India's Schooling Experiment Tests Rich and Poor

theodp writes "Passed in 2009, India's Right to Education Act mandates that private schools set aside 25% of admissions for low-income, underprivileged and disabled students. Many of the world's top private schools offer scholarships to smart poor kids, but India's plan is more sweeping in that the rules prohibit admission-testing of students. 'Over the years schooling offered by these two systems [public and private] has become increasingly disparate and unequal,' explained Anshu Vaish of the Dept. of Human Resource Development. But the most notable results of the experiment thus far, reports the WSJ, are frustration and disappointment as separations that define Indian society are upended, leading even some supporters to conclude that the chasm between the top and bottom of Indian society is too great to overcome. Hey, at least we don't have these kinds of problems in the US, right? BTW, about 30% of this year's Intel Science Talent Search 2011 Finalists hailed from private schools, where annual tuition ranges from $15,750 at Ursuline Academy (the alma mater of Melinda Gates) to $37,020 at Groton School (the alma mater of FDR). Some 10% of all elementary and secondary school students were in private schools in 2009-2010, according to the US Dept. of Education."

Comments

An excellent illustration

[s13g3]

This is an excellent illustration at a much larger scale of exactly the education problems we face in the U.S., where we spend more on prisoners than students.

Speaking for myself, I have... let's call it an "above average" character in terms of education and intellect, and yet public schools couldn't be bothered with me. Had it not been for the fact that my parents had worked hard enough to be able to afford very expensive private schooling, I would never have graduated from High School.

The answer is NOT for those who can afford such things to be taxed into giving up those funds to educate everyone else's children. The "answer" is not even something I can feasibly address with any sanity or brevity in a forum like this one (ok, I can in three words: "One room schoolhouse"), but it should be rather clearer now what a failure our current model is, where students are graduating from High School less educated than their parents - on average - for the first time in our nations history over the last several years, and that we need to completely re-address our schools, teaching methods, and sociocultural emphasis (or lack thereof) on education.

Re:What it comes down to

[Luckyo]

Problem is far more complex then your gross oversimplification. A good example is that one of the main requirements of getting proper schooling is environment. As public schools lose more and more of good, calm, studious students to private schools, the problem of concentration of lack of talent intensifies. This in turn feeds the "white flight" element even further by pressing more good students out.

End result is bad for both - on one hand poor get worse schooling. On the other hand, rich become so disconnected from reality, you end up with tiered society and all its problems.

If you want to see the most historically infamous case on where tiered society leads, look up French Revolution. That said, historic examples of this stretch from India mentioned here, to more modern examples such as Arab Spring phenomenon. And to get there, you usually have a gross collapse of socioeconomic environment, including but not limited to massively raised crime rates, gradual economic decline, social and political instability, and shrinking middle class, majority of which drop down to the poor tier of society with small minority joining the rich.

Rich win in short term, which is why it appears to be a natural state of human society to slowly edge towards tiered society in known history, which ends reset when it's not longer supportable and social imbalance causes a revolution and re-distribution of wealth.

Re:What it comes down to

[Jessified]

The best part, I might add, is that there is nothing "better" about private schools except the mental image society collectively has. The only reason private school students do better is because they are selected for nice things more frequently because of their prestigious background. In fact, I would argue that private school teaching is probably inferior to public schools (at least in Canada); private school teachers are paid significantly less than public schools, and so public schools get their pick first.

The only reason private school students do better on standardized tests is because private schools pick all of the best students with supportive parents. If you have a class who can practically teach themselves, it doesn't matter if a monkey is teaching them, they're going to do better than the class of low income and disenfranchised students.

Re:What it comes down to

[Anonymous Coward]

The private school teachers (partially as a result of the lower pay) are also the ones who want to teach -- not the ones who got an English degree and then realized that they couldn't get any other job. Private schools also aren't run by the teachers' unions, so they have far more flexibility in firing inferior teachers, etc. Lastly (and possibly most importantly), they're held directly responsible by the parents. A private school loses customers and funds when parents get disgruntled; public schools can change nothing and have no negative consequences. Of course, schooling in this antiquated model is soon going to be defunct once internet/distance learning gains acceptance as parents will be able to choose from a plethora of options, which aren't based on geography, for almost zero cost compared to a brick and mortar school since lectures, materials, etc. can be replicated at no additional cost. When you can send your kid to online school for $300 a year versus sending them to the free, government prison-schools we have now who wouldn't? Eventually, quality online schools may even be completely free to all and run on a charity basis, so even poor kids without computers can access them from their local public libraries.

Re:What it comes down to

[Geoffrey.landis]

The private school teachers (partially as a result of the lower pay) are also the ones who want to teach -- not the ones who got an English degree and then realized that they couldn't get any other job.

Huh? I see no evidence for that.

In general, I think most teachers go into teaching because they want to teach, public and private. Some of them just burn out faster.

The one advantage that private schools do have is that it's much easier for them to eject students out for being disruptive.