Students Deserve to Enjoy Silence

I’ve taught in an affluent private school, the most crime-ridden neighborhood in my state, and a blue-collar public school. I’ve taught students whose parents are college professors and others whose family members have been murdered while in jail.

What strikes me most about the differences among these schools and their respective populations is not the facilities (we had drafty windows at private schools) or the quality of materials (we had dusty textbooks, too) or the skill of teachers (there are excellent teachers and duds across every system) but rather the environment in the building — in particular, the noise. Students in the affluent school could expect an orderly, safe, non-chaotic environment — punctuated with clamor, yes, but also moments of absolute silence; meanwhile, students in urban education had no such privilege.

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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I’ve taught in an affluent private school, the most crime-ridden neighborhood in my state, and a blue-collar public school. I’ve taught students whose parents are college professors and others whose family members have been murdered while in jail.

What strikes me most about the differences among these schools and their respective populations is not the facilities (we had drafty windows at private schools) or the quality of materials (we had dusty textbooks, too) or the skill of teachers (there are excellent teachers and duds across every system) but rather the environment in the building — in particular, the noise. Students in the affluent school could expect an orderly, safe, non-chaotic environment — punctuated with clamor, yes, but also moments of absolute silence; meanwhile, students in urban education had no such privilege.