Public vs. Private

Rethinking the Debate After the Duke Scandal

Last winter, my fourth-grade son, Jack, attended a baseball camp at a local private school. Each week, his younger siblings and I walked him along the manicured playing fields and through the sunlight-filled halls of this shrine to elementary education. We made barely a sound as we walked the carpeted halls, stared through the windows at the modern, well-stocked library and found the gymnasium, where, finally, my son's sneakers squeaked noisily on the high-gloss floor.

It was all a stark contrast to the public school he and his sister attend.

Considered -- certainly by D.C. standards -- a great public school, Janney Elementary is overcrowded, has only two student bathrooms in the three-story building, offers physical education only once a week, suffers annual budget cuts and calls its gymnasium an "all-purpose room" because it's also the cafeteria, auditorium and hub of before- and after-school care.

I didn't have to wait long to see if he would notice the difference. "Wow," he said in a reverent tone not generally expected from a 10-year-old discussing educational facilities. "This is a pretty nice school."

There was no question of disagreeing. Even I wanted to go there. I secretly planned the pro-private-school campaign I would launch at my husband -- like me, a product and proponent of public schools (but he hadn't seen this place). I calculated what we'd have to sacrifice to afford private school for all three kids, at least for high school. I casually mentioned any negative story I'd heard about our local public middle and high schools.

In the midst of my stealthy onslaught, the Duke lacrosse scandal broke, and I beat a hasty retreat. The newspapers and coffee klatches were abuzz with stories about privileged white kids run amok. Many of these kids came from some of the Washington area's top private schools. Even if no crime occurred, this story seemed to confirm all of my gut-level fears about private schools: They breed a sense of entitlement and superiority; private-school kids believe they're not held to the same standards as the rest of the masses; it might just turn my kids into people I don't really like.

I know these fears aren't entirely rational. Certainly most kids who attend private schools would not send horrifying e-mail messages or hire a stripper and hurl racial epithets at her, as the Duke lacrosse players reportedly did (and no one is denying these particular aspects of the story). I have friends and relatives who went to private schools and even more who send their children to private schools now. Both of my parents went to private schools, and neither ever could have been accused of feeling superior.

But I've also seen the flip side. One friend said her daughter's few private-school years were filled with kids who knew their parents' money would buy them out of any situation, with kids who talk to any adult with the same irreverent tone they used on each other, kids who thought the regular rules just didn't apply to them.

We know these attitudes and these kinds of kids exist everywhere. Maybe it's the addition of vast amounts of money that makes sending our kids to private school such a difficult choice.

Both my husband and I come from families with many kids and little money. Growing up in one of the wealthiest counties in the country, we both knew college would be an option only if we worked two jobs, earned scholarships and applied for every grant and loan available (so we did). We can afford to do more for our kids, to ensure they won't have the gut-twisting worries about tuition that we had. But should we?

Neither of us wants our children to suffer quite as much as we did. On the other hand, we don't want them to become complacent, either. How do we strike the balance? If we send them to private school and they see how the other half lives, do we have any chance of convincing them that it's better to work hard for a living? To suffer just a little bit?

Still, there was that library. In Washington, we're surrounded by some of the best private schools in the country. St. Albans, Landon, Sidwell Friends, Georgetown Visitation -- the list of amazing schools here goes on and on, places with science labs and cafeterias, team sports and money to pay teachers and fund huge construction projects. Meanwhile, we wonder whether our kids will be challenged enough in a school system that seems almost impossibly off-track. Earlier this month the federal government threatened to yank roughly $12 million of the D.C. public schools' federal money because the District can't manage its finances. The District government said the school system somehow will have to find $7.7 million in its current budget for an unexpected midyear rise in fuel and other costs.

At Janney, students donate hand-knit scarves, baby-sitting hours and dog-walking time to help raise money at the annual auction -- a huge moneymaker thanks to the frenetic fundraising of parents and teachers. Although the same sort of events take place at private schools, there isn't the same urgency that comes with knowing a low turnout could mean no music teacher next year, or no school nurse, or no new playground equipment.

Our public-vs.-private debate has been a theoretical one for years, but soon we're going to have to pull the trigger. Jack's elementary years are nearly over, and we'll have to decide once and for all what kind of school people we are.

Last month we were at a multi-family barbecue, where the Duke story was hotter than the salsa. But more than guilt or innocence, the presumption among the private-school grads in the conversation was that these players never could have done such a thing. The undisputed tawdriness of the lacrosse party never came up. This group was closing ranks around strangers hundreds of miles away, and I couldn't have felt like more of an outsider.

Is this a revealing flash of private-school attitude or simply an unwillingness to assume the worst? Every day, we seem to have a different answer.

A month or so ago, our oldest son attended a friend's lacrosse clinic. He declared it his new favorite sport.