Third, it has been my experience that people who send their kids to private school are more interested in what their kids are not taught, than what they are taught. All the private schools that I know around here are religion based schools. Parents who send their kids to them are primarily concerned that their kids are not taught anything that might contradict their interpretation of faith. I'm not saying that they are not concerned with the three "r"s, but that is not the reason they send them to private school.
That has not been my experience. I attended both public and private schools growing up. As someone else pointed out, "no topic off-limits" at the private school, which is not what I could say for the public system. In fact, I still to this day get surprised when someone says that I'm "outspoken", which happens frequently. Of course I am... it's my life, and I'd rather communicate than guess, even if the topic seems "negative" to you. Silly me.
In fact, I just noticed something there in that sentence that actually covers it really well! The private school was a school. The public school was a system more than it was a school. And the "system" wasn't always about education.
(Thank goodness the private school taught me how to diagram sentences, recognize nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, pronouns, and even the odd-balls like "Please" that aren't really good adverbs, but aren't quite their own category either. Public school "Language Arts" class -- already not called "English" by the time I arrived in the 90s, but certainly not about any other languages other than English... was simply an exercise to get students to read, something I already did voraciously by the time I reached High School.)
The private school's only competitive value in the 1980s was EXACTLY that they were concerned with the "three R's", since they weren't cheap and certainly there was nothing like tax refunds or "vouchers" back then. For our family, the other main benefit was that they also offered greatly extended hours for parents who were working very hard to make ends meet in the recession of the 1980s. That should tell you something... a typical middle-class family struggling through a recession found the extended hours plus the education to be worth spending MONEY on such a school in the 80s. The value was both a good education and a bit of "child care". They had food, activities, etc... so we wouldn't be "latch-key" kids.
It cost money. Mom was working hard in the (at the time) failing and then later recovering oil & gas business in Denver after the oil shale "boom" that drove most of Denver's growth in the 1980s, and stepfather was working hard trying to save what was ultimately a failing photography business. Money wasn't something in huge supply in our family. We weren't going hungry or cold, but we weren't out buying big-ticket items or taking big trips anywhere.
I see a lot of families sending kids to private institutions in the same boat today, including one of my good friends who chose a so-called "religious" school. Having visited the school, the religious aspect isn't very highly pushed throughout a typical day, and topics aren't censored or otherwise disallowed there. Evolution *is* taught at that particular private religious school, for example.
I attended the private school from Grade 1 through Grade 5. We later moved, and I started being a "latch-key kid" at Grade 6.
I've always been grateful for my time at the private institution, and how hard my folks worked to make that happen for me and my next-youngest stepsister.
That school pushed critical thinking, the three R's, and self-discipline harder than the public system, by a long shot. And performance was individual and there were consequences for failure. You could get an F, and you could get held back in "last year's" math classes while you went up in overall grade. One of the interesting possibilities in a private school... "held back" didn't always mean a grade, it could mean just a CLASS. Smart. Try doing that in the public school system.
Discussions with the owners/administrators were real and genuine and they had the authority to make changes to "the rules" if necessary or exceptions. They were the true bosses at their school, and it showed a real reason to respect them.
In contrast, no public school administrator ever had the power to "buck the system" for any reason. While I actually liked our administrators in my high school, I saw them as glorified paper pushers and "cops" enforcing the rules handed down from on-high. They had zero authority to do anything other than what "the District" handed down. They also garnered a lot less respect from students -- we all knew they weren't "the real boss". Some six-figure politicians over in some building a long way from all the schools was the real authority, and no one dared question them about anything.
Teachers at both institutions were excellent, but the public school teachers "pushed their personal agendas" far harder than at the private institution.
The private institution pushed self-discipline. The boys participated in a military-style Drill Team once a week, the girls had Ballet... Oooh, imagine the screaming and hollering now-a-days about forced activities like that and having separate "gender-based" activities! I can hear the whiners now.
The reality was that the school was physically small, and changing rooms and things were in short-supply... if the boys were kept in one area for "Drill" and the girls in another for "Ballet", they didn't have logistical problems. It made sense, since the school was in a large old Victorian multiple-bedroom house and detached dance studio not much larger than a three-car garage.
And there was a co-ed activity also... Square Dancing. You can laugh all you like... respect for everyone and the opposite gender was taught through pairing students up with different "dance partners" for Square Dancing and the boys would formally request the dance, from the girl, etc. You learned to get along with everyone. No cliques, no "I always dance with so-and-so" allowed.
I get a kick out of "tolerance" freaks nowadays who would utterly freak out at both having such wildly different activities "forced" on the different genders.
