When Do Your Children Go Back to School
The school supply aisles are crowded, the parents are counting down the days, and the teachers are preparing their classrooms. As schools across the country prepare to welcome students back after summer, there are many parents who are thrilled knowing that they are sending their children to the best schools in the area. There are also parents, however, who worry about the schools that their children attend. In a time of slashed educational budgets and what seems like political warfare on public education, there are many parents who are struggling with the choices that they have available.
The bottom line is there will always be three components that will contribute to the best schools in the nation: qualified teachers, manageable class sizes, and supportive administration. In the public schools that are struggling the most, budget constraints keep districts from hiring and keeping the best teachers and skyrocket the students numbers of the classrooms, and district administrators are spinning their wheels trying to make sense of the latest state and national mandates. If you live in a state where the public education is suffering, you may find yourself at a point where you feel as if private education is your only option. Even if you live in an area of the country where public education is still strong, you may still opt for the smaller class sizes that are often found in private schools throughout the country.
Finding the Right School for Your Children Will Help Shape Their Future
Whether you are looking at a local public performing arts school or you are looking for a very structured private education, it is important to remember that the teachers, the class size, and the administrators still matter. If the end result is a college education, in fact, you might also be looking at the availability of for your students as well. Did you know, for instance, counselors at private schools indicate that they spend nearly 55% of their time on counseling that is college-related? Public high school counselors, on the other hand, indicate that they spend only 22% on these same kind of college-related counseling tasks.
The fact that 95% of non-parochial private high school graduates go on to four-year postsecondary institutions is a result of a combined effort of parents, students, teachers, and counselors. It should come as no surprise then that this very high percentage of private school graduates going on to college compares with only 49% of public school graduates doing the same.
Your house may be a contest about who is more excited, the kids shopping for school supplies and the parents counting down the days until summer is over, but the reality is that everyone should be focused on the same thing: equipping the best schools with qualified teachers, small sizes, and supportive administrators.
