It seems that every reference to any kind of high school in the USA I have ever heard either refers to a run-down public school or a Private, Catholic school.
It seems absurd to me that there are no schools that do not suffer from bloated beurocracy, inadequate funding, ignorant teaching staff, apathetic teaching staff and overly conservative subject material. Either incredibly expensive private schools or well funded govt schools designed to attract intelligent children must surely exist yet I swear I never hear of them.
In Australia, we have a group of maybe 20 - 25 extremely well known, elite Private schools which all seem to be ~150 years old and cost around 12,000 - 20,000 AUD pa ($6000 - 10,000 USD). I went to one for the last 3 years of my HS and, compared to some of the stories hear, it would probably seem like heaven on earth.
So, do they exist but keep a low profile or is there some wierd US cultural quirk which prevents them from existing?
No, it’s just that most people don’t go to those types of private schools, but they do exist. We have Exeter, um - one that begins with an A, and some other ones. Good public schools are found all over the place.
I hate to burst your bubble, but most schools in the US don’t suffer from bloated bureaucracy, inadequate funding, ignorant or apathetic teaching staffs and overtly conservative subject material. It just seems that way since we bitch so much about the ones that do.
There’s lots of excellent private schools. These two come to mind:
Mercersburg Academy in Pennsylvania
Deerfield Academy in Massachusetts
Also the public school I went to is well regarded: Edgemont High School in Scarsdale, New York.
The one that begins with an “a” is Andover (in Andover, Massachusetts appropriately). There are several incredibly elite and expensive private boarding schools in Massachusetts alone. They serve as feeder high schools for the Ivy League and other top universities.
There are really good high schools, both public and private, in all states. The notion that all high schools in the U.S. are run down, crowded, and drug-ridden is a myth perpetuated by both those inside and outside the U.S.
Those types of schools do exist. I went to one (but I also went to graduate school at an Ivy League college so I don’t know how much harm it did). However, the opposite is also true. The real problem faces America’s public schools is the uneven quality. Rich school districts usually have very good public schools while an inner city or poor rural district in the same state may be shameful.
There are lots of excellent public schools in the US. They just don’t make the news so much.
There are also private high schools (apart from the Catholic high schools, that is). I don’t know what proportion of the population attends them; I would guess that it is a small proportion, but one which is destined to be influential.
First, don’t believe anything you see in American movies and TV series. They are always unrepresentative of the true state of American society. Yes, there is a wide range of quality in the public high schools in the U.S. There are many first-rate public high schools, mostly in well-off suburban areas, where nearly all the graduates go on to college and a significant proportion every year go to top-ranked colleges. There are many mediocre public high schools, though, in which a much smaller proportion of the graduates go on to college and hardly ever do any graduates get admitted to top-ranked colleges. These aren’t just found in inner cities, but also in poorer rural and suburban areas. There is a broad spectrum in the quality of public schools in the U.S.
There are lots of parochial high schools, particularly Catholic ones, and many of these are noticeably better than the public schools in the areas. There are lots of very expensive high schools (which are called “prep schools” in the U.S.) which also tend to have nearly all graduates go to college and many go to top-ranked colleges. (People who go or who went to such schools are sometimes called “preppies.”) Many big cities have one or more elite public high schools that only the top students can get into. New York City has five (I think) of these, and they are well-known for their quality.
There are dozens of top private schools in MA and CT alone. There are also lots of elite public schools in the U.S., usually requiring an exam for entrance, such as the Boston Latin School or Bronx Science. There are also public schools that are comparable or nearly so to private high schools, such as the public schools in Weston, MA, or the regional high school in Topsfield, MA.
Really, most public schools here do not suffer from bloated beurocracy, inadequate funding, ignorant or apathetic teaching staff, or a concentration on overly conservative subject material. Those are just the ones that make the newspapers overseas.
I went to one of the most highly-regarded prep schools in Memphis, TN. It is an all-boys high-school with high academic standards. Tuition is about $6000 per year (it was about $4000 when I went there in the early-to-mid 80s, so it hasn’t gone up a whole lot since then). There is a LOT of alumni support, and you’re taught from day one that being a “Brothers’ Boy” (the school is Christian Brothers High School, a La Sallian high school - yes, these are the same Christian Brothers that make the self-titled booze ) can open a lot of doors for you in the city.
So yes, I would say there are definitely elite high schools in the US. I would even venture to say there are so many ‘elite’ high schools that few, if any, rise up to national prominence (except maybe St. Vincent - St. Mary’s, thanks to LeBron James…)
Stuyvesant H.S. in NYC is a public high school (entrance exam required) that received a lot of recent press because it served as a rescue center during the WTC disaster. With truckloads of high-SAT scoring, award-winning students to its credit, it is often described as the best high school in the country. I agree with the claim, but then again, I’m biased. [Grinny]
As soon as I saw the thread, I wondered if stuyguy had beaten me to a mention of the school named for Peg-leg Pete. Another Stuy grad here, so add me to the biased list!
So, not all elite schools cost a crapload of money to attend. Besides, where else would you get to step over a homeless dude each morning when you got off the L train? (yeah, old Stuy )
They do, however, suffer from a lack of publicity.
Quite frankly, even though there are a few schools that I can think of (Bronx Science, some other one in New York (maybe it was Stuy, but I keep thinking “Brooklyn” something), the Fine Arts school in NY (and that’s only because of FAME), Andover, Exeter, and Boston Latin) they’re all about 3000 miles away from where my family was while I was in HS - and I’m pretty sure only two of them are boarding public schools. So, they weren’t really relevant… If there was an excellent school in Portland even - 200 miles away, I wouldn’t have heard, there would be no reason to hear. It’s 200 miles away… so what?
Plus, the public HS in my neighborhood was actually pretty good. So there was no problem with me going there.
For the most part, I think people are aware of the reputation of the high schools within reasonable transportation range - and which are the good ones and which aren’t. But much farther than that, there’s no real reason to know.
In addition, some suburban towns are homes to superb public school systems. The property values in those towns are closely tied to the reputations of their school systems and many families move to those towns so their kids can go to the public schools.
I personally attended the only current Blue Ribbon School in Tennessee, Farragut High. It had an excellent program, and was in no way an exclusive high school. I studied German and Russian, took several advanced courses, and this was not in the slightest way abnormal for most U.S. schools (well, maybe the Russian).
Note that at least 2 states have the equivalent of “Governor’s Schools” where highly qualified students can go to the state capital, attend the residential high school the state operates for gifted students, and then go off to college with a better education than most public high schools have.
One that I can think of was the North Carolina School for Science and Math, although it only accepts students in their junior and senior years of high school.
For all of you non-US personages, junior and senior years are the 2nd to last, and last years of high school in the US. Students in these grades will typically have, respectively, their 17th and 18th birthdays during those school years.
) can open a lot of doors for you in the city.
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