Back in April I wrote about the Blue School. By some measure it’s not doing so well.
Parents are yanking their kids out of the “progressive,” $32,000 per-year private school founded by the Blue Man Group — which has no books and no tests — because their kids are barely learning to read, The Post has learned.
One mother, who is yanking her son at the end of the school year, complained that the school is “unstructured.”
“It’s true,” she said when asked if her kid was struggling to read.
In all, she added, four of her son’s first-grade classmates are leaving the Financial District institution.
Another parent who dropped her first-grade son off yesterday said he’s not coming back next year — because he’s got nothing to do.
“When a 6-year-old says they’re bored, there’s a problem,” the mother said. “I think they bit off more than they can chew.”
via NYPOST.com.
So I guess school choice works then!
Of course, people who can afford $32,000/year tuition do have a lot of choices. This story shows that they are willing to take their money elsewhere when they do not feel (think?) that they are getting a good value for their dollar.
But what about those who cannot afford private school tuition? Why do we deny them the same choice? Just because one is poor does not mean that they’re not interested in their children’s education.
And aren’t so called “public schools” funded with tax dollars? In sending their children to private schools the rich are in fact double-taxed on education. This might not be perceived as a problem (they can afford it) by some but that argument missed the point. When the “rich” pay to have their children in private school they care less about the performance of the public schools. They’re basically walking away on the taxes they’re paying, accepting it as a loss. And they invest not only their money but their time and energy in the private school. This leaves our “public schools” weaker.
I prefer to think about “public schools” as government run schools. In reality, every member of society has a vested interest in the education of the youth. In reality, ALL SCHOOLS ARE PUBLIC SCHOOLS. The difference is that some schools are run by the government, and some are not.
What we find in the end is that government schools are run about as well as the government runs anything. Which is why everyone, just like those who used to send their children to the Blue School, should have the option of sending the children to the school of their choice.