Dear NY Sun,
I am the President of the Guild of Independent School and I am writing to comment upon your article rating independents schools. This is clearly a facile analysis of school quality. The author does not understand anything about how a school affects a child and prepares that child for a successful, happy and productive life as an adult and citizen. The schools on the top of your list are excellent institutions, but so are the rest of your entries. First, you choose two categories that are measures of wealth. Second, you focus exclusively secondary education. As an industry-wide policy, independent schools do not participate in any system of rankings because we understand that there is no standard measure for how well a school performs because we believe that there is no standard student. We see our responsibility as providing the environments for each of our students to grow and learn from the moment they arrive in our schools at the ages of four and five to the day they graduate. Our desired outcome is not admission to a single college. While no Head of School would turn down large and generous gifts from alumnae(i) and parents that supported the educational mission of the learning community, we all know that our success as fundraisers is not the measure of our success as educators. I know that serious journalists aspire to provide clear information and perspective so their readers gain an accurate understanding of the topic in question. These two things were notably absent from your presentation.
George P. Davison
President of the Guild of Independent School
Head of Grace Church School
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Former Brearley Student
Aug 29, 2008 17:33
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philip
May 3, 2008 16:50
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