On Sun, 1 Oct 2000, Sampo A Syreeni wrote:
Somebody might then argue that education received in a private institution cannot be guaranteed to include social/moral/whatever lessons which are to be expected in a society and so private education should not be recognized as valid. Of course, this is nonsensical from an American point of view. From a Finnish one, not as clearly - Finnish universities and far over 90% of schools are governmental institutions, so making the above move would force people to attend a public school in order to be eligible for further education. In fact, private schools based on the Steiner and Montessori pedagogies fought quite a fight to be recognized, here.
Typically in the US, a college has entrance exams. If you can pay the tuition and pass the entrance exam, they don't care where or even whether you got your primary and secondary education. There's even a recognized class of "jailhouse lawyers" -- people who got arrested, studied the law on their own while in jail in order to handle their own appeals pro se, and who, when finally released from jail, found that they knew enough law to pass the entrance exams for law school and went on to become attorneys. "Social" or "Moral" lessons are considered to be reflected in performance only, and training is quite irrelevant to them. If a jailhouse lawyer takes a bribe or wilfully conceals evidence from disclosure or whatever, and the bar association discovers the fact, then she'll be disbarred the same as anybody else, but until something like that happens, she's assumed equal. The interesting bit is that the relative quality of public and private schools varies a whole lot. In sunny California, which has been neglecting its public school system, all the quality colleges are private and the entrance exams for them are all really tough -- students who've gone to a mere public school are unlikely to be able to get in. The curriculums are fairly mild, but since the graduates are all people who were bright enough to get in in the first place, they retain it well and function well in the world. If you don't do well enough in high school to qualify for the private colleges, you have to go the inferior public-college route. By contrast, in states like Kansas, which have a strong tradition of public schooling, the huge public universities have "warm body" admissions. This means anyone who can pass a GED exam or who has graduated from any public or private high school is automatically accepted -- but the curriculum is some of the toughest in the world and if you're unprepared you flunk out (Along with three quarters or more of your class). In the midwest, the graduates are the ones who were bright enough to *NOT FLUNK OUT*, and they retain their education well and function well in the world. If you can't cut it in the intensely competitive universities, then you have to pull out and go to an inferior private college instead. Ray