Paying 32K and my DD's teacher has NO idea what she's doing

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My guess is that the best teachers teach in the public schools because public schools pay more and provide better benefits.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Bill Gates did not go to public school. Oddly, his parents chose private.

-1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can't understand why you seem (oddly) threatened by any criticism of any private school, anywhere.

I'm not the PP you're attacking, but I too am irritated (not threatened) by the repeated attacks on private schools generally by people who prefer public schools. That's fine that you chose public school for your child -- there are many fine ones in this area. But there are also many fine private schools, and many people prefer those to the public schools. Why can't you permit them that choice? Why the constant need to attack private schools?

This thread -- and many threads on the private schools forum -- get unnecessarily littered with off-topic attacks from public school parents. I'm not saying some private school posters don't ever criticize public schools, because that definitely happens too. But IMO any fair counting of attacks would find many more from the public school parents than from the private school parents.

NP. Good point. Perhaps Jeff would consider setting up 2 separate private school forums: one for parents of students who do not work at the school to speak openly and one for private school staff, Board of Trustees, Independent Schools' staff, hired PR etc. I am trying to glean information but, it is pretty clear the independent school boosters are lying in wait on these forums for their prey. Heaven forbid a parent provide a real life story of something going on inside a school. The concerted attack, Dear PP, is clearly from the Independent School boosters. Btw, "littered" = public school parents' comments? Ouch, Independent School Boosters. Tsk. Tsk. Tsk.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My guess is that the best teachers teach in the public schools because public schools pay more and provide better benefits.

+1

Not guess. You are spot on. Only dummies would give up the chance to work for MC with the bennies and so on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
NP. Good point. Perhaps Jeff would consider setting up 2 separate private school forums: one for parents of students who do not work at the school to speak openly and one for private school staff, Board of Trustees, Independent Schools' staff, hired PR etc. I am trying to glean information but, it is pretty clear the independent school boosters are lying in wait on these forums for their prey. Heaven forbid a parent provide a real life story of something going on inside a school. The concerted attack, Dear PP, is clearly from the Independent School boosters. Btw, "littered" = public school parents' comments? Ouch, Independent School Boosters. Tsk. Tsk. Tsk.

This is an interesting point. A few weeks ago on a different thread, another poster, not me, suggested that there is an independent school "hired gun" here, just waiting to blast away at parents who suggest even mixed experience at any independent school. I don't know. I wouldn't rule out a bored private school administrator who is worried about turning off potential applicants during this application season. But if this is the case, it would be hard for DCUM to identify this person because it's not that hard to get a new or anonymous IP address.

One thing militating against the "hired gun" theory is the sheer crassness and stupidity of whoever is doing these "concerted" or maybe sock puppetted attacks. I've seen 3 vicious attempts to out parents by guessing their school in just the last week, one of these attempts was removed from the thread. But beyond that, the sheer crassness - cursing at other posters, really? And stupidity -- whoever this is twists posts, her own and others, in a way that anyone who can go back and reread the previous page will easily disprove. Frankly, the stupidity of the lying sort of boggles the mind, and it's hard to imagine this is someone with a responsible job inside a private school, or even a paid hired gun unless it's someone's teenager . My own theory is, this is a private school newbie who has drunk the koolaid, or maybe her school is really perfect for her kid, and she thinks she's really sophisticated, but she's not. Or, it's just a troll.

[Anonymous]

I wonder if this is a troll post that started everyone going? The Whitman cluster is very well respected.

[Anonymous]

+1 Troll. top knotch?

[Anonymous]

A troll who is a private school booster. It's an interesting sociological phenomenon.

[Anonymous]

This thread seems more like a public school booster than a private one. What admin would want this thread?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This thread seems more like a public school booster than a private one. What admin would want this thread?

Not hardly. OP asked about making the switch from private to another private or public, so some of us, including me, answered with, wait for it... our own experiences switching from private to public. That's not public boosterism, it's answering OP's question. The problem, as a few have pointed out, is when these posters' experiences get trolled by private school boosters.

(And yes, I plan to respond every time you mischaracterize the thread like this, dear booster. Fair warning.)

[Anonymous]

Private school is better.

[Anonymous]

Lakeside School is a private/independent school located in the Haller Lake neighborhood at the north city limits of Seattle, Washington, USA, for grades 5–12.

Lakeside sends 100% of its graduating class to four-year colleges.[2] Its most famous alumni are Bill Gates and Paul Allen, founders of Microsoft, who got their start programming tic-tac-toe on a time-shared computer provided by the Lakeside Mothers' Association and the Lakeside Mathematics Department. Other famous alumni include the McCaw brothers, who built a family business into the McCaw Cellular telephone empire which they eventually sold to AT&T Wireless; actor Adam West; bestselling author Po Bronson; and former Washington State Governor Booth Gardner.

Bill Gates former school

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This thread seems more like a public school booster than a private one. What admin would want this thread?

Not hardly. OP asked about making the switch from private to another private or public, so some of us, including me, answered with, wait for it... our own experiences switching from private to public. That's not public boosterism, it's answering OP's question. The problem, as a few have pointed out, is when these posters' experiences get trolled by private school boosters.

(And yes, I plan to respond every time you mischaracterize the thread like this, dear booster. Fair warning.)

I'm not the person you're accusing of mischaracterization, but I don't think your summary of how this thread evolved is really quite fair. If you had simply relayed your own experiences switching from private to public, that would not have created much tension. Instead, I see a lot of comments like this ...

-- "[Pulling child out of private for public was the] Best thing she ever did she now says and bemoans the years and money she spent in private schools."

-- "we did the same thing with our DC. Pulled them from a school that supposedly was one of those caring, nuturing schools after dealing inept teachers who were truly mean and nasty. Put child in public. Best decision ever. also made me wonder why we had ever spend money for private. The teachers were so much better than what i imagined. Curriculum is challenging and DC is actually learning something. felt like i had gotten a snow job."

-- "I really rue the day my husband and I got swept up into the private school madness in MD when we lived in one of the best public school systems in America. "

-- "We shot half a mil. (paid full freight) for kids to attend private schools in MD. What a waste of money and what I would do now to get that back! ... I could pick up a pencil tomorrow and get a job in a private school; I'm not qualified though to teach in a VA public school. That says something. Think about it. Just because a school is private doesn't mean they are pulling in the best credentialed teachers."

-- "My guess is that the best teachers teach in the public schools because public schools pay more and provide better benefits."

-- "Many publics are, in fact, better than many privates. You sound pot-committed and determined to rationalize your poor investment (you paid $32,000 only to get an incompetent teacher, after all, but somehow still need to feel reassured that the investment was the right thing). "

-- "Public school students fare better in college admissions than private students in DC area. Just a fact, because the DC area is so saturated with good students from every school."

-- "After all the fuss, these private school admissions are not at all impressive. NO SCHOOL can compare to TJ and Blair."

Those are not simply efforts to answer OP's question. They seem clearly combative to me. In fact, OP herself came back on page three to ask that you tone it down -- "Op here. Enough with the public school is better than private!"

There has been more than enough sniping on this thread. If you want it to stop, then you should take proper responsibility for what people on your side of the argument are saying.

[Anonymous]

13:19 here. FWIW, none of those quotes was mine. I'm the parent with the private school history teacher who refused to teach history. I assume all this can be verified if desired. The rest of my participation has been limited to criticizing the idea that we can't say these things here.

I'll agree that the tone of some of the posts is harsh. But I feel that quotes like "best thing I ever did" (not my own post, again) seem like a plain statement of the writer's opinion. The message may not be pleasant to hear, but to me this doesn't seem deliberately confrontational or rude, instead it's somebody expressing her summary. The last two posts, about exmissions, are a question of verifying who has their facts right, so I'm not clear what the objection to them is.

[Anonymous]

I am also not the PP who is being accused. This thread has its ups and downs. I prefer hearing about parents who are thoughtfully making a decision. Just throwing out statements and being combative is not very constructive (at least to me)