Should You Enroll Your Child in Private School? Consider These 3 Advantages

The struggles of the education system in recent years have fallen under a lot of scrutiny, and for good reason. Some alarming facts and statistics:

• 30 years ago, America was the leader in quantity and quality of high school diplomas. Today, our nation is ranked 36th in the world.
  
• Teacher quality is one of the most significant factors related to student achievement. In the United States, 14 percent of new teachers resign by the end of their first year, 33 percent leave within their first 3 years, and almost 50 percent leave by their 5th year.
  
• A 3rd grade student who reads at the appropriate reading level compared to a 3rd grade student who does not is four times more likely to graduate by age 19.

There is an ocean of reasons why this is happening within the education system in America, and both public and private schools are affected. However, the private sector has historically fared better in times of uncertainty in the education system. Here in Clearwater especially, the Clearwater private school system is exceptionally effective at educating bright young minds. Below are three advantages of private elementary schools in Clearwater, FL.

1. More Individual Attention

The United States population has grown by 17 million since the last major census in 2010 —a 5.3 percent increase. This increase has been supported by a steady annual rate of 0.7 to 0.8 percent; and according to history, this shows no signs of slowing down. Today’s children are glued to brightly lit LED monitors, and as a result, they require more individual attention than ever before to retain information and expand their knowledge. Private elementary schools in Clearwater, FL, benefit from smaller class sizes, allowing teachers to impart knowledge on their students more efficiently and with fewer distractions.  When schools become overpopulated, everyone’s learning experience suffers.

2. Updated Teaching Methods

The children of today are nothing like the children of the 1990s, or even the 2000s. Elementary students of those times came into school only with information and knowledge their parents exposed them to. Nowadays, children before preschool are granted access to smartphones and iPads to aid parents in keeping their overzealous attention spans at bay. This translates to new-age students that have a wealth of information that previous generations did not; in other words, they are not starting with a clean slate. In a traditional classroom setting, children did not have access to a computer until fourth or fifth grade. Preschoolers are walking into their first day of school with the ability to open a computer and use the internet. They need to adjust teaching methods to address this issue and help young minds remediate information that they’ve been exposed to outside of the classroom; which private schools have. Public schools often have trouble offering new-age teaching methods to their students. 

3. Plenty of Funding

A lack of funding is a detriment to any government system, so why would the school system be any different? In Florida, a lack of public funding affects every corner of the educational experience.  This underfunding hits lower-income public schools especially hard. However, affordable private schools in Clearwater, FL, rarely have funding issues. 

If you would like to learn more about private elementary schools in Clearwater, FL, like Lakeside Christian School, please give us a call at (727) 239-7808 or schedule a tour of our campus.