Board Schools Essay, Research Paper

Board Schools

For most people get oning schools conjure up ideas of immature work forces in naval forces

bluish sport jackets with white shirts and a tie traveling to a beautiful school with Hedera helix

covered walls and the game of Polo being played in the distance. Oh, and wear & # 8217 ; T

bury ideas of parents with fat billfolds and a household trust fund. This is

what Gordon Vink, the manager of admittances at Mercersburg Academy in

Pennsylvania, calls the? Holden Caufield-Catcher in the Rye syndrome? ( Parker

111 ) , a book about the problems a male child faces at his homework get oning school.

To an extent the image holds true. Prep schools offer collegial type

ambiances, have rigorous regulations, and frequently teach coevalss of pupils from the

same households. The simplest definition of a boarding school is a topographic point that

parents pay for a stodent to populate and travel to school. The school & # 8217 ; s instructors,

managers, and decision makers live in residence halls with lodgers and act as their

household implementing the rigorous regulations, doing disciplinary determinations, and supervising

behaviour and academic public presentation.

Boarding schools can be one or all of the followers: academic boot cantonment,

a topographic point for parents to set childs they don & # 8217 ; t want around or wear & # 8217 ; t have the clip

for, a oasis from deteriorating public schools, a necessary certificate for

kids of the rich and celebrated, or a preparation land for tomorrow & # 8217 ; s leaders.

These schools range from little unknown establishments which will accept anyone, to

the elect schools, which are really selective and are a grapevine to Ivy-league

schools and success.

Boarding schools are superior to public twenty-four hours schools. Advocates of

get oning homework schools claim the schools offer unparalled subject, a stronger

course of study, exellent installations, a manner to acquire in to better colleges, a superior

larning environment, reeling extra-curricular options, and allow pupils to

achieve a higher degree of public presentation. Oppositions argue that the astronomical

cost, anyplace from $ 8000 to $ 25,000 per twelvemonth for the most elect, is excessively

expensive. They besides claim the regulations are excessively utmost and suffocating, and that

pupils experience an copiousness of emphasis.

The biggest statement against get oning schools is cost. With an norm

cost of $ 8000 to $ 25,000 ( Topolnicki 100 ) , many parents inquire: Are private

embarkation schools worth the disbursal? The excess attending and frills don & # 8217 ; t come

cheap. ? It & # 8217 ; s like purchasing stock or a new house, ? says private school adviser

Georgia Irvin. ? It & # 8217 ; s a major investment. ? ( Parker 111 ) But many embarkation

schools have been working difficult to increase their fiscal assistance and to construction

new methods of payment. Pricey homework schools are more likely to give

scholarships. Sixteen per centum of pupils who attend get fiscal assistance, which

norms $ 5,400 a twelvemonth. ( Topolnicki 101 ) Lodgers besides must see what they

are acquiring & # 8211 ; tuition and all life disbursals. ? Merely believe about how much nutrient

a typical adolescent chows, ? Susan Laittus says. She pays $ 21,000 a twelvemonth for her

kid to travel to get oning school. She feels no monetary value is excessively high when thought of

her kids & # 8217 ; s hereafter. That $ 21,000 besides gives her child entree to a private

beach, surfing categories, and a diversion room with an ocean position. One

option to acquire a similar instruction is to travel to an advantaged public school

system, but so there are high belongings revenue enhancements to pay and the mean place

costs between $ 125,000 to $ 500,000 in such flush vicinities. ( Topplnicki

100 ) If the costs can be overcome, so a private embarkation school is deserving

every penny.

Another job is the system of regulations the schools use. Boarding

schools by and large plan every hr in the pupil & # 8217 ; s twenty-four hours. From wake up to visible radiations

out, every hr in the pupil & # 8217 ; s life is set. At Exeter Boarding School in New

Hampshire, classes start before 8:00 AM and frequently don & # 8217 ; t weave up until 6:00 PM.

( Morgan 103 ) Jenny Cantrell & # 8217 ; s first find at Mercersburg Academy in

Pennsylvania was the school regulation book. Jenny had to be at dinner from 6:20 Autopsies

until 6:50 PM, so hold survey clip from 7:30 PM to 10:00 PM. After 10:45 Autopsy

she was expected to be in her room. On weekends she has to subscribe in at her residence hall

between 7:00 PM and 8:00 PM to describe where she would be until her 11:00 Autopsy

curfew. You can & # 8217 ; T merely go forth to see a film if you are tired of making

school assignment. This loss of personal freedom frequently leads to severe emphasis.

( Cookson 33 ) In his survey of American private schools, Peter W. Cookson studies

that instructors talk of? corks starting? and? monster outs? . Leonard Baird found

that? About half of the pupils were bothered really much by force per unit areas of their

extremely regulated environment. ? He could non province the exact figure of homework

school pupils who need or seek reding to cover with this emphasis. But he

does cognize the schools consider it an of import job, shown by their elaborate

reding systems. Unfortunately, offering guidance in itself is non adequate

for many pupils. Boys in peculiar seem to fear inquiring for psychological

aid. Male childs are supposed to show themselves as in control. If a male child shows he

is in problem, what would his module or college counsellors think? The

punishments for interrupting the regulations are every bit rigorous as the regulations themselves.

Ejection, probation, and disciplinary limitations are common penalties. At

these schools one misdemeanor, particularly a serious one such as drug usage, is

plenty to acquire you kicked out.

Many parents, nevertheless, experience the structured life promotes self subject

and independency. A disciplined manner of life is merely what Dale Stinger and his

married woman want for their 13 twelvemonth old boy. ? We like the regimented agenda which is

more than what the public school can give him. ( Liu F10 ) However, with all the

regulations, childs are still reasonably much on their ain. They have to take

duty for their actions, and as a consequence there is a certain adulthood in

lodgers. ? Personally, now I can cover with any individual or state of affairs that comes

along, ? says 17 twelvemonth old Laura King.

All these regulations are portion of the forfeit homework pupils are expected T

O

brand in readying for the privileged places they will keep in society. In

exchange for their loss of freedom, prep pupils earn a right to rank in

the privileged? higher group? and come to believe that they deserve certain

privileges because of the high personal monetary value they paid. The present hurting for

future addition thought holds true. Prep school alumnuss are disproportionately

influential in concern, banking, and jurisprudence. Seventeen per centum of the rare group

of people who are board members of two or more major corporations graduated from

one of 13 elect homework schools. ( Cookson 31 ) Cookson claims, ? Their

influence on modern-day American civilization is widespread. ?

Part of these people & # 8217 ; s success can be attributed to an environment that

is contributing to larning. Most parents equate little categories with 15 or so

kids, each being given single attending by the instructor, with quality

instruction. The mean boarding school category is 9-17 pupils. ( Topolnicki 100 )

Because pupils live at school, instructors are more readily available to give

aid after category hours. Private schools besides don & # 8217 ; Ts have to vie with the

public school & # 8217 ; s unfastened door policy. Private schools non merely have the ability to

choice pupils, but besides to take trouble makers who get in. Public schools

decision makers must confront a mountain of paperwork and bureaucratism to take

boisterous pupils even temporarily. As a consequence of their power, private schools

study merely the occasional fist battle or act of hooliganism. By being able to

choice pupils, private embarkation schools merely have pupils who want to be

at that place. Elite embarkation schools merely accept on mean 15 per centum of

appliers. ( Morgan 103 ) To acquire in an applicant must take the SSAT, write

essays, submit recommendations from instructors, visit the school for a personal

interview, and pay a $ 30.00 application fee. As can be seen, merely good

motivated pupils can pull off to acquire in. Those that do acquire in tend to excite

each other to win. The competitory ambiance is an advantage that public

schools deficiency.

The installations that a private school has to offer can merely be matched by

really advantaged public schools such as Beverly Hills High. Most prep schools

have campuses complete with playing Fieldss, art studios, and good stocked

libraries, non to advert the attractively manicured campuses and populating quarters.

One elect school had an indoor swimming pool, a nursery, installations for

every athletics conceivable, and a overseas telegram telecasting studio.

Boarding schools have long emphasized the supernumeraries. Garrison Forrest

School near Baltimore has the state & # 8217 ; s merely all-girls & # 8217 ; high school Polo squad.

( Parker 111 ) Although really few private schools can round up plenty of their

busy pupils to hold more than a few athleticss, they frequently have many alone nines

that can be joined. Private Orangewood Adventist Academy in Garden Grove,

California plays merely four athleticss & # 8211 ; football, baseball, hoops, and

volleyball. However, the school does hold nines for tramps, aqualung frogmans, and

stone climbers & # 8211 ; all activities that don & # 8217 ; t necessitate a crowd. ( Topolnicki 100 )

The most of import ground that embarkation schools are superior to public

schools is that pupils there execute better than pupils at public schools.

Prep schools boasted the highest SAT tonss, runing from 1000 to 1300.

( Topolnicki 99 ) The homework schools, which by their name are in the concern of

fixing pupils for college, send virtually every pupil to selective

colleges. Although homework schools are non learning as diverse a group as public

schools, their pupils clearly outperform norm and disadvantaged public

schools who average SAT tonss of 790 to 986 and 757 to 948 severally.

( Topolnicki 99 )

Prep schools offer more ambitious classs than public schools do.

Advance Placement ( AP ) classs, such as concretion and computing machine scientific discipline, which

count for college recognition, are normally some of the most ambitious categories a

pupil can take. Of the 29 AP classs recognized by colleges, homework schools

typically offer 10 to 15 compared with 0 to 5 for mean public schools.

( Topolnicki 100 )

In decision, private embarkation schools are far superior to public

schools even with the high cost, regulations, and emphasis. They offer a better

larning environment, disciplined life manner, better course of study and activities,

and immaculate installations. They can besides take which pupils will go to

their school. Public schools lack a pupil organic structure brimming with eager kids.

In her book The Classrooms of Miss Ellen Frankfort, Confessions of a Private

School Teacher, Miss Frankfort said that unless there is an advantaged populace

school in her community, she will direct her kids to a private embarkation school.

She feels that this sort of school would make a better of educating her kids

and give them a? more enlightened universe position? . She likes the smaller

categories and ability for the schools to short-circuit the? bureaucratic machinery? . She

appreciates that people are paid to worry for you & # 8211 ; it & # 8217 ; s their occupation. Parents are

assured that there is a committedness to the pupil and his or her hereafter, which,

if the school has anything to make with it, should be bright.

Work Cited

Cookson, Peter. ? The Price of Privilege? . Psychology Today ( March

1986 ) : 31-35. Rpt. in SCHOOL. vol. 3. Ed.

Eleanor Goldstein. Boca Raton, FL: Social Issues Resources Series Inc. ,

1993. Art. 44.

Frankfort, Ellen. The Classrooms of Miss Ellen Frankfort, Confessions

of a Private School Teacher. New Jersey: Prentiss-Hall Inc. , 1970.

Liu, Caitlin. ? Boarding Schools: Higher Education at a Higher Cost? .

The San Diego Union-Tribune 9 August 1994: F10.

Morgan, Leslie. ? Boarding Schools? . Seventeen October 1991: 102-105.

Parker, Amy. ? Away At School? . Washingtonian. November 1992: 111-112.

Topolnicki, Denise M. ? Why Private Schools Are Rarely Worth the Money? .

Money ( October 1994 ) : 98-101. Rpt. in SCHOOL. vol. 5.

Ed. Eleanor Goldstein. Boca Raton, FL: Social Issues

Resources Series Inc. , 1993.