartbeat, even if I do get eye-rolls every time it comes up.
It's not for everyone - has to be someone who can be away from their parents at age 14. And I am sure that there are a million schools where one can get as good an education. And don't expect a lot of love if you are a Yankees fan. But I had a lot of fun, got a great education, made lifelong friends, and would do it again in a heartbeat.
I do not resent anyone the opportunity to spend their high school years at these schools. People who speak ill of them are generally just bitter or have no knowledge. Sure, there is pressure and instability at elite boarding schools. But what of the alternative? Half of my public high school class dropped out and three of my friends were killed by handguns. This perspective is difficult to understand for those in cushy suburbs. Andover, Exeter, St. Paul's, Choate, et.al. for all the pressure produce generation after generation of business leaders and public servants. Whoever thinks that at these schools there are rigid distinctions between classes, races, or anything else conflates stereotypes with reality. Some of these schools have cliques who behave in this manner, but anyone who assumes that any non-inclusive conduct would be tolerated is uninformed. Good luck to your friend's child, and may he gain admission everywhere.
There are some very good public schools, as attested by many of the commenters. There are even more really bad schools, which hasn't been mentioned so much. One of the great things about places like Andover and its brethren is that they have TONS of money in scholarships for kids who may otherwise be stuck in a crappy school district. Unfortunately, not enough parents in crappy school districts know about this. I guess Andover, etc. just don't send any admissions staffers on inner city recruiting trips, or to exurban toilet towns either. I didn't go to one of those preppy palaces, and felt that the other kids at my Ivy League college were way ahead of me my freshman year. These other kids, incidentally, while often wealthy, were neither as stupid nor as foolish as those described in many of the comments above. Prep school scholarships - one of the best kept secrets in America.
I went to a very expensive, well regarded Australian high school. Now, 5 years later, I can see that there was one benefit above all others:
I made great connections.
Most of my friends are from very wealthy families; their fathers are Lawyers, doctors, ad men and CEO types. I was able to get an internship in my chosen profession without even going to university or college. All I had to do was make a phone call, and turn up.
I did learn more than my peers at public schools, and the teaching was of a higher standard. But most of the benefits came from being surrounded by smarter, richer kids.
I will try to give my kids the same leg up.
"I went to a very expensive, well regarded Australian high school. Now, 5 years later, I can see that there was one benefit above all others:
I made great connections."
Now, this is a distinct advantage of a private school over a good public school.
From 99 through 03 I completed my high school education at a pretty elite private/boarding school in Canada. (As an example of the level I'm talking about, former Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien, whose grandchildren were fellow students, visited our campus for graduations and cadet inspections, bodyguards in tow.)
With a few years of reflection on my private school experience - which required my family to scrape the pot, so to speak - I don't think I was given any distinct advantage. Maybe American private schools really give their kids a leg up. My school worked me to the bone from academic, athletic, and extracurricular standpoints, yet by the time I reached university I was burnt out.
Maybe I'm a little off on this - and maybe some Canadian readers can back me up - but Canada's university situation doesn't seem to have the level of disparity in quality that American schools have (thus private school not really mattering). We don't have Ivy League schools up here, nor do we have private liberal arts colleges and the like. The closest thing to an Ivy we have is McGill University - one of the world's finest in Montreal - and it costs 7000 bucks (in Canadian dollars no less) in tuition per year.
In short, my high school classmates - with the exception of one who went to Princeton - ended up at the same schools as public school kids. We were worked hard, but I can't say we received any distinct advantage.
(All of this would be quickly rebuked by my former high school, no doubt.)
Having never lived anywhere near the east coast, I am always astounded at the weight placed on these Ivy league schools.
What am I missing here?
Yes, the "connections" someone makes at these schools may pay off later in the form of a job or internship, but is that really all education is?
Since I am not a lawyer and I don't work in another field that happens to be populated by people with unused law degrees, it's easy for me to say that I've never met someone who cared where the hell I went to school. Of course I don't work with Harvard educated bloggers, either.
It has been what I know, who I am and what I can do that has always counted.
Again, what am I missing? Is ambition all that matters anymore?
If you must send your son away from you, at least send him to Oregon or Arizona or Argentina or Ireland. My favorite writer went to Texas A&M.
go figure.
I have to second the comments on scholarships - a lot of these schools will happily give massive scholarship packages to kids with poor parents, and assuming that you can put up with the atmosphere and stress, you *will* get a first-rate education, which is important for a lot more than just getting into the Ivies.
As someone who went to a pretty good prep school, I and quite a few of my classmates ended up in public universities, where we received full scholarships and ran circles around most of our friends from public schools. Most of them were bright, and from decent public school systems, but they simply never learned how to write well or study effectively. It was just assumed that they were well educated, because they had decent SAT scores and good grades. But really, they had coasted through their high school, and were completely unprepared for what college demanded of them.
One aspect of going to a private school, or a good magnet school, which is vitally important but hasn't been touched on yet, is the social aspect. Sure, the education is great, but at least as important is the fact that, for likely the first time, the child is at a place where being smart or a bit of a nerd doesn't immediately brand you as a loser and make you a social outcast. This, in turn, allows for the development of a more or less normal social life (although of course a boarding school will have plenty of quirks.)
Even in pretty good public schools, being smart can lead to ostracism. I was a nerd at my junior high (the group of kids I had started to hang out with immediately shunned me after the first quarter's grades came out and I had straight A's.) And this was a junior high in a college town, so there were lots of professor's kids there. It wasn't a bad school at all. As a result, I was pretty socially stunted.
But then I got into a manget school (IMSA--basically a private boarding school, only funded by the state so it's free.) And there, everybody was smart so it wasn't an issue, or something to be a bit ashamed of. And the social life was hence allowed to get beyond the normal caste system which had branded me an untouchable.
The education there was great, and I benefitted from it, but the social development was 10 times more important, at least for me. I could have gotten a pretty good education at my home school. I would have just been miserable for 3 years while I did it.
I've had a weird education that makes me identify with you.
Went to a very average public HS in the suburbs. Thought I was too smart to attend much, barely graduated. Year of CC then somehow bullshitted my way into a "Great Books" school.
That's one of those tiny (400 hundred students total in mine) private schools that have tutorials reading the so called canon of Western Literature, which, to them, ends in the early 1900's and loves the Greeks, has few women and no minority authors represented. It tries to be like Oxford. Wealthy kids mostly. I thought it was pretentious crap, which it was, and fled after a year of not fitting in academically or socially to a state school in Oregon- third tier type. Had a great time, learned a lot. But never felt I reached my "full potential" and wonder what might have been had I not been too clever and so insecure.
I've often touted my education in the real world (as a social worker, teacher etc) as being far more valuable. But in my deepest self I have come to realize I did not choose my education based on some deep wisdom about the world and my place in it. To be honest it was based on low self esteem and fear of failure, of being around super smart people who would expose my mediocrity to everyone.
In short- I feel ya.
Well, I have a degree in English Literature and I'm still playing catch-up, too. Lots of fun, really.
Arguably the greatest writer in American history, F. Scott Fitzgerald, was expelled from college. His grammar was fine but his buddy Edmund Wilson said he had the "worst spelling of any literate person I have ever known".
Anyone can learn The Odyssey. Not everyone can learn to love The Odyssey. You have to be born, I think, with that capacity though that capacity may lie dormant and unexplored for a time. You were born with it. Congratulations.
You are a good writer. Your prose is warm and engaging and you are sometimes insightful. You are young and you will get better. Much better. I look forward to a lot of good work from you. Thanks in advance.
College is certainly a shortcut, but it is not the only road.
I have to speak on this. I'm a working class African-American from the midwest. I always wanted the best education possible. My mother had a friend whose kinds went to white elite boarding schools in the Northeast due to organizations like, A Better Chance. My mother didn't think I was ready for boarding school, so I went to a local elite all-white private school (one of the Country Days).
I was on partial scholarship and did a two hour commute (each way) but it was worth it. I went to high school in the late 1980's so tuition was between 12-15K plus books. The campus was great. I took paddle tennis & golf (using the country club facilities that were next door) in p.e. My classes were in the style of a liberal arts college (workshop-y). Apple used my school to conduct some product research. I can go on and on.
I had issues with my schoolmates (hung out a lot with the liberal art teacher) because I never heard more people complain about everything but have so much! I was focused on my education, so I was driven to put the popularity and ignorance of race & class stuff aside. I got what I wanted (admission to my first pick college -- a small liberal college in the northeast that costed a damn fortune!) and a way of my conservative town and "the ghetto."
My brother followed in my path and did better than I did academically & socially (he was a football captain & student body president (big deal) and he ended up going Ivy League.
We both have master's degrees. My brother actually got a doctorate.
I do think the elite boarding schools are on a whole different level. My high school alma mater looks like a college campus but it isn't as big or steeped in tradition as Choate, St. Paul's etc.
I want to add an amazing education is an asset but have a good family can be just as important -- as Coates has pointed. Networking and connections are important to and the thinking is the better college you go to -- the better your connections. I have issues with aggressively networking. but I've gotten some great contacts from my Ivy League educated (he likes to network) brother.
Matthew Yglesias -- private school phenom, Harvard grad, trust-fund scumbag -- is incapable of writing a blog post without a spelling error, and you are beating yourself up about grammar?! You need to discvoer your inner sense of entitlement.
Like Shawn, I had the experience of a HS guidance department refusing to send my applications to top tier schools. This was many years ago, in a largely blue-collar high school. When are the elite univeristies going to realize they would have a larger pool of interesting applicants if they offered a way to bypass these "counselors?"
My story had a happy ending because we realized what was happening before the last closing date and my folk went in and threw a fit. I got into the University of Chicago and have had a fine life since (and will be wearing all my U of C logo'd clothes on Tuesday next!)
i come from a background of almost absurd educational privilege and intellectual confidence (went to one of those new england boarding schools and then to a well-regarded state school; both parents have a phd and their overflowing bookshelves were my playground.) obviously, every child deserves the kind of opportunity i enjoyed. the thing is, a lot of the kids i went to school with might as well not have been surrounded by all that enrichment for all the advantage they took of it - the quality of an education has as much (if not more) to do with the student as the institution. i wish that everyone had my luck, because that's all it is. people who didn't shouldn't feel that the names on our respective diplomas (or absence thereof) are any kind of indicator of intellectual accomplishment or ability, because they just aren't.
i think one point that people should think about is whether bright kids need specialized programs just like kids with learning disabilities. and as a bright kid who benefited from state sponsored programs (IMSA, which has been mentioned before) i believe that we should spend as much money on accelerated/gifted programs. This is where charter schools or specialized technical or arts schools have a role.
of course in a recession with state budget cuts these programs are always the first to go....
Having previously taught at two boarding schools in NH (and having many close friends who teach at others throughout New England and the East Coast), I have to warn that what one sees on a tour of these academies is not necessarily representative of the type of education these schools provide. They ALL look amazing - nestled in the hills with fall foliage only adding to their beauty. However, life at a boarding school is not necessarily as prestigious as it looks. Often, these schools hire younger, inexperienced teachers they can overwork, and who don't always have the opportunity to put the classroom preparation ahead of coaching, dorm duty, study hall supervision, etc. As well, many of these schools find that they are not impervious to the problems of drugs and alcohol that every school faces. Indeed, compared to the private day-school where I currently teach, the problems of drug and alcohol abuse by our students was much worse in the boarding school.
Of course, they don't share this on a tour of their beautiful campuses. At the last boarding school where I taught, we had an amazing art studio, but we could only afford to staff it part-time with a teacher who could have been better qualified. But we never mentioned that to prospective students. And of course, there is the Vanity Fair article from January 2006 that sheds a whole other light on boarding school life.
I am an advocate for private education, but I would look at day-schools before I went the route of the more expensive boarding schools. With day schools, it is easier to contact parents and others in the community about the true quality of education the school provides.
@ CJ
"Yes, the "connections" someone makes at these schools may pay off later in the form of a job or internship, but is that really all education is?"
Let's not assume that high school, or college for that matter = education. A more appropriate term might be "training"
Often, the real education happens outside the walls of an instituion. The Richard Branson's of the world learnt more by doing.
I think Tara from TrueBlood(HBO) says it best:
"...college is just a place where white people read to other white people."
Am i being too cynical?
As people, we are defined not by where we went to school but by the sum total of our experiences. There is a balance to everything. The experiences missed by not going to an Ivy are countered by other experiences picked up along the way. In short, what one gains on the swings is lost on the roundabouts.
TNC I don't get the "foolishly railed" comment. If you have been saying tear those places down, ok that's foolish because why can't you have something like that, but there is no doubt there's an advantage in attending one of those spots. Props to your friend's kid and the kid himself for being in a spot to get in one of those places.
I'm a state school product myself, am doing alright, and have some classmates who killed it in their 20s and are already set. But the level of sophistication that any middle pack Andover/ Foxcroft/ Sidwell/ Ethical Culture/ Ivy track 24yo that I've met in NYC trumps all but the most talented state school grad.
Those schools open up some serious doors and empower their graduates to do a lot of things most UCLA Phi Beta Kappas aren't going to get a shot at or even think to take a shot at. Think about Michael Lewis asking when and what happened for the 26yo bond trader to think it's normal to be parking the 500SL at their midtown garage. I hope your friend's kid kills it and is rolling in Dubai over winter break when he's a freshman at Yale...I hope our kids can do the same...I might send my son off to boarding elementary school if he gets the shot: but only because something like that opens up so many doors that just aren't available to 99% of students. That's what sucks and what's worth railing about...just by dumb luck of being selective about the womb you come out of you you can be born empowered and set up on a certain path or you can be in a crappy IS district, hope you're lucky enough that there's a KIPP school you can attend 13 hours a day to make up for it, hope for Bronx Science so you're not in a high school where 60% of your buddies won't graduate, and be stoked when you get accepted to SUNY Buffalo or Rutgers. Two floor art studio? How many classes of art instruction can a NYC public school student get a week, two?
Late to this party, but two notes;
TNC, make sure this kid reads Black Ice.
I was a teacher at several elite private (not boarding) schools. The teaching is not better--it's just easier. Sure you work really long hours and every weekend, and there are all kinds of after-hours expectations and you get paid very poorly compared to your public school colleagues, BUT--your class sizes are small, the general expectation for achievement means that you rarely have to think about how to motivate your students, and the administration will generally get rid of the non-super rich kids if they become problematic. Public school teachers have much more on their plates and deserve the additional pay and benefits they get.
I would never send my own child to one of these private schools because they are not real. As a graduate of a working class public school who eventually earned a Ph.D. at a prestigious private research university, I'm sending my kid to the local public school. It's where you learn self-motivation, learn hhow to deal with being bored, learn to get along with all different kinds of people, and a place where you can imagine all different kinds of lives for yourself. If my son wants to be a plumber, if that makes him happy, great. I doubt many kids can express, or even realize, their desire to be a plumber at Exeter (or the Lab School, or wherever).
"That's what sucks and what's worth railing about...just by dumb luck of being selective about the womb you come out of you you can be born empowered and set up on a certain path or you can be in a crappy IS district, hope you're lucky enough that there's a KIPP school you can attend 13 hours a day to make up for it, hope for Bronx Science so you're not in a high school where 60% of your buddies won't graduate, and be stoked when you get accepted to SUNY Buffalo or Rutgers."
This is me in a nutshell, although I won't complain about the womb that birthed me! But let's translate that to Texas where I wish I could have went to Bellaire, Klein, Kingwood, Memorial, or any of the other top public or private high schools in Houston that consistently graduate kids who can compete with the best and brightest. But thanks to zoning, instead, my entire public school education after elementary/jr high school failed to prepare me for college and all that comes with that. See, I graduated high school from one of the most craptastic school districts in Houston (see chron.com's archives about North Forest ISD). I was one of only a few people in my graduating class to score over 1000 on the SAT. This was your classic educational environment where teen pregnancy and a culture that emphasized excellence in sports over academics ruled our halls. Seriously, consider how huge high school football is in Texas. So those of us who were the cool smart kids in class got to spend time tutoring peers who needed to avoid the ramifications of House Bill 72 (aka No Pass, No Play).
With that being said, and not to speak ill of my former classmates, such an atmosphere planted seeds of boredom, laziness, and self-doubt. I always think about how my fear of rejection and fear of not being able to compete with those with more varied backgrounds prevented me from applying to schools such as Rice, Baylor, and UT (yes, I was afraid to apply to UT, smh, even though I would have been accepted based on class rank alone!). So instead I became an instant college dropout at another state college because I just was not prepared in any shape or form for the expectations of college.
Eventually, I did complete my college degree in '05 at the age of 32 but it was with some resentment as I believed that I failed myself at having wasted time at doing something that could have already been done. As of now, I'm pretty satisfied with where my career has gone. After all, life is what we make of it and we should take advantage of the opportunities that are presented before us, even if I often find myself wondering how and what my life would be like if I had access to a more rewarding and stimulating educational experience. I do know that if I ever have kids, I would go to the greatest lengths to provide them with an education devoid of the limitations that I encountered.
So TNC, kudos to the young man because there is so much more out there. And back to your post title, what does it say about our educational system that some of the best minds of our generation are being laid to waste by the ineptitude of NCLB and the failures or inadequacies of our public schools?
I did go to an Ivy League school--the first person from my lousy (and, I always have to add, un-air conditioned) southern public high school to do so--and, at 49, I am still trying to catch up. It's not just the limited curriculum or the teachers (many of mine were quite good). It's the peer expectations, which is why a great magnet school can be just as advantageous as a private boarding school.
Virginia,
Are you really trying to catch up, or is it just that once you started to educate yourself, you realized how overwhelming the amount of knowledge out there is, and constantly feel that yours is inadequate in some way? So that, even though you're probably ahead of a majority of peers who did go to Andover, you still feel behind in absolute terms?
I'm skeptical of the idea that 3 or 4 years of good high school (or even 8 years if you add in colleges) can create that great of a foundation, so as to give someone that big of a head start in knowledge compared to what you can do with decades of life after school.
I went to a magnet high school and to a top college, but don't feel like I came out of that with a complete education by any stretch. I'm 37 now and have read loads since I graduated, but still feel like the amount I don't know so outweighs what I do know as to be overwhelming.
Good points Doug T.
and the reason why that experience is the exception reserved for the few instead of the baseline for all in what we are constantly told is the richest country in the world is ... what?
i am fortunate to send my child to a small regional private school that is as good as it gets where we are. every morning and afternoon on pick up and delivery i ask myself two questions
1/ why is this not the baseline instead of the exception
2/ what would it take to make that happen
I think, but long story short, yesterday, I got to see what a top notch high school education really looks like. It was stunning. I saw one school that was basically the size of Howard University. I saw schools with art studios spanning two levels, with beautiful chapels nestled in the snowy hills, with classrooms where kids weren't lectured to, but sat together in a circle, discussing lessons with a teacher.
This is a bit late, but to be blunt, you didn't see what a top notch high school education really looks like. You got to see what the facitilies at a really expensive private high school looked like.
I went to a state high school, with facilities spanning a brand new, reasonably pretty art rooms and library to old prefabs built about 40 years ago and meant to last only 20. I attended classes in both the pretty art rooms and the old prefabs and everything in between. We sometimes would sit together in a circle discussing lessons with a teacher. Still the quality of education I felt I was getting varied depending not on the facilities but on the classroom. The best maths teacher I had was an old bloke, set in his ways, who taught in a pre-fab and came to class absolutely furious one day - the principal had offered him a classroom in the newly refurbished lecture area, one with whiteboards and carpets. You'd have thought she had told him they were going to sacrifice his first-born son to appease the Greek gods. He was still a great maths teacher because he knew every way a student could fail to understand a mathematical concept and was on his guard to prevent any of them happening, with about as much energy as he put into ensuring he stayed in his crappy old prefab. And consequently we had about as much chance of failing to learn as the principal had of getting him out of his prefab.
I had different art teachers in the fancy new art rooms - the quality of the teacher varied a lot and that mattered.
On the flipside, when it comes to fancy private schools, do they have that education? I went to the local state primary school, far from specatacular facitilies, drew on a very mixed area - some very nice houses to some very poor ones. My mum's business partner also sent her children there, in fact that's how they met to go into business. I learnt to read fine. My mum's business partner one day gets a call from the local school about her youngest kid "Your kid's got a reading problem", they said. Partner goes "Oh my god!", hauls kid out of there and sends her to fancy private school with lovely facilities. Two years later fancy private school calls up "Your kid's got a reading problem", they say.
Another example, another friend of my mum's was married to a doctor, who insisted their son went to the "best" private high school in the area. After a year he insisted transferring to the local state high school, to escape bullying.
Private schools may have lovely facilities, and I think their student intake is very important. But that's not the same as supplying a top-notch education.
I'm not anti-private schools. I find it entirely plausible that some private schools provide better education than some state schools, and I think the ability to get a kid away from a bad situation for that kid is very valuable in and of itself. But I'm really skeptical as to whether private schools actually supply a better education, independent of the student effects.
I'd be wary of a lot of those prep schools: they tend to turn out a lot of unhappy kids.
And if you want him to read good books and have classes that consist of conversations, make sure your son goes to St. John's College.
I hope that young black boy eventually comes to understand that the Iliad is a better book than the Odyssey.