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Education Minister Horton has announced a review of the public school system. And while I could easily be part of the chorus condemning the delay in getting to this point, I am far more interested in contributing to the review, in the hope that it will transcend political/sectarian hurdles and inject new life into public education.

This week I'll look at some of the problems. Next week, some solutions.

For starters, it doesn't hurt to remember the historic role education played in our culture. Education, informal and formal, was an intimate ingredient for securing the racial imbalance.

Location, funding, provision of facilities and teachers, curriculum, goals were all different for black versus white education. Education boosted income, and income procured better education.

This cycle still continues, and though an argument can be made that the division these days in education delivery is more class-based than race-based, the result is the same: Most whites in our community opt for private education, and public education is disproportionately populated by blacks.

The perception that private education is better than public education is skewed by a brain-drain factor. The selection process for private schools versus public schools means almost inevitably that the private schools have 'better' students to work with at intake. And by better I mean the combination of student ability and parental engagement. To some extent, private schools are 'set up' to succeed (higher pass rates, more loyal graduates of greater means, higher levels of funding, able to cast a wider net in attracting and retaining high calibre staff, and so on).

Public schools, however, are compelled to cope with the 'remainders' of the student pool - those students who lack the academic development, funds, or parental involvement to get a place in a private school - as well as the normal distribution of ability in students whose parents have faith in the public education system.

From the skewed composition of their intake, public schools are 'set up' not to do as well as their private counterparts. This intake factor could also explain why some public elementary schools do better than others, seemingly a response to the predominant race/class/engagement of residents in the schools' catchment areas.

Every family wants the best for their children. And while they want the best, they cannot spend their energy or waste their children's time doing battle to improve the public education system.

Their children grow older every day and the window of opportunity to educate them daily grows smaller. At a private school, with an identifiable Board of Governors, there's a reasonable chance that parents' concerns will be heard and addressed.

With the Department of Education, and hence the public school system, the opportunity to locate and have an audience with the key person, to successfully influence policy, and to see changes occur are far more unlikely. The public school system is relatively unresponsive to the concerns of parents. Not just for academic education, but also for social education.

The social environment of some schools is the most significant concern for some parents. The levels of teasing; bullying; and verbal, psychological and physical violence at some schools are outside their comfort zone.

There is also a culture of anti-learning that seems ubiquitous in some middle and secondary public schools. That culture gets reinforced among peers and passed down to each new entry cohort. I am convinced that one of the ingredients for the success of the Bermuda Technical Institute was that as a new school it was able to create its own culture, one of student eagerness and excitement about learning, and a high level of pride; and an esprit-de-corps among its teachers. So what can we do? Next week: some recommendations.[[In-content Ad]]

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