Is private or public school better for kids with special needs?
Care and Feeding is Slates parenting advice column. In addition to our traditional advice, every Thursday we feature an assortment of teachers from across the country answering your education questions. Email askateacher@slate.com or post it in the Slate Parenting Facebook group. My 10 year-old is a very bright, beautiful person who is also on the autism spectrum. Early on we sought out alternatives to public school thinking shed do better in a small group setting. We didnt realize that a Montessori-type school was actually the worst possible place (all the freedom and loose structure was too much) for her. We were terrified of sending her to a large public school, so since we were able to make this choice, we decided I would homeschool her. Advertisement  Advertisement  Advertisement  Its been four years now and weve had ups and downs, but lately more downs. She needs friends. She needs teachers, she needs more support than what I can offer. We go back and forth between private and public. Private because wed have more say in whats going on, then back to public because shed have support (hopefully). Im just terrified of her getting bullied or someone taking advantage of her. She doesnt get when people are messing with her. I know she needs more, but Im just so conflicted as to what to do. Help! Public or Private  Dear Public or Private,  Socialization is so important. I can understand why some parents want to homeschool, especially in those early years, but I do think its the right choice to give a childespecially a child for whom navigating social situations can present a challengeas many opportunities to practice that skill as possible, and school really is a good place for that. I understand that I am biased, as a public school teacher, but I just dont see private school as a good choice for students who may need special education. I say that as someone who went to private school, and as someone whoif I were a student nowwould have received special education. Im definitely not saying all public schools are equal, or that public education is flawless (its not! ), but I really do not trust private schools to do special education right. Advertisement  Advertisement  My reasoning is simple: a public school is beholden to rules a private school is not. Technically, yes, private institutions have to follow laws like dont discriminate but as anyone who has been paying attention to our modern world can tell you, enforcement for laws is not as blind and even as we would like it to be. At a private school, they may claim that they provide XYZ supports for your child, but they are not legally required to do so, and there arent standards for that care. For example, at least in New York, teachers arent even required to have licenses to teach. Im not saying that the teachers at NYC private schools arent great (I went to one and I appreciate the education I got!) or that all licensed teachers are better than unlicensed teachers. But that minimum standard isnt applied. Advertisement  By contrast, at a public school, you are required to follow certain standards. Autism is one of the 13 qualifying diagnoses for an IEP, meaning that if she needs academic supports to be successful at school, the pathway is easier to getting those supports. Likewise, if understanding other people and socializing are areas of weakness, you may be qualified for counseling or Speech and Language therapy, which can help her build those pragmatic skills (such as understanding sarcasm). Advertisement  Furthermore, a public school has procedures in place to address challenging situations. If she is overwhelmed in her class size, and it is negatively impacting her learning, her class size can be changed, or she can be given extra adult supports (an aide or special education teacher, depending on how your school district does things) to ensure she is able to be successful. At a private school, they dont have to do anything. I have had family members who have sent their kids to private schools which promote themselves as for learning-disabled children simply say we cant help your kid, and ask them not to return because they didnt want to provide the supports the child needed. You are entitled to a free and appropriate education in the least restrictive environment at public school. They wont ask you not to return. They will work with you to provide for your daughter. In terms of peace of mind, I think private schools beat public schools by a mile. Advertisement  Ms. Sarnell (early childhood special education teacher, New York)  Slate needs your support right now. Sign up for Slate Plus to keep reading the advice you crave every week. Ive been teaching for four years, so Im still pretty new. I teach fifth grade at a school that is extremely socioeconomically diverse. I keep running into the same problem. Whenever I have trouble with a student, whether its poor grades or attendance issues or behavioral problems, I try to reach out to the parents and get them on board as much as possible. A sort of running theme Ive noticed among the parents of these kids is that they say their kids are going to grow up to be professional athletes or performers or some such so they dont need school and then they refuse to help get their child back on track. Obviously the odds of any of my students becoming famous are incredibly low, not to mention that being an athlete or famous singer requires a lot of dedication and hard work, which none of these kids are learning if they blow off school and dont do their homework. Im just not really sure how to respond when parents say that. My family always really valued education, and Im having a hard time dealing with parents who dont. The few times I have pointed out that theres almost no chance of their child becoming famous it has not gone over well. Advertisement  Advertisement  Advertisement  A Star Is Probably Not Born  Dear Star,  You need to start by reflecting on how youre explaining these conversations to yourself, and some of the assumptions I think youre making about what they mean. You didnt explicitly state the demographics of your students who have been strugglingbut you did take care to mention the significant socioeconomic diversity of your school just before describing your most challenging students and their parents, who refuse to help. I read this as implying that you feel most disconnected from families who are poor. Even if my interpretation is off-base, I think theres still a lot to unpack here, but if its not, its even more critical that you examine your mindset and practices, because these students are not your most troublesome, they are your most vulnerable, and they need you to do better. Advertisement  You should start from the premise that virtually all parents most heartfelt desire is to see their children thrive. Take it as a given that the parents of your students are deeply invested in their childrens success and happiness, that they long to see their current promise play out into a stable and contented future, just as your parents did for you. You say that your family always really encouraged education. Rather than simply chalking that up to strong values and logical priorities, you need to interrogate that more. They must have believed that it would work for you, that it was a viable and trustworthy route to ensuring your success. They must have had clear evidence and reasonable expectations that your schooling would ensure the positive results they hoped for. If you are assuming and trusting that your students families harbor those same hopes, yet they are telling you that school does not feel like a place where they can trust that their dreams for their children are likely to come true, then thats your cue to take a hard look at how these families experience with the school system is failing to offer them the vision and path that your parents enjoyednot dismiss them as deluded or blame them for having faulty values. Advertisement  Advertisement  In order for parents to feel confident and invested and hopeful when they send their kids to school, they need to sense that the school is equally invested in their kids. They need to trust that their children will feel valued and seen in their classrooms, that the education theyre offered will seem relevant and meaningful and will demonstrate tangible connections to their future aspirations. Advertisement  I have given you some feedback that I think will be hard to hear. This job is so difficult and demands so much; critique is especially hard when true success already feels out of reach much of the time. But I think the parents youve spoken to have actually communicated something really valuable and important. Theyre telling you that what they need and expect in order for school to feel like a necessary and vital place for the children they love is not currently on offer. They need your empathy, your partnership, and your investment in their kids success. Advertisement  Ms. Bauer (middle and high school teacher, New York)  Advertisement  My fifteen-year-old daughter is having trouble finding books to read. She doesnt like fantasy or sci-fi but does enjoy realistic and historical fiction. Recommendations would be very much appreciated. Wanting to Raise a Reader  Dear Wanting,  I love helping teens find books! Im going to stick with young adult suggestions because I find that most teenagers prefer to read YA, although of course many read adult fiction as well. I recently read We Didnt Ask for This by Adi Alsaid and loved it! A high school lock-in is disrupted when a group of students chain themselves to the doors in an effort to save a local coral reef. The story is engrossing, the characters are engaging, and the writing is beautiful. I enjoyed the book so much Im going to offer it as a book group option to my students next year. Advertisement  In terms of historical fiction, Ripper by Stefan Petrucha is a fun read. Carver Young is a wannabe detective whos about to age out of a New York City orphanage. Hes on a mission to locate his biological father, but is soon caught up in the search for Jack the Ripper. Carver is the sort of scrappy character you root for, and the plot has many unexpected twists and turns. Petrucha also fills the novel with period-appropriate gadgets used by detectives in the Pinkerton Agency. This is a popular choice for independent reading among my students. In my English class, we just finished reading Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi, which my students always enjoy. It tells the story of a young girl growing up in Iran during the 1979 revolution and subsequent Iran-Iraq War. It is actually a memoir, not fiction, but the storytelling is excellent and readers will learn a lot of history as well. I should add that it is a graphic novelnot all students enjoy reading graphic novels, but I find that most do. Advertisement  I hope one of those suggestions will be appealing to your daughter! An effective way to find good books is to Google for readalikes. Type the title of a book she enjoyed followed by read alikes into the search bar (for example, The Hate U Give read alikes) and you will find blog postings and articles with suggestions for similar books. Some students also look for new titles in online communities like Goodreads or blogs such as Book Riot. And of course, Id be remiss if I didnt suggest she consult the librarians at her school or local library! They love talking about books with readers. Happy reading! Ms. Holbrook (high school teacher, Texas)  More Advice From Slate  My daughter is a freshman in high school, and she recently got an assignment in life sciences that seems inappropriate. The assignment is for the kids to identify someone in their family who died of cancer, and then students are supposed to research that kind of cancer and create a poster presentation to display for the entire school. This seems like a terrible idea, and an invasion of privacy.