Actually Exists in the Developing World yet is wanted and needed in the USA
By Keri D. lngraham
November 17, 2021 -- Low-cost
private schools exist throughout developing nations at remarkable rates. Why
not in the U.S.?
The words low-cost and private education
seem antithetical. With the cost of tuition averaging nearly $12,000 per
year, private education is financially out of reach for most families. Of
the 56.4
million U.S. K-12 students, only about ten percent (5.72 million) are
enrolled in private schools. While there is a growing number of homeschooled
students and students in other non-traditional forms of school — public charter
schools, virtual, microschools, learning pods, and hybrid options — the
overwhelming majority attend traditional public schools.
The Current Reality
On average, private school students outperform their
public school peers in test scores, graduation rates, and percentages
matriculating to college. This is despite public schools’ spending on
average $4,000
more per student each year. The same is true for students who
attend charter
schools or homeschool — better academic results and less money spent.
According to EdChoice’s 2021
Schooling in America Survey, conducted from June-July 2021, only 34% of
parents of students attending traditional public school indicate that is their
preference. Despite only ten percent currently attending private school, 40% of
all parents desire private school for their children. Furthermore, only 31% of
current public
school parents are very satisfied with their children’s public
district school, while 72% of private school parents are very satisfied. Alas,
the high tuition costs of private schools (as opposed to free public schools)
keep most families in a situation they don’t prefer.
One hopeful note is that school choice
is gaining record
new ground in 2021, with five additional states’ implementing educational
saving accounts (making the total ten states) and the expansion of private
school tuition vouchers in multiple states. However, most parents still don’t
have access to private schools. Many school choice funding allowances only
cover a portion of private school tuition, and many are limited to special
needs students or the lowest income brackets. In many cases, the total number
of students eligible for these state funding allowances is capped to a small
number. Today, less than
one-half of one percent of students have access to a private school voucher. Even
when we include all forms of school choice funding avenues and charter schools,
fewer than one in fifteen students in America have access to these options.
A Question Worth Exploring
What if low-cost private education
existed in the U.S.? Given the dissatisfaction with traditional public schools
and the desire for private education alternatives mentioned above, it’s a
crucial question.
James Tooley, in his recently released
book, Really
Good Schools: Global Lessons for High-Caliber, Low-Cost Education,
shares his remarkable journey of discovering, studying, and starting low-cost
private schools serving poor and low-income families in developing nations. A
product of grassroots movement rather than central organization or control,
these low-cost private schools in countries marked by extreme poverty for a
high percentage of their population are a part of a global movement — largely
unheard of by those in the developed world.
Particularly surprising is that parents
living in poverty are opting to send their children to tuition-charging private
schools when free, government-provided schools are available. The reason is
perhaps not so surprising: parents desire quality education and care for their
children, even if it causes financial hardship. Overwhelmingly, parents in
these schools communicated that a nurturing classroom atmosphere and freedom
from a “hidden curriculum” lead to their sacrificial decision to enroll their
children in private school. And these are not just a few outlier families —
low-cost private schools educate a significant number of students. For example,
in Kampala, Uganda, 84% of primary-school children are enrolled in private
education.
Similar to the experience in the U.S.,
Tooley’s research found
that “children in low-cost private schools outperform those in government
schools, after controlling for all relevant background variables. And the
schools do it for a fraction of the per-pupil cost.” Likewise, parental
satisfaction with private schools in developing nations is significantly higher
than in government-run public schools.
Tooley makes a key observation from his
in-depth work studying developing nations: “Even though public-school teachers
‘are extremely well-paid,’ they are ‘permanent government employees with no
accountability for the work they (fail to) do.” On the other hand, private
school teachers must ensure student learning standards are high and must equip
students with the academic knowledge and skills they need to succeed.
Otherwise, parents won’t pay tuition and will instead take their students to
another school.
Making private education possible for
low-income families has required innovative approaches. For example, in many
countries, workers are often paid daily for labor jobs or by selling goods at
the market rather than by a monthly or weekly paycheck. Therefore, many schools
offer enrolled students a daily “pay as you learn” rate rather than having to
pay a hefty tuition payment covering a longer period of time, such as a monthly
or quarterly.
Applicability for America
What can we learn from these developing
world private schools? Can their experience be replicated in the U.S.? While
the economic landscapes differ, the undergirding principles are universal —
private education provides competition to government public schools and
promotes accountability. Both of these ingredients are foundational to
providing quality education. Private schools are accountable to parents for
providing quality academic results, or they will cease to exist. The education
monopoly in American K-12 public education, on the other hand, results in the
perpetuation of a dismal status quo, which fails to effectively educate over
70% of its students.
America would be wise to learn from
developing nations and aggressively increase private education — making it
available to low-income families and those in poverty, not just to the
upper-middle class, wealthy, and elite. It starts with putting more education
dollars where they belong — in the hands of parents, who can best decide where
their kids should be educated. The resulting boom in educational
entrepreneurship would put the U.S. as a leader in K-12 education.
Keri D. Ingraham is a Fellow at
Discovery Institute and Director of the Institute’s American Center for
Transforming Education. This article is part one of a three-part series.
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