Private Schools: Most Provide Quality Education for Many

The latest cover of The Atlantic features a golden desk and the bold title “Private Schools Are Indefensible.” In the article, Caitlin Flanagan details her experience working at a premier private school in Los Angeles and the opulence within the building’s walls — billion-dollar endowments, theater prosceniums, and an archeologist in residence. Such extravagance, she argues, would not exist “in a just society.”

I’ve taught in both public and private schools, and I do not recognize the caricature of private education that Flanagan furnishes. The private-school classroom where I currently spend my time has a few broken desks, a whiteboard donated with charming dents, and drafty windows. In reality, the per-pupil budget of private schooling is a few thousand dollars cheaper than that of public schooling. The same disparity goes for teacher salaries.

About the Author

Daniel Buck

Daniel Buck is a research fellow and the director of the Conservative Education Reform Network at the American Enterprise Institute.

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The latest cover of The Atlantic features a golden desk and the bold title “Private Schools Are Indefensible.” In the article, Caitlin Flanagan details her experience working at a premier private school in Los Angeles and the opulence within the building’s walls — billion-dollar endowments, theater prosceniums, and an archeologist in residence. Such extravagance, she argues, would not exist “in a just society.”

I’ve taught in both public and private schools, and I do not recognize the caricature of private education that Flanagan furnishes. The private-school classroom where I currently spend my time has a few broken desks, a whiteboard donated with charming dents, and drafty windows. In reality, the per-pupil budget of private schooling is a few thousand dollars cheaper than that of public schooling. The same disparity goes for teacher salaries.