From Harlow Unger's `How To Pick A Perfect Private School'--Part 9

The 1999 book by Harlow Unger, "How To Pick A Perfect Private School" indicated how the elite private prep schools of the U.S. power elite's private prep school system contradict democratic and egalitarian values and provide their mainly wealthy students with a different educational experience than what most U.S. public schools provide most students who graduate from U.S. public schools:

"If your child is accepted by, and enrolls in, private school, both your child and you...will enter a new educational and social world unknown to (indeed unimagined by) the vast majority of Americans whose children routinely attend public schools. Most have never seen or even heard of America's most prestigious private schools. Most respond with blank stares at the mention of such names as Exeter, Hotchkiss or even Collegiate...Attending private school...is a privilege...

"...Enrollment in a private school will mean your child will join a private club. Some of these `clubs' can often ease entry into the most selective colleges and universities and into the halls of power and leadership in business, industry, government and the profession. Membership in such clubs often lasts a lifetime, and can produce...associations that last equally long.

"Flagrant violation of private-school rules, however, can mean swift expulsion from that club...Many private schools...are the way they are because those who own them...want their schools to be that way...Again, they are private! So if you disagree witih the way a school is run, don't enroll your child!"

From Harlow Unger's `How To Pick A Perfect Private School'--Part 8

The admissions offices of most U.S. elite universities, in an undemocratic way, generally grant preferential treatment to student applicants who have graduated from one of the U.S. power elite's private prep schools--and not from a U.S. public high school. As Harlow Unger's 1999 book "How To Pick A Perfect Private School" observed:

""...About a dozen of the most selective boarding schools of the Northeast, which...limit admissions.., send a disproportionately high number of their students to the most selective colleges and universities...Phillips Academy...has a physical plant that is larger and more extensive than many colleges...More than one-fourth of the typical graduating class goes to Ivy League colleges...Andover [Phillips Academy] and Exeter [Phillips Exeter Academy] along with...boarding schools as Groton, Hotchkiss, St. Paul's and Deerfield and...New York City day schools as Collegiate, Dalton and Horace Mann, place disproportionately large numbers of their graduating seniors in the most selective colleges and universities..."

From Harlow Unger's `How To Pick A Perfect Private School'--Part 7

In his 1998 book, "How To Pick A Perfect Private School," Harlow Unger indicated how Catholic parochial/private schools differ from U.S. public school system schools and the elite prep schools of the U.S. power elite's private school system by writing the following:

"...Catholic schools, like most private schools, refuse to admit...disruptive children...Children who don't obey the rules are expelled. Public schools must by law deal with all children, and, therefore, incur far higher costs handling disruptive, emotionally disturbed, physically handicapped or learning-disabled children...

"...The academic quality of most Catholic schools--especially parochial schools--is far below that of most selective independent schools...Only 44 percent of 8th-grade students in Catholic schools achive the highest level of reading proficiency..."