At pickup, Rachel leaned against the chain-link fence and said, “We’re moving Ellie to Trinity next year.” She didn’t wait for me to ask why. “Smaller classes. More discipline. She’s not learning anything here.”
I nodded. We’d had this conversation before, under the same oak tree, on the same cracked blacktop. Rachel’s daughter was smart, bored, and easily distracted. Our third-grade classrooms had twenty-eight kids and one teacher doing the work of three adults. I understood why she wanted out.
Most parents have been in that place. The public school feels too big, too loud, too caught up in what it can’t do. A private school looks like a lifeboat. And if you lean conservative, the next step feels obvious: why not make all schools private? Let parents choose with their money, let good schools grow and bad schools close, and competition will fix everything.
I used to think that sounded reasonable. Then I spent two years on our school’s site council, volunteered in classrooms, and watched my own child struggle and get help. Now I think the question “would 100% private education be the answer?” misses something important.
The first time I sat in on an IEP meeting, I realized how much of education is about obligations, not just options. Marcus, a kid in my daughter’s class, has an IEP for speech and attention. Under federal law, our public school has to evaluate him, write a plan, and provide those services. If his parents choose a private school, none of that necessarily follows. A private school can accept him, but it doesn’t have to keep him. It doesn’t have a legal duty to adjust his day or pay for a speech therapist. That’s not a good thing or a bad thing—it’s just a reality. But it means “every school is private” would leave a big hole for the kids who need the most help.
I brought this up at a cookout once, and a guy said, “Well, parents can choose a good private school that does special ed.” Maybe. But not every town has one. Our county has two private schools: one church-run with about forty kids, and one “classical” school with twenty. Neither has a full-time learning specialist. If vouchers closed our public schools, Marcus’s mom would face a thirty-minute drive, a waiting list, or no real choice at all.
Choice sounds like it works when you’re standing in a city with ten options. Out here, it’s different.
The other thing I’ve noticed is how private schools can shape their numbers. A school can look impressive when it doesn’t have to accept everyone. It can keep class sizes small by simply not taking the kids who might slow things down. If a child has a behavior crisis, a private school can ask the family to leave. A public school can’t do that. It takes whoever lives in the building next door.
That doesn’t make private schools evil. Many are wonderful. It makes them different. And when people talk about 100% private education, they often forget that difference.
I also think about money. A private school in our area costs around $9,000 a year. That’s more than our county’s entire per-student public school spending. So a universal voucher system would have to be huge. And private schools would still need to cover buildings, maintenance, insurance, teacher salaries, and special programs somehow. Tuition goes up. Fundraisers multiply. The parents who can’t volunteer, drive, or write a check become less attractive to admit.
When I tutored after school, I saw the quiet ways public schools make room. We had a boy named Mason who came to class hungry. The nurse kept granola bars in her closet for him. The principal called a foundation when his family lost their heat. No private school marketing team would ever promise that, but it happened because public schools are legally and morally stuck with the whole neighborhood. That stuckness is sometimes messy. It’s also why they matter.
Now, our public school is far from perfect. The playground is rusted in places. The reading curriculum changed three times in four years. Parent communication is inconsistent. Some teachers are burned out. I’ve cried in the parking lot after a school board meeting because everything felt so broken.
But I’ve also watched a kindergarten teacher learn every single child’s name by the third week. I’ve seen a fifth-grade teacher spend her own money on headphones for a kid who couldn’t focus. I’ve seen the school secretary calm down a panicked parent with the same voice she uses for a scraped knee. That doesn’t show up on a spreadsheet.
If you’re a parent considering private school, I get it. I almost made the same call myself. When my son was in second grade, he was reading far below grade level. The public school had him in a reading group, but progress was slow. I toured a private school with fourteen kids per class and a calm, quiet library. It was tempting. Then I noticed something: the private school had no reading specialist. They said they could “support” him, but the teacher I’d be relying on had never run a structured literacy program. The public school, for all its chaos, had a specialist who tested him and worked with him four days a week.
That’s a practical thing to ask any school—public or private: What exactly will you do when my child falls behind? Who is trained to help? How do you measure progress? What happens if the approach doesn’t work?
I think those questions matter more than the debate about who runs the school. A great charter school, a great private school, and a great public school all have some things in common: strong leadership, manageable class sizes, supports for kids who need extra help, and parents who are treated as partners. A failing school, whoever runs it, has the opposite.
So I can’t say 100% private education is the answer. The evidence is too mixed, and the logistics don’t add up for rural families, special-needs kids, or communities with little wealth. But I also don’t think “public school” and “school choice” have to be enemies. It’s possible to support charter schools, open enrollment, and vouchers in limited ways while still keeping a strong public system as the backstop.
What I want for my own kids is simpler: a school that has enough resources, teachers who know them, and a plan for when things go wrong. I don’t care much whether the sign out front says Public, Private, or Charter. I care whether the doors stay open and the lights stay on.
Rachel texted me last month. Ellie loves Trinity, she said. The class size is great, and she’s finally reading for fun. But Trinity doesn’t have a bus, so Rachel drives twenty minutes each way. There’s no school counselor, and the art teacher is a parent volunteer.
I typed back: I’m glad it’s working.
I didn’t say what I was thinking: that decision should be available to every parent, not just the ones who can make everything else fit. And that the answer probably isn’t all public or all private. It’s a lot messier than that. It’s about paying for public schools, supporting private options, and never pretending one system will fix all the kids, all the towns, or all the problems.
Please indicate: Thinking In Educating » At pickup, Rachel leaned against the chain-link fence and said, “We’re moving Ellie to Trinity next year