In Defense of Public Schools

Our daughter recently celebrated her third birthday and many of our friends with similar aged children have begun discussing the educational choices faced by suburban parents in earnest. As a product of public school education, I must admit that I never gave a second thought to any alternatives. Our daughter would be attending public school. It’s why we live in the midwest, in a city that is known for its high caliber public school system (not to mention high property taxes that support the public schools). However, as the debate has become more heated, here are the alternatives that have been mentioned by friends:

Private School – most common are Catholic or Lutheran schools, primarily for religious reasons for the former, and because neighboring school systems are not as competitive for the latter

Homeschooling – a movement that has gained more momentum, partly due to the anti-vaccine movement, and partly due to a desire for more religious themes in education without the cost of private schools

Unschooling – a trending methodology where children are given most of the freedom to choose what they learn, how they learn, and when they learn

Here are my thoughts on each of those educational models above. Keep in mind, we have the distinct advantage of living in a solidly middle-class suburb that has easy access to award winning schools (greatschools.org ranks the in town high schools with 9’s and 10’s out of 10). Geography would otherwise influence the opinions I expressed below.

Private School

I refer you back to the above comments about the excellent public schools. The median home price in our town is 50% above the national average and real estate taxes are fairly hefty, especially when multiplied against the median home price. Every year of private school just depresses the amount towards higher education in the future. Therefore, we feel that one of the draws of living in this town is the well-funded, and high performing school system.

However, we always wanted a secular education for our children. If we were motivated by more religious beliefs, I can understand why parents would seek out private schools for their children. After all, we believe firmly in the separation of church and state, and thus the lack of religious education in our public schools is a major motivational element for many parents to seek out parochial schools.

Unschooling

There are many things that children learn in school besides the actual coursework. Learning is a process, one that has been studied and debated and revised over the years. There is a difference between following  your passion, and becoming a well-educated individual. We all have our hobbies, we all have different interests, and those who went to college had to choose a major. This is not to say that we all turned out to be exactly the same. We can still train under a formal education system, and emerge with unique strengths, skills, and interests.

My worry about an unschooling system becoming the majority influence is that (1) it behooves us as a nation to have well-rounded, well-educated children and (2) to master many subjects requires a more formal approach.

The renaissance man (or woman) was once thought of as someone who knew a little about almost everything, and almost everything about one thing. As a nation that needs to become more involved in the big debates of the day (debt crisis, cost of medical care, educational gaps, dependence on fossil fuels, global trade inequalities, shrinking economy), a well-rounded education produces better informed voters. And one must hope that a more informed voter will potentially raise the level of debate, and possibly aid in the solution to some of these important issues. This country faces many serious problems, a little bit of serious education in the voters of tomorrow is not unwarranted.

Many subjects, like science or mathematics or foreign languages, require rigorous methods and continued practice to master. As an example, we already fall behind in math compared to other industrialized nations. Math is not particularly fun for most people; but like learning a language or a musical instrument, mathematics requires industrious and consistent training. Mathematics builds upon itself; it would be difficult to understand calculus or even geometry without first conquering multiplication and division. Studies have shown that in lower performing schools, children often fall behind over summer break and require catching up in the fall-semester. This argument has lead to experiments with year-round school. Although I prefer having a summer break, this argument does speak to the necessity of training and practice in maintaining new skills.

Homeschooling

I can certainly appreciate the draw of this type of system for parents who want a more hands-on approach to how and what their children are taught. Certainly this is an effective way to ensure that your personal beliefs, religious or otherwise, are strongly incorporated into the curriculum. However, my primary argument against homeschooling is this: we are primarily generalists in most topics and specialists in one (or a small handful).

Even after eight years of graduate school, after four years of college, I would not presume to profess an expertise in everything. My understanding of history or sociology or creative writing or industrial arts remains solidly in the domain of my high school training. And there were classes that I struggled with in school, such as geography or physics or multivariate calculus. Despite our failing schools, I am still grateful that we have teachers who specialize in their fields and who can pass that knowledge on to our children. And teaching is hard. Let me stress that again, teaching is hard.

Much like photography or cooking, individuals can convince themselves that they are just as competent as the experts, without any real credentials to back this up. Just because you pick up a book with your child, does not make you a successful teacher. The methods of teaching, the science of learning, is an important training for teachers for a reason. These skills do not just come naturally to most individuals. This is not to say that I believe parents should take a passive role in their children’s education; just the opposite.

I believe the gaps that have been highlighted by our educational crisis as a country, convey an even greater need by parents to fill those gaps. Whatever bonding you did with your infants during tummy time, or feeding her, or reading him a bed time story, the school-age equivalent is ensuring that your child gains the most potential out of his or her education. Whether that is participating in the PTA and being actively engaged in what assignments are due in class, or offering tutoring help when needed, the person most responsible for the educational system is the parent.

Public Schools

I just wanted to say one last thing about the public school system. The vast majority of my friends, my siblings, my husband, and I are all products of the public school system. We have all gone on to college and professional jobs, for the most part. And we are emotionally stable adults with long-term, strong relationships, both in our immediate families and with our friends. The fear among communities that public school systems are somehow deleterious and dangerous is just that: fear. I’m sure there was alcohol and drugs in school, and definitely bullying. Maybe there were weapons smuggled in that I am not aware of now as an adult or then as a student. But again, the over-riding element in our school was not fear or danger. Sure, there was plenty of stress, but mostly it was an academic institution where you get out of it what you put into it. School is hard, in any setting, but it makes you stronger and more capable of handling life after school, which is so much more complicated than courses and social circles and extracurricular activities. And for those of my acquaintance, the public school system trained us more than adequately for what college, and life beyond, had to ask of us.

With all of that said, I am humbled by the depth of interest that many parents take in the education of their children. The very fact that these heated debates occur shows the passion that parents feel regarding their educational choice. Whichever choice that parents select, the very fact that they are concerned and advocate their choice, shows the kind of investment and interest that will ensure that they will be actively engaged in their child’s education. And as Martha would say, this is a good thing.

Happiest Place on Earth

A friend of mine asked for some thoughts on going to Disney World with her 3 and 6 year old daughters (their first time visiting the park). I thought I would post it here in case anyone else was interested in our thoughts (and my response because a bit too wordy for email!). Here goes:

We had a wonderful time at Disney over the holidays (Bob AND Charlotte's first time) and I did a ton of research before booking our trip.

We booked through Disney and applied for the Disney credit card. Disney online travel site had a wonderful promotion going on at the time and we received our 7-day meal plan for free for two adults (Charlotte was free/ineligible since she's under 3, but that's fine since she eats off my plate anyway!). If you pay for it with your Disney credit card, you also get 6 months of 0 APR, which wasn't a huge deal for us, but it's still nice (I guess 6 months of the full amount in our savings account would earn us something like $28 if that ;).

We stayed on the resort (Animal Kingdom Lodge) and I would strongly recommend staying on the resort. You have to pay for parking every day if you stay off-resort ($14/day - possibly each time if you leave the resort) and the resort is HUGE so you would end up having to drive 30 minutes from your hotel to each park. The on-resort hotels have shuttle buses that run all the time, plus (big perk), they allow guests staying in the resorts to have extra hours at each park. The extra morning hours are really nice because you can beat the crowds getting in the park and bypass some of the longer lines (we rode "it's a small world" twice back-to-back with no lines).

I would highly recommend Animal Kingdom Lodge if your girls are into animals. It's a really beautiful hotel overall, but being able to see giraffes and zebras and other animals outside your balcony? Priceless. But if you're going to spend most of your time at Magic Kingdom (which you might do since they're 3 and 6, although you might also really like Hollywood Studios), you can also stay at the Contemporary (?) that has a monorail that runs straight to Magic Kingdom. If you go for the deluxe level hotels, get the concierge club. We did at Animal Kingdom and it was totally worth it. They have snacks (and coffee!!) and drinks all day from 6:30am - 10pm and it was a lifesaver between meals if she wanted milk to drink or we needed coffee. It's also a separate lounge with comfy seats and tvs and tables and a nice place to chill before dinner, and we weren't stuck in our rooms when we weren't at the parks.

I don't think the park hopper or the no expiration dates were worth it. We had no problem just doing one park per day (but we did get the 7-day pass, so we had ample time to do every park twice except one). But since your girls are older, you might want the park hopper. I just didn't think it was worth it - there's plenty to see to spend one whole day (at least) at each park.

We didn't do the water parks (thank goodness!) because it was December and she's still in diapers. Turns out, it was in the 40's when we were there, so the water park would have been a real waste of time. In April though, you might really like it. I can't say one way or the other since we didn't do it. I did feel like there are plenty of water parks everywhere and I would rather spend the extra days at Disney rather than a water park.

Dining plan - this is really hard to say. On one hand, we received it for free as part of our vacation package, so it wasn't a waste of money (although we could have gotten a % off the total package and not gotten the meal plan at all and that would have saved more money I suppose). I liked that it meant less thinking and headaches with planning the trip. BUT the meal plans include an entree, a drink (non-alcoholic), and a dessert at every meal (one sit-down, one fast-food) and a snack, so three "meals" per day. I thought getting a dessert at every meal (instead of say, an appetizer or salad) got old after the first day. We're not really big dessert people, so it was just a waste. The next level up where you get three meals a day also includes an appetizer and dessert and entree, which is honestly just way, way too much food (proportion-wise, although I suppose the variety is nice and you could just taste a bit of each dish). Also, this is where the concierge club totally makes its money back - we had breakfast up there everyday and they had a wonderful spread. No protein, but oatmeal and cereal and fruit and croissants and cream cheese and pastries and an amazing coffee/espresso machine and loads of drinks. The concierge club also had: breakfast -> snacks -> afternoon tea -> wine and cheese (+hot hors devours) -> dessert and night caps (alcoholic). So next time, we will not get the dining plan but we will definitely get the concierge club.

A word about the restaurants (and another reason why we didn't like the meal plans): almost all of them require reservations. We didn't realize this and thought only the more popular ones required reservations (like the character meals - you should book these as soon as you book the vacation, you can do it up to 120 days before and they fill up very quickly). But we tried to get lunch or dinner at some places (sit-down restaurants) and they had 2 hour waits. Luckily, the concierge club was able to make us a couple of reservations, but we still had a hard time. And when your meal plan is one sit-down and one quick-serve a day, you have to use up your 7 sit-downs (they are not interchangeable with the quick-serve). However, the meal plan does allow you to use them in whatever order you want - so you can do all your quick-serve meals first, then use your sit-downs, or whatever you want. They just expire on midnight of the day you check-out of your hotel. Again, this is another argument for NOT doing the dining plan and just having the freedom to eat wherever you want at your convenience. But if you do want to dine at the sit-down restaurants, you will want to make reservations. I thought the Coral Reef restaurant at Epcot was totally worth it. They seat you next to a huge coral reef aquarium and you get to watch incredible fish and turtles and sharks while you eat (the food was fantastic as well).

Also, if you stay at the resorts, you get complimentary shuttle service roundtrip to/from the airport AND baggage service. So, check your baggage in at your home airport and it will make its way to your hotel room. Voila! And on the way back? They will check you into your flight at the hotel and check your baggage for you - just step into the shuttle with your carry-on luggage and you're done. SO worth it (at least for us with a toddler in tow). Charlotte was still napping also (she's 2 1/2), so the complimentary shuttles and being closer to our hotel was also really important to getting her home in time for naps.

Pack for warm weather, but also toss in a few things for extreme weather. We ended up spending almost $200 on three sweatshirts/jackets because the temps plummeted and I had packed for warm weather (which at the time of packing, it was predicted to be high 60's, low 70's). At least throw in a few layering pieces and a nice warm coat.

I don't know if you are still using a stroller or not, but the rentals are expensive ($15/day) and even if the girls do not need a stroller, it's kind of nice to have one to throw your things in for the day (bottles of water, camera, jackets, souvenirs you buy in the parks, etc.). I would bring a cheapie umbrella stroller that you can double as a shopping cart and that you don't mind parking in the stroller parking lots and you won't fear having it stolen. We found it to be really useful when you're walking all day long to have the stroller as an extra pair of hands (she wanted to be carried a lot and went in her stroller only occasionally).

FASTPASS – you can get tickets to really popular rides with long wait times and then come back at a later time (printed on the tickets) for the ride and have a 5-minute wait (definitely worth it if the current wait time is 2 hours). But here’s the caveat (that wasn’t made clear to me), you can only get one FASTPASS per person every two hours. So plan your trip wisely. Figure out a priority list of “must see” rides and then get a FASTPASS for the ones highest on your list with the longest wait times. A lot of rides have very little to no wait time, so you won’t need FASTPASS for those (and I’m not sure they are offered for them actually). Also, we’re on Verizon for our cellphones and they have an app that tells you what the wait times are currently for each ride at each park. This was SO helpful. I think there are apps for iPhones and Android phones too. I would definitely get it and play around with it a bit before you go.

Disney lets you make custom maps for free and they’re really nice keepsakes for after the trip. If you go on their website, you can pre-program which attractions/events you really want to do and they will mark them on these really detailed, pretty maps for you and send them to you before your trip. They’re free, so you might as well! (plus, they are much prettier than the generic park maps):

https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/wdw/myVacation/customizedMaps/index?id=CustomizedMapsFlashPage

Okay, that’s it. I know that’s a lot of information. Feel free to email me if you have any other specific questions! And have a really wonderful time – I’m sure you will :)