Index of SPPS Budget Discussion http://www.e-democracy.org/stpaul/spps-posts.html _________________________________________ > Index of SPPS Budget Discussion > http://www.e-democracy.org/stpaul/spps-posts.html > _________________________________________ > Bob:
I love your email. My situation is similar to yours. Bill Carlson a great mentor of mine who used to be on the Saint Paul School Board prior to 1997, couched his belief in publc schools this way to me. He was disturbed as a Professor at Bethel College and a concerned parent that there was a trend for Christian parents to shuttle off their kids to private school to escape the urban, tough public school image and "protect" their children from interacting with the real world. He also told me that he felt that socially and scholastically his kids were educated in public schools and had a much better grip on the world at large. They became adept at working with diverse groups of people, had a love for all cultures and also excelled and flourished in the public school setting despite what some of his naysayer peers said about the public school system. My children have grown up in Saint Paul Public Schools and my experience, although not perfect, has been a good one. Both children attended Museum Magnet in elementary school at the Rondo Education Center. My daugher who is now a Sophomore at the College of Saint Catherine is on the Dean's list and excelled at all levels of school including her middle school career at Capitol Hill Middle School. She then chose Arlington High School for high school and was very much at home in a school where she is the clear minority. My son is a Sophomore at Arlington High School and attended both Expo and Washington Middle Schools before enrolling at Arlington. He is doing well in his studies and loves the diversity and ability to meet many different people with different backgrounds. He is trying to learn how to speak Hmong and is disturbed that the language is not offered to him so that he can learn to converse with many of his friends in their native tongue. All in all I would say that although we are not problem free in the Public School system, our children will benefit from a much more well-rounded education both inside and outside the classroom in a large part due to our urban diversity and motivation. Thanks for your wonderful post. Pamela Ellison Como Park Saint Paul > > A few reactions to various themes in other emails: > > Some of the comments on this list have said that private school is cheaper > and better than public. We looked at a private school prior to sending > our son to Como high. As I recall, the cost was about 18,000 per year, > 50% more than the $12,000 per year I understand is spent per student in > public school. > > We might have sent our son to this school, except that I had the chance to > talk to a student, a 16 year old daughter of a friend of mine, about how > she felt about the school. She said she loved it, except for the culture > of parties and drugs that was the expected behavior among the more > privileged students at the school. She drew a picture of kids who had > their own cars, their own money, and parents who were often not at home, > commonly leaving 16, 17 and 18 year olds alone while the parents took > weekend vacations. She said parties where LSD, Ecstasy and Cocaine were > available were frequent. > > We knew that drugs are a problem everywhere, but we found the picture of > privileged kids bent on self destruction to be very disturbing. We didn't > want our son to have these upper classmen as role models. In the public > schools, we knew that there are lots of kids pursuing an opposite path. > Kids from hard working families who want to be the first one in their > family to go to college. Kids who struggle to learn even though they come > from backgrounds that would discourage most of us. > > We thought that the private school might offer a better academic > environment, but we felt that the public schools offer a better group of > kids to be emulated, and we decided that was more important. > > Bob Treumann > Como Area. > > > _____________________________________________ > SPPS Budget Reduction Forum - Feb. 23-27 > Co-Sponsored By NEAT: http://www.stpaulneat.org/ > _____________________________________________ > NEW ADDRESS FOR LIST: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > To subscribe, modify subscription, or get your password - visit: > http://www.mnforum.org/mailman/listinfo/stpaul > > Archive Address: > http://www.mnforum.org/mailman/private/stpaul/ > ----------------------------------------- Join ISP.COM today - $8.95 internet , less than 1/2 the cost of AOL Try us out, http://www.isp.com/ _____________________________________________ SPPS Budget Reduction Forum - Feb. 23-27 Co-Sponsored By NEAT: http://www.stpaulneat.org/ _____________________________________________ NEW ADDRESS FOR LIST: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To subscribe, modify subscription, or get your password - visit: http://www.mnforum.org/mailman/listinfo/stpaul Archive Address: http://www.mnforum.org/mailman/private/stpaul/
