an essay about public school

20 Public Schools Pros And Cons

Dalia Yashinsky (MA, Phil)

Dalia Yashinsky is a freelance academic writer. She graduated with her Bachelor's (with Honors) from Queen's University in Kingston Ontario in 2015. She then got her Master's Degree in philosophy, also from Queen's University, in 2017.

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Chris Drew (PhD)

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In most developed countries, school is mandatory for kids between the ages of 6-18, though the exact age range depends on the nation, state. or province.

Public schools are government-run and funded learning institutions that are free for all students to attend. By and large, the vast majority of students attend public schools, and there are many reasons why this is the case.

Public schools are free for students to attend, transportation to and from the schools are often provided, and the public education curriculum is regulated and vetted by the government.

Despite all the advantages that come with public education, many parents and their children still opt out of the public education system so they can teach their kids either at home, through homeschooling, or at private schools.

Some parents prefer to homeschool their children so they can more closely monitor their child’s education and progress; whereas other parents might prefer to send their kids to private schools that are more capable of meeting certain learning needs that their child may have, or provides a more tailored education curriculum.

Public School Pros and Cons – Summary Table

Read Also: Public Schools vs Charter Schools (Key Differences, Strengths, and Weaknesses)

Advantages of Public Schools

1. public schools are free.

Public schools are funded by federal, state, and local governments, which means that parents and kids can enjoy the benefits of an education without having to face heavy financial burdens.

For many people, paying for their child’s education is not a viable option, so keeping public education free is necessary to make sure all kids have the opportunity to go to school and receive an education.

2. Public Schools are Accessible

Regional governments and school boards are usually in control of their region’s public education. That means that regional and municipal governments are responsible for delivering the specified standard of education required, and determining when there is a need for new schools in a particular area or neighbourhood.

For all kids to be able to go to school, public schools have to be accessible for each child to physically (or virtually) attend. Geography, and the physical location of public schools relative to where kids and their families’ lives plays a big role in determing the overall accessibility of public schools.

3. Transportation is Often Provided

Though schoolbusses depends on the region and local funding, most public schools offer transportation for kids to and from the school by the yellow school bus. Ontario alone transports over 833,000 students each day to and from school.

Schoolbusses are better for the environment, all things considered, since they help reduce the number of vehicles on the road by providing transportation for kids so parents don’t have to. They also make attending school easier for many kids that would otherwise face difficulty getting to school. Understandably the availability of bus routes can be a huge advantage and reason to vote in favour of public schools that provide transportation.

4. Teachers are Certified

Governments require that teachers be certified, licensed professionals in order to teach at public schools. People that go onto become teachers are expected to go to teacher’s school, or a program that provides them with the relevant credentials and skills to teach public education in a public-school setting.

The process that teachers have to go through to earn their teaching credentials ensures that certain standards are being met, and that these teachers are qualified in their teaching competencies and subject matter (at the relevant grade level.)

5. Public Schools Offer a Range of Supports

Each kid is different, and some require additional educational support, or personalized education plans to reach their learning goals. Since public schools educate students from all sorts backgrounds, and kids with different learning styles or disabilities, it’s necessary for public schools to have resources and a range of supports to meet the learning needs of all students. This is why public schools offer Special Education classes, or English as a second language (ESL) classes, and other types of student supports.

6. Public Schools are Diverse

On average, public schools tend to have a much higher degree of diversity in their student population than private schools. By attending public schools, kids become aware of cultural backgrounds that are different from their own. The diversity that exists in public schools allows kids the opportunity to become friends with other kids from diverse backgrounds and can create a more inclusive environment that goes beyond just the classroom.

7. Public Schools are Heavily Regulated

Since public schools are funded by the government through tax-payer’s money, they face a significant amount of regulation and oversight by the government to ensure that the curriculum is being taught to the relevant standard.

For example, in Ontario, public school students from K-12 are required to take the EQAO (Education Quality and Accountability Office) test. The EQAO is a government-run test that assesses student’s literacy skills and numeracy skills at key intervals in their elementary education. These types of academic assessments exist to make sure that schools and teachers are meeting the standards outlined by the education curriculum, and that students are actually learning according to their grade level.

8. Public Schools Won’t Permanently Close Down

Unlike public schools, charter schools and private schools are privately run-and-funded, which results in a much higher rate of private and charter schools closures compared to public schools. When private and charter schools go belly-up, this seriously disrupts a child’s education and places the burden on the family to find schooling in the middle of their child’s school year.

Public schools face significantly less closures than private or charter schools because they are not privately-run, capitalist insitutions, and face regulations on an ongoing basis.

9. Public Schools Often Perform Very Well

There’s no question that schools vary in academic performance between one another, and in some cases private or charter schools do perform better than their public-school counterparts. That said, numerous studies have been done that show how on average, public schools either match or outperform private and/or charter schools. The Public School Advantage is a book written by Christopher Lubienski and Sarah Lubienski that look to debunk the myth of private schools out-performing public schools due to the fact that private schools are commerically run. Lubienski argues that the better-performing students at private schools should not be attributed to the private school providing a better education, but because these students come from more affluent backgrounds that are better able to support the child’s education.

10. Public Schools are Consistent and Uniform

Since private and charter schools are privately run and for-profit, there are extreme disparities in the quality of education provided at some private schools than others. Public schools, on the other hand, operate on an entirely different structure.

The curriculum is provided to them, and regulatory bodies oversee public school performance to ensure a standard of quality is being met across the board. As a result, parents can depend on the quality of public education to be more consistent, reliable and inclusive of each student and their diverse set of needs.

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Disadvantages Of Public Schools

1. public schools have less access to resources.

Public schools face funding shortages that can impact the school’s ability to access important and relevant school resources that kids need.

Private schools, and in some cases charter schools do not face similar issues with regards to school funds because they are for-profit organizations and collect student tuition. Kids that attend private schools may come from more affluent economic backgrounds, and so the parents of these kids are oftentimes better able to support the school through financial contributions or volunteering.

2. Public Schools have Bigger Class Sizes

The vast majority of students attend public schools because they are free for students to attend. With the amount of students enrolled in public schools each year, classroom sizes on average tend to be much higher in public schools than private schools.

Classroom size is a significant consideration because the more students there are in a classroom the busier the teacher is, and this could result in less one-on-one time between the teacher and individual students in the class. According to the NCES (National Center for Education Statistics) the average classroom size in public schools is 25, compared to 19 students per class in private schools.

3. Public Schools have Fewer Curriculum Options

Public schools are required to stick to the government-mandated curriculum that has been instated by the ministries of education. Parents that want a more focused or specialized curriculum for their child may find public schools lacking in that regard.

Private schools, on the other hand, offer various educational programs, curriculums and specializations that may focus on some academic areas more than others. For example, there are private schools that focus their curriculum more on the arts, STEM, sports and so on. For students that demonstrate an interest or talent in a certain area, private schools can be a good option so kids can focus more on the areas that interest them.

4. Public Schools are Less Specialized

Gifted students, or students that demonstrate a proclivity for some academic areas more than others should nurture their abilities by attending a more specialized school. Parents with gifted kids, or kids that excel in a particular area might opt out of sending their kids to a public school so that they can better meet their child’s education goals.

It’s important that kids feel challenged and motivated to keep stretching their skills and competencies. When students are bored in class, or do not feel they are being challenged, this can negatively affect their academic performance and interest in education overall. Private schools that have a more focused education curriculum can therefore be a much better fit for some students given their individual talents and interests.

5. Public Schools have Fewer Extracurricular Activities

While this is not true for all private schools, some private schools have more extracurricular activities, clubs and sports teams for students to choose from than public schools do. Since private schools collect tuition, and sometimes receive additional support from parent in the form of donations, certain private schools have the funds to provide outstanding extracurriculars and sport programs to their students.

6. Public Schools have Less Parental Involvement

Compared to private schools, public schools see less parental involvement in their child’s education and with the school in general. Parents that send their kids to private schools, on the other hand, tend to be much more involved in their child’s education and school as a whole, since these parents are paying for their child’s education. As a result, they have a bigger stake or feel a vested interest in their child’s education that parents of public-school kids might not feel as intensely.

7. Public Schools have Frequent Testing

Under the neoliberal education paradigm , students that attend public schools must take ongoing, standardized tests throughout their K-12 education so governments can better assess school performance and ensure the school is delivering the curriculum appropriately. Standardized tests are stressful for students and put immense pressure on them to perform up to grade level. Lots of kids don’t do well on tests, and experience extreme anxiety in preparing for them. For many students, the thought of having to take these mandatory standardized can be a drawback of the public school system.

8. Bullying is Supposedly more Prevalent in Public Schools

The NCES (National Center for Education Statistics) reports that roughly 20%, or 1 in 5 kids experience some form of bullying throughout their K-12 education.

Though there is limited research on the prevalence of bullying in private schools, by comparison, the numbers show that public schools tend to have more incidents of bullying, with more students being ostracized as a result.

No parent wants their kid getting bullied at school. To shield kids from being bullied, some parents pull their kids out of public school in the hopes that they will not face these problems in private school.

9. Public Schools can be Overcrowded

Overcrowded classrooms, limited workspaces and a lack of one-on-one student-teacher time can significantly impact student achievement and progress. Classrooms that are overpopulated with students face greater distractions, behavioural issues and as a result, students can fall behind on their learning goals and grade level.

Teachers with classrooms that are overpopulated find themselves stretched thin, and may not be able to meet the needs of each student in the class. This makes it easy for some students to fall behind or slip between the cracks of the public education system. Overcrowded classrooms raises a big issue that dissuade many people from sending their kids to public schools.

10. Issues with Public School Infrastructure

Education Week spoke about the dismal state of school infrastructure in an article they published in 2021 . Public schools have been seriously impacted and student education disrupted because of issues in the public school’s infrastructure. In Connecticut, a public school had to shut down because the ceiling collapsed and caused flooding. There are numerous examples of public schools failing to provide safe and inhabitable environments for students, which leads to closures and an interruption in student education.

Every school is different and face their own set of unique challenges that depend on a variety of factors. Overpopulation, lack of resources and funding can result in a myriad of issues for public schools that sometimes impedes on their ability to provide quality instruction. Public schools are the most popular and widely-attended form of education, and as we have seen in this post, there are many reasons why people choose to send their kids to public schools. While public schools are far from perfect, for the most part, they can be relied upon to deliver quality educational instruction to all students, no matter their individual learning style or grade level.

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Essay Samples on Public School

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Best topics on Public School

1. Public School vs. Private School: Argumentative Comparison

2. Advantages and Disadvantages of Public Schools: A Closer Look at Education for All

3. What Is the Purpose of School Education: Examining Public Schooling

4. Survey of Law Case: the Use of the Fourth Amendment in Public School

5. Reasons Why Implementing Year-round Schooling Is A Bad Idea

6. Reasons Why Rules Are Important As Per Example Of Japanese School

7. The Reward System: Bribing And Students Getting Paid For Good Grades

8. The Usage Of Cellphones In Schools And Reasons To Allow It

9. Separate Classes For Boys And Girls: Improvement, Not Battle Of The Sexes

10. Why Cell Phones Should Not Be Banned In Schools

11. The Question Of Whether Cell Phones Should Be Banned In Schools

12. Finding The Causes Behind The Youth Violence In Schools

13. Technology As A Tool To Stop Cyber Bullying In Schools

14. The Debate Whether Students Should Wear School Uniforms

15. The Issue Of Cyberbullying In Public Schools

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Home — Essay Samples — Education — Public School — Public Schools vs. Private Schools: A Comparative Analysis

Public Schools Vs. Private Schools: a Comparative Analysis

• Categories: Public School

About this sample

Words: 509 |

Published: Feb 7, 2024

Words: 509 | Page: 1 | 3 min read

Table of contents

Funding: the financial divide, class size: small vs. large, curriculum: standardized vs. specialized, extracurricular opportunities: quantity vs. quality, student diversity: multicultural vs. homogeneous, conclusion: making the right choice.

• Public schools are funded by taxpayer dollars through government budgets.
• Due to budget constraints, public schools often have limited resources for facilities, materials, and staff.
• Many public schools face challenges in maintaining and upgrading their infrastructure.
• Private schools rely primarily on tuition fees, donations, and endowments to fund their operations.
• As a result, private schools generally have higher per-student spending and access to additional resources.
• They often maintain well-equipped facilities and may offer specialized programs due to their financial advantages.
• Public schools typically have larger class sizes, which can lead to less individualized attention for students.
• Teacher-student ratios may vary widely within the public school system, impacting the quality of instruction.
• Private schools often boast smaller class sizes, which foster more personalized instruction and allow for closer teacher-student relationships.
• Lower student-to-teacher ratios contribute to increased interaction, making it easier for students to seek help when needed.
• Public schools are typically governed by state or district regulations, leading to standardized curricula.
• While they may offer a broad range of courses, public schools have limited flexibility in tailoring education to individual student needs.
• Private schools enjoy more curricular autonomy, allowing for tailored programs that cater to the specific needs and interests of students.
• They often offer specialized curricula, such as Montessori or religious-based education, to meet the demands of diverse learners.
• Public schools often provide a wide range of extracurricular activities , including sports, clubs, and community involvement.
• However, the availability and quality of these opportunities may vary depending on the school's budget and available resources.
• Private schools offer diverse extracurricular options, including unique clubs, activities, and experiences.
• Smaller student bodies may allow for increased participation, leadership roles, and a more tightly-knit community.
• Public schools are typically more diverse in terms of socioeconomic status , ethnicity, and backgrounds.
• Students in public schools are exposed to a broader range of perspectives and cultures, fostering tolerance and understanding.
• Private schools may have less socioeconomic and ethnic diversity due to tuition costs, potentially leading to a more homogenous environment.
• While they may provide a more consistent demographic, private schools often have smaller class sizes, allowing for increased individual attention.

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How to Write an Essay about Your School

If you’re hoping to draft an insightful essay about your school, you’re in the right place! Writing an essay about your school offers an opportunity to share your experiences, the unique features of your school, and why it is important to you.

In this tutorial, I’ll guide you through five straightforward steps to pen such an essay effectively. Alongside these steps, we’ll craft a sample essay to demonstrate how you can apply these steps in practice. Ready to begin? Let’s dive in!

Step 1. Plan the word count for your essay’s paragraphs.

Planning the word count for each paragraph in your essay is a helpful initial step, which can make the writing process smoother and faster. Remember, a typical essay comprises three key parts:

• The introductory paragraph
• Three body paragraphs
• The concluding paragraph

For example, you want a 300-word paragraph. Here’s one way to distribute 300 words across five paragraphs:

That’s all you need for your essay — five solid paragraphs.

Step 2. Choose your central theme and supporting points.

Firstly, decide on a central theme that encapsulates your school experience. This will provide a coherent thread for your entire essay. When choosing your theme, think about what defines your school. What are the core values? What unique attributes does it possess?

For our sample essay, let’s use this as our central theme: “My school, Greenfield High, stands out for its emphasis on community, innovative teaching methods, and commitment to the arts.”

Next, we will apply the Power of Three to break down this main theme into three supporting points. The Power of Three is a three-part structure that aids you in crafting your body paragraphs.

In our case, we will focus on three features that define Greenfield High:

• Greenfield High fosters a strong sense of community.
• Innovative teaching methods are a hallmark of Greenfield High.
• Greenfield High shows a deep commitment to the arts.

With these in mind, we can now begin to write our essay!

Step 3. Write the introductory paragraph.

To write an introductory paragraph , you can follow the diagram below:

The introductory paragraph should begin with an engaging opener that sets the context for the essay. Following this, you should introduce your central theme and your three supporting points. Here’s our example:

Introductory Paragraph

“Schools can profoundly shape our lives, molding us through their unique cultures, methodologies, and focus areas. My school, Greenfield High, stands out for its emphasis on community, innovative teaching methods, and commitment to the arts. Its sense of community fosters cooperation and mutual respect among students, its innovative teaching methods stimulate our intellectual curiosity, and its commitment to the arts provides a rich, expressive outlet for students.”

Step 4. Write the body paragraphs.

Next, we’ll develop three body paragraphs to elaborate on our supporting points.

Each paragraph should begin with a topic sentence that summarizes the paragraph’s main idea, followed by explanation and examples.

Paragraph 1

“Greenfield High fosters a strong sense of community, which has deeply impacted my school experience. Its student-led initiatives and regular community outreach programs have taught us the value of teamwork and public service. For instance, our annual ‘Greenfield Gives Back’ campaign, where students volunteer in local charities, has not only benefited our local community but also fostered a sense of responsibility and empathy in us students.”

Paragraph 2

“The innovative teaching methods adopted by Greenfield High are another defining feature. Teachers often integrate technology into their lessons, enhancing our understanding and making the learning process more interactive. I remember how our geography teacher used virtual reality to explore different ecosystems, turning abstract concepts into immersive experiences.”

Paragraph 3

“Lastly, Greenfield High’s commitment to the arts is exceptional. The school offers numerous art programs and supports artistic events like art festivals and music competitions, providing students with opportunities to express themselves and develop their talents. For example, participating in our annual school musical has allowed me to explore my passion for performing arts and has greatly boosted my confidence.”

Notice how each body paragraph begins with a topic sentence, followed by further explanation and examples.

Step 5. Write the concluding paragraph.

The concluding paragraph is best written by paraphrasing the points made in your introductory paragraph. Avoid copying and pasting; instead, refer back to your introductory paragraph and restate the points in a new way. Let’s apply this method to our sample essay:

“Schools greatly influence our formative years through their unique characteristics. Greenfield High, with its emphasis on community, innovative teaching methods, and commitment to the arts, has shaped my educational journey in significant ways. Its strong sense of community has instilled in me the importance of cooperation and service. Its innovative teaching methods have fostered my intellectual curiosity. Finally, its dedication to the arts has allowed me to express myself creatively and grow my confidence.”

With this approach, writing the conclusion becomes quick and straightforward.

And there you have it! I hope you find this tutorial useful as you craft your own essay about your school.”

Tutor Phil is an e-learning professional who helps adult learners finish their degrees by teaching them academic writing skills.

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Guest Essay

School Is for Everyone

By Anya Kamenetz

Ms. Kamenetz is a longtime education reporter and the author of “The Stolen Year: How Covid Changed Children’s Lives, and Where We Go Now,” from which this essay is adapted.

For the majority of human history, most people didn’t go to school. Formal education was a privilege for the Alexander the Greats of the world, who could hire Aristotles as private tutors.

Starting in the mid-19th century, the United States began to establish truly universal, compulsory education. It was a social compact: The state provides public schools that are free and open to all. And children, for most of their childhood, are required to receive an education. Today, nine out of 10 do so in public schools.

To an astonishing degree, one person, Horace Mann, the nation’s first state secretary of education, forged this reciprocal commitment. The Constitution doesn’t mention education. In Southern colonies, rich white children had tutors or were sent overseas to learn. Teaching enslaved people to read was outlawed. Those who learned did so by luck, in defiance or in secret.

But Mann came from Massachusetts, the birthplace of the “common school” in the 1600s, where schoolmasters were paid by taking up a collection from each group of households. Mann expanded on that tradition. He crossed the state on horseback to visit every schoolhouse, finding mostly neglected, drafty old wrecks. He championed schools as the crucible of democracy — his guiding principle, following Thomas Jefferson, was that citizens cannot sustain both ignorance and freedom.

An essential part of Mann’s vision was that public schools should be for everyone and that children of different class backgrounds should learn together. He pushed to draw wealthier students away from private schools, establish “normal schools” to train teachers (primarily women), have the state take over charitable schools and increase taxes to pay for it all.

He largely succeeded. By the early 20th century all states had free primary schools, underwritten by taxpayers, that students were required to attend.

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• Example of a great essay | Explanations, tips & tricks

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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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.

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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.

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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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Check out more from this issue and find your next story to read.

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.

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