The Miseducation of Public Schools?

The Missourian ran a sidebar today about what Columbia schools are doing to help hurricane relief efforts. The last piece was about Columbia Independent, where sixth grader Tessa Vellek organized a bike ride as a fundraiser. "Good night!" I thought. "What kind of a child does this?!" It seemed a little odd for a girl in sixth grade. Unless, that is, she's enrolled in a competitive private school and participating in the Nestle Very Best in Youth program, which recognizes 30 youths across the country for making reading a priority and being involved in their communities. I was very intrigued by all of this. I always wondered what a private school was like, so I decided to go to the website and find out something about their school. The first thing I found out was that it's a "college preparatory" school. In the Marketing Research link on their site, they cite benefits of attending a private school. Apparently students in private schools are more likely to take AP classes, take pre-calc and above, and to participate in extracurricular arts, academics and community activities, among other things. This may be true, but think about this: How many of these students, if placed in a public school, would do all of these things anyway? The school seems to be very selective in admitting students, going so far as to make the potential student take an entrance exam. If the student is bright, enjoys learning and is presented with the opportunity to take AP classes, etc, of course she'll do it. Since private schools are tuition-based, parents who have faith in their children's intelligence and diligence are far more likely to send their kids there. These kind of children are the kind that will strive no matter where they are, and meet all of those standards anyway. I am not too bright, but learning interests me, so I worked as hard as I could during high school. In a small public high school, I did all of the things Columbia Independent says public school students are less likely to do (except take AP classes; my high school didn't offer them) because I wanted to. No doubt other students would have done the same thing in my place. I could rant and ramble about this topic for a lot longer, but this post is long enough already.