Why are Catholic schools better?

[Melensdad]

I know this is the politics forum, but religion & politics seem to go hand in hand so I figured I'd post this here.


My daughter goes to a tiny little Catholic school. It has a grand total of about 100 students from K through 6th grades. According to the Indiana ISTEP scores, this little school, which has no foreign language classes, no real science labs, a library that is less than adequate and shares space with an obsolete computer lab produces some of the highest ISTEP score averages in the state. The 3 public schools in our little town of 6000 people are new, they are palaces to education with everything new, everything modern and everything up to date, yet they rank as some of the lowest scoring schools in the area, even below some of the Gary schools that are located in high crime, high poverty areas. Our little town is a working class area, it is fairly rural, and while only 1 hour to Chicago, many of the kids in my daughter's Catholic school class had never been to one of the many museums or zoos that Chicago has to offer. Yet this little school with teachers making just over 1/2 the wages of the public school teachers produces great test scores.

WHY?

And I guess I should expand the question beyond Catholic schools to include other religious based schools.

 

[DaveNay]

I'm just going to throw out some ideas that come to mind:

- Better discipline.

Although the days of using the paddle are gone, public schools still have no real method of discipline.

- Caring teachers

The vast majority of teachers are the best of humans, but there are some that shouldn't be allowed withing 500 ft of a child. I think the percentage of these is lower in private schools.

- Better discipline

- Less government interference.

- More accountability to parents (customers!) for financial issues.

- More emphasis on basic education vs. extracuriccular activities (not always good)

- I don't have children yet, so I might be talking out the wrong end of my body here.

Dave

 

[Junkman]

Our town doesn't have a public school past the 8th grade. For high school, they contract it out to a private school for about $7000 per pupil. The private school doesn't have tenure or the problems of paying teachers that retire, so it is a good deal for the town. If they were to change to a public system for the upper grades, the cost would go down and the quality of the education would go down also. In the private school, they don't keep teachers that don't perform well. In a public system, once a teacher is tenured, there is no way to get rid of them. Too many of the public school teachers are burned out by the time they have taught for 10 years and then they just slack off ticking away the years to retirement, knowing that they can't be fired. My personal opinion is the teachers union has gotten too powerful and now the Union can dictate the the towns. I recently learned from a teacher that the Unions have people who's only job it is to advise towns how to get school budgets pasted and how to manipulate the system for the teachers benefit with town officials. One of the biggest problems is that parents think that throwing money after the problem is going to fix the problem. Money isn't the answer, but holding teachers to a higher standard will help to alleviate some of the problems in education. I don't have many of the answers, but I know that money isn't one of them...

 

[Melensdad]

Money isn't the answer, but holding teachers to a higher standard will help to alleviate some of the problems in education. I don't have many of the answers, but I know that money isn't one of them...

I think we can hold teachers up to a standard and that seems very fair. But touching on some of Dave's points above, what about dicipline, caring, etc? My cousin teaches High School at a very good public school in a high income town, he says parents are often in denial about the conduct of their little angels and the parents scream at the teachers. I don't see that stuff happening in our Catholic school. Little Johnny gets called in for trouble making and the parents get called in too, and all of them are in trouble with the principal.

 

[Doc]

I think Dave hit on most of the reasons. And, like junk said it's not something that throwing more money at it will be the cause of higher test scores.

This is the teachers lifes in catholic schools, they are not jumping around from job to job. The nuns eat sleep and live for the school. That and the smaller class size are both major advantages. I went thru 12 years of catholic schools. I can't say I appreciated it at the time, but I sure see the differences. Heck, I wanted to go to the public school cause of the prettier girls! Yeah, i was rather shallow or girl crazy.

 

[DaveNay]

LOL...as a public school student, we all wanted to go hang out with the catholic school girls!

Mmmmmmm.....good memories.

Dave

 

[messickfarmequ]

The cost issue is a huge deal right now in PA because they are trying to restructure of taxes because the cost of education has gotten so out of control that our property taxes which fund it are just insane! My little ranch house on 1/4 acre has to pay $1700/year in school property taxes. Our IDIOT governer is going to offset the cost by turning PA into the next Navada and pump gambeling money into the system. There are too many things wrong with that to even start.

Our local high school spends almost $9000/per student per year. WHY?!?! You can go to the local menonite school which has nicer facilities and a better quality of education for $5500/year. Why don't we just close the doors on the crappy public system and send all the kids to the local private schools who know how to get the job done.

 

[Melensdad]

Girls are certainly an issue. . . but not what I was curious about.

Do you think that because parents pay extra and sacrifice more to put their kids in Catholic schools that perhaps parents may play a more active role in their child's education? Sort of the concept if I am going to spend the $$$$ I am going to make sure I (my kids) get my $$$$ worth out of this investment? So maybe they review the daily homework a bit more, or perhaps they work closer with the teachers/school? Obviously I'm talking generalities here, but it seems to make sense since the Catholic schools are funded to a much lower $ level per pupil than the public schools, and the Catholic schools have far fewer resources to offer the children, yet they still turn out higher academic scores.

I'm beginning to think the parents are as much a part of the formula as anything else.

 

[DaveNay]

I'm beginning to think the parents are as much a part of the formula as anything else.

Absolutely. The simple fact that this question has come up in your own mind is proof of that fact.

There is also a perceived issue that public school parents don't feel the direct payment of the fees due to those costs being lumped into their taxes, and most of those taxes in turn being held in escrow from the monthly mortgage payments. Due to you paying twice for your daughter to go to school (I don't believe IN has a school voucher program) through your taxes as well as your tuition payments, you have taken a much more proactive position. And more than likely, all the other parents have also.

Dave

 

[Dargo]

Bob, I think you can take a bit of a bow for your child's performance. I think the parent can control quite a bit of how well a student performs. I feel very fortunate that my wife takes quite a bit of time to work with my kids on their school work. I can't take much credit for their performace because I've been the one keeping the lights on and allowing my wife to work with them.

I know those who don't have kids in school in IN won't know what the ISTEP test is, but I am darn proud of my kid's scores on that standardized test. All of my kids have scored in the 90+ percentage in each category, and my oldest daughter has scored a 99th percentile in each category three times! Her principal long ago informed us that even if she got every question right, the 99th percentile is as high as the state will score. Heck, my oldest son is the only one of my 5 kids who has ever gotten a "B". And, it's pretty hard for me to be upset with his 3.9 GPA as a junior in high school.

Anyway (enough of the gloating parent), all of my kids have gone to public schools. However, we did intentionally buy property and build in a particular school district. So, I suppose you could say, we picked the schools by design. These schools are not afraid to send a child home for acting up, they are not afraid of holding a child back if they do not pass, and they are not afraid to call a parent at the slightest hint of trouble. Many of the schools in the area where I live feel that they are under pressure to not fail any student. Even worse, the parents blame the school for the student's failure rather than the student. I'm quite aware that there are some poor teachers, but I still think it falls on each person to be responsible for their own performance. I've always been sort of a "no excuses" type of guy.

Two of our high schools have been under attack by the ACLU and NAACP for not passing some students. Rather than fight it, they simply passed the students who cannot read or write. Also, both of those groups have filed complaints with the state of IN because they claim that the ISTEP test is racist. What!? I really don't get that part! The same groups will blame the school later on for passing a student who cannot read or write.

The Catholic schools in my area have consistantly been at the top of not only academics, but also athletics. The Catholic high school about 1 1/2 miles from my house has won the state wrestling title 9 of the last 10 years. That's a pretty darn incredible feat even without considering that this particular high school is very small as compared to most high schools. I just think there is something to be said about the school being strict and the parents actually being strict with their children. Afterall, it's the parent's job to raise their children, not the state's responsibility.

Hey Bob, how do you think most high school students would like Senior Comps?! Gees, I still remember those quite well. In the "lottery" draw of names for the order in which you would go, I got #1. Yeehaa! Heck, in retrospect, it was great. I was the very first person in my class to know that I was going to graduate! I suppose you got "distinguished"?! I was thrilled with a "high pass". I think most of our high school students would lay an egg if they had to take senior comps to be able to pass high school. The standards for "pass" on our ISTEP tests continue to drop.

 

[Melensdad]

I didn't get HIGH PASS or DISTINGUISHED. I had just published an issue of Barrackman's Revenge and got called into Norman Moore's office for some of the copy. I would not reveal the writer of the article in question, but I am pretty darn sure that the author cost me!!! I had several people tell me privately that I should have not just gotten a "pass" but what is said in private and what happens are two different things. Heck, I was just happy not to get kicked out of college after 3.5 years for that little stunt.

 

[Dargo]

You know, I just got to thinking (always trouble), and I now recall that 7 guys in my fraternity did not pass senior comps! I think 2 made it on the re-take, but I think 5 had to transfer to IU to graduate. I'm fairly certain of that, but not positive. I recall one guy in particular whose father is a prominent physician in one of our small IN towns. This guy was absolutely crushed and I remember his dad trying to pull everything he could think of to get his sheep skin, but I don't think it happened. That particular guy did this pretty well straight for at least 3 years. He was a great help to me being the social chairman, but I don't think it helped his college career any.

Oh, I'd almost forgotten all about Dean Moore. Didn't he always wear the tweed jackets with the elbow patches and smoke a pipe? I got to see him once about a Pan Hell incident. I suppose it's no small wonder that that little festival is no longer in existance. By the way, didn't he pass away a few years go?

 

[Junkman]

I have a friend that was a teacher in PA. She retired at 90% of her last 3 years salary average. That isn't too hard to take as a retiree, but for the state to be paying that amount of money to someone that is no longer productive is very difficult burden on the taxpayers.

 

[DaveNay]

I have a friend that was a teacher in PA. She retired at 90% of her last 3 years salary average. That isn't too hard to take as a retiree, but for the state to be paying that amount of money to someone that is no longer productive is very difficult burden on the taxpayers.

Hmmm....refer to Bobs other thread about american auto makers. Quick! What do GM and public schools have in common? Unfunded pensions!

Dave