I grew up in private schools. I am so grateful to my parents. I spent one year at a public school, and oh what a difference.
My parents gave up driving a new car every year so they could send me to a private school. In fact, they gave up a lot, because they didn't have much to start with. I had to drive across town, sometimes 1.5 hours *each way* to get to a private school, because there were none in my area. It was worth it.
I will send my kids to private school or home school them, most likely the latter. I will give up whatever I have to in order to accomplish this goal. It is a great sacrifice when you think of all the nifty things you could buy instead of sending your kids to private school, or home schooling them, losing one person's income. (hat's off to you, Darthmaum)
Here's a trivia note for you:
Average cost of public school student per year: ~$4500
Average cost of private school student per year: ~$1500
(* source, US News and World Report)
Private schools undoubtedly give kids much better educations (our school never scored on *average* less than about 1.5 years ahead of our public school peers, and the spread is much larger today as the quality of public schools declines...and that is not even accounting for the drastic difference in the peaceful atmosphere and generally crime-free environment that you have to experience to understand), and the private schools do it all for one third the cost of what the government teaches our kids for. If that is not an example of how a bureaucracy can squander money, then I don't know what is.
There can be very effective arguments made by people more knowledgable tran myself, that public schools began their decline when prayer was outlawed. In fact, overal scores of public schools have plummeted steadily since 1962. (Standard test scores are one of the only ways to measure these things quantitatively. That does not account qualitatively for the overall hellish atmosphere in public schools today, compared to public schools of the 50's and early 60's or private schools today).
Private schools are not any smarter than public schools ever were, they are just maintaining a steady pace while the public schools decline. Test scores compared show that private schools, (which sprang up everywhere as soon as religion was taken out of public school by the ACLU), have maintained the same test scores that the public schools had in 1962. But, in the meantime, public schools scores have steadily plummeted, widening the gap.
Does it take a genius to see how things have gotten much much worse, with crime, drugs, and pregnancy through the roof, as they take more and more religion out of the schools?
Can anyone under 30 years old believe that as early as late 1950's, the New Testament was a required course in order to graduatre high school? I was shocked to see the textbooks. It is amazing how things have changed since the late '50's in our schools, someone my age can't even imagine what it must have been like.
Sure, some people don't like Christian religion in our public schools, but how do we like the alternative? No respect for life, no respect for authority, no accountability, no "right and wrong", everything is a gray area and "only wrong if you feel it is wrong". We are seeing that alternative right here, today.
Ps- I don't see how an AD/ND has anything to do with it? We are talking about mass murderers here.
[This message has been edited by Red Bull (edited November 17, 1999).]