Detroit Public Teachers, Private School Choices
What would you conclude about the quality of product or service X under the following circumstances?
1. The employees of Airline X and their families are offered free airline tickets as an employee benefit. The employees refuse to travel with their families on Airline X and instead pay full fare on Airline Y when flying.
2. The employees of Automaker X are offered a company car at a substantial discount and they instead buy a car at full price from Automaker Y.
3. Employees at Health Clinic X and their families are offered medical care at no additional cost as a benefit and yet most employees of Clinic X pay out-of-pocket for medical services at Clinic Y.
In each case, the employees' willingness to pay full price for a competitor's product or service and forgo their employer's product or service at a reduced price (or no cost) makes a strong statement about the low quality of X. What makes the inferior quality of X even more obvious is that the employees at Firm X, since they work in the industry, would have better information about product (service) X and product (service) Y than the average person.
What then should we conclude about the quality of public education in Detroit given the following facts? Public school teachers send their own children to private schools at a rate 50% higher than average--18.5% of public educators' children in Detroit are in private schools compared to 12.8% for all families.
Read today's editorial in the Detroit News here.
4 Comments:
I would send my child to private school over an inter city school in a heartbeat. I think more teachers are apt to send their child to a private school rather than a public school has more to do with their children’s peers than quality of education. Private schools are going to have children of a higher social status, because the parents can afford to send them. The children of higher social status are going to behave differently than children that come from lower social economic status. So what happens to the children of poor families if the government pulls out of education all together?
Many voucher programs, like the one in Milwaukee that has been going for years and is considered to be very successful, are targeted for poor families in the inner city. Many Catholic schools target poor neighborhoods in inner cities.
...it looks like public school teachers prefer private schools more than their work environment...when I was in grades K-12 I went to a private Catholic school which I graduated. My only child attends a public school and will graduate next year. I learned much about public schooling these last 11 years and I compared the experience to my K-12 school life. I would send my child to a private school also, if I had to start again. :)
I would like to know who was included in the study. Were college students included?
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