Private Schools

For most people it is a personal family choice. My siblings and I went to MD almost 40 years ago. Most of my friends from grade school went to MD. I am not sure what ‘advantages’ you refer to. I could have received an equal education at my local public school. I will say that private schools have stronger and farther reaching alumni networks. I have more connection and activity with the MD alumni network than I do with my college alumni. Regarding athletics, I played sports at MD but that is not why I went there.

Sports. The speculation regarding recruiting, scholarship and other inducements as compared to the requirements that (if) students should be of a faith.

You're exactly who I'd hope would comment.

Same with Credo.

Never found a civil dialogue about this, and I've had civil conversations with you both. I'm happy to discuss all the perks public schools can offer.

At Los Al, you get a co-ed education at a school in a pretty decent area.

As for football, you get a coaching staff that works their collective asses off to prepare for each game, a few alternate jersey combinations, and a lot of exposure to college scouts.

But many private schools offer those things as well, so that is not a generic advantage offered by public schools, right?  Here are the primary differences as I see them:

(1) Public schools have to accept every Tom, Dick and Harry who lives in their enrollment boundaries, good or bad.  Privates don't

(2) Private schools can kick out the troublemakers.  Publics can't.

(3) Private schools have no enrollment boundaries.  Publics do.

(4) Public schools don't charge tuition.  Privates do.

One of my pet peeves, is that Catholic schools should be for Catholic students. Catholic school athletics should be for Catholic student-athletes. It was that way when I attended Servite, and it worked then, so it could work now (although I know the schools won't go back to that).

There are tens of thousands of Non-Catholic athletes out there, so limiting Catholic schools to Catholic student-athletes, in my mind, was a fair trade-off for having no boundaries. If that meant Mater Dei or Bosco could no longer win MNCs, oh well. 

But now since that trade-off is no longer there, Catholic schools have an unfair advantage over public schools and should therefore be separated. 

Grew up Catholic and went to St Anthony's in 9th grade after attending St Pancratius elementary school. Every kid I knew at SAHS came from another parish elementary school. Because I lived in Lakewood, my choices were Bosco (all boys and uniforms), or SA, co-ed and no unis.

Both were miles away from home, so I get the no geographic boundary issue.

When did the rules change, or have they?

But you're right... To have no geographic boundary AND no faith requirement is a pretty big advantage to schools that do have those rules.

Great post P. Fate, how times have changed from that..., I experienced that same thing starting in Jr HS when they posted in the gym "Track Tryouts" next Monday. Almost every guy at school thought to himself am I fast or strong enough? Is he faster or stronger than I? Can he run or jump further, throw farther? Until that Monday came, no one really was sure or had a clue.

That day came, and I found out, somewhat a surprise, II was the second fastest kid at school in the 100 & 220 and by far the best at 440. From this day I embraced running and ran for my High School Track & Cross Country teams winning two Silver Medals in Distant Medley events at the Tustin and Long Beach relays, two of the most coveted events at the time. I cherish those medals and those guys, my team. 

Again, my point is maybe aimed at the randomness of that time in regards to high school team sports, it was completely random, or in the least my memory and experience tells me so.