Public schools anyone?

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Saying that I personally have never heard a reasonable, rational explanation of how sending kids to public school is the BEST way to get them to Heaven isn’t rude, it’s true. Rude is saying that you are an idiot and / or a child abuser for sending your kids to public school. If you go back and read my original post, you will see that I said just the opposite. I understand that there are circumstances where public school may be the only option but as I said before, I haven’t ever seen anyone explain how sending kids to public school is the BEST prep you can give your kids to help them get to Heaven.

Again, please provide me with a rational, reasonable explanation of why public school education is the BEST way to get your kids to Heaven. Don’t tell me you have a right to send them where you want - I already know that. If you believe that your primary job as a parent is to help your kids get to Heaven, and you think that sending them to public school is the BEST way to do that, please tell me why.
 
Before you go off half-cocked, let me provide an analogy.

Assume I buy a car that the manufacturer says runs best on the highest grade octane gas available.

After buying the car and looking at gas prices I realize that there is no way I can afford to buy premium unleaded and I will have to buy regular.

If someone came up to me and asked me why I thought regular fuel was the best thing for my car, I would not be insulted, I would not jump up and down hysterically, I would say that I can’t afford premium unleaded and that I wouldn’t try to defend regular gasoline as the best thing for my car.

In the same way, if my wife was unable to homeschool and we couldn’t (can’t) afford to send our children to Catholic school and we had to send them to public school, I wouldn’t get insulted by someone asking me why I thought public school was the best thing for my kids to get to Heaven. I would explain that right now, it was the best we could do and we educate them in the Faith at home.
 
athanasiusrc, the parents’ job is to give their children a proper foundation in the faith and guide them towards heaven. My problem is your use of the phrase “best way.” The goal is to get the job done, not necessarily to meet some good, better, best standard. And who’s setting this standard – you, apparently.

There are many strong Catholic adults who attended public school. Their parents, for whatever reason, didn’t homeschool or send them to Catholic schools, but nevertheless got the job done. So, while you may hold a rigid opinion that this may only be accomplished under the “best” (read, your) circumstances, there’s not much support for your opinion.

I agree that there are advantages to Catholic school – science is presented with a Catholic viewpoint, religion is woven into each subject, and no one gets sent home if they dress like Jesus for halloween.😃 IMO, it’s easier to raise Catholic kids if they’re immersed in the faith. However, if our Catholic schools were weak and our public schools were excellent, I think my husband and I could raise faithful Catholics on the path to heaven while our kids attended public school.
 
the discussion on public school being the 'best" way to get them into heaven spurred this thought in me, the tale of sidartha buddah as a child. His parents protected him by keeping him in the safe enviornment of the castle walls. he was never exposed to the ugly/scary/sad realities beyond. Yet it was only after he saw those things that he CHOSE to seek a better way.

A faith life is not about safety, security, or the easiest most direct path to heaven. Faith is only mature as it is deep, chosen and tested. And that can take place in many different situtations.

People who retreat to a protected lifestyle thinking that will save their kids…may not be doing them the favor they think they are.

On public schools…mine go. I’ve taught homeschoolers for 15 years, but I don’t homeschool my own. We’ve moved a lot and except for 10 months in one town, the schools have all been good. I couldn’t provide them with the opportunities they get there. I can provide them with skills to deal with the ugly realities and challenges of life.

Most of the homeschoolers I’ve worked with have no lack of socialization, variety, and exposure to people. Of course…those who are kept just in their home with just the parent as teacher, I would not get to know. But the one’s Ive worked with seem to have dizzying schedules of classes, playdated, fieldtrips, sports, music, etc that makes me tired merely hearing about it.

A friend, who homeschools, and has taught in a public school and as a paid homeschooler teacher has this to say…kids that are succesful homeschooled, would probably be succesful public schooled, because they have the kind of parents that are involved and teach them life skills and encourage them.

This makes a lot of sense.

I’ve seen great students/people among both camps. Despite the sometimes ugly arguements on the subject, there really isn’t that much difference between the kids. I work extensively with both. I’ve had homeschool moms come to me rather smugly saying wasn’t I glad to have homeschool students now, and weren’t they smarter, more polite, more inquisitive than public school kids…sorry, no.

Education can be and is done well in many different settings, and unfortunately done poorly in many settings as well.

I have seen very disturbing and sad situations among both camps, and great sucesses as well.

On Catholic school. I attended for 12 years. Again, a variety of types of kids, teachers, families and experiences.

My conclusion…people are people no matter where you put them. You’ll find winners and losers.

Each family must explore the options available to them, and make the best effort they can to bring their children up well.

I am very grateful to live in an area that has an excellant school system with many wonderful opportunities available for my kids. I am also glad there are options that have allowed me the pleasure of working with so many home schooling families over the years.

Honestly…when you compare my Catholic school education to the one my husband got in public school, his was better, hands down. But that was 25 years ago, and only our small sample size.
 
athanasiusrc said:
Saying that I personally have never heard a reasonable, rational explanation of how sending kids to public school is the BEST way to get them to Heaven isn’t rude, it’s true. Rude is saying that you are an idiot and / or a child abuser for sending your kids to public school. If you go back and read my original post, you will see that I said just the opposite. I understand that there are circumstances where public school may be the only option but as I said before, I haven’t ever seen anyone explain how sending kids to public school is the BEST prep you can give your kids to help them get to Heaven.

Again, please provide me with a rational, reasonable explanation of why public school education is the BEST way to get your kids to Heaven. Don’t tell me you have a right to send them where you want - I already know that. If you believe that your primary job as a parent is to help your kids get to Heaven, and you think that sending them to public school is the BEST way to do that, please tell me why.
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I’ll quote my own post again here…
IMO I think isolating children away from non-catholics actually limits their education in the area of evangalization.
If we do not expose our children to non-catholics… how can they learn to defend the faith? How can they learn how to teach others about Christ and His one true church? If children are never challenged by their faith, then how can you expect it flourish?
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Of course, as Catholics, we’re called too primarily educate our children in the faith at home. But what is education without a little “on the job training”?
You can be as book smart as you wish in religion, but if you can’t stand up and defend it in front of a classroom full of protestants and athiests then what good does all that knowledge do?

So, yes… I do believe exposure to public schools (for my children) is a vital part of helping them get to heaven.
🙂
 
I don’t understand the mentality that exposing your children to evil makes them stronger.

Some kids do fine in public schools. Some get eaten up.

Why would you want to take the chance that your child would be one of those that get eaten up?

In our area, two sixth graders just got caught have sex in a classroom–during school hours.

I know you are thinking, “well, that wouldn’t be my kid.”

but, would you even want your sixth grader to know that 11 and 12 year old children are having sex in their school?

The more I hear about public schools, the more I don’t want my kids even on the parking lot.

It’s hard to fathom, but society has degraded so much in the last 20 years since I graduated. I don’t think schools are safe for our kids–not their physical safety, not their innocence, not their faith, not their psychological health.

The schools of today are not the schools that most of us remember.
 
leonie said:
I don’t understand the mentality that exposing your children to evil makes them stronger.

Some kids do fine in public schools. Some get eaten up.

Why would you want to take the chance that your child would be one of those that get eaten up?

In our area, two sixth graders just got caught have sex in a classroom–during school hours.

I know you are thinking, “well, that wouldn’t be my kid.”

but, would you even want your sixth grader to know that 11 and 12 year old children are having sex in their school?

The more I hear about public schools, the more I don’t want my kids even on the parking lot.

It’s hard to fathom, but society has degraded so much in the last 20 years since I graduated. I don’t think schools are safe for our kids–not their physical safety, not their innocence, not their faith, not their psychological health.

The schools of today are not the schools that most of us remember.
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Well my only response is that I went to that public school. I know of kids that had sex in the classroom in middle school. I remember seeing and being exposed to that evil on a daily basis. I remember having theological debates during high school… etc, etc, etc…

Thanks to the grace of God I am a faithful Catholic. I love my faith and pray every day to grow stronger in it.
But I know my experience in public schools actually helped make my faith stronger.

We’re all very unique… and so are our children. So we’ll need to judge what the best way to educate our children is on an individual basis…

I’m just saying that exposure to public schools CAN actually make SOME people stronger in their faith.
 
It boils down to spiritual training. Many parents here will readily agree that regarding sports the more you practice the better you get. They go through great lengths to cart their child to and fro.
The more you practice your faith the better you get. It’s that simple. The Catholic system offers the best opportunity, the public does not.
 
I’ve been observing this thread and contemplating it. I do not have children, so I do not have a dog in this fight, so to speak.

I think the Vatican document Gravissimum Educationis is an excellent document to review.
 
I went to a Catholic grade school and was taught that by my second grade teacher that the Eucharist was just a symbol of Christ, not his real presence. I had a sixth grade teacher who was lesbian and had us do a report about the pros and cons of abortion. I had a 7th grade teacher who told us, if you are going to have sex, make sure you use protection. From talking to other people I don’t believe that these are isolated…

I went to a Jesuit high school for a year and a half, and had to leave becauase of the how liberal it was. I have a very low opinion of Catholic schools. All the high schools in town practice and preach very liberal ways of thinking…

My opinion is that it is better for kids to have no religion in their school then for them to be made to believe ideas that are opposite of what the Catholic Church actually teaches.
 
leonie said:
I don’t understand the mentality that exposing your children to evil makes them stronger.

Some kids do fine in public schools. Some get eaten up.

Why would you want to take the chance that your child would be one of those that get eaten up?

In our area, two sixth graders just got caught have sex in a classroom–during school hours.

I know you are thinking, “well, that wouldn’t be my kid.”

but, would you even want your sixth grader to know that 11 and 12 year old children are having sex in their school?

The more I hear about public schools, the more I don’t want my kids even on the parking lot.

It’s hard to fathom, but society has degraded so much in the last 20 years since I graduated. I don’t think schools are safe for our kids–not their physical safety, not their innocence, not their faith, not their psychological health.

The schools of today are not the schools that most of us remember.
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**At my Catholic high school, drugs were a huge problem because most of the kids had money. We were taught things incompatible with Church teachings…I went to Public for my junior and senior year of high school…what a difference! In my english class we’d actually talk about how Jesus (in a good way) In fact one of the required books for AP english was the bible!
**
 
maria29 said:
**At my Catholic high school, drugs were a huge problem because most of the kids had money. We were taught things incompatible with Church teachings…I went to Public for my junior and senior year of high school…what a difference! In my english class we’d actually talk about how Jesus (in a good way) In fact one of the required books for AP english was the bible!
**
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My same exact experience in AP English! 😃

Our local Catholic high school is a problem because that is where the kids go who got expelled from public schools. They usually have lots of money and lots of behavior problems. (lots of drugs too)…
Yes, they may be addressing points of faith in the classroom, but from my experience the kids that went to the Catholic high school were not necessarily as faithful as the Catholic kids in public school.

Just my experience. 🙂
 
I do know people who put their kids in public school so they won’t be exposed to heresy from a Catholic authority like a school.

But, with the moral decay in public schools, I can’t see where you gain anything.

But, I’m a homeschooler, so I guess I don’t trust either public or Catholic to do as good as job as we can do at home.

Public school can make some kids stronger, but it crushes others. Why would you take the chance?

Also, not as a primary reason, but I want my kids to be with Catholics when it comes time for them to choose a spouse. From a previous poll done on CAF, it looks to me like about half the married couples met their spouse during their high school years.

My siblings and I all went to public school and Universities and none of us married Catholics.

I want to tilt the odds however I can so my kids will marry Catholics.
 
I went to both Catholic and public schools growing up in the 70s and 80s. Looking back, it wasn’t so much the school that formed my faith, but my parents and family life. I came from a large Catholic family. We received the sacraments and went to Church weekly. My parents loved the Church. One of my brothers is a priest now.

There are some huge holes in my religious education. I tend to blame that on the fall out in the immediate post-Vatican years when I went to Catholic elementary school. Attending a Jesuit university did little for my faith as well. So in spite of it all, I came out a faithful Catholic.

So, in chosing to send our children to public school we decided that perhaps it would be better for us as parents to take a more active role in educating our children in the faith than leaving it up to the school.

In a strange way, I feel that we have more in common with homeschoolers than Catholic school parents.
 
Once again it’s all about

Location
Location
Location:)

Every poster is citing their experience (as most imply in their posts). IN OUR TOWN we have great public elementary schools, would be happy to send my kids there. The middle school scares me (and many of the teachers there; many middle school teachers send their kids to the Catholic School in town). I do believe the public school is trying to address the issues, but since I can’t be assured they will be addressed before my kids get there, I chose Catholic School. Our public high school also has many problems (recently a girls was raped in school). This doesn’t mean kids at the Catholic school won’t have problems, but I’m trying to limit the possibilities (same reason I lock the door at night). I don’t look down on anybody who make a different choice as long as they don’t look down on me.

Second reason: although I am a cradle Catholic, religion was relegated to Sunday morning Mass and dinner prayer. I am now learning SO MUCH about my faith. I wish that I could have learned all this sooner. I want to give my kids what I didn’t have:)
 
OK, we may go through all 3 options. We public schooled our oldest from preschool (so he could get speech therapy) through 4th grade, as there was no local Catholic school. We had excellent public schools, and I can’t say a bad word about any of his teachers, who were caring, thoughtful and intelligent, or the curriculum, which put him in at a college level reading this year.
BUT when we moved here, I heard nothing but negatives about the public schools from eveyone. Everyone we knew here (literally) sent their kids to private schools (Catholic or protestant) or homeschooled. That says a lot. Also, I know that my son was learning things socially that I didn’t want him to know at this young age. He told me about friends from school (4th grade mind you) kissing their girlfriends, talking about sex, etc. I was tired of it.
So, we put him in Catholic school here, even though we drive an hour every day to get him there and back. It is small, we are very involved in the school and talk to the teacher and principal often. He is not getting as much religious education as I would like, but what he is getting is orthodox. We work on religious training at home as well so he learns more.
But, this school only goes to 8th grade. 3 more years, then what? Public high school? I think not. There is a very small chance of sending him to a protestant high school, but I don’t want him taught false doctrine there. So we’ll probably homeschool. That’s the plan now.
So having been through all 3 choices, I can’t say that one is automatically better than the others, but even WITH an excellent public school system, I would still put that at the bottom of MY list. I want a more religious atomosphere for my kids than any public school can give. I don’t buy the whole ‘learn to evangelize’ thing at that age. We still want him to go to Catholic college too! Exposure to evil just lessens the fear of evil. It did me. I was a very innocent kid until I started hanging around the wrong crowd in high school, and over time, things I said I would never do…I did. Don’t want my kids to go down the same wrong path I did. I regret those years, and I want to give my kids every opportunity to avoid that kind of regret. So no, no more public school for us.
 
leonie said:
I don’t understand the mentality that exposing your children to evil makes them stronger.

Some kids do fine in public schools. Some get eaten up.
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Amen…

I know of a family whose lives were turned upside-down when one of the children went to public school and totally went the wrong way after that.
 
When our local Parish sends me a check to cover the substantial tuition fees, and can supply tangible proof of a superior education(*) for Parochial Schools, I might consider it.

(* …Education meaning a well-rounded curriculum - teaching marketable skills that will enable my kids to earn a decent living as adults, and apply these earnings towards building their own families.)

I pay some serious taxes to our state. The schools in my city are rated in the top 10 nation-wide. They offer multi-lingual classes, industrial ed, sports programs, etc… and if our city doesn’t offer something, there are reciprocal agreements with other school districts that do provide them.
A community “Catholic School” cannot provide the same offerings… even with the exorbitant fees they charge… they just don’t have the resources.
Your primary job as parents is to do the best you can to get your children to Heaven.
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I’ll strongly disagree. My primary job as a parent is to give my children the TOOLS they will need to be able to make intelligent decisions.
These decisions include: Religion, Life, Citizenship, Employment, Parenthood, and a multitude of others.
Once I’ve done my best to provide these tools, it is up to them to use them in their best interests and ultimately get to Heaven. Once they’ve left my care my primary obligation is over.
HOW can there be too much religion in a child’s education?
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Depends on the religion… Our troops are fighting kids with AK’s & explosives… these kids are “defending their religion”… as strongly as we defend ours… and as strongly taught by their parents within their beliefs…

This is the 21 Century. The “Western World” is far ahead of living at the subsistance level… meaning barely enough food, lousy housing, and the only “light” in our lives is the promise of Heaven when we die.
People nowadays want some luxuries, bust their *ss to have a few conveniences, a nice home, etc., to make their stay on this rock palatable. I’ve got nothing wrong with this as long as it’s done while keeping the rules of decency and the doctrines of the Church in the forefront… but

As mentioned there has been some almost hostile, one-sided replies towards those of us who choose to educate our kids via the public school system. I/We don’t have the means for one parent to stay home and school, nor the financial means to afford private education on top of the taxes we are already paying for a good public education system.

Don’t blast me or my wife about our decisions with replies of "How can you not…or “Any sacrifice is worthy…” You don’t know our particular situation.
 
]
When our local Parish sends me a check to cover the substantial tuition fees, and can supply tangible proof of a superior education(*) for Parochial Schools, I might consider it.
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I would be surprised if they didn’t educate more efficiently than typical public schools (like mine), which spend 7 or 8 thousand per year per kid.
The schools in my city are rated in the top 10 nation-wide. They offer multi-lingual classes, industrial ed, sports programs, etc… and if our city doesn’t offer something, there are reciprocal agreements with other school districts that do provide them.
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It may well be that your schools provide equal or better education than local parochial schools, but your facilities are no guarantee, nor even a suggestion, that this is the case. Rather, it’s about school philosophy, and the parents of the kids in those schools.

The school I teach in has unbelievable facilities, spends oodles, and yet the kids coming up through this district are invariably unable to do grade-level math and English. *If your schools refuse to advance kids who haven’t mastered what’s needed for the next grade, THAT’S why your schools are good, not the facilities. *(This was proven by the massive “Coleman Report” of the sixties, and verified repeatedly since then.)
A community “Catholic School” cannot provide the same offerings… even with the exorbitant fees they charge… they just don’t have the resources
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.
Ironic that you’d call the fees “exorbitant,” when Catholic schools spend a third to half of the average public school.
I’ll strongly disagree. My primary job as a parent is to give my children the TOOLS they will need to be able to make intelligent decisions.
These decisions include: Religion, Life, Citizenship, Employment, Parenthood, and a multitude of others.
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Would you consider it reasonable to say that, ultimately, our goal is to raise a child to be good (i.e., loving), and everything else ought merely to be in support of that goal?
As mentioned there has been some almost hostile, one-sided replies towards those of us who choose to educate our kids via the public school system.
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We shouldn’t be hostile, and I apologize if I’ve ever sounded that way to anybody.

I’m not surprised if it seems one-sided, though. It’s a fact that there’s a widespread education problem in the U.S.; that we’ve finally produced the first generation in the country’s history that is less literate than its parents, that we lag virtually all industrialized countries, and that some countries’ students outperform our teachers on tests.

To those who have the good fortune to have access to an excellent public school, these complaints are puzzling. It shouldn’t be taken personally, though. I’m a public school teacher, and I see only good coming from people loudly protesting the problem we have.]

Peace.
John
 
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