I came across this older anti-school choice article this week that made me laugh. The article described how different education opportunities for families supposedly “steal money” from public schools (we’ve discussed that see this post). But instead of really making the argument explaining how and why, the article listed 31 people who attended public schools as “proof” of some sort. I’m still not sure what they were trying to prove. The list simply said, “And scroll down to see a list of 31 CEOs, celebrities, and other wildly successful people who went to public high schools in the U.S.”
The list could go side-by-side with articles like “Celebrities You Would Never Expect to Sew” or “Musicians Who Are Math Gods!”
These articles all have one thing in common; the hook is that you wouldn’t expect these people to do that thing. That’s what makes the information interesting.
Who would have thought the famous soccer player, David Beckham, would enjoy sewing his clothes for his daughter’s dolls? And who would have thought Steve Jobs went to public school? It’s a funny argument in support of public schools because, in order to make it, the author has acknowledged that Steve Jobs having attended a public school will seem surprising.
And yet the irony gets better. Steve Jobs' experiences with public school were not always positive. In fact, Jobs was bullied in middle school, and his adoptive parents used their life savings to purchase a new home in a better school district that is also well-known as a community full of engineers. They purposely enrolled him in a school with strong ties to Silicon Valley (click here for more Jobs references).
In fact, the list of celebrities who surprisingly went to public schools is filled with people who went to very elite public schools. Jeff Bezos’ high school recently had the highest AP Chemistry pass rate in Florida. Billionaire Meg Whitman attended a relatively wealthy, and nearly segregated, suburban New York high school. Wikipedia notes Whitman’s school is 96% white and 2% asian. Jennifer Aniston first attended the elite Manhattan Woldorf school. (Current tuition at Woldrof can top $50,000 per year.) She credits the school’s elite arts training for a successful audition at the highly selective, but public, LaGuardia High School of Music and Performing Arts.
Sure, there are very successful people who attend public school, and attending an elite one sure improves your odds. We don’t begrudge the success of these public-school celebrities.
But we dislike the fact that families, like Steve Jobs's, have to sacrifice all their savings and relocate to get into the “right” school. There are thousands of families in the US who can’t afford the relocation that Steve Job’s parents made, but like the Jobs family, they often have children whose needs are not being met by their assigned public schools.
Even Steve Jobs needed the right educational environment to thrive. Why shouldn’t that be available to all students?