Study: Public school students do just as well or better than those in private school

If there is any doubt how the Bush administration feels about the subject of educational vouchers and how much it supports public schooling, that should have been erased by the way it handled a study released Friday that shows public school students do just as well or better in math and reading than students in private schools.
If such a study had been commissioned by the NEA or some so-called liberal think tank, the administration would be all over it, screaming how biased the report was.
This study, however, was done by the National Center for Educational Statistics, part of the federal Education Department.
While the study confirmed that students in private schools score higher than those in public schools, that advantage was completely erased except for eighth grade reading among students of similar racial, economic or social background.
The study, of course, was released without comment by Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings.
There is nothing wrong with sending students to private schools, whether it be for educational or religious reasons. What is wrong is centering public policy around promoting private schools. Supporters of that concept say competition will improve schools; and perhaps in some instances it would, but the problems are deeper than voucher-supporters would have us believe.
While there are low-performing schools, reasons for that go deeper than just poor administration or faculty. I am angered when I hear the phrase "No Child Left Behind" and see the entire blame for these children being left behind being placed on the educational establishment. Sure there are weak links in public education, but I have never known a teacher or an administrator who said, "We need to leave these children behind." The goal was always to help every child to succeed even before it became a catchy slogan.
Unfortunately, children are going to continue to be left behind as long as we have parents who do not care about their education. We have children whose opportunity for a solid education is nearly eliminated because of home lives that include drug and alcohol addicted or imprisoned parents, physical or sexual child abuse or poverty.
Many times these students fail to attend school on a regular basis, and receive no encouragement from their parents to do so. Many of them live a vagabond existence, moving from school to school, never staying so long enough to establish an educational routine and falling further and further behind at each stop.
Many of the students who the public schools are castigated for not educating are those who have become addicted to drugs or alcohol, or became pregnant and elected to drop out rather than to tough it out and stay in school.
What is almost never mentioned in these gloom-and-doom scenarios for public education is how many of these seemingly lost students are rescued because of caring teachers, counselors, and administrators in public schools.
As long as society has poverty, drug abuse, violence, and children who are abused, there will be children left behind. That's not because of the teachers; they're the ones who are on the front lines.