Based on our discussion Monday concerning private vs. public schools, I LOVED this article. What I love about this article is that it represents both sides of the public vs. private school debate that I heard in the classroom on Monday. In the article, two mom’s are interviewed, one who is sending her kids to private, and the other public. Lyz Lenz of Rapid Iowa has been getting a lot of flack for sending her kids to private school until they read Highschool age.

Lenz says, “So a lot of the conversations I’ve heard are, ‘Oh, do you not think the schools are good enough?’ or ‘Are you afraid of the experiences your kids are going to have?’ ” — comments that she says feels like “coded language” accusing her of racism

Yet speak to mom Julie Deneen of Clinton, Connecticut, who has a entirely different experience of getting judged for sending her kids to public school.  “It feels like they’re insinuating that I am somehow doing less for my child by keeping them in public school,” said DeNeen. 

The argument of the “experience” and the “independence” one gains from public school were ones I heard in class on Monday. Additionally, it was discussed how Private schools are as a whole more judgmental towards children, stifling free expression. On the other side, I also heard kids argue that Private schools offer a better education and train kids better for the future.

Honestly, I don’t see that one experience is better then the other, and I don’t see why one has to be. I feel like this whole mentality of “private is better then public” or “public is better then private” just harkens back to the problem society has with holding up an “ideal”. One way has to be better then another way of doing something. Yet, the reason why we can say one is better then the other, is because we have an ideal in our mind by which we are judging things. I personally am a bit confused by those arguing that one is “better” then the other. One experience is what it is, and has what it has to offer, while another experience is what it is and has what it has to offer. Both are different and offer different things.