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i don´t know if we have a lot of private schools in germany. most of people are going to a public school here.
our system is a little drfferent than the on of america or australia.
we have 4 years basic primary school and then we decide if we go 5 years to a special school ,or 7 years to a junior high school, or 8 years to high schoo.
the longer you go to school the better your degree. you can only to to university with the highest one.
about university, we have t o pay every semester when i started (2005) we paid about $252, now we pay about $874 and it goes up every semester about $10. since the fees rize so high, you can see how the university changes.at the beginning we had many stundents from Africa, now see less and less of them. i talked to one of my study friends (she is also from africa), she told me that she will leave next semester because she cannot pay the fees anymore. well she is not the only one a normal german stunden has about $400 at month to live. as stunedt you can only leess than 20 hour a week and there is a limit how much you can earn in one year.....so we are getting all a little mad here.
just back to school, most of our school are in old buildings who are full of resin-bonded asbestos floor covering and other non healthy things.they are working to change it but they are slow.

This always brings me into some heated debate with someone, so I'll preface first with saying that I have nothing aganist one way of schooling vs. another I only speak from my personal experiences. 3nodding That said here's my stance:

From pre-school all the way through college/university the first time through I went through a Catholic education and am eternally grateful to my mom for that! 3nodding My schools were all co-ed and because of the uniforms that we were made to wear kindergarden through high school I never worried much about if I was "in style" or "in fashion" etc. It didn't matter since we were all wearing the same clothing for the entire school day. Also I've noticed that a lot of the teachers that taught me really cared about me and my education. Catholic schools traditonally are funded by a parish or multiple parishes and fundraising (BIG time fundraising) events. Teachers don't usually come to a Catholic school to get rich; I've been told countless times that the teachers come because they care about the students and their faith life.

I can testify to them caring about the individual because a lot of my teachers in high school were worried about me when I became suicidal and depressed. They called me into their offices and asked if they could help and called my parents to get me into counciling. I may have hated that at the time, but now I'm grateful they cared about me so much to get me help (help I desperately needed at the time). blaugh

Now when I went back to school this last time I entered the public school system (I am attending a community college) and it is funded by the local government. Now while this means that usually our parking lots are cleared in the winter very promptly (as opposed to the Catholic schools which generally were hard to keep up since they had to have the janitors do it and the janitors didn't seem to care as much as the teachers), generally I've learned that you as a student are more responsible and on your own (that means teachers don't have as much a role in caring for you (they call it "baby-sitting" in a lot of my classes), but some (and I've been fortunate enough to have at least 2 teachers like this) genuinely care about you and check up on you to see how you're progressing. They also don't seem to always care if you succeed or fail. They are there for the money. They are paid more than the private/Catholic teachers in general around here. confused

In both schools you will always find an exception to the fact that Catholic teachers care more about their students than the public school teachers and the public school teachers care more about the money than Catholic school teachers, but as a general rule that is what I've found. Sad, but true (at least in my neck of the woods). emo

I live in a suburb of Chicago, in the usa.
I've only ever gone to public schools and I loved it.
My mother went to a Catholic school from k-8, and a public high school. She found pros and cons to both. And Loved her public school, her older brother who went to the public school for only one year hated it as he had to left all his old friends and that structure behind.
My sister like me has only attended public grammar schools, however she is looking into private colleges. I dont think there is much difference in the college's in the states, but having not attended, i cant say for sure.

The thing with private schools is your paying more for what is suppose to be a better education, but if the kid dosnt care, they wont get much out of it. I attend a VERY good pubic school in a very good area, and i truly believe that the education i received there is equal to that of a private school. I also know however this is not always the case, especial with city schools.
If I ever do have children I truly believe that I will send them to a public school.

I've worked with a few girls who were home school, they seemed more then a little "off" I think it was because they were overly sheltered, which is something i wonder, is it so much the school or how one is protected from the outside world that makes a difference in a childs development?
?

I've been in public schools all my life. Being a military brat, I attended a LOT of year round schools, so I was a year or two younger than the average student by the time I made it to the 5th grade. I came to Missouri from Texas, and low and behold, they were an entire semester behind. I was basically repeating the fourth grade... Or at least part of it. I was basically uprooted from my home in Texas, and I didn't even get to say goodbye to my friends OR my dog that we had to leave behind. So instead of being constructive and holding a positive attitude and trying to skip a grade, I slacked off. I was immediately called "dumb" by my teachers and the school counselor really wasn't of much help... By the seventh grade, I was looking into military schools. I honestly can't really recall why. I found some of my best of friends from around this time in my life... I guess I just craved more structure... Or I just wanted to get away from all the stupid. Tuition was $8,000 a semester. I wanted to go but there was no way my family was going to be able to afford it. There were rumors about school uniforms and I was hoping that they would push through with it. There were so many ridiculous regulations on what you could or couldn't wear by then that uniforms were just a welcomed idea. Unfortunately, it never did...
In High School, there were more freedoms about things so far as what you could or couldn't wear. So the uniform aspect wasn't so much an issue to me by then. However, looking over those years of education, I feel kind of robbed. I feel that if I had maybe gone to a private school or a place with a little more structure, I maybe would have had a little bit more direction in my life after sweatdrop

A friend of mine has sent his kids to a Montessori school (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montessori_method). In short, it's a more "open" and self-paced style of learning. In Perth until last year, the school only taught up to grade 5, but now has a senior school. I know that the 'top student' in my year (of about 200 girls) started at this school.
Personally I think the idea is great - but it really depends on the kid! If a child is one which needs motivation, then he/she's less likely to be pushed in this environment. But, then if my children have my personality, they'd always be wanting to do the best that they can....even if that isn't very good!
I'm not sure what my children will be like (assuming that I have some) but I think I'm mostly likely to send them to public school...at least for junior school (grade 7). Not all public schools are the same - some are better than others, so I'd be happy to move to the "right area" to be able to send my kid to my school of choice. Then it depends on finances and how my kid is performing (or what they want to do).
If my child is struggling, the private schools tend to be better - better facilities, smaller classes and usually tougher rules.

I totally agree with you Doressa, about the boy-girl thing! I think Perth now have a couple of public schools (which are co-ed) but the classes are split into tow, one for boys and one for girls.

3nodding I completely agree with you! I hung around more boys than girls and I still do. blaugh I tend to see more eye-to-eye with boys; girls just don't understand how I function and how my brain works. sweatdrop Guess that is why I'm a tomboy. rolleyes