Why does GT suck at recruiting?

lonestarjacket said:
Did you know that teachers at private schools make LESS than teachers at public schools?

It shocked me as I always assumed private schools would compete more for teachers.

My sister worked at both, and the payoff for her to teach at a private school was 1)easier job with less problem kids, and 2)free tuition for her own kids (making up for the salary difference.)
Click to expand...

I think beej is way out of the loop on this one.
 
stinger78 said:
Cherry picking again, I see.

Come to my girls' school in Lawrenceville. I speak at chapel there twice a semester. It's about 60% white, 30% black, and 10% other. Looks just like the middle school down the street, except the way they dress. Been in dozens of private schools, and they're most all the same. How many you been in, beej?

I also see the kids in my neighborhood that my girls hang with, that go to the local public school, and all the kids at church who go to various public schools - probably close to 200 in all. If I lined 'em up, I guarantee you that you couldn't pick them out.

Now I suppose that we need to put a stipulation on this, that we need to compare apples and apples and not compare our suburban Gwinnett private school to an inner city Atlanta school. If you compare most run of the mill private schools to a public school in their neighborhood, the kids will look amazingly alike. If you compared Walton and Marietta high, you'll see just the same difference. Why are you using such a blatant a straw man for your comparison, beej. You're better than that.

In my older girl's first grade class a number of years ago, we had a boy who was learning disabled. It was amazing to see those other children learn to love him - though some were stand-offish, as I have seen public school kids be.

Other than the high-brow elite prep schools, this issue is a red herring.
Click to expand...
All I can say stinger is not in my town. My kids knew lots of kids who went to private schools and they had quite a bit in common. But my kids were in the top percentile of the public school. If you compared the top level at our school to the private school kids are very similar. But if you look at the entire student body there is no similarity at all. The private school doesnt' have kids from the projects, gangs, latinos, Vietnamese, free lunch kids, kids who can't afford their own cleats for track/football, etc. Nor do they have kids who's parents don't care about what goes on at school. If you're telling me that where you live there's no real difference between public and private schools then I'd say you must live in one of the most amazing places in America.
 
ncjacket said:
All I can say stinger is not in my town. My kids knew lots of kids who went to private schools and they had quite a bit in common. But my kids were in the top percentile of the public school. If you compared the top level at our school to the private school kids are very similar. But if you look at the entire student body there is no similarity at all. The private school doesnt' have kids from the projects, gangs, latinos, Vietnamese, free lunch kids, kids who can't afford their own cleats for track/football, etc. Nor do they have kids who's parents don't care about what goes on at school. If you're telling me that where you live there's no real difference between public and private schools then I'd say you must live in one of the most amazing places in America.
Click to expand...

I'm saying there's not a lot of difference in the public and private school students in my area of the city. You can compare North Gwinnett kids to Central Gwinnett kids and see a BIG difference, and they're all public school kids. That's a red herring. You find that between public/public and private/private as well. Most private school kids are going to compare favorably with the majority of the local public school kids who live in the same area. They won't compare to the lower 20% of the school, or perhaps even the upper 20%, for that matter. You have a misconception that private school kids are all from wealthy families. That is patently wrong. Most private school kids these days are just like yours.

No, there are no gangs openly active at my daughters' school, but I wouldn't be surprised if a few of the kids are in gangs. There is little to no drug activity on the campus of my daughters' school, but I'd not be surprised if a few of the students haven't done drugs. There is no open sexual expressions at my daughters' school, but I'd not be surprised if a few (maybe more) are sexually active. It doesn't happen at the school because it is far smaller than the local public counterpart, and is far easier to police by teachers and administrators. BTW, there are fights that break out from time to time, and they are quickly broken up. You know, they're just kids, not privileged VIP's. Their parents all do what we do - sacrifice to get a God-centered education.

I know a single mom who has her kids in private school, who are on almost 100% scholarship. This mom is on disability, and can barely afford clothes for her son. As I said, my daughter had a mentally disabled boy in her first grade class. There are kids who struggle to keep up, and those who don't keep up. The only difference here is those student eventually don't come back.

I know that many of the kids in my daughters' school are from the neighborhood around the school and represent the same group of kids that go to the school. This is the way it is with most of the kids in main-line private schools around. it's most likely that way with your community, too. My daughters have an Hispanic teacher, and a black PE teacher. They have school friends of various nationalities - Indian, Jamaican, Nigerian, Oriental, Cuban, Mexican, and others.

No, many of the lower economic scale students aren't there, but I don't live around many lower economic class people. I doubt you do either. I'd suggest that you take a trip down to your local Christian school and take a look. Those kids are the same as anywhere else, they just dress (and act) quite differently - not because they are any different themselves, but because they are held to a different standard.

FWIW, I live in Buford, work in Suwanee, and my girls go to school in Lawrenceville. The high schools in my area are Collins Hill, Buford and North Gwinnett. They are very homogeneous, with N Gwinnett being a bit more affluent, Buford having a few more "project" kids, and Collins Hill in the middle. One of the families up the hill from me sends their kids to GACS, and mine go to another one. If you walked through my neighborhood, you couldn't tell who is a public school kid and who is a private school kid, unless you saw their shirt with the logo on it.

Sorry, that's the way it is.
 
Last edited:
beej67 said:
That's what I'm getting at. Esso complains that we're "throwing tax money at the problem," when in fact we're not building schools to keep up with the demand, so in fact we're spending less money than we used to, per student capita.
Click to expand...

I plainly asked a question and did not issue a complaint, beej. Go back and study my post real hard for awhile and you will see I asked a simple question...which you, by the way, answered.

Just so you would know, if it had been a complaint it probably would have looked something like this:

"I have been paying for public schools every year of my adult life and that's a long, long, long time. My kids spent a total of 24 kid years (that's 2 kids x 12 years/kid, beej) in public schools and are now they are paying for public schools right along with me even one of them does not have kids in a public school.

I am still paying. Much more than ever. The amount paid in school taxes has increased every year, yet the SAT scores haven't. Even when the SAT scores go down, my taxes still increase."

Now that is what a complaint would sound like, beej. But I'm not complaining. You're the one doing all the fussing. :biggthumpup:

PS: The statement below that you made is patently untrue and if you made the bet you would lose...badly. When I went to public school it was in a wooden building with no air conditioning (but we had steam heat...sometimes). We used tablets, not computers; wrote with chalk on worn out blackboards; and we played football on a mud field in hand-me-down old college uniforms under lights so dim we couldn't see to pass the football. We didn't have a basketball gym. We used one at a nearby private college. But we studied all the while...with, gasp, no school parties. Oh my, how did we ever get along? It's a wonder we ever learned the three 'Rs. And yes, we did have holes in our desks for ink wells (but we used pencils instead).

I'd be willing to bet that adjusted for inflation and increases in cost of living, we probably pay less per student on public schools now than we did when you were in school, Esso. And I'd bet that's part of the problem.
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:
While I was answering beej's criticism of my little question, I thought I would dig out the following from my computer records:

EIGHTH GRADE EDUCATION – 1895​


What it took to get an 8th grade education in 1895...

Remember when grandparents and great-grandparents stated that they only had an 8th grade education? Well, check this out. Could any of us have passed the 8th grade in 1895?

This is the eighth-grade final exam from 1895 in Salina, Kansas, USA. It was taken from the original document on file at the Smokey Valley Genealogical Society and Library in Salina, and reprinted by the Salina Journal.

8th Grade Final Exam: Salina, KS - 1895

Grammar (Time, one hour)

1. Give nine rules for the use of capital letters.
2. Name the parts of speech and define those that have no modifications.
3. Define verse, stanza and paragraph.
4. What are the principal parts of a verb? Give principal parts of "lie," "play," and "run."
5. Define case; illustrate each case.
6. What is punctuation? Give rules for principal marks of punctuation.
7 - 10. Write a composition of about 150 words and show therein that you understand the practical use of the rules of grammar.

Arithmetic (Time, 1 hour 15 minutes)

1. Name and define the Fundamental Rules of Arithmetic.
2. A wagon box is 2 ft. deep, 10 feet long, and 3 ft. wide. How many bushels of wheat will it hold?
3. If a load of wheat weighs 3,942 lbs., what is it worth at 50cts/bushel, deducting 1,050 lbs. for tare?
4. District No 33 has a valuation of $35,000. What is the necessary levy to carry on a school seven months at $50 per month, and have $104 for incidentals?
5. Find the cost of 6,720 lbs. coal at $6.00 per ton.
6. Find the interest of $512.60 for 8 months and 18 days at 7 percent.
7. What is the cost of 40 boards 12 inches wide and 16 ft. long at $20 per metre?
8. Find bank discount on $300 for 90 days (no grace) at 10 percent.
9. What is the cost of a square farm at $15 per acre, the distance of which is 640 rods?
10. Write a Bank C heck, a Promissory Note, and a Receipt..


U.S. History (Time, 45 minutes)
1. Give the epochs into which U.S. History is divided
2. Give an account of the discovery of America by Columbus.
3. Relate the causes and results of the Revolutionary War.
4. Show the territorial growth of the United States.
5. Tell what you can of the history of Kansas.
6. Describe three of the most prominent battles of the Rebellion.
7. Who were the following: Morse, Whitney, Fulton, Bell, Lincoln, Penn, and Howe?
8. Name events connected with the following dates: 1607, 1620, 1800, 1849, 1865.

Orthography (Time, one hour)

1. What is meant by the following: alphabet, phonetic, orthography, etymology, syllabication
2. What are elementary sounds? How classified?
3. What are the following, and give examples of each: trigraph, subvocals, diphthong, cognate letters, linguals
4. Give four substitutes for caret 'u.'
5. Give two rules for spelling words with final 'e.' Name two exceptions under each rule.
6. Give two uses of silent letters in spelling. Illustrate each.
7. Define the following prefixes and use in connection with a word: bi, dis, mis, pre, semi, post, non, inter, mono, sup.
8. Mark diacritically and divide into syllables the following, and name the sign that indicates the sound: card, ball, mercy, sir, odd, cell, rise, blood, fare, last.
9. Use the following correctly in sentences: cite, site, sight, fane, fain, feign, vane, vain, vein, raze, raise, rays.
10. Write 10 words frequently mispronounced and indicate pronunciation by use of diacritical marks and by syllabication.

Geography (Time, one hour)

1. What is climate? Upon what does climate depend?
2. How do you account for the extremes of climate in Kansas?
3. Of what use are rivers? Of what use is the ocean?
4. Describe the mountains of North America.
5. Name and describe the following: Monrovia, Odessa, Denver, Manitoba, Hecla, Yukon, St. Helena, Juan Fernandez, Aspinwall and Orinoco.
6. Name and locate the principal trade centers of the U.S.
7. Name all the republics of Europe and give the capital of each.
8. Why is the Atlantic Coast colder than the Pacific in the same latitude?
9. Describe the process by which the water of the ocean returns to the sources of rivers.
10. Describe the movements of the earth. Give the inclination of the earth.
Click to expand...
Have a crack at this quiz, beej. :biggthumpup:

And no, I did not go to school in the 19th century. :)
 
One of the biggest problems is that school funds are tied to test scores. How is giving less money to the worst performing schools going to help the USA do better? It would make more sense to give less to the better schools and spend more on the worst. Maybe then we'll quit graduating people who are functionally illiterate (ie. Jerrell Powe).
 
stinger, maybe it's a function of living where you live, but as I said before, my kids went to school with exactly the kinds of kids I described. On my daughter's JV soccer team, they had kids who literally didn't speak English for example, and one of her track teammates had to drop off the team when she got pregnant. No they don't live in our neighborhood, but they're in our school district. Maybe where you live, most private school kids aren't from wealthy families, but where I live they are. The school 1 mile from my home costs $5000 per year for elementary school and $12,000 for high school. At the Christian school that sits between us and the public school, the student body is 100% white as far as I know. My daughter knows a number of kids there, and while they aren't all wealthy, they are clearly different from public school kids in the sense that they are self selected and have a different expectation of school. So to the original discussion about SAT scores, etc., they clearly have a huge advantage based on the kids they have to work with.

So my experience is that the purely private schools are mostly well off kids, the Christian schools not so much but more homogenous as a student body and public schools much more diverse and quite different from either type of private school. We don't have any lower income people in our neighborhood, but go 5 miles towards town and you see some interesting things. Your locale may be more segregated than ours for all I know, I haven't spent any time around Buford in a very long time so really have no idea. But I think my reality is more the norm than yours.
 
Hey, so how about that GT recruiting? O wait, never mind that....:D
 
ncjacket said:
stinger, maybe it's a function of living where you live, but as I said before, my kids went to school with exactly the kinds of kids I described. On my daughter's JV soccer team, they had kids who literally didn't speak English for example, and one of her track teammates had to drop off the team when she got pregnant. No they don't live in our neighborhood, but they're in our school district. Maybe where you live, most private school kids aren't from wealthy families, but where I live they are. The school 1 mile from my home costs $5000 per year for elementary school and $12,000 for high school. At the Christian school that sits between us and the public school, the student body is 100% white as far as I know. My daughter knows a number of kids there, and while they aren't all wealthy, they are clearly different from public school kids in the sense that they are self selected and have a different expectation of school. So to the original discussion about SAT scores, etc., they clearly have a huge advantage based on the kids they have to work with.

So my experience is that the purely private schools are mostly well off kids, the Christian schools not so much but more homogenous as a student body and public schools much more diverse and quite different from either type of private school. We don't have any lower income people in our neighborhood, but go 5 miles towards town and you see some interesting things. Your locale may be more segregated than ours for all I know, I haven't spent any time around Buford in a very long time so really have no idea. But I think my reality is more the norm than yours.
Click to expand...

FWIW, tuition at my girl's school is in the neighborhood of $4000/year/student. The school my older daughter will perhaps attend next fall is near $6000/year/student. Not cheap, but far from tuition at other larger or more prestigious private school around.

As I said above, it is true that the bottom 20% of a typical public school in most districts cannot attend most private schools. But that leaves 80% that can. I'd guess that 95% of most main-line (not elite) private school students equate roughly to the middle 60-80% of the local public school students, depending on the area you're in. That's a lot of overlap in the student population itself.

The two populations are not nearly as divergent as is often supposed in terms of economic status. Most gainfully employed 2 wage earner families today (and all Tech graduates) could afford my girls' school, if they wished to sacrifice like we do to put them there. I live in one of the smaller homes in our neighborhood, and so I know most of the families are at least as well off as I am. The issue is what are they willing to give up.

While the populations are very similar for the majority of students in any given area, the administration of public and private schools could not be more divergent. THIS is the major difference, not the student themselves.

There are three reasons, I put my kids in a private Christian school:
1. So they can learn in the context of their Christian faith.
2. So they will be challenged to learn, act and live in a way that reinforces the values that my wife and I are teaching them.
3. So that they will not have to deal with the crap that being constantly exposed to that bottom 10-20% brings. Public schools have to put up with that. I don't.

Therein is the difference as I see it. That is how they differ.
 
Actually I think the biggest difference is that if you're worried about the bottom 10-20% you live in a pretty affluent area, whether you realize it or not.
 
Esso, interesting test. Part of what it shows though is how much the definition of knowledge and education have changed. For example, I don't know what Orthography even means,
 
ncjacket said:
Actually I think the biggest difference is that if you're worried about the bottom 10-20% you live in a pretty affluent area, whether you realize it or not.
Click to expand...

Yes, I live in a pretty affluent area compared to the entire metro area. Most all of the new development in N Gwinnett ain't cheap. It is mostly upper middle class (high $100K's to $350K's housing - or at least they used to be.). My point is that kids from those same families go to both public schools and main-line private schools (not the elite prep school or two) in the area. A large percentage of both types of schools are pretty homogeneous in terms of students, but very different in terms of administration.

Furthermore, I would hold this to be true throughout the metro area, that the main-line private schools in any given area tend to represent a large segment of the local population of that area, so there is a high similarity between the two. Probably less and less so as you enter an area more depressed by urban blight. Again, not talking about the elite prep school or two.

I will also postulate that there has been a vast expansion of main-line private schools over the past 20 years that are aimed at affordability for the community they are in. Also, that this growing class of school has rapidly outgrown the elite prep school in number and student enrollment.

The result would be that the basic premise in this thread that there is a huge difference between students in public and private schools in any area is a large one. The huge difference is found in the administration of the two types of schools, not so much in the students.
 
We'll just have to disagree. What you describe may be true in the ATL metro area. I can guarantee you that it isn't true in Greensboro, NC or Raleigh, or many other places.

But to the original point. If the student bodies are basically the same, and the performance of the students isn't, then you can point to school administration and teachers. The original premise though was simply that public schools are inferior to private. So unless your situation is true, my point that you can't simply compare SAT scores or something like that and draw any conclusion because at the schools I'm familiar with the student bodies are significantly different.
 
ncjacket said:
We'll just have to disagree. What you describe may be true in the ATL metro area. I can guarantee you that it isn't true in Greensboro, NC or Raleigh, or many other places.

But to the original point. If the student bodies are basically the same, and the performance of the students isn't, then you can point to school administration and teachers. The original premise though was simply that public schools are inferior to private. So unless your situation is true, my point that you can't simply compare SAT scores or something like that and draw any conclusion because at the schools I'm familiar with the student bodies are significantly different.
Click to expand...

Fair enough.
 
In the 2008 Recrooting class, we had 11 out of 20 FB Players that were National Honor Society Members.

Coincidentially, of the 20 FB recroots, 11 also were HS Basketball Stars.

We like smart basketball playing footbll players for recroots...who cares about stars if you can pound the rock? Ask Coop!



1) No Girls

2) No recent success

3) ACC

4) Small fan base

5) Hard Admissions

6) Hard Majors

7) No Girls[/quote]
 
Let me quickly see if I can sum up:

A) Government schools are just as good as Private schools; and they are underfunded and don't pay teachers near enough.

B) Government school teachers are way underpaid, even though the school parking lots are full of BMW's according to one poster. Government school teachers also make considerably more money than Private school teachers.

C) Government school students are exactly the same as Private school students; except they can't study because of the family income situtation, some are rejects the Private schools won't accept, and some parents and students don't care about education.

In summary, the Government schools are great; but the government needs to pony up more money and bring them up to par.:confused:

PS. The reason I call them 'Government Schools' is because when my good friends in Clayton County tried to enroll their kids in school in Fayette and Henry counties, they found out those schools weren't open to the public at all. Henry county schools are exclusively for kids living in Henry county; whereas the private schools in Henry county are open to the public, go figure.;)
 
Re: discuss the differences of a public/private education

i think this thread title needs to be changed. its gone to suck.
 
ncjacket said:
We'll just have to disagree. What you describe may be true in the ATL metro area. I can guarantee you that it isn't true in Greensboro, NC or Raleigh, or many other places.

.
Click to expand...

Also isn't true in rural areas. It isnt' just an isolated phenomenon of "urban blight."

In heterogeneous areas (such as my old school) where the poor and affluent are mixed together in one high school for the entire county, the public school student body was vastly different than local private schools.

In fact, public schools in affluent areas are a sort of "private school", the price of admission being the resources to live in that area.

Friends who were discussing buying a new house recently discussed how the cost of moving to certain areas would be a need to use a private school. So they had to balance the higher cost of housing with the fact that public schools in the area were as good as othe private schools.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top