As the decade of the 1930's was coming to a close, the quality of the nation's public schools had improved (particularly in urban schools). But as the "urban crisis" in housing, employment, recreation, and health began to take shape; urban education had once again begun to decline. The immediate decline of public education caused the leaders of the time to call for massive reforms of public schools. (Johnston 43)

Sixty years have passed and Americans are still asking for the reform of public education. Sixty years have gone by and Americans are still unsatisfied with public education. Instead of continually trying to reform public education, Americans should look for alternatives to public education altogether.

Americans hear a great deal about the pathetic state of public education in this country. Even if many American's don't see anything wrong with the schools in surrounding communities, most Americans share a sense of urge

In schools throughout the state of Illinois more than one half of the freshman in high schools were taking remedial mathematics classes. Only 30 percent of the state's high school districts offered calculus, and only 8 percent of the states high school students actually take calculus (Kemelman123).

Schools without walls allow students to learn from people within the community. Theses students learn from local businesses, museums, planetariums, nursing homes, and things of that nature. Public school teachers teach these courses and community members like: librarians, curators, magazine editors, and other people involved within the community (Wells76)

Private schools also have a 5 percent higher graduation rate than public schools, and private school students are 1.5 times more likely to enter college, and 2.5 times likely to graduate from college than public school students. On a side note, minorities like Hispanic and African-American private school students are three times as likely to graduate from college than minorities in public schools. (www.publicpurpose.com)

Alternative schools are also much smaller than public schools. This is one benefit of alternative schools because of the increasing problem of overpopulation in the public school system. Most of these schools have fewer than 200 students, and only 12.6 percent have more than 500 students (Rioux24).

In the 1980's fewer than half of the nation's public high schools required more than a year of science and mathematics (Gross56). Less than one in every ten high school students took physics and only 6 percent took one year of chemistry (Gross85). Many of the high school students graduated with only the bare minimum of school requirements for graduation in science and mathematics.

Some common words found in the essay are:
Rassel88 Besides, Europe's Johnston, Roman Catholic, Robert Barr, Hispanic African-American, Wells76 Learning, Anne Raywid, public schools, public school, Wells76 Alternative, Private Education, school students, private schools, private school, Dr Timothy, public education, school teachers, alternative schools, public school students, private school students, public school teachers, alternative public, schools public, private school teachers, public alternative schools,
Approximate Word count = 2022
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page double spaced)