Teaching at a public school vs teaching at a private school?

Teaching bratty kids vs teaching regular kids....

At a boarding school you're going to put in lots of hours. I have a friend who teaches at one and they have classes six days a week (Saturday morning) and other weekend duties (coaching, library, shuttle driver, etc). In his first few years, he had to live in a dorm and had the typical duties associated with that. He gets room and board as part of his compensation, but he eats in the dining hall with the kids.

Still have to deal with parents...maybe different kinds of crap but still crap

There are so many different scenarios and possibilities in both cases. You really have to look at the specific situation that you would be going into in each position, and assess your own needs and preferences. Would you teach in a public school "honors program" or "mainstream" classes? How many class preps and how many kids in each class? Is location important to you? For what it's worth, I have a good friend who took a position at a prestigious NYC prep school, lives in an affordable Manhattan apartment owned by the school, and loves his job. But is his situation really comparable to, say, a position at a small, private baptist school in Texas?... Not being judgmental here -- maybe you'd love that small baptist school and hate the high powered Northeastern prep school that routinely places grads in the Ivy's. Good luck.

You need a few years of teaching experience before you'll be hired as a private school teacher usually. Private schools have a lot stricter discipline and better behaved children than at public schools. At a private school if a kid acts up, they can expel him. Private schools can expel kids for any reason they wish, even things like political and religious beliefs. Public schools are a lot more lax on discipline, they can't really do anything to kids unless they are a danger to themselves or others, or they get caught doing drugs. At public schools, most kids are good kids who try to do well in school, but you WILL have at least a few students, maybe not in every class, maybe not every year, who will go out of their way to try to make your life a living hell. Their disruption will be so constant and consistent that you will barely be able to teach at all and the other students, when they can actually pay attention, will not be able to focus or learn. You'll give these kids every punishment you can, phone calls home, detentions galore, referrals to go speak to the principal and be put in ISS or OSS, but nothing will work. The school will keep letting these students come back to your room day after day and disrupt everyone else's learning and there will be nothing you can really do about it. Besides that, in public schools you'll get some students who are far behind grade level in their ability to read, do math, and think critically. For example, some 9th graders will struggle to read something on the level of a boxcar children book, which is a novel for 1st-2nd graders. These students won't do their hw and they won't pay attention in class. They'll often be disruptive, sometimes as disruptive as the hellions I previously mentioned, but not always. You can expect regular classes to feel like remedial classes, honors to feel like regular, AP to feel like just honors, and AP selective classes (in special academies within the hs's if your city has that) to feel like regular AP. I went to a private school growing up and have taught in public schools for the past few years. Good luck.

I taught a semester at a private school. A lot of the kids were spoiled and entitled little sh1ts. I had higher expectations going in. Disappointing experience.

Edward Teach wrote:

You need a few years of teaching experience before you'll be hired as a private school teacher usually.

False. The standards for teachers at private schools are typically lower than those for public school teachers.

at a public school, you'll "teach to the test," meaning whatever standardized testing that school is judged by. most private schools don't do that. i imagine that's what the people you've talked to mean by having more independence at a private school.

When I went to a private HS, we had a lot of teachers right out of college. Might depend on the school.

Factor wrote:

False. The standards for teachers at private schools are typically lower than those for public school teachers.

Well... sort of...

I mean, pub skool teachers will have "credentials" for teaching (you know, MA in edukashun), whereas private school teachers will have lousy teaching credentials but things like, oh, PhD's in a FREAKIN DISCIPLINE.

But... whatevah.

FYI:

My private school had its own observatory. My astronomy teacher worked on x-ray satellite projects in his spare time (he took frequent sabbaticals). My math teacher, Olek, he Russian with doctorate in complex analysis. He big bear chess champ, too.

Admittedly, neither had those vaunted "credentials" so precious to the publick skool crowd. What losers, huh?

so basically private school parents pay for worse teachers and they generally get less days of school for their children.

Yea private school seems worth it...

I taught for 2 years at a fairly prestigious private HS with $20k+ yearly tuition.

Pros

Resources available

Quality of overall student body

Lack of "administrative BS" that often comes with teaching at a public

Negatives

overbearing parents (I always had about 3-4 parents who would email me EVERY F*CKING DAY asking why junior got a B on a minor assignment)

having to deal with all the bratty kids who think they are Rothschilds because their dad rakes in $200k a year before taxes, there were a few kids who really were very wealthy but they tended to be better behaved than the "upper-middle" kids

principal was an absolute buffoon (specific to school but worthy of note I guess)

I have always been averse to private schools. Growing up in nyc i had to apply to school, and my parents didnt want to pay for private school since there were some top of the line public schools in the city (That were better than most of the private schools). I got into one of these schools and loved it. I always have memories of going to camp with douchey private school kids who have hamptons homes and such.

I teach at a private boarding school. All of my experience is in boarding schools as I have never taught in a public nor private day school. Everything I have to say is my experience from the four boarding schools where I have worked:

--I started at 23 right out of college. We do not have teaching degrees, but that does not mean our teachers are not excellent and devoted individuals. If one isn't a good teacher, s/he will get canned within a year or two.

--Private schools typically pay less, but boarding schools provide on campus housing (a nice perk).

--Public school teachers are 'graded' on how well their students score on standardized tests. My students do not take state standardized tests and I have the independence to teach however and whatever I want in class.

--Discipline is not really an issue in private schools. Students don't get into a lot of trouble because we kick them out quickly and parents don't want to pay tons of money and then have a kid kicked out. What I've heard about lack of discipline in public schools is why I will not work in a public school. Teenagers are still teenagers and will do stupid things, but it's not a big issue for us.

--That said, I think parents are worse here. We have way too many helicopter parents who have to know every detail of their children's lives and have to have an explanation for every bad mark. They think paying expensive tuition gives them free reign to 'run the school.'

--Class sizes are much smaller in private schools. My average class size for the last 10 years has been about 10 students. Also, I only teach four periods per day instead of six or seven like in public schools, which means I have more planning/prep time during they day.

--I don't know about day schools, but boarding school teachers have to put in a lot of extra hours. We are expected to coach in the afternoons, advise a group of 5-7 students, do 1-2 weeknights of duty in a dorm every week (glorified babysitting), and run a lot of student activities once every three or four weekends. Those 'extras' are a small price to pay for free housing, in my opinion.

I'll probably be boarding school teacher for life because the pros far outweigh the cons.

Not sure about US but in Canada :

- Private schools pay more but don't have pension. A lot of teachers love the fact that they have their cushy pension so go public but it really doesn't matter because if you invest your higher earnings at a private school you can create your own retirement fund

- Public schools are highly unionized. This means teachers are selected soley on their seniority and not their aptitude, hire ability or impression made at interview. This leads to a lot of old shitty teachers at public schools.

- private schools have better behaved but more demanding kids IMO. silver spoon up their butts but polite. You won't see many fights but will see the occasional snotty kid with daddies porsche.

- super hard to get a job at public school. Hard to get a job at private school if you are a moron but if you are smart and present well way easier

IMO if you are a capable/ smart person go private. If you are an idiot go public.

private selects on merit. Public takes longer but more security for screw ups because harder to get fired and not based on aptitude.

the main man says... wrote:

- Public schools are highly unionized. This means teachers are selected soley on their seniority and not their aptitude, hire ability or impression made at interview. This leads to a lot of old shitty teachers at public schools.

WTF does that mean? How can teachers be hired based on seniority?

Do you know what a union is? Do you know what a TOC or Substitute teacher is?

In Canada (and in basically any unionized job therefore making this a dumb question) teachers are called back, hired for contracts and hired for full time positions in public schools based only on how many hours they have worked and how many prior contracts they have completed.

the main man says... wrote:

Do you know what a union is? Do you know what a TOC or Substitute teacher is?

In Canada (and in basically any unionized job therefore making this a dumb question) teachers are called back, hired for contracts and hired for full time positions in public schools based only on how many hours they have worked and how many prior contracts they have completed.

So there's no possibility of a new teacher getting hired in Canada? Do they import all of there new hires from the US?

FWIW, I was hired to teach full time right out of college with no prior experience outside of student teaching (which was far from a stellar showing).