Public vs private — How to decide

[Anonymous]

I appreciate that this post may annoy some, but I would still like to ask for guidance.

For families that could have afforded to send your kids to one of the DC area’s top private schools but elected not to, could I ask:

1) Why did you choose public?
2) Are you happy with your choice?
3) Which schools did you send your kids to?
4) Did you switch your kids to private for MS and HS, or did they stay public the whole time?

Grateful to hear from parents whose children are still in the school system and those whose kids are in college or newly graduated.

[Anonymous]

We started in private. Our gifted kid was not getting the challenge he needed even though we were paying our the nose so we pulled out in 2nd and instead paid for out of school programs (eg RSM). We’re headed to the CES next year and couldn’t be happier with our decision.

But with MCPS doing away with cohortrd ELC and the CES being a lottery, YMMV.

[Anonymous]

Have bounced around with public/private. I would not do MCPS after elementary. I specially with current MCPS leadership - too much change and no certainty that it will benefit kids at all.

[Anonymous]

Go tour both your public and a couple of privates you would consider. We did that and it made the choice easy.

[Anonymous]

I realize this might be dated, but I went to a private school for k-8 in the 90s and switched to MCPS public for HS (a W school). I definitely felt that the private school gave me a lot of good study skills. The public HS had larger class sizes and definitely felt less sheltered even though it is in a very wealthy area. I am glad I switched because the private I was in is a huge pressure cooker at the high school level (from what my friends who stayed tell me). And fwiw if I had to guess from the people I know, the public school kids have more successful careers than the private school kids, but of course the public school is a larger pond so that might just be statistics.

[Anonymous]

Youngest kid just graduated. Two of my kids did some private during ES but not the whole time. We’re in the NEC. I was really happy with MCPS. They offer so much in terms of different program options and electives. Also the sports and other extracurricular options were excellent.

[Anonymous]

What do RSM and NEC mean?

[Anonymous]

We looked at privates and didn’t really find any we loved so we decided to start with public and see how it went and we ended up being very happy (I think getting into the CES at our home school, and then doing IB in HS helped).

I mean it wasn’t perfect but I realized every school would have pros and cons and I didn’t feel like we’d overall be happier elsewhere.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What do RSM and NEC mean?

Russian School of Math.

North East Consortium. A group of MCPS high schools. NEC will likely go away in the next few years of MCPS moves to the regional model they've proposed.