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There is no doubt that prep schools achieve superior results to state schools. The interesting question is why. Here there are several factors involved in the success of a school. It is difficult to isolate the relative importance. This certainly merits a serious academic study. It is onec that has not, however, been well addressed by the academic community, largely because the left-wing orientation of many education academics does not like the likely outcome of any serious study. We suspect that both the academic program and descipline are certainly key factors, but they certainly are not the only factors. .
Many educational specialists would like people to believe that money is the reason. This is simply not the case. The classrooms and physical plant at most of these schools is inferior to most state schools. We saw classrooms that would not be tolerated in the state system. Somecwee so small that the desks barely fitted in the room. The one area where the prep schools excel is small classes and low student/teacher ratios. In contrast to state schools, there is much more limited administrative overhead. And tge administrative overhead can be very expensive.
Social clas is a factor. Most of these children come from upper- or middle-class families in which education and learning is a high priority. Thus they arrive at school predisposed to take their education seriously.
Surely a core if not most important facytor is the academic program. And this has nothing to do with money. In fact classroom instruction working on the basics is often less costly than fanbct 'feel good' activities. The focus at thepreop school is on on classroom instruction. The academic program at these schools vary. They are stringlyb influenced by the requirements of the public (private boarding) schools in their area. While there are thus differences, there is also a great deal of similarity. Prep schools unabashedly focus their classroom time on the academic basics. At bmost prep schools there is atrong emphasis on academics and most particularly a program that emphasizes the fundamentaks,literacy and numercy. Thechilkdren are given written assignments and the classes are small enough that the teachers have time to corret that work and go over it with the children.
Teachers are obviously an important factor that go into the success of a school. Prep school teachers are recruited from the same talenbt pool from which state school teachers are recruited. Salaries are similar. The more successful prep schools offer slightly higher salries, but there are also greater demands on teachers at boarding schools. This by itself probably attracts more committed teachers. And the academic focus of thecschools probably attracts like-minded teachers less interested in the 'feel-good' enviroment of state schools. A key difference is that poor teachers do not last very long at prep schools. They are quickly let go. This is different in the cstate system. It is much more cdifficult to dismiss poor teachers.
Perhaps the greatest advantage that the prep school teacher has is that the behavior and motivation of the children. Some state school teachers have to expend considerable energy on a small number of troubled or disruptive children. The classrooms with the exception of a few beginning teachers were orderly and serious. There were no disruptive students ans the children were engaged and serious. This may seem the norm,but sady there are many schools in Britain where it is not. Students in some neiughborhoods are not only not particularly interested in learning, but they are not accustomed to sitting down and behaving for an extended time. This in the long run has a major impact on academic achievement.
The school day at prep schools is longer than in the state schools. This varies somewhat by form level.
The prep school teacher does not devote large periods of time to non-academic activities. Many state schools have programmed large blocks of time to non-academic activities. This has diluted the academic program with a range of "fun" or "feel good" activities. And they include class time devoted to promoting the left-wing ideology prevalent in the educational community. The state school academic program is further diluted by the penchant of some educators to use the school to address anything that may be wrong with the society at large; violence, racial prejudice, drugs, ect. These are areas, however, in which few schools have demonstrated the ability to successfully address. One prep school master insisted with some vehemence,
Strate school advocates claim that there is a greater range of ability levels in the state schools that teachers have to cointend with than in the prep schools. We wonder about this. There certainly is a greter range of academic performance in the state scgools, but that is not the same as an ability range. Rather it is the result of the families that the children come from and how they evaluate education and prepare the chuldren for education. That is a very different matter than ability levels.
