Private School Cost

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
financial aid, to help promote or maintain economic diversity

This one made me smile, because undoubtedly you could get much better diversity for free in the public schools.

Actually, I think assuming that one can find more diversity in a public school depends heavily on where you live. Public school does not necessarily equate to more diversity, especially in the more affluent neighborhoods in Fairfax County and Montgomery County. We live in the BCC cluster. My neighborhood elementary school has about 15 minority children out of a total enrollment of about 350. We opted out of public school for that reason, among several.

That's a fair point, but BCC itself is about 40% minority, and I expect the economic diversity is also a good deal greater than in private school.

I guess it's mostly sad that housing patterns are so racially segregated that people decide they have to pay $25k a year to get diversity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I expect my kids to learn to read and write. Not sure the DCPS in my district can do that.

[Anonymous]

My household expenses are relatively low, comparatively speaking. The DCPS in my ward has bars on the windows, three yellow drug-free zone signs and is in close proximity to a lot of legally "questionable" activity. The $25K is a bargain. Why? Economy has my real estate panties in a knot and I don't want a $3-$8K mortgage. If it gets hard, we can pull out of private (go catholic, OOB lottery, etc...). We can't dump a house (as we all of witnessed).

I'm not sure any school except college is worth that kind of money but WTH... I want to live in DC, I want to live downtown, so private school it is...

[Anonymous]

The fixed costs of private schools are divided across very few families. Fixed costs include the nice campus, nice buildings, school nurse, administrative staff, school counselor, specials teachers, band equipment, swimming pool, grounds maintenance, and on and on.