Dear Editors,

As a freshman at Grady, I can already recognize startling differences between the public and private systems of education. However, I never realized how drastic those differences were until I started comparing my private education to my public one.

In terms of the demographics of the student population, public school is much larger and certainly more diverse, which opens doors to many benefits and disadvantages. Because of the large student population, there is more space for new students, like me, to find a group they can associate themselves with. However, the overcrowded system makes ways for new issues, such as student population versus faculty population and how that can affect our education system as a whole.

Coming from an extremely small private school student to teacher ratio was along the lines of 10 students for every teacher, however, this is not the case in a public school system. At Grady, students outnumber teachers over 100 to 1, with most teachers educating over 100 students, while also running student extracurriculars.

I have also taken note that teaching style at a public school is different from that if a public school.  a public school, teachers are more inclined to stick to the curriculum word for word and become irritated when some students ask for help. In short, some do not enjoy their jobs. This behavior is understandable considering the vast amounts of students they must teach and the dwindling supply of teachers in the workforce. This overcrowding is detrimental to the education of each student. In a private school I find, the majority of teachers genuinely enjoy what they teach. They find purpose in what they teach and, in turn, are able to pass that purpose and joy of learning to the student. Though public schooling has its benefits of being convenient and diverse, the teaching style itself is not beneficial to students. In fact, it is developed for students to not succeed. Now some may argue that it is up to the student themselves to work hard and at no fault of the teacher, but I only agree to an extent. To an extent, yes, students must be willing to work hard in order to achieve good grades. However, I would ask if good grades are the best incentive. The answer is no. While achieving high grades and getting into a good college is a good incentive, it is not the best. The best incentive is getting students to enjoy the idea of learning itself. When you build a foundation on which children love to learn they will carry that throughout their entire life. This is something a public school system simply does not offer.

By building this foundation of children who love to learn they will be more inclined to listen to their teachers. More people would be encouraged to teach because more students would be willing to listen.

In certain aspects public school does succeed against private, one being diversity contrary to this there is one area where the private school will always have public beat and that is the foundation of learning itself, not because they don’t have the capability to construct this but because public schools were not built upon these principles.

Sincerely,

Kelly Tran