The Benefits of a Pro Public School
Public schools get a bad rap, but they have many benefits that students can benefit from.
By law, public schools cannot turn away a student due to academic performance or financial status. This allows students to attend school with their neighbors from all backgrounds, which can make for a diverse community.
Access to an Education for All
Education is one of the most important parts of our society. It teaches young people values and skills that will help them be good citizens, participate in democratic processes and learn about their own relationships with the larger community.
Children need access to a quality education, and public schools are the best way to provide it. Unlike private schools, which require parents to pay tuition, public schools are free for children. This ensures that every child has the same opportunities to receive an education.
It is also a way to expose kids to different cultures and perspectives, which is vital in our diverse world. And it gives them the opportunity to interact with students from a variety of socioeconomic backgrounds, which is difficult in a private school.
However, it is important to note that schools should not be used as a tool to stamp out familial views. This has been a concern for educational thinkers like George Counts, Paulo Freire and Henry Giroux.
Trust
Many parents are able to make a difference in their local schools by joining school-based parent groups and working together. These small groups can collaborate with each other to pool resources, such as translation services or childcare. They can also work with the superintendent to raise concerns and provide feedback. This type of relationship-building is important for building trust.
Studies have shown that trust is a powerful predictor of student achievement, even controlling for poverty. It’s essential that public schools build trust by making themselves more transparent. This means allowing parents to see the financial records of schools so that they can be sure their children are receiving a quality education.
This also means addressing linguistic, financial, and other barriers to community involvement by providing translation and childcare for school meetings, and offering a variety of ways for people to engage with their school communities. This is the only way to ensure that everyone’s voice is heard and that the needs of all students are met.
Community Involvement
The role of the community in education is an essential part of a healthy school system. When schools engage the community, they encourage a more positive environment that can lead to greater educational achievements. This two-way process creates a bond that strengthens and promotes the school as a whole.
School systems should strive to build engagement through a variety of activities. This includes community discussions and projects that include students, teachers and community members in the decision-making process. Modern discussion management tools make it possible to include a wide range of people and perspectives in the educational process.
Schools should also seek to reach out to the linguistically, culturally and racially diverse communities in their area. These groups are often left out of the educational process, but engaging them with projects that show the importance of education can help to change these perceptions. It can also help these individuals see how the skills learned in school will benefit them in their personal lives and the community as a whole.
History
As the nation continues to grapple with education reform, it’s important to understand the true purpose of public schooling. This video explains that the original intent was to give citizens the knowledge they needed to participate in a democracy. This largely meant separating students from their family’s provincial understandings.
It also aimed to transform the occupants of a territory into members of a national community. This was a necessity for republics entering an international system where, without such an effort, they were likely to succumb to tyranny or be destroyed in a Hobbesian war among competing interests.
This research also reveals that the creation and expansion of schools is often driven by national anxiety about the moral character of masses of people or a need to maintain social order, as in Prussian-inspired public schools. It also reveals that, historically, nations have turned to schools to teach obedience and discipline. This is a major reason why schools are considered the midwife of a nation state.