an essay on public school

Essay on Public Schools vs Private Schools

Public school vs private school essay introduction, public schools vs private schools: classroom size & admission, essay about private and public schools: cost & tuition, private school vs public school essay conclusion.

Need to compare and contrast public and private schools? Essay samples like this one will help you with this task! Here, you will learn about advantages, disadvantages, and differences between public schools vs private schools. Choose your side of the debate and persuade the readers in your public school vs private school essay!

Comparing private and public schools can be more or less like comparing oranges and apples, two very disparate things that can never be held on similar standards. Choosing the best school for your child is one of the most important decisions parents have to make for their children but most parents rely on rumors and hearsay in deciding on whether to send their children to a private or a public school.

The best ways to determine whether you are making the right decision for your child is by visiting the school and asking for clarification from teachers for all your queries. What school your youngster attend to is a personal decision which is greatly determined by the family values, special needs of the kids, his mannerisms and interests.

This essay critically compares the differences and similarities, advantages and disadvantages and the issues that a rise in both private and public schools that affects the education of the children mainly preschool kids the its effects they on the kids future life.

Statistics show that some time back private school used to do better than public schools but recently this gap has been narrowing and making it harder for parents to choose between a private independent school with a high price tag on it, from a local public school which is relatively cheaper (Diana, 2006).

According to Maureen ( 2011, pp.10) public schools usually have larger class sizes due to the fact that they are required to admit every child who meets the qualifications set by the government. This offers an advantage to the pre-school children by improving their communication and socializing skills since they interact with more children from different races, cultures and social classes.

However, large classes are also disadvantageous in that it reduces the ratio of teachers to students and this tends to limit the teacher’s concentration on students hence limiting the children’s there performance. The average ratio of teachers to students in public schools is 1:17while in private schools its 1:9.

Private schools on the other hand are very selective in terms of their admissions. Some schools cannot admit students from certain religions, races or even economic status. This tends to reduce the population of private schools. Some of the long term effects to children attending privately owned pre-schools are poor socializing skills due to the low population size and similar social classes, religion and lack of diverse cultures (Robert, 2011, pp4).

Public schools are cheaper and they are funded by the government and some of them are usually underfunded. They are a part of the large school system which is part of the government and this makes them vulnerable to the political influence hence exposes them to political vulnerabilities which if experienced affects their performance.

The economic status of the country and the government also greatly affects the operations of public schools. Their curriculum is determined by the government and as you know different regions face different challenges hence the need for different curriculum to meet the different needs. (GreatSchools, 2010, pp.5)

Private schools on the other hand charge a higher tuition fee which is the major source of its funds. This makes them independent and protects them from the political realm hence they are free to determine their own curricula which is usually single minded, producing best results by providing the best quality of education possible (Eddie , 2011, pp.4)

In cases of children with special needs public schools usually have special programs and specially trained teachers who are well trained to work with such children. In contrast most private schools lack these programs and they are sometimes forced to deny such kids admission to their institutions and sometimes these services may be offered at an extra cost.

Is the question about which schools are better, private or public schools, answered yet? I bet not since there are no clear conclusions since they both have advantages and disadvantages as we have seen. In a nut shell the best school for ones child depends on the values, mannerisms, family, back ground, needs and interests of both the parents and the children. In other words one man’s meat is another man’s poison.

Diana, J. S. (2006). Public Schools Perform Near Private Ones in Study . Web.

Eddie, R. (2011). Pre School Education: Private Schools Vs PublicSchools . Web.

Great Schools Staff. (2010). Private versus public . Web.

Maureen, B. (2011). Public vs. private : Which is right for your child? Web.

Robert, N. (2011). Private vs Public Schools: Class Size. Web.

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Americans Have Given Up on Public Schools. That’s a Mistake.

The current debate over public education underestimates its value—and forgets its purpose.

Public schools have always occupied prime space in the excitable American imagination. For decades, if not centuries, politicians have made hay of their supposed failures and extortions. In 2004, Rod Paige, then George W. Bush’s secretary of education, called the country’s leading teachers union a “terrorist organization.” In his first education speech as president, in 2009, Barack Obama lamented the fact that “despite resources that are unmatched anywhere in the world, we’ve let our grades slip, our schools crumble, our teacher quality fall short, and other nations outpace us.”

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President Donald Trump used the occasion of his inaugural address to bemoan the way “beautiful” students had been “deprived of all knowledge” by our nation’s cash-guzzling schools. Educators have since recoiled at the Trump administration’s budget proposal detailing more than $9 billion in education cuts, including to after-school programs that serve mostly poor children. These cuts came along with increased funding for school-privatization efforts such as vouchers. Our secretary of education, Betsy DeVos, has repeatedly signaled her support for school choice and privatization, as well as her scorn for public schools, describing them as a “dead end” and claiming that unionized teachers “care more about a system, one that was created in the 1800s, than they care about individual students.”

Few people care more about individual students than public-school teachers do, but what’s really missing in this dystopian narrative is a hearty helping of reality: 21st-century public schools, with their record numbers of graduates and expanded missions, are nothing close to the cesspools portrayed by political hyperbole. This hyperbole was not invented by Trump or DeVos, but their words and proposals have brought to a boil something that’s been simmering for a while—the denigration of our public schools, and a growing neglect of their role as an incubator of citizens.

Americans have in recent decades come to talk about education less as a public good, like a strong military or a noncorrupt judiciary, than as a private consumable. In an address to the Brookings Institution, DeVos described school choice as “a fundamental right.” That sounds appealing. Who wouldn’t want to deploy their tax dollars with greater specificity? Imagine purchasing a gym membership with funds normally allocated to the upkeep of a park.

My point here is not to debate the effect of school choice on individual outcomes: The evidence is mixed, and subject to cherry-picking on all sides. I am more concerned with how the current discussion has ignored public schools’ victories, while also detracting from their civic role. Our public-education system is about much more than personal achievement; it is about preparing people to work together to advance not just themselves but society. Unfortunately, the current debate’s focus on individual rights and choices has distracted many politicians and policy makers from a key stakeholder: our nation as a whole. As a result, a cynicism has taken root that suggests there is no hope for public education. This is demonstrably false. It’s also dangerous.

The idea that popular education might best be achieved privately is nothing new, of course. The Puritans, who saw education as necessary to Christian practice, experimented with the idea, and their experience is telling. In 1642, they passed a law—the first of its kind in North America—requiring that all children in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts receive an education. Puritan legislators assumed, naively, that parents would teach children in their homes; however, many of them proved unable or unwilling to rise to the task. Five years later, the legislators issued a corrective in the form of the Old Deluder Satan Law: “It being one chief project of that old deluder, Satan, to keep men from the knowledge of the Scriptures,” the law intoned, “it is therefore ordered … that everie Township [of 100 households or more] in this Jurisdiction” be required to provide a trained teacher and a grammar school, at taxpayer expense.

Almost 400 years later, contempt for our public schools is commonplace. Americans, and especially Republicans, report that they have lost faith in the system, but notably, nearly three-quarters of parents rate their own child’s school highly; it’s other people’s schools they worry about. Meanwhile, Americans tend to exaggerate our system’s former glory. Even in the 1960s, when international science and math tests were first administered, the U.S. was never at the top of the rankings and was often near the bottom.

Not only is the idea that American test scores were once higher a fiction, but in some cases they have actually improved over time, especially among African American students. Since the early 1970s, when the Department of Education began collecting long-term data, average reading and math scores for 9- and 13-year-olds have risen significantly.

These gains have come even as the student body of American public schools has expanded to include students with ever greater challenges. For the first time in recent memory, a majority of U.S. public-school students come from low-income households. The student body includes a larger proportion than ever of students who are still learning to speak English. And it includes many students with disabilities who would have been shut out of public school before passage of the 1975 law now known as the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act, which guaranteed all children a “free appropriate public education.”

The fantasy that in some bygone era U.S. test scores were higher has prevented us from acknowledging other possible explanations for America’s technological, scientific, and cultural preeminence. In her 2013 book, Reign of Error , Diane Ravitch—an education historian and former federal education official who originally supported but later became a critic of reforms like No Child Left Behind—cites surprising evidence that a nation’s higher position on an international ranking of test scores actually predicted lower per capita GDP decades later, compared with countries whose test scores ranked worse. Other findings complicate the picture, but at a minimum we can say that there is no clear connection between test scores and a nation’s economic success. Surely it’s reasonable to ask whether some of America’s success might derive not from factors measured by standardized tests, but from other attributes of our educational system. U.S. public schools, at their best, have encouraged a unique mixing of diverse people, and produced an exceptionally innovative and industrious citizenry.

Our lost faith in public education has led us to other false conclusions, including the conviction that teachers unions protect “bad apples.” Thanks to articles and documentaries such as Waiting for “Superman , ” most of us have an image seared into our brain of a slew of know-nothing teachers, removed from the classroom after years of sleeping through class, sitting in state-funded “rubber rooms” while continuing to draw hefty salaries. If it weren’t for those damned unions, or so the logic goes, we could drain the dregs and hire real teachers. I am a public-school-certified teacher whose own children attended public schools, and I’ve occasionally entertained these thoughts myself.

But unions are not the bogeyman we’re looking for. According to “The Myth of Unions’ Overprotection of Bad Teachers,” a well-designed study by Eunice S. Han, an economist at the University of Utah, school districts with strong unions actually do a better job of weeding out bad teachers and retaining good ones than do those with weak unions. This makes sense. If you have to pay more for something, you are more likely to care about its quality; when districts pay higher wages, they have more incentive to employ good teachers (and dispense with bad ones). And indeed, many of the states with the best schools have reached that position in the company of strong unions. We can’t say for sure that unions have a positive impact on student outcomes—the evidence is inconclusive. But findings like Han’s certainly undermine reformers’ claims.

In defending our public schools, I do not mean to say they can’t be improved. But if we are serious about advancing them, we need to stop scapegoating unions and take steps to increase and improve the teaching pool. Teacher shortages are leaving many states in dire straits: The national shortfall is projected to exceed 100,000 teachers by next year.

That many top college graduates hesitate to join a profession with low wages is no great surprise. For many years, talented women had few career alternatives to nursing and teaching; this kept teacher quality artificially high. Now that women have more options, if we want to attract strong teachers, we need to pay competitive salaries. As one observer put it, if you cannot find someone to sell you a Lexus for a few dollars, that doesn’t mean there is a car shortage.

Oddly, the idea of addressing our supply-and-demand problem the old-fashioned American way, with a market-based approach, has been largely unappealing to otherwise free-market thinkers. And yet raising salaries would have cascading benefits beyond easing the teacher shortage. Because salaries are associated with teacher quality, raising pay would likely improve student outcomes. Massachusetts and Connecticut have attracted capable people to the field with competitive pay, and neither has an overall teacher shortage.

Apart from raising teacher pay, we should expand the use of other strategies to attract talent, such as forgivable tuition loans, service fellowships, hardship pay for the most-challenging settings (an approach that works well in the military and the foreign service), and housing and child-care subsidies for teachers, many of whom can’t afford to live in the communities in which they teach. We can also get more serious about de-larding a bureaucracy that critics are right to denounce: American public schools are bloated at the top of the organizational pyramid, with too many administrators and not enough high-quality teachers in the classroom.

Where schools are struggling today, collectively speaking, is less in their transmission of mathematical principles or writing skills, and more in their inculcation of what it means to be an American. The Founding Fathers understood the educational prerequisites on which our democracy was based (having themselves designed it), and they had far grander plans than, say, beating the Soviets to the moon, or ensuring a literate workforce.

Thomas Jefferson, among other historical titans, understood that a functioning democracy required an educated citizenry, and crucially, he saw education as a public good to be included in the “articles of public care,” despite his preference for the private sector in most matters. John Adams, another proponent of public schooling, urged, “There should not be a district of one mile square, without a school in it, not founded by a charitable individual, but maintained at the expense of the people themselves.”

In the centuries since, the courts have regularly affirmed the special status of public schools as a cornerstone of the American democratic project. In its vigorous defenses of students’ civil liberties—to protest the Vietnam War, for example, or not to salute the flag—the Supreme Court has repeatedly held public schools to an especially high standard precisely because they play a unique role in fostering citizens.

This role isn’t limited to civics instruction; public schools also provide students with crucial exposure to people of different backgrounds and perspectives. Americans have a closer relationship with the public-school system than with any other shared institution. (Those on the right who disparagingly refer to public schools as “government schools” have obviously never been to a school-board meeting, one of the clearest examples anywhere of direct democracy in action.) Ravitch writes that “one of the greatest glories of the public school was its success in Americanizing immigrants.” At their best, public schools did even more than that, integrating both immigrants and American-born students from a range of backgrounds into one citizenry.

At a moment when our media preferences, political affiliations, and cultural tastes seem wider apart than ever, abandoning this amalgamating function is a bona fide threat to our future. And yet we seem to be headed in just that direction. The story of American public education has generally been one of continuing progress, as girls, children of color, and children with disabilities (among others) have redeemed their constitutional right to push through the schoolhouse gate. But in the past few decades, we have allowed schools to grow more segregated, racially and socioeconomically. (Charter schools, far from a solution to this problem, are even more racially segregated than traditional public schools.)

Simultaneously, we have neglected instruction on democracy. Until the 1960s, U.S. high schools commonly offered three classes to prepare students for their roles as citizens: Government, Civics (which concerned the rights and responsibilities of citizens), and Problems of Democracy (which included discussions of policy issues and current events). Today, schools are more likely to offer a single course. Civics education has fallen out of favor partly as a result of changing political sentiment. Some liberals have come to see instruction in American values—such as freedom of speech and religion, and the idea of a “melting pot”—as reactionary. Some conservatives, meanwhile, have complained of a progressive bias in civics education.

Especially since the passage of No Child Left Behind, the class time devoted to social studies has declined steeply. Most state assessments don’t cover civics material, and in too many cases, if it isn’t tested, it isn’t taught. At the elementary-school level, less than 40 percent of fourth-grade teachers say they regularly emphasize topics related to civics education.

So what happens when we neglect the public purpose of our publicly funded schools? The discussion of vouchers and charter schools, in its focus on individual rights, has failed to take into account American society at large. The costs of abandoning an institution designed to bind, not divide, our citizenry are high.

Already, some experts have noted a conspicuous link between the decline of civics education and young adults’ dismal voting rates. Civics knowledge is in an alarming state: Three-quarters of Americans can’t identify the three branches of government. Public-opinion polls, meanwhile, show a new tolerance for authoritarianism, and rising levels of antidemocratic and illiberal thinking. These views are found all over the ideological map, from President Trump, who recently urged the nation’s police officers to rough up criminal suspects, to, ironically, the protesters who tried to block DeVos from entering a Washington, D.C., public school in February.

We ignore public schools’ civic and integrative functions at our peril. To revive them will require good faith across the political spectrum. Those who are suspicious of public displays of national unity may need to rethink their aversion. When we neglect schools’ nation-binding role, it grows hard to explain why we need public schools at all. Liberals must also work to better understand the appeal of school choice, especially for families in poor areas where teacher quality and attrition are serious problems. Conservatives and libertarians, for their part, need to muster more generosity toward the institutions that have educated our workforce and fueled our success for centuries.

The political theorist Benjamin Barber warned in 2004 that “America as a commercial society of individual consumers may survive the destruction of public schooling. America as a democratic republic cannot.” In this era of growing fragmentation, we urgently need a renewed commitment to the idea that public education is a worthy investment, one that pays dividends not only to individual families but to our society as a whole.

Public School Vs Private School Essay | Advantages & Disadvantages

The discussion surrounding the choice between public and private schools is one that resonates with many families across Nigeria. Both types of institutions offer unique advantages and pose certain challenges. Ultimately, the choice often depends on personal values, specific needs, and the student’s individual circumstances.

Table of Contents

Essay About Public vs Private Schools: A Comprehensive Comparison

Advantages of public schools.

1. Accessibility

One of the primary advantages of public schools is their broad accessibility. Funded by state and federal governments, they provide education to all students, irrespective of their socio-economic status. This democratic perspective guarantees that education is not a luxury limited to a handful, but a basic entitlement available to everyone.

2. Diversity

Public schools usually attract a diverse student population, providing students with exposure to a variety of cultures, backgrounds, and perspectives. This diversity often fosters a richer learning experience, broadening a student’s worldview and encouraging empathy and inclusivity.

3. Extracurricular Activities

Public schools frequently take pride in offering an extensive selection of extracurricular pursuits, encompassing everything from athletic teams and societies to arts initiatives. These activities offer students an avenue for personal growth and development beyond the academic sphere, promoting physical, emotional, and social wellbeing.

4. Special Education Services

A crucial advantage of public schools is their obligation to provide special education services to students with disabilities. This ensures inclusive education, promoting equal opportunities for all learners, regardless of their abilities.

Advantages of Private Schools

1. Smaller Class Sizes

Private schools typically have smaller class sizes, offering students more individualized attention and personalized instruction. This can be particularly beneficial for students who need additional support or those who thrive in a more focused learning environment.

2. Resources and Support

Private schools generally have more resources and support systems in place for students, families, and teachers. This includes state-of-the-art facilities, well-stocked libraries, dedicated pastoral care, and robust parent-teacher associations.

3. Academic Reputation

Many private schools have built a reputation for their high academic standards and rigorous curriculum. Often aligned with international standards, these schools may offer a more challenging educational experience, preparing students for higher education and competitive career paths.

4. Specialized Programs

Private schools also offer a variety of specialized programs, such as arts-focused education, military training, or single-sex schooling. These specialized programs offer tailored educational experiences catering to a student’s specific interests or needs.

Disadvantages of Public Schools

1. Overcrowding

One of the major disadvantages of public schools is overcrowding, which often results from a lack of funding or resources. This often results in an increase in class size and a decrease in personalized instruction for students.

2. Limited Resources

Public schools, particularly in underserved areas, may lack the necessary resources to provide a high-quality education. This includes outdated textbooks, inadequate technological infrastructure, and underfunded extracurricular programs.

3. Standardized Testing Focus

There’s a significant emphasis on standardized testing within public schools, which can sometimes overshadow the broader educational experience. This focus may limit a student’s ability to explore subjects in depth and hinder the development of critical thinking skills.

Disadvantages of Private Schools

1. High Cost

The most obvious disadvantage of private schools is the high cost of tuition, which can exclude students from low or middle-income families. The financial burden can be further exacerbated by additional costs for uniforms, textbooks, extracurricular activities, and school trips.

2. Less Diversity

Private schools often lack the socio-economic, cultural, and racial diversity found in public schools. This can limit students’ exposure to different perspectives and experiences, potentially impacting their personal development and worldview.

3. Selective Admission Policies

Private schools often have selective admission policies, which can lead to a competitive and pressurized environment. This may not be conducive to all learning styles and can cause stress among students.

The debate between public and private schooling is intricate, with both types of schools providing distinct advantages. Indeed, the quality of education can vary significantly within both realms, influenced by factors like the specific school, the quality of teachers, and available resources. Ultimately, the choice between a public and private school should hinge on the student’s individual needs and the family’s values and circumstances. Each type of school offers unique learning environments and opportunities, and the decision should be made with careful consideration. Education, after all, is about nurturing a child’s potential and guiding them toward personal and academic success.

Public Schools Are Better Than Private Schools Argumentative Essay

Public schools, often criticized and contrasted to their private counterparts, possess several distinct advantages that are commonly overlooked. These advantages contribute significantly to the holistic development of a student, making the argument that public schools are better than private schools a credible one.

Firstly, the diversity in public schools is unparalleled, ensuring students are exposed to a multitude of cultures, social classes, and perspectives. In such a setting, students develop a robust understanding of the world, fostering empathy and tolerance. This rich cultural exchange is often missing in private schools, which tend to attract a more homogeneous student population.

Furthermore, public schools are governed by a standard curriculum decided by education boards, ensuring transparency and uniformity in the quality of education. This ensures that every student, irrespective of their geographical location or socio-economic status, receives an equivalent education. On the other hand, private schools are not subject to the same level of scrutiny and may deviate from the prescribed curriculum, leading to inconsistencies in the quality of education.

Public schools also provide a real-world learning environment where students learn to navigate challenges without the protective bubble often found in private institutions. This helps students develop resilience and adaptability, essential skills for their future endeavors.

Additionally, public schools offer more teacher stability compared to private schools. Teachers in public schools are often unionized and enjoy secure employment, leading to a lower turnover rate. This stability ensures continuity in a student’s learning process, while also fostering a strong student-teacher bond.

Lastly, the wide range of extracurricular activities in public schools provides students with numerous opportunities to discover and nurture their talents outside the classroom. While private schools also offer extracurricular activities, they often come with additional costs, which may deter some families.

In conclusion, while both public and private schools have their merits, the argument that public schools are better than private schools is valid. Public schools offer diverse learning environments, a standard curriculum, a realistic representation of the world, teacher stability, and a plethora of extracurricular activities. These attributes contribute to a well-rounded education, equipping students with the necessary skills to thrive in the real world.

Hello! Welcome to my Blog StudyParagraphs.co. My name is Angelina. I am a college professor. I love reading writing for kids students. This blog is full with valuable knowledge for all class students. Thank you for reading my articles.

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Public School vs. Private School: Argumentative Comparison

Table of contents, public schools: accessibility and diversity, public schools: limited resources and class sizes, private schools: specialized curriculum and resources, private schools: affordability and socioeconomic disparities.

• Baker, B. D., & Welner, K. G. (Eds.). (2017). School Choice: Policies and Outcomes. University of California Press.
• Henig, J. R., Hula, R. C., & Orr, M. T. (Eds.). (2019). Educational Inequality and School Finance: Why Money Matters for America's Students. Harvard Education Press.
• Kahlenberg, R. D. (Ed.). (2013). The Future of School Integration: Socioeconomic Diversity as an Education Reform Strategy. Century Foundation Press.
• Ravitch, D. (2013). Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America's Public Schools. Knopf.
• Van Dunk, D. D., & Taylor, S. S. (Eds.). (2020). Global Perspectives on School Choice and Privatization. Information Age Publishing.

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Private School vs. Public School

Parents have much to consider, from test scores and class sizes to diversity and costs.

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Parents may want to look at the certification, training and professional development obligations of teachers in both public and private schools.

Deciding whether to send a child to public or private school can be a tough choice for parents of elementary, middle and high school students. Data on whether public or private education is better can be challenging to find and difficult to understand, and the cost of private school can be daunting.

So how can parents weigh private schools versus public schools?

Myra McGovern, spokesperson for the National Association of Independent Schools, says it comes down to what is best for each child.

“The individual needs of the child should shape the choice for parents,” she says.

Robert Pianta, professor of early childhood education and founding director of the Center for Advanced Study of Teaching and Learning at the University of Virginia , notes that there are various types of private schools. Some are managed by and affiliated with religious sects, while others operate independently under certain philosophical guidelines. He says parents should be “clear about the specific benefits that they are seeking for their child.”

“What is it about their child that makes them think a private education will be better, and then, more importantly, what is it about a specific private school that matches that child’s needs?” he wrote in an email. “And then, would this experience (or others) be also available in public school?”

Public and Private Schools By the Numbers

With more than 13,000 public school districts (made up of about 100,000 schools) and more than 30,000 individual private schools in the U.S., parents have plenty of choices. However, certain locales may have limited or no private school options. Some may have private schools for certain grades and not others.

Consider these

According to the most recent data from the National Center for Education Statistics, public schools still attract far more students than private schools, with 50.8 million students attending public school as of 2019. Private school enrollment in the fall of 2019 was 4.7 million students, down from 5.7 million in 2017.

But what are the distinctions that might make a difference to parents as they decide between the two? Experts and education researchers say parents should look at a variety of factors when choosing a school for their child, including:

• Educational outcomes, such as rates of graduation and college enrollment.
• Class size.
• Teacher training.
• Affordability.
• Availability of programs for learning disabilities.

Comparing Student Success in Public and Private Schools

Research has consistently shown that private school students tend to perform better on standardized tests. The National Assessment of Educational Progress, which is often referred to as “the nation’s report card,” assesses both public and private school students in subjects such as math, reading, science and writing. The most recent NAEP data shows what other research has found: Private school students score better in almost all subjects.

For example, eighth grade private school students averaged about 20 points higher than public school or charter students on the NAEP reading test in 2022. Fourth grade private school students had nearly the same advantage in average scores.

On college entry tests such as the SAT , NAIS found that students in private schools consistently outperformed their public school peers in all subject areas.

While private schools appear on paper to promise better educational outcomes for their students, some scholars have attempted to dig deeper than just test scores to find out if private schools actually increase student success.

Pianta, who led a study published in 2018 that examined academic, social, psychological and attainment outcomes, says he found student success is more directly related to family attributes, such as having college-educated parents and higher incomes, than which school they attend.

“When you compare children who went to private school (for an average of six years) with those who only went to public school, any apparent benefits of private schooling – higher test scores, for example – are entirely attributable to parents’ education and income,” he says. “The fact that they went to private school does not account for any differences we might see.”

Christopher Lubienski, a professor at Indiana University and co-author of the book, “The Public School Advantage: Why Public Schools Outperform Private Schools,” agrees, saying, “Whether it’s a public or private school is not necessarily the defining factor. Private schools tend to score better on tests. … But we found that family background differences more than explain the difference between public and private school test scores.”

So how do students from low-income families who attend a private school perform?

Megan Austin, a principal researcher at the American Institutes for Research, looked at the success of students who participated in Indiana’s publicly funded private school voucher program, which is aimed at students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds and skews heavily toward the parochial schools that participate in the voucher program.

She says that students using vouchers to attend private schools were somewhat less successful than those who were attending without a voucher, but that “both types of students … were less likely than traditional public school students to ever fail a course, or to ever be suspended in high school, and they were more likely to enroll in college within one year of high school graduation.”

Courses and Class Size

When researching school options, parents also may want to consider what kinds of courses public and private schools offer, particularly in high school, where high-achieving students may want access to a varied selection, including honors and Advanced Placement classes, Austin says.

She adds that parents should ask schools about how many students graduate on time, how many of their students enroll in college, and the school’s average SAT and ACT scores, among other things.

“Those are all indicators that have been shown to correlate with later success, so asking for that information is a good starting point,” she says.

Class size may be another indicator for parents. While some may feel that smaller class sizes are better for students, Pianta says research on the impact of smaller class sizes on student success has been mixed.

“It’s only when classrooms are in the 12-18 (student) range of size compared with classrooms of 25-35 (students) that we really see a difference,” he says. “In fact, although those smaller classes are observed to be richer in interactions and conversations, there is also some evidence to suggest that some larger classrooms (25-30) actually are better managed, and children learn somewhat more in terms of facts.”

Pianta also stresses that, when it comes to class size, “there’s not a clear rule of thumb.”

Still, the selling point of private schools for many parents is smaller class sizes and more individualized instruction. The student-to-teacher ratio at private schools in 2021 was 12.5 students per teacher, lower than the average 15.4 at public schools.

McGovern of NAIS says smaller class sizes in private schools create a “more tight-knit environment,” which allows the “teacher to really get to know each individual student and their strengths and weaknesses.”

Pianta agrees that smaller class sizes may benefit certain types of children. “If parents have a real reason to be concerned about their child in a large classroom (perhaps that student is very shy or, on the other hand, more likely to be disruptive), then smaller classrooms are better,” he says.

But he adds that many public school classrooms have fewer than 20 students per class, which would allow the same kind of individualized attention students receive in private schools.

Teacher Training and Certification

Regardless of class size, parents may want to look at the certification, training and professional development obligations of teachers in both public and private schools.

McGovern says that while many private school teachers are not certified as public school teachers are required to be, private schools often hire subject matter experts with advanced degrees who can give students more authoritative instruction than a teacher with a background in just education.

“Independent schools generally have extensive professional development for individual teachers and groups of teachers to make sure their skills in the classroom are really top-notch,” she says.

McGovern also says independent schools “are not driven by performance on standardized tests,” as many public schools are, giving teachers more flexibility to create engaging curricula. Private schools are generally not required to meet state testing requirements. However, because some private schools don’t teach with standardized testing in mind, it can make it more difficult for those schools to document the benefits of their approach, she notes.

Lubienski says teacher certifications are important. Public school teachers face rigorous requirements to attend training and to adopt the latest changes in curricula for important subjects like math. Without certifications and regular professional development, curricula can become outdated.

The Cost of Public vs. Private Schools

Public schools are funded by taxpayer dollars, but private schools represent an additional expense for parents. To send their children to private schools, parents generally either need to have the resources on hand to pay tuition or they need some type of financial aid, whether that is scholarship money, loans or publicly funded vouchers in states and localities that offer them.

Tuition costs vary based on the type of private school. For example, median tuition at independent day schools for grades K-12 was $27,408 as of September 2022, according to NAIS. Private boarding schools were more expensive for K-12 students, charging $63,650 on average.

Schools operated by organizations like the Roman Catholic Church or other religious groups tend to cost less than secular independent schools. For example, average annual tuition for private Catholic elementary schools as of 2023 was $4,840, compared to $11,207 for all private elementary schools, according to the Education Data Initiative . Average tuition for secondary Catholic schools was $11,240, while independent private secondary schools charged $16,645.

Diversity in Public and Private Schools

Racial diversity at private schools typically looks different than at public schools. According to NCES data, 66% of students attending private schools were white in the 2019-2020 school year. Hispanic students made up 12% of the population, while 9% were Black, 7% were Asian and the remainder were students from biracial, Pacific Islander or Native American backgrounds.

In contrast, 45% of students attending public schools were white, according to NCES data from the fall of 2021. Hispanic students made up 28% of the population, while 15% were Black, 5% were Asian and the remaining 7% were students from biracial, Pacific Islander or Native American backgrounds.

Pianta says parents looking to send their children to schools with a diverse student body are more likely to find that in public schools. “The diversity of public school is a strength,” he says.

Best Schools for Learning Disabilities

For children with learning disabilities, education experts say that private schools may not always be a good fit.

Public schools are required by law to provide access to “a free appropriate public education to eligible children with disabilities throughout the nation and ensure special education and related services to those children,” according to the U.S. Department of Education’s webpage on the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act , or IDEA. The department says 7.5 million children were receiving services in public schools under IDEA as of the 2020-2021 school year.

Pianta says his research shows children with learning disabilities are better off in public schools, given the resources that states and localities are required to commit under the IDEA.

“Public schools are more tightly regulated than private schools, and this is very evident in the services they must provide to students with special needs,” Pianta says.

McGovern of NAIS acknowledges that not all private schools have support systems for children with learning disabilities, but emphasizes that “some schools do a phenomenal job with students of different learning abilities.” She adds that some private schools are specifically geared toward students with learning disabilities and provide programs tailored to address those needs.

For example, The Fletcher Academy in North Carolina notes on its website that it serves students “with ADHD, processing & memory issues, and a variety of learning disabilities, including dyslexia, dysgraphia and dyscalculia.” Similarly, the Forman School in Connecticut is a college prep school for children with ADHD and dyslexia.

“It’s important for families to ask what the school’s strengths are and their capabilities to really serve the child based on his or her unique needs,” McGovern says.

Researching Public vs. Private Schools

Because each child is different and school options vary by locality, many experts say parents need to do their research locally before deciding what’s best.

“People often assume that private options are better in areas like transportation, housing and health care,” Lubienski says. “With education, that’s not necessarily true.”

He says parents may want to choose private schools over public schools for reasons that go beyond academic outcomes, such as religious education or extracurricular activities such as sports, music or theater.

Austin at the American Institutes for Research says parents should evaluate a variety of options in their communities, including public charter and magnet schools.

“Many parents name academic quality as their top priority, but fewer parents end up having a strong understanding of the academic quality of the school their student goes to,” Austin says. “Instead, they tend to rely on reputation, word-of-mouth or less concrete information that may or may not actually reflect school quality.”

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What Does It Actually Mean for Schools to Be Public?

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Over years of covering school finance, I keep running up against one nagging question: Does the way we pay for public schools inherently contradict what we understand the goal of public education to be?

For that matter, what do we want it to be? “Open and welcoming to all, committed to providing a quality education to everyone,” wrote one educator in a recent EdWeek Research Center survey. “Something that is supported by everyone and helps or benefits everyone,” wrote another. “The foundation of our modern society,” according to a third.

With more frequency in recent years, however, state lawmakers have directed significant sums of money not exclusively to the greatest education needs of the public school system we’ve established—fixing crumbling school buildings, closing massive academic-achievement gaps along racial and socioeconomic lines, providing services to vulnerable students with disabilities and English-learners—but also to private schools or to parents for private decisionmaking on the educational options they choose for their children.

These funding developments—both recent and long-standing—test the very premise of what our public education system is. And the longer they persist, the further away we move from resolving the contradictions of a publicly funded system that falls short of being fully public.

Educators broadly agree on the importance of public education. Close to 9 in 10 who answered the recent EdWeek Research Center survey said they agree that public schools are essential to a functioning democracy. The vast majority of those educators said they “completely agree.”

But the notion of a universally held belief that public education is “supported by everyone and helps or benefits everyone”—while valid and noble—is also incorrect, at least judging by the arc of American history. Until the 1950s, Black students could be lawfully prevented from going to school with their white peers, and de facto segregation has persisted and worsened since, in some instances. It wasn’t until the 1970s that Congress passed a law requiring equal educational opportunities for all students with disabilities, regardless of the cost of providing those services—costs the nation’s schools still struggle to manage.

Meanwhile, the public school system we currently have is tightly intertwined with private interests. In recent decades, many states have authorized private companies—largely nonprofits as well as some for-profit corporations—to establish charter schools that receive public money but are privately operated. Curriculum companies dominate the lucrative market for textbooks. Wealthy investors hold the keys to schools’ capacity to fund long-term construction and renovation projects. And private foundations have poured money into public schools to help shape curriculum approaches, teacher-evaluation policies, and technology innovations.

About This Project

This story is part of a special project called Big Ideas in which EdWeek reporters ask hard questions about K-12 education’s biggest challenges and offer insights based on their extensive coverage and expertise.

With the debate over the parameters of public schooling raging in state legislatures, at school board meetings, on social media, and in classrooms themselves, there’s rarely been a more crucial time to define what a truly public school system should look like—and what it would take to get there.

That work might be painful, and it certainly won’t be done by the end of this essay. It’s also intertwined with complex political realities and the inevitably slow pace of altering a massive bureaucracy. The willingness of the American public to pay higher taxes for more robust public goods is often limited. And the sprawling bureaucracy of America’s public schools—13,000 independent districts, 100,000 school buildings, 80,000 local school board members, 50 state systems for funding and administration—won’t transform overnight. 

It’s difficult to interrogate a beleaguered institution that’s so omnipresent, said David Backer, an associate professor of education at West Chester University who’s writing a book about fighting privatization in public schools: “It’s the ground that everyone’s standing on.”

This, of course, makes change all the more complex: If you can’t see the full picture of the American education system, how can you address the cracks in its foundation?

School finance, policy, and history are complicated and difficult for even the most studious academics to parse. But striving to answer these questions is essential, Backer and other scholars say. Only then can we have a more informed debate about whether the current American education system undermines its public bona fides—or has the capacity to live up to them.

Who gets to benefit?

Horace Mann, widely regarded as the founder of the modern American public school, saw the institution as a crucial tool for strengthening democracy and eliminating harmful class distinctions—"a great equalizer” and “a balance-wheel of the social machinery.”

Still, the question of who belongs in that institution and who gets to benefit from it has been fraught since the Civil War. During the Reconstruction era of the late 1800s, communities of Black Americans formed schools that served adults alongside children, helping educate newly freed enslaved people and laying the foundation for the first statewide public school systems in the South.

But many of those school buildings burned amid racist political backlash against the increasing political agency of Black Americans. Particularly in the South, “many white people understood public schools as sites that they were entitled to as white people because they saw themselves as the only true taxpayers,” said Esther Cyna, an associate professor of U.S. history and society at the Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, Paris-Saclay in France who has extensively studied the history of school funding and racial segregation in North Carolina.

That mindset bled into the public perception of the purpose of school, said David Labaree, a historian of education at Stanford University who’s written extensively about the shifting definition of “public schools” in America. Over the last century of industrialization, he said, expectations for schools from public officials and parents alike have been increasingly centered on their ability to help individual students achieve professional success and scale the socioeconomic ladder. 

In turn, people with means choose where to live based on the “quality” of the local schools, Labaree argues. Those districts can raise plentiful tax revenue even by charging their wealthy residents low rates. Districts with schools perceived as lower quality have to either impose high taxes on their poor residents or forgo much in the way of local revenue altogether. 

These patterns turn into cycles, fueling segregation and widening gaps between poor and wealthy districts that have been the subject of numerous lawsuits in recent years. Nearly every state has faced legal action from parents and advocacy groups arguing that students are being deprived of their constitutional right to an adequate education. In many states, judges and courts have affirmed those allegations and ordered states to make changes.

The public school system we currently have is tightly intertwined with private interests.

The philosophical shift public schools have undergone during this same period is visible in education policy and practice: in the explosion of workforce partnerships between local companies and school districts; in the thriving industry and policy apparatus fueling standardized testing and school ratings and rankings; and in the proliferation of publicly funded and privately operated charter schools. 

“Public schools are constantly being ranked, constantly being measured, constantly being tested for quality, with the kind of general feeling that they’re a lower quality than their private alternatives or that they’re decreasing in quality over time,” Cyna said. This drives the widening divide between those with means who have the financial options to chase what they see as “higher quality” options and those who do not.

How do we define public education?

The first step to changing something is to understand what it currently is—and is not.

But that’s not so easy in this case. Distinctions between public and private education get messy very quickly and have only become more so in recent years.

The question I raised earlier is relevant again: How do we decide what public education is, what a public school is?

Some seemingly obvious features of a public school system don’t currently apply to all the ostensibly public schools in America.

Is a school public if it...

... is open to all?

What of public schools that select students based on merit?

… receives government funding?

What of religious schools that receive state-funded vouchers from parents instead of tuition from their own pockets?

... employs workers directly?

What of the thousands of nutrition, mental health, custodial, and even instructional workers in schools who are employed by private companies contracted by districts?

... is governed by elected officials from the surrounding community? 

What of charter schools run by nationwide nonprofits or corporations?

… failed to achieve racial desegregation at the scale urged by the U.S. Supreme Court more than half a century ago? 

What of a recent study showing the 88,000-student Denver school district is more racially segregated now than it was 50 years ago ?

… is funded through taxes on million-dollar homes where many families can’t afford to move? 

What of the recent school funding case in Pennsylvania , where a judge ruled that the state, in violation of its constitution, is depriving poor communities of the resources necessary to offer adequate public education to all residents?

… fails to provide needed services to students with disabilities? 

What of the recurring spate of lawsuits alleging schools owe students compensatory services after failing to provide them adequate instruction per their individualized education program?

… lacks the resources to provide all students with basic skills in math and reading comprehension?

What of the millions of students scoring below proficient on recent state exams?

A path forward

The question that wraps all the above questions together is: A school may call itself public, be open to the public, but does it serve the public? Does it exclusively, or even primarily, benefit the public?

It’s tempting to get caught up in the latest battle over whether a new policy or state-funded program represents an effort to boost private schools at the expense of public schools. 

But that argument can be distracting as well. If something is worth fighting for, shouldn’t you be able to define not just its opponent but the thing itself? Shouldn’t you want it to be the best version of itself?

At their best, public schools can serve as community gathering spaces, both physical and intellectual; as places for the acquisition of a deeper understanding of history and the present-day problems that result from it; and as beacons of neighborhood stability, binding disparate residents of a diverse community to a common hub.

To achieve that vision, there are plenty of legitimate incremental steps.

The federal government could take a more aggressive role in enforcing tax collections from wealthy Americans and direct that funding to crucial K-12 priorities that have never been fully realized. It could provide schools with the kinds of bond and loan assistance afforded to banks and large corporations. It could put financial pressure on states to guarantee funding increases and robust support for public education even in times of economic distress.

Local districts and states could create marketing campaigns highlighting the benefits of shared educational experiences for all students and partner with local nonprofits and municipalities to offer valued community services on school grounds. States can follow up on the burgeoning trend of policies allowing for universal free school meals by providing funding and resources for other services from which all students could benefit, like mental health and guidance counselors, instructional aides, bus drivers, and summer school programs.

The underlying effect of all these ideas is to emphasize what’s gained from a public system that everyone can—and, more importantly, wants to—access.

Attending public school is one of the few activities the overwhelming, vast majority of Americans do. It’s an opportunity for exposure at a young age to the foundations of a functioning democracy: an exchange of diverse ideas, interactions with people from a wide variety of backgrounds and experiences, a firsthand look at how the government can serve its constituents.

The institution serves to benefit the people who make up society. To the greatest extent possible, it should belong to them, too.

A version of this article appeared in the September 13, 2023 edition of Education Week as What Does It Actually Mean for Schools to Be Public?

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Home — Essay Samples — Education — Homeschooling — Public School vs. Homeschool

Public School Vs. Homeschool

• Categories: Homeschooling Public School

About this sample

Words: 687 |

Published: Jan 30, 2024

Words: 687 | Pages: 2 | 4 min read

Table of contents

Academic approach, socialization, flexibility and individualized learning, teacher-student ratio and attention.

• National Home Education Research Institute. (n.d.). Research Facts on Homeschooling. https://www.nheri.org/research-facts-on-homeschooling/
• Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science. (2004). Socialization of Homeschool Children: A Communication Approach. https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2004-20445-007
• Journal of Educational Psychology. (2009). Exploring Academic Outcomes of Homeschooled Students. https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2009-22973-002
• National Center for Education Statistics. (2021). Fast Facts: Teacher Trends. https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=28

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Essay on My School for Students and Children

500+ words essay on my school.

Education is an essential part of our lives. We are nothing without knowledge, and education is what separates us from others. The main step to acquiring education is enrolling oneself in a school. School serves as the first learning place for most of the people. Similarly, it is the first spark in receiving an education. In this essay on my school, I will tell you why I love my school and what my school has taught me.

We have all been to school and we have loved each and every moment we have spent over there as those were the building blocks of our lives. A school is a place where students are taught the fundamentals of life, as well as how to grow and survive in life. It instils in us values and principles that serve as the foundation for a child’s development.

My school is my second home where I spend most of my time. Above all, it gives me a platform to do better in life and also builds my personality. I feel blessed to study in one of the most prestigious and esteemed schools in the city. In addition, my school has a lot of assets which makes me feel fortunate to be a part of it. Let us look at the essay on my school written below.

Why I Love My School?

From kindergarten through primary and secondary school, and subsequently, to faculty, school is a place where we always study, grow, and establish ourselves, socialize, be a friend, help others, and love and be loved. School is a buddy that will accompany us from the beginning of our youth till the conclusion of our lives. At school, we share all of our pleasures and sorrows, and we constantly rely on one another. This is made possible through the friendships we share. They assist us in effortlessly overcoming difficulties, sharing moments of enjoyment together, and looking forward to new paths.

My school strikes the perfect balance between modern education and vintage architecture. The vintage buildings of my school never fail to mesmerize me with their glorious beauty. However, their vintage architecture does not mean it is outdated, as it is well-equipped with all the contemporary gadgets. I see my school as a lighthouse of education bestowing knowledge as well as ethical conduct upon us.

Teachers have the power to make or break a school. The teaching staff is regarded as the foundation of any educational society. It is their efforts to help kids learn and understand things that instil good habits and values in their students. While some concepts are simple to grasp, others necessitate the use of a skilled teacher to drive the home the idea with each pupil.

In contrast to other schools, my school does not solely focus on academic performance. In other words, it emphasizes on the overall development of their students. Along with our academics, extra-curricular activities are also organized at our school. This is one of the main reasons why I love my school as it does not measure everyone on the same scale. Our hardworking staff gives time to each child to grow at their own pace which instils confidence in them. My school has all the facilities of a library , computer room, playground, basketball court and more, to ensure we have it all at our disposal.

For me, my school is more than simply an educational institution; it is also my second family, which I established during my childhood. A family of wonderful friends, outstanding teachers, and fond school memories. I adore my school because it is where I learn how to be a good citizen and how to reach my goals. School is the only place where we make friends without judging them. We feel comfortable spending time with those close friends no matter what the situation.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

What has My School Taught Me?

If someone asked me what I have learned from my school, I won’t be able to answer it in one sentence. For the lessons are irreplaceable and I can never be thankful enough for them. I learned to share because of my school. The power of sharing and sympathy was taught to me by my school. I learned how to be considerate towards animals and it is also one of the main reasons why I adopted a pet.

School is an excellent place to learn how to be an adult before entering the real world. Those abilities pay dividends whether you choose to be the bigger person in an argument or simply complete your domestic tasks. When you open your mind to new ideas, you gain a lot of influence in society. Picking up unexpected hobbies on your own will teach you more about what you like to do than simply completing things for a grade.

A school is a place where I developed my artistic skills which were further enhanced by my teachers. Subsequently, it led me to participate in inter-school completions through which I earned various awards. Most importantly, my school taught me how to face failures with grace and never give up on my ambitions, no matter what happens.

Schools also offer a variety of extracurricular activities such as Scouts and Guides, sports, N.C.C., skating, school band, acting, dancing, singing, and so on. Our principal also used to give us a short lecture every day for about 10 minutes about etiquette, character development, moral education, respecting others, and gaining excellent values. As a result, I can claim that what I am today is solely due to my school, which is the best institution in my opinion.

Teamwork is an important ability that schools teach. Schools are frequently the first places where youngsters have the opportunity to collaborate with children who are different from them. Collaboration is essential for the team and individual success. Students are taught that the success of a team depends on each individual component functioning together.

To sum it up, studying in one of the respected schools has helped me a lot personally. I will always be indebted to my school for shaping my personality and teaching me invaluable lessons. It has given me friends for life and teachers that I will always look up to. I aspire to carry on the values imbibed by my school to do well in life and make it proud.

Here is the list of Top Schools in India! Does Your School Tops the List?

FAQs on School

Q.1 Why must every child go to school?

A.1 It is essential for every child to go to school as the school teaches us lessons that cannot be acquired anywhere else. The experience is one a kind and along with education, we learn many other things like socializing, extra-curricular activities and more.

Q.2 What does school teach us?

A.2 School teaches us some of the great things like first of all, it gives us basic education. It teaches us to develop our skills like art, dance, public speaking and more. Most importantly, it teaches us discipline.

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Regions & Countries

What public k-12 teachers want americans to know about teaching.

Illustrations by Hokyoung Kim

At a time when most teachers are feeling stressed and overwhelmed in their jobs, we asked 2,531 public K-12 teachers this open-ended question:

If there’s one thing you’d want the public to know about teachers, what would it be?

We also asked Americans what they think about teachers to compare with teachers’ perceptions of how the public views them.

Related: What’s It Like To Be a Teacher in America Today?

Pew Research Center conducted this analysis to better understand what public K-12 teachers would like Americans to know about their profession. We also wanted to learn how the public thinks about teachers.

For the open-end question, we surveyed 2,531 U.S. public K-12 teachers from Oct. 17 to Nov. 14, 2023. The teachers surveyed are members of RAND’s American Teacher Panel, a nationally representative panel of public K-12 school teachers recruited through MDR Education. Survey data is weighted to state and national teacher characteristics to account for differences in sampling and response to ensure they are representative of the target population.

Overall, 96% of surveyed teachers provided an answer to the open-ended question. Center researchers developed a coding scheme categorizing the responses, coded all responses, and then grouped them into the six themes explored in the data essay.

For the questions for the general public, we surveyed 5,029 U.S. adults from Nov. 9 to Nov. 16, 2023. The adults surveyed are members of the Ipsos KnowledgePanel, a nationally representative online survey panel. Panel members are randomly recruited through probability-based sampling, and households are provided with access to the Internet and hardware if needed. To ensure that the results of this survey reflect a balanced cross section of the nation, the data is weighted to match the U.S. adult population by gender, age, education, race and ethnicity and other categories.

Here are the questions used for this analysis , along with responses, the teacher survey methodology and the general public survey methodology .

Most of the responses to the open-ended question fell into one of these six themes:

Teaching is a hard job

About half of teachers (51%) said they want the public to know that teaching is a difficult job and that teachers are hardworking. Within this share, many mentioned that they have roles and responsibilities in the classroom besides teaching, which makes the job stressful. Many also talked about working long hours, beyond those they’re contracted for.

“Teachers serve multiple roles other than being responsible for teaching curriculum. We are counselors, behavioral specialists and parents for students who need us to fill those roles. We sacrifice a lot to give all of ourselves to the role as teacher.”

– Elementary school teacher

“The amount of extra hours that teachers have to put in beyond the contractual time is ridiculous. Arriving 30 minutes before and leaving an hour after is just the tip of the iceberg. … And as far as ‘having summers off,’ most of August is taken up with preparing materials for the upcoming school year or attending three, four, seven days’ worth of unpaid development training.”

– High school teacher

Teachers care about their students

The next most common theme: 22% of teachers brought up how fulfilling teaching is and how much teachers care about their students. Many gave examples of the hardships of teaching but reaffirmed that they do their job because they love the kids and helping them succeed. 

“We are passionate about what we do. Every child we teach is important to us and we look out for them like they are our own.”

– Middle school teacher

“We are in it for the kids, and the most incredible moments are when children make connections with learning.”

Teachers are undervalued and disrespected

Some 17% of teachers want the public to know that they feel undervalued and disrespected, and that they need more public support. Some mentioned that they are well-educated professionals but are not treated as such. And many teachers in this category responded with a general plea for support from the public, which they don’t feel they’re getting now.

“We feel undervalued. The public and many parents of my students treat me and my peers as if we do not know as much as they do, as if we are uneducated.”

“The public attitudes toward teachers have been degrading, and it is making it impossible for well-qualified teachers to be found. People are simply not wanting to go into the profession because of public sentiments.”

Teachers are underpaid

A similar share of teachers (15%) want the public to know that teachers are underpaid. Many teachers said their salary doesn’t account for the effort and care they put into their students’ education and believe that their pay should reflect this.

“We are sorely underpaid for the amount of hours we work and the education level we have attained.”

Teachers need support and resources from government and administrators

About one-in-ten teachers (9%) said they need more support from the government, their administrators and other key stakeholders. Many mentioned working in understaffed schools, not having enough funding and paying for supplies out of pocket. Some teachers also expressed that they have little control over the curriculum that they teach.

“The world-class education we used to be proud of does not exist because of all the red tape we are constantly navigating. If you want to see real change in the classroom, advocate for smaller class sizes for your child, push your district to cap class sizes at a reasonable level and have real, authentic conversations with your child’s teacher about what is going on in the classroom if you’re curious.”

Teachers need more support from parents

Roughly the same share of teachers (8%) want the public to know that teachers need more support from parents, emphasizing that the parent-teacher relationship is strained. Many view parents as partners in their child’s education and believe that a strong relationship improves kids’ overall social and emotional development.

“Teachers help students to reach their potential. However, that job is near impossible if parents/guardians do not take an active part in their student’s education.”

How the U.S. public views teachers

While the top response from teachers in the open-ended question is that they want the public to know that teaching is a hard job, most Americans already see it that way. Two-thirds of U.S. adults say being a public K-12 teacher is harder than most other jobs, with 33% saying it’s a lot harder.

And about three-quarters of Americans (74%) say teachers should be paid more than they are now, including 39% who say teachers should be paid a lot more.

Americans are about evenly divided on whether the public generally looks up to (32%) or down on (30%) public K-12 teachers. Some 37% say Americans neither look up to or down on public K-12 teachers.

In addition to the open-ended question about what they want the public to know about them, we asked teachers how much they think most Americans trust public K-12 teachers to do their job well. We also asked the public how much they trust teachers. Answers differ considerably.

Nearly half of public K-12 teachers (47%) say most Americans don’t trust teachers much or at all. A third say most Americans trust teachers some, and 18% say the public trusts teachers a great deal or a fair amount.

In contrast, a majority of Americans (57%) say they do trust public K-12 teachers to do their job well a great deal or a fair amount. About a quarter (26%) say they trust teachers some, and 17% say they don’t trust teachers much or at all.

Related: About half of Americans say public K-12 education is going in the wrong direction

How the public’s views differ by party

There are sizable party differences in Americans’ views of teachers. In particular, Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents are more likely than Republicans and Republican leaners to say:

• They trust teachers to do their job well a great deal or a fair amount (70% vs. 44%)
• Teaching is a lot or somewhat harder when compared with most other jobs (77% vs. 59%)
• Teachers should be paid a lot or somewhat more than they are now (86% vs. 63%)

In their own words

Below, we have a selection of quotes that describe what teachers want the public to know about them and their profession.

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About Pew Research Center Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research. Pew Research Center does not take policy positions. It is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts .

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Example of a Great Essay | Explanations, Tips & Tricks

Published on February 9, 2015 by Shane Bryson . Revised on July 23, 2023 by Shona McCombes.

This example guides you through the structure of an essay. It shows how to build an effective introduction , focused paragraphs , clear transitions between ideas, and a strong conclusion .

Each paragraph addresses a single central point, introduced by a topic sentence , and each point is directly related to the thesis statement .

As you read, hover over the highlighted parts to learn what they do and why they work.

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Table of contents

Other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about writing an essay, an appeal to the senses: the development of the braille system in nineteenth-century france.

The invention of Braille was a major turning point in the history of disability. The writing system of raised dots used by visually impaired people was developed by Louis Braille in nineteenth-century France. In a society that did not value disabled people in general, blindness was particularly stigmatized, and lack of access to reading and writing was a significant barrier to social participation. The idea of tactile reading was not entirely new, but existing methods based on sighted systems were difficult to learn and use. As the first writing system designed for blind people’s needs, Braille was a groundbreaking new accessibility tool. It not only provided practical benefits, but also helped change the cultural status of blindness. This essay begins by discussing the situation of blind people in nineteenth-century Europe. It then describes the invention of Braille and the gradual process of its acceptance within blind education. Subsequently, it explores the wide-ranging effects of this invention on blind people’s social and cultural lives.

Lack of access to reading and writing put blind people at a serious disadvantage in nineteenth-century society. Text was one of the primary methods through which people engaged with culture, communicated with others, and accessed information; without a well-developed reading system that did not rely on sight, blind people were excluded from social participation (Weygand, 2009). While disabled people in general suffered from discrimination, blindness was widely viewed as the worst disability, and it was commonly believed that blind people were incapable of pursuing a profession or improving themselves through culture (Weygand, 2009). This demonstrates the importance of reading and writing to social status at the time: without access to text, it was considered impossible to fully participate in society. Blind people were excluded from the sighted world, but also entirely dependent on sighted people for information and education.

In France, debates about how to deal with disability led to the adoption of different strategies over time. While people with temporary difficulties were able to access public welfare, the most common response to people with long-term disabilities, such as hearing or vision loss, was to group them together in institutions (Tombs, 1996). At first, a joint institute for the blind and deaf was created, and although the partnership was motivated more by financial considerations than by the well-being of the residents, the institute aimed to help people develop skills valuable to society (Weygand, 2009). Eventually blind institutions were separated from deaf institutions, and the focus shifted towards education of the blind, as was the case for the Royal Institute for Blind Youth, which Louis Braille attended (Jimenez et al, 2009). The growing acknowledgement of the uniqueness of different disabilities led to more targeted education strategies, fostering an environment in which the benefits of a specifically blind education could be more widely recognized.

Several different systems of tactile reading can be seen as forerunners to the method Louis Braille developed, but these systems were all developed based on the sighted system. The Royal Institute for Blind Youth in Paris taught the students to read embossed roman letters, a method created by the school’s founder, Valentin Hauy (Jimenez et al., 2009). Reading this way proved to be a rather arduous task, as the letters were difficult to distinguish by touch. The embossed letter method was based on the reading system of sighted people, with minimal adaptation for those with vision loss. As a result, this method did not gain significant success among blind students.

Louis Braille was bound to be influenced by his school’s founder, but the most influential pre-Braille tactile reading system was Charles Barbier’s night writing. A soldier in Napoleon’s army, Barbier developed a system in 1819 that used 12 dots with a five line musical staff (Kersten, 1997). His intention was to develop a system that would allow the military to communicate at night without the need for light (Herron, 2009). The code developed by Barbier was phonetic (Jimenez et al., 2009); in other words, the code was designed for sighted people and was based on the sounds of words, not on an actual alphabet. Barbier discovered that variants of raised dots within a square were the easiest method of reading by touch (Jimenez et al., 2009). This system proved effective for the transmission of short messages between military personnel, but the symbols were too large for the fingertip, greatly reducing the speed at which a message could be read (Herron, 2009). For this reason, it was unsuitable for daily use and was not widely adopted in the blind community.

Nevertheless, Barbier’s military dot system was more efficient than Hauy’s embossed letters, and it provided the framework within which Louis Braille developed his method. Barbier’s system, with its dashes and dots, could form over 4000 combinations (Jimenez et al., 2009). Compared to the 26 letters of the Latin alphabet, this was an absurdly high number. Braille kept the raised dot form, but developed a more manageable system that would reflect the sighted alphabet. He replaced Barbier’s dashes and dots with just six dots in a rectangular configuration (Jimenez et al., 2009). The result was that the blind population in France had a tactile reading system using dots (like Barbier’s) that was based on the structure of the sighted alphabet (like Hauy’s); crucially, this system was the first developed specifically for the purposes of the blind.

While the Braille system gained immediate popularity with the blind students at the Institute in Paris, it had to gain acceptance among the sighted before its adoption throughout France. This support was necessary because sighted teachers and leaders had ultimate control over the propagation of Braille resources. Many of the teachers at the Royal Institute for Blind Youth resisted learning Braille’s system because they found the tactile method of reading difficult to learn (Bullock & Galst, 2009). This resistance was symptomatic of the prevalent attitude that the blind population had to adapt to the sighted world rather than develop their own tools and methods. Over time, however, with the increasing impetus to make social contribution possible for all, teachers began to appreciate the usefulness of Braille’s system (Bullock & Galst, 2009), realizing that access to reading could help improve the productivity and integration of people with vision loss. It took approximately 30 years, but the French government eventually approved the Braille system, and it was established throughout the country (Bullock & Galst, 2009).

Although Blind people remained marginalized throughout the nineteenth century, the Braille system granted them growing opportunities for social participation. Most obviously, Braille allowed people with vision loss to read the same alphabet used by sighted people (Bullock & Galst, 2009), allowing them to participate in certain cultural experiences previously unavailable to them. Written works, such as books and poetry, had previously been inaccessible to the blind population without the aid of a reader, limiting their autonomy. As books began to be distributed in Braille, this barrier was reduced, enabling people with vision loss to access information autonomously. The closing of the gap between the abilities of blind and the sighted contributed to a gradual shift in blind people’s status, lessening the cultural perception of the blind as essentially different and facilitating greater social integration.

The Braille system also had important cultural effects beyond the sphere of written culture. Its invention later led to the development of a music notation system for the blind, although Louis Braille did not develop this system himself (Jimenez, et al., 2009). This development helped remove a cultural obstacle that had been introduced by the popularization of written musical notation in the early 1500s. While music had previously been an arena in which the blind could participate on equal footing, the transition from memory-based performance to notation-based performance meant that blind musicians were no longer able to compete with sighted musicians (Kersten, 1997). As a result, a tactile musical notation system became necessary for professional equality between blind and sighted musicians (Kersten, 1997).

Braille paved the way for dramatic cultural changes in the way blind people were treated and the opportunities available to them. Louis Braille’s innovation was to reimagine existing reading systems from a blind perspective, and the success of this invention required sighted teachers to adapt to their students’ reality instead of the other way around. In this sense, Braille helped drive broader social changes in the status of blindness. New accessibility tools provide practical advantages to those who need them, but they can also change the perspectives and attitudes of those who do not.

Bullock, J. D., & Galst, J. M. (2009). The Story of Louis Braille. Archives of Ophthalmology , 127(11), 1532. https://​doi.org/10.1001/​archophthalmol.2009.286.

Herron, M. (2009, May 6). Blind visionary. Retrieved from https://​eandt.theiet.org/​content/​articles/2009/05/​blind-visionary/.

Jiménez, J., Olea, J., Torres, J., Alonso, I., Harder, D., & Fischer, K. (2009). Biography of Louis Braille and Invention of the Braille Alphabet. Survey of Ophthalmology , 54(1), 142–149. https://​doi.org/10.1016/​j.survophthal.2008.10.006.

Kersten, F.G. (1997). The history and development of Braille music methodology. The Bulletin of Historical Research in Music Education , 18(2). Retrieved from https://​www.jstor.org/​stable/40214926.

Mellor, C.M. (2006). Louis Braille: A touch of genius . Boston: National Braille Press.

Tombs, R. (1996). France: 1814-1914 . London: Pearson Education Ltd.

Weygand, Z. (2009). The blind in French society from the Middle Ages to the century of Louis Braille . Stanford: Stanford University Press.

If you want to know more about AI tools , college essays , or fallacies make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples or go directly to our tools!

• Ad hominem fallacy
• Post hoc fallacy
• Appeal to authority fallacy
• False cause fallacy
• Sunk cost fallacy

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An essay is a focused piece of writing that explains, argues, describes, or narrates.

In high school, you may have to write many different types of essays to develop your writing skills.

Academic essays at college level are usually argumentative : you develop a clear thesis about your topic and make a case for your position using evidence, analysis and interpretation.

The structure of an essay is divided into an introduction that presents your topic and thesis statement , a body containing your in-depth analysis and arguments, and a conclusion wrapping up your ideas.

The structure of the body is flexible, but you should always spend some time thinking about how you can organize your essay to best serve your ideas.

Your essay introduction should include three main things, in this order:

• An opening hook to catch the reader’s attention.
• Relevant background information that the reader needs to know.
• A thesis statement that presents your main point or argument.

The length of each part depends on the length and complexity of your essay .

A thesis statement is a sentence that sums up the central point of your paper or essay . Everything else you write should relate to this key idea.

A topic sentence is a sentence that expresses the main point of a paragraph . Everything else in the paragraph should relate to the topic sentence.

At college level, you must properly cite your sources in all essays , research papers , and other academic texts (except exams and in-class exercises).

Add a citation whenever you quote , paraphrase , or summarize information or ideas from a source. You should also give full source details in a bibliography or reference list at the end of your text.

The exact format of your citations depends on which citation style you are instructed to use. The most common styles are APA , MLA , and Chicago .

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Bryson, S. (2023, July 23). Example of a Great Essay | Explanations, Tips & Tricks. Scribbr. Retrieved April 2, 2024, from https://www.scribbr.com/academic-essay/example-essay-structure/

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What Really Causes Poor Performance in School

More from our inbox:, becoming a republican to vote against trump, countering propaganda from the fossil fuel industry.

To the Editor:

Re “ We’re Not Battling the School Issues That Matter ,” by Nicholas Kristof (column, March 7):

I completely agree with Mr. Kristof’s column. The situation is serious, not only for education but also for our embattled democracy.

I would like to add some nuance. I have been working on a state-by-state analysis of the possible influence of racism, specifically anti-Black racism, on educational achievement.

What I have found so far indicates that some children are taught quite well: those in private schools, of course; Asian American children (particularly those whose families are from India); white children of families prosperous enough to be ineligible for the National School Lunch Program; children of college-educated parents; and Hispanic children who are not English-language learners.

Some students are in groups that are not likely to be taught to read effectively: Native Americans, children who are poor enough to be eligible for the National School Lunch Program and Black children.

None of this will be news to Mr. Kristof. What is surprising to me is the sheer extent and arbitrary nature of the failure by school authorities. Almost everywhere that urban schools, in particular, are failing, socioeconomically similar children are being taught much more effectively in the nearest suburban districts.

Part of the reason is money: Per-student expenditure is associated with educational achievement.

But part of the problem — most of it — is a matter of administrative decisions: placing the best teachers in schools with the “best” students; equipping schools, in effect, in accordance with parental income; offering more gifted and talented classes to white students — all the perhaps unconscious manifestations of everyday racism.

Michael Holzman Briarcliff Manor, N.Y. The writer is a former consultant for the Schott Foundation for Public Education in Cambridge, Mass.

Writers like Nicholas Kristof make a critical mistake when they assume that conservatives’ focus on issues like nudity, diversity and critical race theory in education is just a matter of misplaced priorities. Conservatives’ opposition to substantive improvements in American education is not a bug; it’s a feature.

Do politicians like Ron DeSantis and Donald Trump really want children to grow up with a better grasp of math, when they can instead persuade voters that inflation is an existential threat to their personal financial security, even when wage growth is comfortably outstripping inflation?

Do they want students to become better critical thinkers when they can use photos of migrants massed at the border to convince voters that immigrants are a threat to national security, even though most immigrants will provide needed labor in a rapidly growing economy?

Do they want students to be good readers who can use logic and analysis to evaluate an argument, when politicians can easily use social media platforms, with no evidence, to persuade voters that the 2020 presidential election was rigged?

Why would Republicans want America’s children to be well educated, when the voters with the most education will consistently vote for the other guys?

Lisa Elliott Newark, Del. The writer is a licensed school psychologist.

Nicholas Kristof’s column miseducates by pointing out which states do better with schools.

In Massachusetts, one of the examples Mr. Kristof mentions, parents don’t move there because of the schools. They choose the town or city they think has the best schools — and the one they can afford.

Local property taxes, not the state, provide most educational funding, so the better schools tend to be in the wealthier towns. Per-pupil spending in Massachusetts varies greatly from district to district: According to recent data from the state Department of Education , that figure ranges from about $14,000 in Dracut to almost $37,000 in Cambridge.

More money means smaller classes and better-paid teachers. So Mr. Kristof’s argument about which states have better education mostly misses the mark about what matters.

Michael Jacoby Brown Arlington, Mass. The writer is a community organizer and former high school teacher.

Nicholas Kristof makes some valid points in his column, but I have to wonder why he and most of the media skipped over Donald Trump’s promise that followed his vile remark about denying funding to schools that teach critical race theory.

Mr. Trump announced, “ I will not give one penny to any school that has a vaccine mandate or mask mandate .”

Hello, diphtheria, tetanus, polio, pertussis, measles, mumps, hepatitis, rubella and more.

Surely, any worries over whether teachers choose to focus on phonics or address critical race theory will vanish when these diseases, which vaccinations prevent, invade the schools.

Susan Ohanian Charlotte, Vt. The writer is a retired reading teacher.

Re “ Trump’s Conquest of the Republican Party ” (editorial, March 10):

I’ve been a registered Democrat most of my adult life, except for a brief time with the Green Party. I have campaigned for Bernie Sanders. Earlier this winter I changed my official party affiliation to Republican. I made that change solely as a way to vote against Donald Trump in the primaries.

My plan following Nikki Haley’s exit after Super Tuesday is to cast a protest vote in New York next month. In November, I’ll vote for Joe Biden.

That said, my registration won’t change again. I’m not going anywhere. The G.O.P. will be stuck with this lefty.

The party of Trump needs a new birth of freedom, however belated, within its ranks. That reconstruction must be seeded by individual voters like yours truly.

Donald Mender Rhinebeck, N.Y.

Re “ John Kerry: ‘I Feel Deeply Frustrated,’ ” by David Wallace-Wells (Opinion, March 10):

John Kerry, America’s departing climate envoy, is “pissed off and frustrated” with the fossil fuel industry’s propaganda campaign to obstruct climate action and raise fears about its costs.

Just recently, the American Petroleum Institute launched an eight-figure media campaign intended to “dismantle policy threats” to the fossil fuel industry, with statements such as “Products made from oil and gas … make everyday living more mobile, comfortable and healthier.”

Most Americans — including our policymakers — are unaware that burning fossil fuels produces pollution that causes over eight million deaths a year.

Rather than bemoan the industry’s decades of disinformation, we need to proactively counter it. Exxon and other fossil fuel companies followed Big Tobacco’s playbook. Let’s build on lessons from successful tobacco control campaigns with a “truth” campaign on fossil fuels and health, enforcement of false advertising rules, and a Surgeon General’s Advisory on the Health Harms of Fossil Fuels.

Linda Rudolph Oakland, Calif. The writer is a consultant with the Medical Society Consortium on Climate and Health and on the steering committee of the Fossil Free for Health Coalition.

Public school students essay

In 1943, Abraham Maslow produced a theory of the hierarchy of needs which he considers to be a factor that governs the voluntary activities of human beings. However, it seems as if this has not been used within the educational system with many children failing to succeed or behaving improperly inside the classroom. It is in relation to this that the researcher looks into the importance of incorporating Maslow’s theory into the classroom as a means by which students are motivated to learn by encouraging them to do well in school and at the same time, ensuring that they behave properly.

This research featured ten public school teachers whose perceptions had been obtained in order to gain a better understanding of the issue at hand. CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY There is inadequate research clearly explaining the impact of motivational needs and the practices and beliefs of teachers on the students’ school success. Multiply factors have been explored ranging from parental relationship to the influence of peers, but in today’s world, students cannot be assumed to come from nurturing homes, or to have peers who value the school community and the goal of academic excellence.

In other words, students come to school with unmet needs. This population is at risk of developing and maintaining maladaptive attitudes, behaviors and inappropriate coping mechanisms learned during the school years and carried with them throughout their lives. There is a need for further research into how teachers can motivate students, from all backgrounds, to achieve school success and develop skills that will aid them throughout their lives. This research then primarily focused on how teachers regard and apply, or do not apply the hierarchy of needs theory proposed by Abraham Maslow. Background of the Study

The use of Maslow’s Theory of Hierarchy of Needs in the classroom In 1978, Abraham Maslow proposed that humans are usually governed by a hierarchy of needs that starts and maintains their voluntary activities. The theory developed by Maslow regarding the hierarchy of needs is pictured in such a way that the needs are leveled from the bottom to the top in the following manner: (1) physiological needs; (2) safety needs; (3) social needs; (4) esteem needs; and lastly, (5) self-actualization needs (Yin-Cheong, 1989. ; Hannah, 2004). As previously mentioned, each human being has his or her own hierarchy of needs which he or she must satisfy.

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Apparently, the concept developed by Maslow, generally shows that the lower level needs tend to be more powerful and satisfied first (Yin-Cheong, 1989; Frame, 1996). Once satisfied, the higher needs are then activated, thus influencing the person to attempt to satisfy the latter (Yin-Cheong, 1989. ). Furthermore, Yin-Cheong (1989) discusses that the inability to satisfy the different needs of people tend to significantly influence their behavior. As mentioned in the previous paragraphs of this particular dissertation, this study primarily focuses on the need to make use of Abraham Maslow’s Theory of Hierarchical Needs inside the classroom.

However, it has also clearly indicated that not much research was able to properly identify the relationship between motivational needs and the success of students in their educational undertakings. Nonetheless, Brickman (2007) suggests that schools and governments have long realized and acknowledged the strong relationship existing between the need to meet the students’ basic needs and their performance. In fact, it has been assumed that once the schools and the teachers fail to meet the needs of their students, the latter’s performance will more or less suffer (Brickman, 2007).

Because of this then, Hannah (2004) noted that it is the duty and responsibility of each educator to meet the five basic levels of needs of Maslow’s theory inside the classroom. She noted that the ability of teachers and/or instructors to do so would significantly affect the success of their students inside the classroom. Aside from this, the article entitled “Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs” (n. d. ), also points out that the said theory can efficiently help teachers in dealing with problematic students inside the classroom, thereby enabling the latter to gain a better understanding of their lessons.

It is in line with the previous discussions made that Brickman (2007) enumerated different actions undertaken by schools and other organizations under the government with regard to how they could properly increase the success and performance of the students in the educational setting by properly focusing on their needs that were identified by Abraham Maslow. He, unfortunately, however states, that most of the programs that had been developed by the schools are only focused upon the first level of the hierarchical structure, the physiological needs (Brickman, 2007).

These programs that address the tier of the hierarchy of needs – physiological needs- often focus on the students’ lack of proper nutrition, personal hygiene and sleep. Assuming that the first need has already been satisfied through the use of the previously enumerated programs, schools must then move on to the next tier of the hierarchy of needs: safety. According to Brickman (2007), the second set of needs is without a doubt, of vital importance to the success of the students in their educational undertaking. According to him, similar to physiological, student safety needs also play a critical role in ensuring the latter’s success.

In the same manner, this author further states that once the needs in this level has been satisfied, school officials must then focus on the other levels in order to bring about more positive effects to the performance of the students in their activities in school (Brickman, 2007). It is in line with this then that Brickman (2007) closes his article entitled “Maslow’s Theory of Hierarchical Needs – Alive and Well in the Classroom” with suggestions regarding the different actions that teachers may perform in order to ensure that they move up all the tiers of such structure in order to pose more benefits for the students.

These suggestions are more often than not related on how students can best properly learn while inside the classroom. In lieu with the discussion made by Brickman (2007), Kunc (1992) also acknowledges Maslow’s hierarchy of needs as a paradigm by which learning can be motivated amongst students. According to him, it is through the paramount importance given by the educators to the needs of the students that the former will be able to successfully develop a more proper environment in order to accommodate the latter’s learning experience.

Aside from this, Kunc (1992) also believes that it is through the strict observance of the satisfaction of the said needs that the students will be prepared for their future lives in the community after graduation. Furthermore, the author also believes that it is necessary to ensure that following the argument of Maslow’s theory of the hierarchy of needs, the students feel a sense of belongingness inside the classroom in order to achieve a sense of self-worth, thereby positively affecting, once again, the motivation of the students to learn (Kunc, 1992; Frame, 1986).

In another article published by Kunc (2000), as cited by Roush (n. d. ), the goal of the education is to produce self-learners. Because of this then, the educational system has been structured in such a way that it inverts Maslow’s hierarchy of needs by giving importance to the mastery of skills rather than achieving a sense of belonging (Kunc, 2000; Roush, n. d. ). This then poses unwanted effects to the learning patterns of the students, because as mentioned earlier, the motivation to learn can be achieved once the sense of belonging is guaranteed (Kunc, 1992).

Likewise, Kunc (2000) also mentions that the correction of the reversal of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs would eventually communicate a very important message to all students: that they are valued regardless of perceived abilities and needs, thereby ensuring that they are welcomed to participate and contribute. With this then, the motivation of the students to learn is once again guaranteed (Kunc, 2000). It is in line with the abovementioned then that this paper shall focus an extensive discussion of the use of Maslow’s Theory of Hierarchy of Needs in the classroom and how this can efficiently affect the performance of the students.

It is in relation to this then that this dissertation shall also investigate whether or not teachers regard this particular theory in their conduction of everyday lessons. Furthermore, the researcher also seeks to conclude this study by enumerating different recommendations that the educational systems may undertake in order to properly incorporate Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs into their practice, thereby positively influencing the performance and success of their students.