As you end the senior year for your younger daughter, it is difficult not to reflect on the years that both of your girls have spend in school. From the first day when you dropped your older daughter off for Montessori preschool to the second and final high school graduation that you are planning for your younger daughter, this has been a memorable ride.
Both public and private schools offer a number of different options when it comes time to plan for the education of your children. Some families supplement their children’s education with summer camps and other opportunities, while others make sure that they provide their children with plenty of free time while they are at home.
Education Takes Place in Many Places Beyond the Classroom
A recent article in The New York Times indicates that today’s latest parenting trends may be more effective than Amid a sense that many of the best opportunities have grown more elusive, raising children has not only become significantly more time consuming, it is also more expensive. A February 2019 article indicated that Helicopter Parenting may actually be working, instead of harming, this generation. Although it is indeed a kind of parenting that not affordable or achievable by parents in all economic groups, there is a growing amount of research that indicates this kind of hyper vigilant parenting can help children gain access to some of the greatest advantages.
Although you and your spouse may have, for instance, attended public schools yourself, the fact of the matter is there are many times when the basic public schools in many communities are not offering the best opportunities. One of the reasons that so many are thinking that public schools may not be offering the right approach is that as many as 36% of private schools averaged student-teacher ratios of 10:1 or lower. This compares to 10% for public schools. Even when parents are making choices to keeping their children in a public school setting, many of them are hooking for charter school and focus school options.
From Montessori to International Baccalaureate programs, there are many ways that public school districts are offering the best programs to their locals. In many of these situations, however, there are also many families who find themselves in a situation where they cannot take advantage of the best of these programs. From transportation conflicts to scheduling, the top charter schools in the nation are sometimes out of reach to the families who might most benefit from them.
For these reasons, we need to be a nation that continues to be concerned about every child who goes to school. With the best educated youth, the families in our communities can help prepare for the future. Currently, private schools only account for 24% of the nation’s schools and enroll only 10% of all PK-12 students, so it makes sense that as a nation we all need to continue to provide the resources for the public schools in this country. Whether you are the parent of a second semester senior in high school or you are preparing to enroll your first child in preschool, education is an important part of your family’s success.
