Private vs. Public Schools

As some of you may know, I play the bagpipes. I do not claim to be good, but I have been taking lessons and I really enjoy playing. I heard of a private school, St. Thomas Episcopal, that has a pipe band. St. Thomas is a K-12 parochial school located in Houston. The founder of the school was proud of his Scottish heritage and wanted to do something unique. He decided to make Scottish music and dance a major emphasis at the new institution. The band has done so well that they have won 5 world juvenile championship titles, competing in Scotland.

They had a concert last night that I was able to attend. Lets just say that I was blown away.





I sat next to a very friendly guy in a kilt. His son is a piper in the band. He told me a little about the school. The boys start in the band at fourth grade. The girls start dancing at about the same age.
The academics are rigorous. He told me that the boys and girls are segregated until the 9th grade, saying "people here have enough common sense to know that boys and girls learn differently." Amen. Another thing that I was impressed with is that the kids are required to take Latin from the 6th-12th grade. LATIN! From their website:
"We believe Latin is important for many reasons. The major language of the Western world for more than two thousand years, it is the parent language of French, Spanish, and Italian, among others, and is a cousin to Greek, Sanskrit, and the Germanic languages. Thus, a good understanding of Latin facilitates learning both the Romance and the Germanic languages. English itself is overwhelmingly indebted to Latin."
All I can say is that public school kids are screwed if they are going to try to compete in the professional world with St. Thomas alumni.