What are your feeling public all the way or private in pg county

[Anonymous]

My husband is an area native, graduate of a poor DC public school, did well in sports and went to college on scholarship and got a masters. Not a good writer, not the best grammar, doesn't read books, watches tons of TV and plays lots of video games etc.
He believes with involved parents kids will do fine anywhere. Now that we have three under three, if you look at what we are doing now at home....he only reads to our kids if forced and doesn't do any extra educational stuff with them at home. Maybe something will magically change once they are in elementary but somehow I doubt it. For parents like him who say we will be involved and that will make the difference, will you really?

I am not from here, went to a decent public in another state, was identified as gifted and pulled out of classes for that track, went on to decent college and then a great law school. I am the active parent doing lessons at home with our kids, workbooks, buying early reader books and working with them on phonics and sight words, taking them to the library, actively teaching something daily and buying any tools to use at home to help me do so, taking them to foreign language classes on weekends, reading to them daily, always researching school options etc. etc. nothing is more important than education and developing well rounded kind kids. Even with all of that, I do not feel that our area public school is an option that I want to risk my children under no matter how involved I am. I feel that private will provide more like minded similar situated parents. I also like the idea of small class sizes especially in elementary and for a boy. When I look back at my public education enhanced by gifted classes the hint that I believe got me to where I am was the emphasis on cognitive thinking and understanding concepts beyond just passing tests and an ability to go off the grid and help me develop interests and skills. I do not like the testing focus. I just do not believe any public school in this are can provide that for my kids. We are black, but I also do not want a 80% plus black student body...I want real diversity and my children to have friends from all different backgrounds and ethnicities. My area public schools are overwhelming black. I want foreign language options in the early years and beyond a lottery option that I can't count on and is not in a language of interest, no public nearby can offer that.

So in summary, I completely disagree with my spouse's notion that our (or my) being an active involved part of our kids education will overcome all these other issues I have with not just PG schools, but many other public schools. My kids will be going private....whether we stay in PG or move elsewhere.

[Anonymous]

I assume you plan to put them in private in another county or in DC?