[teachers pet]

I'm not here to judge one school as being better than the other. I just am so tired of hearing from parents that leave our catholic school that when they go to the public school they are told they are behind. I follow my graded course of study, and I do teach to mastery. Our students out perform the majority of public schools in our area on standardized tests and area high schools tell us that the kids are well prepared. So I know that this issue is going to come up at conferences tomorrow and I just don't know what else to say. What I want to say is "If you don't like it leave", but I may lose my job on that one!!

Again...I am not saying my school is better than any public school. There are amazing public school teachers and schools out there I know!

Any suggestions?

[ashleigh_60]

I have no advice for you, but I was just wondering if you have to follow the same curriculum as public schools? If it is different, then I could see where there could be some gaps. I see this a lot because I teach on the border of my state, so I get a lot of new students from our neighboring state. There are typically lots of holes just because there is a difference in our curriculum. It's not because one place is better than the other. We just do different things at different grade levels. I'm sure when our students go somewhere else they experience the same thing.

[teachers pet]

Our curriculum must include the state standards, so I am assuming it would be the same as the public school. I do think pacing is different in each school as we are not bound by a specific timeline, so I guess gaps could occur there.

[relaxing]

I taught in a private school for 10 years and we got that a lot. The state tests here have multiple choice questions and "open response" questions. The SAT10 that the private schools use here only have multiple choice questions. Therefore, our students (private school) were not taught how to do open response questions so when they entered the public schools they were said to be behind.

The other problem we had was that most of the time parents pulled their children because they were unhappy with something. Usually that child was a below average child and the parents blamed the school instead of the fact that they didn't help their child or their child would never be an above average student. It was easier to blame the teachers.

[Kermit]

First of all, the kids who leave the private school often leave because of bigger problems. Our kids who complete our program through 5th grade go into middle school and we almost always hear remarkable things about their success. When kids leave in any grade below that, it is usually because of some issue and the parents are unhappy anyway.

I know that there are some areas that my students are considered "behind" in, but there are many ways in which they are advanced. We take time to work on social problems when they arise, we do art and let the kids make choices about their day, how they spend their time, working with partners and cooperative skills. I know these things happen in public school too, but having taught at both, it's just a much bigger priority in the private school. We don't focus on testing AT ALL so that is not something that happens in our day. We just are doing other things and the kids are having other, really relevant experiences.

For example, almost all of my students read well, well above grade level and read with great comprehension and enjoyment. Even my lowest students, are reading RIGHT AT grade level. So, taking that into consideration, if you asked them basic questions about a passage, it's quite possible they would have no idea how to answer it. I have not specifically taught them how to do that. However, sit with them and talk about a story and they would excitedly tell you all about it! Yesterday they had library and HALF MY CLASS stayed inside during recess to read their books- and the weather was beautiful. I think this is a great thing.... but I bet you if you said something about "text to text connections" or "making inferences" or "give me a detail that demonstrates what the main idea of that passage is" they would look at you like you're crazy.

Also, at my school social studies and science are integrated and thematic. I can choose what to teach and we are not bound by certain guidelines. This allows me to use community resources, for example, when a play was at the children's theater about world war 2, I brought my kids to that play and we spent about 10 weeks studying that. But that means that there are things we probably WON'T do like memorize state capitals. If they test the kids on state capitals, they're screwed. But they have instead had a rich experience that was integrated, real, they saw a play and even had the actors from the play come to school and do a workshop! My students met my grandmother who told them about living through ww2 and what she remembered from the day pearl harbor was bombed. We went to a retirement home and talked to veterans and thanked them for their service. I think those experiences are the kinds of things that make private schools a choice for some parents, and are hopefully NOT good reasons to say the kids are behind. Parents who leave and worry about their kids begin behind, obviously didn't value the benefits the private school had to offer in the first place. For example, smaller class sizes, or religious studies, or certain experiences. I say whatever!

[teachers pet]

Wow! Thanks for the insights.