My school choice

My children finished their last day of public school. Next year, we have made the decision to pursue private education for them. This is a difficult and costly decision that was made over many months and lots of research. Thankfully, we are fortunate enough to be able to afford this.

But there really aren’t many options out there, especially in a time when families are struggling to afford basic necessities. When I first started considering alternatives to public school, I had a tentative school chosen, when news arose that they had elected not to provide high school services, an announcement made two weeks before the school year started last year. Talk about having to scramble to make alternative arrangements for your child’s last year(s) in school.

Although there are a number of options locally for homeschool students to pool resources and attend educational and social events together, homeschooling is not an option for most families, while both parents have to work to keep their head above water.

In public school, the environment is not conducive to individual learning opportunities. The common theme now, I feel, is teaching for the standardized tests that seem to be constant, along with computer diagnostic assessments that some children struggle with.

Using AI to assess a child does not allow for critical thinking or customized learning strategies. And teachers are burned out. I asked one of my son’s special education teachers if she was okay after a meeting that was largely very positive, but she seemed distant and upset. She shared that she is burned out and no longer enjoying her chosen career path, given the constraints of public education.

From an outsider’s perspective, it seems we have constrained the requirements of our children’s learning to a chokehold. Teaching to an online test, graded by a computer, allows for little creativity or individuality and our children are smothered by the rigor. Coupled with parents who are distracted by life and their own electronics, also taught in a similar fashion, children find themselves abandoned to automation and having to fend for themselves.

Perhaps that is why we see so many students acting out. Their creativity is stifled in school, and they are left to their own devices (literally) at home. And with the school unable to discipline, suspend or retain them, chaos ensues, ironically within the gated system.

Teachers, security guards and other school officials describe being physically abused by children in elementary school, allowed only to defend themselves in such a way as to not touch the child battering them. Repeat absences are ignored, while parents can’t be bothered to get their kid to school on time or at all. Driving by a local high school is an education in itself of how little fabric can be used to cover the teenage figure.

At the private school we have chosen, they shared that the tuition is about half what the state pays per public education student, with the majority of the cost being for staff. So where is the other half going in what the state pays per student?

It certainly isn’t in teacher salaries or the school supplies that the teachers have to bring themselves. It certainly isn’t in infrastructure, when Mayfield High School (which opened in 1965) needs a GO Bond to fund a long-overdue renovation. And it certainly isn’t in improving the reading comprehension or math proficiency in our students who continually rank near the bottom nationally.

I don’t know what the answer is for public education as a whole. But places to start include accountability of students and their parents, exploring individual creative outlets and providing alternative learning opportunities, rather than focusing on test results, renaming schools and ignoring discipline.

Shawna Pfeiffer is a life-long Dona Ana County Resident, graduate of NMSU, small business owner, hobby farmer, dog-lover, outdoor enthusiast and mother to two young children. She can be reached at srpfeiffer1@gmail.com.