Let me state right up front that I am the successful product of the American public education system. Other than a brief stint in elementary Catholic school, I went to elementary, middle, high school, and undergraduate college all at public schools (and all in Massachusetts, which places a particular emphasis on education, plus I have 2 parents who are college professors at a community college.....). The first private university that I went to was the University of Miami for my MBA.
What's sad is that over the last 20 years, the American education system has become a two tiered system, with 1 tier succeeding and the second tier failing. The tier that is succeeding is the private school system. The wealthy can afford to send their children to private schools, from elementary up through high school and then into a private college. This is a minimum $1 million dollar investment over 18 years. This investment usually pays off huge dividends towards a child's successful professional future.
And then there is the second tier, which is the public educational system, which is largely failing the majority of children. Public schools are underfunded, understaffed, overpopulated, potentially dangerous and not giving kids the level of education they need to succeed in the 21st century.
In the 1970's when I was growing up, my parents did not hesitate to send me to a public school. They felt, rightly so, that math was math, English was English, and science was science, so other than the cost ($0 versus thousands of dollars for a private education), what was the difference? And they were largely correct. The decline in the public education system really began 20 years later in the 1990's and has continued to steadily decline ever since.
And although I'm not an expert in private education, as a parent, it seems to me that you're really paying for 2 things in a private education: 1. 2 or more teachers per classroom with a smaller class room size to give students a more personalized educational experience. No one inspires you more than your teachers, and the more teachers in the classroom, the better. And 2. the other cost of private education is largely equipment costs (computers, software) and every student having their own computer, versus one 10 year old computer in a public school classroom that all the students can use (for about 10 minutes each).
Although I'm not a parent, I would want my son or daughter to have their own personal computer in their school throughtout their entire education and to have more than 1 teacher per class and a small class size to facilitate a more productive learning environment. And I also want to make sure my son or daughter felt safe at school. Public schools fail on all these levels, and it's so sad, because it does not have to be this way.
When I was growing up, a high school diploma was the minimum degree you needed to get a blue collar job and a college degree was really necessary to succeed in a white collar job. Now, almost everyone has an undergraduate degree, and to really succeed in your career, you need a master's degree. These realities are creating a stark differences between succeeding and failing in life.
I would think the financial component of your child's early, mid and future education would have to figure into any couples decision of whether or not to have children. But I suspect that if the public educational system was comparable to the private educational system, couples would be encouraged to have children, or even more children, knowing there would be no educational cost and that their child would receive a great education to help them succeed in life.
With over 40 million American adults who are functionally illiterate and growing, the United States should declare a War on Illiteracy and properly fund the American public education system in this country. This is a long term investment in the country that will pay dividends decades from now, but unfortunately is hurting the future of the United States in the 21st century.
UPDATE: Thomas Friedman on how a poor American educational system contributed to the Great Recession: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/21/opinion/21friedman.html?em
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