Families who have gone from public to private: what has been the biggest difference?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Funny how public v private pretty much makes zero difference when actually out in the workforce. I see no evidence that private school kids in my field are better critical thinkers, etc.

On the contrary - I can almost always tell when a job applicant to my firm has gone to private school by their cover letter and writing sample.

If your firm is Dairy Queen or the movie theater hiring HS kids, sure. If your firm is a normal business hiring college grads, the quality of education at college would be more important than HS, never mind ES. And if your firm is a law firm, then you are simply full of it, since college and law school is going to be vastly more important since a kid graduated with honors from HLS clearly wasn't held back by deficiencies in early ed.

I completely disagree with this. I'm not PP who wrote this, but I developed my grammar skills in middle school and writing skills in HS. I went to a private school and we wrote and rewrote and rewrote, again and again and again. College did nothing to further these skills.

I was a fairly average student at my school. In my college Freshman English class after grading my first paper, my professor asked if I would help tutor other students. I received an A in legal writing in law school with little effort while my friends, even those who had gone to top colleges, didn't do as well. Another difference is presentation skills. The private school kids seem to have greater poise. I suspect this is because they do more presentations and have more opportunities to take such as speech and drama.

College professor here. I agree completely. It's pretty rare that a kid's writing and grammar are drastically changed in college. That stuff is very much developed K-12.

+1.

I attended public school and I always hate the idea of paying 43k/year for private school, until my oldest child graduated from James Madison HS and attended UVa. The writing was horrible like mine and became an engineer

The 2nd child attended the 43k/year private, went to U. of Chicago and is now a lawyer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My child learned actual content, not just reading strategies over and over and over again. He had social studies all year long as well as science. They didn't alternate like in public school. In science, they had to write up labs and then actually did them. He was taught actual grammar and received a grade for it. He was taught vocabulary and spelling finally counted in his writing. He was taught how to write and then his writing was critiqued and he was able to make changes to it before it was due. His teacher did this through writing conferences with each student and comments on Google classroom. He took a foreign language and it was a regular class. There was none of this ridiculous redoing of assignments and tests. A test or quiz was given and the date was known in advance. If you didn't study and did poorly, oh well. Do better next time. He teachers expected a lot more from him. He got straight As in public school and a year and a half later, still gets mostly Bs and Cs and I'm happy about it. Public school parents who think their child is doing well live in Fantasyland. Oh and he was in the highest group in math in public school (and got straight As) and he scored in the 70% percentile in basic math skills when he started private school. A tutor and myself are now catching him up on basic math since the Common Core crap math he learned is useless. Oh and the grading scale is harder.

Very similar experience. I was shocked.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Move from Public elementary to private middle school. Biggest differences:

- lots of teachers - -one for every class.

- more classes (and so more homework)

- more "projects" -- pain in the butt, really. Projects for English, History, Science -- requiring drawing, making pictures, making videos, making powerpoints (yes), making online games about a historical topic, etc. Some of it just seems like "make-work"

- much bigger checks to write

Not different:

- teachers seem about the same - generally friendly, committed, accessible.

Ok, but you realize that most of those differences are basic differences between elementary and middle school generally, right?

Generally, yes, though I was comparing public 5th grade to private 6th grade.

Right, but other than the big check to write, you would have had those same changes anyway.

[Anonymous]

Character and polish via classroom expectations, higher-caliber peers and mostly good families.

Unless you're at a bordering school with Harkness method, an average AP classroom at a public isn't any different than an average private classroom.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Funny how public v private pretty much makes zero difference when actually out in the workforce. I see no evidence that private school kids in my field are better critical thinkers, etc.

On the contrary - I can almost always tell when a job applicant to my firm has gone to private school by their cover letter and writing sample.

If your firm is Dairy Queen or the movie theater hiring HS kids, sure. If your firm is a normal business hiring college grads, the quality of education at college would be more important than HS, never mind ES. And if your firm is a law firm, then you are simply full of it, since college and law school is going to be vastly more important since a kid graduated with honors from HLS clearly wasn't held back by deficiencies in early ed.

I completely disagree with this. I'm not PP who wrote this, but I developed my grammar skills in middle school and writing skills in HS. I went to a private school and we wrote and rewrote and rewrote, again and again and again. College did nothing to further these skills.

I was a fairly average student at my school. In my college Freshman English class after grading my first paper, my professor asked if I would help tutor other students. I received an A in legal writing in law school with little effort while my friends, even those who had gone to top colleges, didn't do as well. Another difference is presentation skills. The private school kids seem to have greater poise. I suspect this is because they do more presentations and have more opportunities to take such as speech and drama.

College professor here. I agree completely. It's pretty rare that a kid's writing and grammar are drastically changed in college. That stuff is very much developed K-12.

+1.

I attended public school and I always hate the idea of paying 43k/year for private school, until my oldest child graduated from James Madison HS and attended UVa. The writing was horrible like mine and became an engineer

The 2nd child attended the 43k/year private, went to U. of Chicago and is now a lawyer.

I would rather be the engineer! Speaking as someone who went to public school, is an engineer with excellent writing skills, and has a public-school-educated sibling who went to law school to learn how to be miserable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Funny how public v private pretty much makes zero difference when actually out in the workforce. I see no evidence that private school kids in my field are better critical thinkers, etc.

What workforce are you referring too? What field?
Presumably everyone has gone to college before coming to your workforce or are we talking about working at the Dunkin Donuts?

Also, top students might have gone off to med school , academia , a startup company or to non profits whereas you work in sales and that’s not particularly relevant.

NP. Not sure why sales wouldn't be relevant. Sales jobs can be very lucrative and many of them require a college education. More importantly, plenty of folks in med school, academia, etc have come through public. I assume that was PP's point.

The skill set needed for sales jobs can be reaped from both public and private schools.
The skill set needed to be a Supreme Court Justice seems to require a high level education of some sort whether that is private school or self study, it’s more than the public school would be providing.

Better not tell Ruth Bader Ginsburg that - she attended James Madison High School in Brooklyn. Or Elena Kagan, who attended Hunter College High School. Or Samuel Alito, who attended Steinert High School. Or Stephen Breyer, who attended Lowell high School.

http://supremecourtreview.com/default/justice/

I love how people just make sh!t up to defend their baseless beliefs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Funny how public v private pretty much makes zero difference when actually out in the workforce. I see no evidence that private school kids in my field are better critical thinkers, etc.

On the contrary - I can almost always tell when a job applicant to my firm has gone to private school by their cover letter and writing sample.

If your firm is Dairy Queen or the movie theater hiring HS kids, sure. If your firm is a normal business hiring college grads, the quality of education at college would be more important than HS, never mind ES. And if your firm is a law firm, then you are simply full of it, since college and law school is going to be vastly more important since a kid graduated with honors from HLS clearly wasn't held back by deficiencies in early ed.

I completely disagree with this. I'm not PP who wrote this, but I developed my grammar skills in middle school and writing skills in HS. I went to a private school and we wrote and rewrote and rewrote, again and again and again. College did nothing to further these skills.

I was a fairly average student at my school. In my college Freshman English class after grading my first paper, my professor asked if I would help tutor other students. I received an A in legal writing in law school with little effort while my friends, even those who had gone to top colleges, didn't do as well. Another difference is presentation skills. The private school kids seem to have greater poise. I suspect this is because they do more presentations and have more opportunities to take such as speech and drama.

College professor here. I agree completely. It's pretty rare that a kid's writing and grammar are drastically changed in college. That stuff is very much developed K-12.

My dad was the CEO of a large publicly traded corporation who wrote extensively and well on business during his career. He attended mediocre public schools in the rural South.

The way he told it, his grammar and writing skills started to develop his first year of college when he received a paper back full of red ink and a big, fat D at the top. He was working full time to pay for his school and put off going to Viet Nam (which only worked until it didn't), so there was no way in hell that he was going to get anything other than As on his transcript. He worked with his professors and wrote every paper multiple times until it was well written and grammatical.

My sense is that grammar and writing skills are learned when a teacher takes the time to teach those skills, whether in k-12 or college.

[Anonymous]

We struggle with the elitist attitude that can manifest itself in big city privates or idyllic facility campuses for teenagers. The loss of grit, ability to figure things out, entrepreneurialism, and personal drive.

As for speaking, nothing that Debate Team anywhere or a good book club can't help with.

That said, DW and I are very busy on many facets so send our kids to privates. Just the full transparency of knowing the curriculum, policies, ECs as well as the decent feedback on our children's academic and social progress is helpful for us versus the prospect of doing public schools.

Finally, we were unhappy that inside the beltway your options are only a HUGE pubic MS/HS and a smaller 100-130 kid Upper School. Why no schools with 250/grade level? Can field more teams, go deep in interests and still know your classmates. Oh well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Funny how public v private pretty much makes zero difference when actually out in the workforce. I see no evidence that private school kids in my field are better critical thinkers, etc.

What workforce are you referring too? What field?
Presumably everyone has gone to college before coming to your workforce or are we talking about working at the Dunkin Donuts?

Also, top students might have gone off to med school , academia , a startup company or to non profits whereas you work in sales and that’s not particularly relevant.

NP. Not sure why sales wouldn't be relevant. Sales jobs can be very lucrative and many of them require a college education. More importantly, plenty of folks in med school, academia, etc have come through public. I assume that was PP's point.

The skill set needed for sales jobs can be reaped from both public and private schools.
The skill set needed to be a Supreme Court Justice seems to require a high level education of some sort whether that is private school or self study, it’s more than the public school would be providing.

Better not tell Ruth Bader Ginsburg that - she attended James Madison High School in Brooklyn. Or Elena Kagan, who attended Hunter College High School. Or Samuel Alito, who attended Steinert High School. Or Stephen Breyer, who attended Lowell high School.

http://supremecourtreview.com/default/justice/

I love how people just make sh!t up to defend their baseless beliefs.

Not baseless, you are talking about public schools from 30+ years ago. Given the state of public school’s TODAY, the backgrounds of who make it to the supreme court when millennials run the world will be very different.

[Anonymous]

Really getting tired of 40+ year olds coming commenting that they went to public schools and turned out just fine so their kids will be too. No, they will not be unless you spends thousands supplementing with tutors and ride their ass everyday.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Really getting tired of 40+ year olds coming commenting that they went to public schools and turned out just fine so their kids will be too. No, they will not be unless you spends thousands supplementing with tutors and ride their ass everyday.

Exactly. DH and I both went to public school (me for everything but HS and him for the entire time) and thought we got great educations. We are sending our DD to private next year because:

- Curricula are constantly changing in public school, contributing to terrible teacher morale, and evidence suggests none of the curricula are particularly effective in teaching kids foundational skills.

- Large class sizes mean many kids are lost in the mix and can't get individual attention from the teacher for more than a few minutes a day

- Indiscriminate use of technology--including virtually unfettered internet access--starting in young elementary grades is harmful to kids' attention spans and inhibits classroom discussion

- 30 min of PE a week is not nearly enough for kids to burn off energy and learn important skills that sports can teach them (teamwork, gross motor skills, etc)

all of these things are worse than they were when we were in public school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Really getting tired of 40+ year olds coming commenting that they went to public schools and turned out just fine so their kids will be too. No, they will not be unless you spends thousands supplementing with tutors and ride their ass everyday.

I suppose that depends on your public school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Really getting tired of 40+ year olds coming commenting that they went to public schools and turned out just fine so their kids will be too. No, they will not be unless you spends thousands supplementing with tutors and ride their ass everyday.

I suppose that depends on your public school.

Of course it does, but do you think public schools (on the whole) are better now, or when the 40+ year olds were attending?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Really getting tired of 40+ year olds coming commenting that they went to public schools and turned out just fine so their kids will be too. No, they will not be unless you spends thousands supplementing with tutors and ride their ass everyday.

I suppose that depends on your public school.

Of course it does, but do you think public schools (on the whole) are better now, or when the 40+ year olds were attending?

Right. Even the top public schools teach significantly to the test, which means either watering down subjects other than math and reading, or not really teaching them much at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Really getting tired of 40+ year olds coming commenting that they went to public schools and turned out just fine so their kids will be too. No, they will not be unless you spends thousands supplementing with tutors and ride their ass everyday.

Exactly. DH and I both went to public school (me for everything but HS and him for the entire time) and thought we got great educations. We are sending our DD to private next year because:

- Curricula are constantly changing in public school, contributing to terrible teacher morale, and evidence suggests none of the curricula are particularly effective in teaching kids foundational skills.

- Large class sizes mean many kids are lost in the mix and can't get individual attention from the teacher for more than a few minutes a day

- Indiscriminate use of technology--including virtually unfettered internet access--starting in young elementary grades is harmful to kids' attention spans and inhibits classroom discussion

- 30 min of PE a week is not nearly enough for kids to burn off energy and learn important skills that sports can teach them (teamwork, gross motor skills, etc)


+1000

all of these things are worse than they were when we were in public school.