Private schools don’t require teacher certificates. They won’t have a scandal because it will never come up. Just like vaccinations, if you don’t like requirements then Private schools is the way to go
Absolutely correct. Private schools do not have certification scandals.
They have scandals because they hire just about anybody.
This is not limited to less prestigious private schools even the best of the best hire just about anybody.
The best of the best hire a few stars to build their name the rest could never be hired in any public school system.
What makes private schools great is two things, tiny classes and very engaged parents.
I know both sides of this issue. My education was with privates and my career (the last15 years) has been working with public.
In my city not only must all certifications must be up to date but to make the best money you need 30 credits beyond a Master Degree so most have two Masters degrees.
By the way, tenure status does not affect certification rules. No state certification and you are terminated for failure to meet “registration requirements”.
It is automatic.
The best thing about privates is that they kick out trouble makers or low performing students.
You guys make it sound like privates hire just anybody, they hire some good teachers. Heck, even my kid’s school has two Blue Ribbon awards under its belt.
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Having attended both publics (HISD elementary and two different HISD middle schools), and privates (graduated from St. John’s), I can testify that not only do top private schools NOT hire “just about anybody,” but on the contrary…they generally hire BETTER teachers than HISD does.
Looking back, when I compare my HISD teachers to my St. John’s teachers…gosh…there was NO comparison. Those SJS teachers were infinitely better!!!
I don’t think St John’s is a typical private school. That education costs more than some colleges. It should be infinitely better
My best teacher at Lamar, Mr Zartman( you may have had him) left St Johns. I have no doubt St John’s gets the best. Money talks.
Zartman was a little bit after my time (I graduated from SJS in 1990, and Zartman arrived in 1998), but yeah, he was a well-respected teacher at SJS for a long time.
Here’s his SJS obituary. He was widely admired and has been deeply mourned.
You know privates schools have to be certified, right? You make it sound like a free for all. Hardly.
They do not
Beyond that, there are so many more private schools now that they have the same challenges in finding good teachers that public schools face. There are a few that attract “top talent”, but most just benefit from not having to work with challenging (behavior, performance, intelligence, etc) students.
Not to mention the fact that poor people aren’t sending their kids to private schools either, unless they’re recruited for athletics. It really requires a different skill set to teach in most HISD schools to the point where comparing those teachers to the privates is an apples:oranges thing. Great public school teachers at Austin High School might be terrible at St John’s, and vice versa.
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The two really shouldn’t be compared.
We need public schools to work, giving up on them is not a solution
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I agree, but when the governor is essentially trying to destroy public schools like HISD to force feed Christian private schools down Houston’s throat via vouchers, it’s a bit hard to fight back.
If school vouchers pass, then HISD will become a bunch of private schools that most of its population cannot afford to attend. Essentially, speeding up the gentrification process of low income HISD neighborhoods
Vouchers will cover maybe a third of the costs to attend private schools, which is not enough for lower income to attend said schools via admissions based on merit (non athletes)
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“This is a very low-income, working-class, middle-class neighborhood; these are not the type of communities that are going to benefit from a voucher program,” Carranza said. “The $8,000 voucher won’t be enough to get a child into private schools, to be able to afford tuition and uniforms, and travel to get to the schools—because they don’t provide travel and all the little things that I think we don’t always think about that schools provide.”
As she sees it, Abbott’s bill would only exacerbate an existing crisis, by taking money and students out of the system. In the Harlandale Independent School District, she said, referring to the district we were sitting in and where she grew up, “we had four elementary schools closed just this past spring. The fight against private school vouchers is a lived reality for people that live in this district, and when we talk about schools closing, it’s not just schools, because for families in these communities, we don’t just look to our public schools for quality education.” Close public schools, and you close after-school activities and free lunch programs, too. It was an attack on a deeper social safety net.
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It’s not just Democrats fighting against this stupid idea. Small school districts state-wide would fail, and if their state representatives care about their districts, they’re standing firm against it. On top of the intent to destroy public schools, it’s also aimed at redistributing public tax money into private bank accounts with zero accountability to taxpayers.
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That aint free bro.
Why would they fail? Is it because they are inferior when given the option?
No. There wouldn’t be options because there would be no profit. The small schools would fail because they would no longer be funded appropriately.
Why are you assuming small schools are inferior?
If you haven’t worked or lived in areas like west Texas, you won’t get it.
Public schools would be at a big disadvantage. First, they have huge schools set up to educate everyone. If students leave, those schools continue to exist and must be maintained. They didn’t do anything to cause that either yet would pay the price for it.
Along the same lines, public schools would have to continue to be ready to take on any student, so they can’t do massive scale downs if they lose students. They could easily get whipsawed later if students came back. Private schools wouldn’t have the same constraints.
Private schools also wouldn’t be forced to take on anyone. My guess is the highest performing kids would get sucked out of public schools leaving the lowest performing behind too.
I get the private voucher idea, even like it at some level. But the law of unintended consequences hasn’t been repealed and I worry about the impacts.
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The big fallacy is the belief that schools in a given area (take HISD for example) would be better if private schools educated everyone with voucher money. It’s really kind of an asinine thought-process.
There are some absolutely terrible private schools out there, just like there are underperforming public schools. Vouchers/not vouchers isn’t going to change that except that it will knock out a certain number of public schools.
Ultimately, the net result would bring down the quality of education because it would divide and underutilize resources. The only winners would be the investors who profit from voucher money coming into private schools.
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The winners in the short term will be the kids that were going to the best private schools will now be subsidized. I’m sure more high quality private schools will be built and existing will grow, but that will take time.
Not the kids - their parents. It won’t benefit the kids in any way. This voucher thing isn’t about kids at all.