One Charles Silberman once remarked:
“It is not possible to spend any prolonged period visiting public school classrooms without being appalled by the mutilation visible everywhere – mutilation of spontaneity, of joy in learning, of pleasure in creating, of sense of self. The public schools – those “killers of the dream,” to appropriate a phrase of Lillian Smith’s, are the kind of institution one cannot really dislike until one gets to know them well. Because adults take the schools so much for granted, they fail to appreciate what grim, joyless places most American schools are; how oppressive and petty are the rules by which they are governed; how intellectually sterile and esthetically barren the atmosphere; what an appalling lack of civility obtains on the part of the teachers and principals; what contempt they unconsciously display for children as children.”
Of course the public school system is so well ingrained in the shallow minds of the average person, that getting rid of them will never happen. Still, the huge increase in private schools, indicates that people with brains are really getting a bit fed up with public schools, and want more for their kids. Suppose a newly formed private school, put in a bid for an under-used, decaying public school building, and won. The one time public school would be transformed into a for profit, private school. Obviously profit makes things work well. If there is no profit, there is no incentive to do anything well.
Profit is no sin, but is what makes the world go ’round. Why should anyone start a school and not make a profit? It is things which show no profit that go haywire, namely the governments at all levels in the whole world. It is non-profitable governments which gobble up our sustenance, answer to no one, and always expand as fast as they can. Ever know a bureaucracy that didn’t try to get larger? The average public school has so many ’administrators’ for nothing, that it would blow your mind. If just one private school could buy up a not or little used public school building, restore it, and use it for profit, an example might be set, which could be followed, and maybe the public school system would gradually disappear. That of course, is just a dream.
When I was thrust into the public school system in the 11th grade, after going to a wonderful private school for six years, I never took a book home, took off every Wednesday, graduated with a B plus average, and was offered a scholarship to Carnegie Tech. This was in 1952, and can you imagine how it has gone down in the last 54 years?