Thesis
Public schools are usually preferred to private schools due to the many advantages it has. College education is important due to the fact that a degree holder stands a better chance in getting good employment and therefore a brighter future. This paper compares public and private education systems and argues out the importance of graduating from college.
Introduction
Public education is the complex legal structure that involves communities in the building and running of schools. It is also the place where the freedom of parents to educate their children as they would see best fit is strictly condemned (Blumenfeld 22). The government has formulated several rules and regulations which ensure that parents take their children to either public or private schools which meet their standards.
Private schools are those that offer home instruction by the parents or other educationists. Although the private schools practice some form of freedom in the education system, they practice this within a certain limit which has been established by law.
This is in the best interest of the students since it ensures that they receive quality education from private institutions. The way education is established depends largely on the laws that have been set concerning it.
Education is not only a building or the team of professionals but is a process where the youth are modeled into adults (Blumenfeld 22). Today many young adults who have gone through education have emerged as being poor in almost all fields of education including arithmetic and vocabularies; they fall under the influence of peer pressure and get involved in drugs and sexual perversions at school.
Their morals, character and behavior are influenced by the strong dose of medicine administered to them by psychologists. Such graduates therefore find it difficult in to make it in their adult life due to the limited knowledge and skills which they posses.
There have been confusions when it comes to deciding on which methods to employ to ensure that children’s chances of learning are increased. Many reformers support the idea of children going to private or schools based on religion rather than public schools.
Many researchers have shown that quality of education varies with the type or category of the school. Public schools are believed to be inferior as compared to private or religious ones. Though at some instances private schools showed dominance in raw scores, that advantage was shuttered when research was done to take into account aspects of race and gender (Blixen 20).
The National Education Association tried to support the arguments that public schools were doing okay but the math and reading scores showed otherwise (Blixen 20). This arguments become baseless and the only thing that becomes important to note is that regardless of the kind of school the students went, there was a particular group that showed their prowess and another that failed miserably!
Public vs. private education
There are many differences between private and public schools. One of the differences is that public schools need to be functional for at least 180 days so as to satisfy the compulsory attendance laws provided by the state.
Public schools also differ from the private schools in that they are for free and the state does not condone the taking of tuition fees or other forms of fees from the residents. Most private schools, however, require some amount of fee to be paid by the residents to acquire the materials and other supplies within the institution.
Teachers who provide public education are required to be holders of college degrees and possess a license from the state while this is not necessary for private school teachers. Public schools are required to accept all resident students who apply for admission and should not be discriminated either on race, sex or religion.
Private schools however are selective in choosing their students. In public education, the state constitution guarantees free education may not be disciplined in such a way as to remove that right without the consent of the law. Private schools, on the other hand, are not subjected to these requirements and may eliminate anyone who fails to comply with rules.
Students from public schools are required to meet the graduation requirements provided by the state while the graduation requirements for private education are determined by each school. In public schools, each course offered had a certain standard that must be met before the student receives credit. In private schools, however, curriculums vary with the particular school and are established by their own standards.
Why college education is necessary
There are various factors that have been suggested as being the hindrance to success of students in the institutions beyond the secondary level. Among the factors is the satisfaction with the college experience and achievement motivation. These factors have been said to be the cause in the reduction in numbers of the students and their performance.
It has also been noted that the students that were persistent had more motivation than those that were not and were generally associated with college life and activities. The reduction in numbers of the students that complete their degrees has been a topic of concern and has got the attention of the researchers, some of whom have found out that 40 percent and 50 percent of higher education students did not complete their degrees (Donohue and Wong 188).
In trying to explain the cases of the reduction of well performing students and the subsequent reduction of numbers of students that complete their degrees, the two factors-motivation and satisfaction with college-had to be put into perspective as they relate to the so called nontraditional students.
The non-traditional students basically constituted the students that were of age twenty five and greater. According to some research, the numbers of these nontraditional students were ever on the increasing and had almost equaled that of the traditional students. Due to the fact that these students have had different life experiences, their motivation and reason for education also differs in the same manner, as a result, their life experiences play a critical role in their college life.
Their learning experiences dictate the kind of environment they create so as to meet their educational aspirations (BCPS 4). The attitudes and perceptions which these students have about college education (either positive or negative) play a critical role in motivating them to complete their education (Donohue and Wong 188). Students’ satisfaction is known to be a necessity for their continued motivation and therefore predicts success rates in academics.
Some time back, college was not guaranteed as the next step after high school and therefore those that graduate from college now may be the first in their families to have graduated (Berentson 2). It is now emerging that college is necessary for the high school graduates. By the year 2007, there had been an increase of the number of students that graduated from high school and attended college.
This was at least a 20 percent increase from the year 1973 (Berentson 3). There have emerged education talks all around to advocate for higher education. These talks try to instill knowledge of the fact that in order to secure a successful future, one needed to be a college graduate.
The only problem with the increasing awareness for the need for higher education and the subsequent increase in the number of college candidates, is that it created a society that consisted of well educated people who did not deserve the degrading blue-collar jobs that they were offered.
There also were concerns that some students actually studied for courses that were useless for the society and simply could not be applied. In the fields of science and mathematics, it is essential to have a degree but in the other majors, there is hardly any need for a degree. Majors that include liberal arts such as languages, philosophy and history usually don’t come with the skill to handle real-life situations.
Some may however argue that the liberal arts provide for and upholds skills in creativity and mechanisms of solving problems. The languages also promotes ones ability to express ones self and improves the writing and reading ability. This, in the long run increases the chances of the individual to be hired.
It is difficult to determine whether the college graduate with the papers that prove that he actually graduated or that person that has hands-on-experience and skills but lacks a graduate degree, is likely to be hired. The only reason the graduate may pass the interview is due to the assumption that he might be of help to the company and yet it is sad to know that there are actually incompetent graduates out there.
This fact leads to the question that is it really worth it to have college education. Many other options are available and do not necessarily require one to have a four year term in college that is expensive. Such options as joining the military or starting a business do equally successfully without education. It is also possible to start low in a company and with experience, soar to greater heights.
It is arguable that with a college degree one could make more money since there is an added advantage and comes in the forms of intelligence and integrity, just to mention a few. It is however important to note that a society is not only made of managers and CEOs.
A society must contain even the simplest of persons such as the toilet cleaners, construction workers, electricians, mechanics and the likes. Otherwise what would happen if the above mentioned persons did not exist in a society? It would be chaotic and cumbersome.
Success may be defined by the happiness that comes about after a certain job and not necessarily the amount of money derived. Most people, however, choose money due to the fact that it is measurable unlike happiness which is not.
Whoever has not thought of a world without liberal arts has not thought of a world that is without history and without philosophy. No arts mean no novels to read and basically a boring world.
It has been concluded that the parents’ choice of the number of children she should bare is dependent to the kind of education she will offer her children. The number of children that the parents have will dictate the amount of resources that they would employ in their education (Croix and Doepke 1).
Educated women who have higher income prefer to invest on quality education of a small number of children as opposed to the less educated women with less capital and would rather have many children but invest little on each of them.
With public schooling, there is no difference in the number of children that parents could have. If the difference in capital of the two groups of women is high, this translates to higher levels of education in the public sector than in the private. Public education removes the difference that exists between the skilled and the unskilled people (Croix and Doepke 1).
In the public education sector, it is not the parents that dictate the level of education of their children but it is the government that imposes tax to all adults and uses it to finance the common education level of the children. Parents are therefore not allowed to supplement the public education with private education.
Under the public regime basically all children receive the same education since it is independent of the economic status of the parents or the number of children in a household (Clark 570).
Conclusion
It can also be concluded that public schooling can have an implication on the number of children parents can have and their choice of education. In this sense, parents tend to increase the number of children they get once education is provided for with no pay.
On the other hand, parents with less than average income dwell more on the child’s quantity and quality and therefore tend to get many children who each receives little education. Those students that manage to graduate from college stand a greater chance of getting decent jobs and securing a better future.
Works Cited
BCPS. Public vs. Private Education. 2010. Web.
Berentson, Sarah. OPINION: Is higher education worthwhile? 2010. Web.
Blixen, Careen. Public vs. Private Schools. New York Times. 2006: 20A. Print.
Blumenfeld, Samuel. Is public education necessary? Arizona: Old Greenwich, 1985.
Clark, Burton. The “Cooling-Out” Function in Higher Education. American Journal of Sociology. 1960, 65(6), 569-576.
Croix, David and Doepke, Matthias. Public versus Private Education when Differential Fertility Matters. New York: Sage, 2003.
Donohue, Tambra and Wong, Eugene. Achievement Motivation and College Satisfaction in Traditional and Nontraditional Students. Journal Article Excerpt. 1977, p.188-200.