Private School - has it been worth the money to you?

[Anonymous]

This is kind of a silly question. Most parents choose to not drop 40k a year on private school when there is a good public school option. There are benefits of going to private school, but for most those benefits aren't worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My son is a K student in GDS. I have been thinking about the same problem since he entered prk there. My friends' children in very good public school could write a full paragraph the end year of K. They also did research paper writing about the frog's life. But my son's class just showed parents what they could do in playground now. Now I really don't know if it is worth the money to go private. My view is that what students can achieve in playground was a development by themselves over the one year in the school, not related to school very much. I am afraid my son will be left behind accademically, compared to public school students. Could someone share more of their experience in private and their views about it? Maybe the writing in K is not important? I recently feel so frastrated that we paid the money while it seemed that great public school could provid similar or even better education.

Well, you need to look for a school with a educational philosophy you agree with. My reaction to your post is "Jesus H, kindergarteners do not need to be doing research papers."

Many private schools (most?) don't go hardcore academic in K because there's the idea that it's not developmentally appropriate (I obviously agree with this). You may prefer a different philosophy.

+1. at our private, which is Reggio-inspired in K, there were parents (like me) who were thrilled with the social emotional development of our kids, and the academic achievements were second to that. there were some parents who, while knowing that Reggio is play-based, where sorely disappointed that their children did not have amazing academic achievement, so they are leaving next year for what they think will be greener pastures.

Yes - you have to look at the school from the earliest grades through high school. I am really generalizing here, but the basic gist of Sidwell, GDS, Maret early school years (PK - 2) is that you give the kids a strong foundation in the building blocks that will allow them to succeed academically later in life. Some kids read, some write, some can't do either of those things, but they all gain the confidence and foundation to develop those skills. It sounds like you were looking for an academic K experience - public school, with the test based approach and skill list check-off, sounds like a better fit for you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is kind of a silly question. Most parents choose to not drop 40k a year on private school when there is a good public school option. There are benefits of going to private school, but for most those benefits aren't worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Many kids have grandparents paying (I'd say most of the alumni kids and many others) and there are tax reasons for doing this. We have two kids in private and my husband and I earn $150,000 a year (there is absolutely no way we could drop $80,000 on tuition).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is kind of a silly question. Most parents choose to not drop 40k a year on private school when there is a good public school option. There are benefits of going to private school, but for most those benefits aren't worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Not all private schools are 40K. The school we are looking at for one of our DCs is parochial, and $13K a year. That's still a lot of money to many folks (including us) but it's not a year of private college tuition.

For us, with two very different kids, the discussion has been "Yes, it's better, but is it $13K a year better?"

For our oldest, no. Our oldest is thriving in public school (MCPS). She needs a ton of kids around, is high achieving but not "gifted" and loves the opportunities she has to be on student government or play in the band. Our youngest is different, more reserved, and likely "gifted" in the sense of genuinely needing to be engaged differently because of how his brain works.

So, it's a luxury to be able to consider, but I think there are a lot of families like ours that are making decisions based on their individual kids.

[Anonymous]

We paid private school tuition for years and it nearly broke us. We switched to public school and while I do miss the "extras" that private school provided it's not that bad. Those extras are worth maybe $10k/yr but $35K? No way. If some enterprising soul could find a way to offer the private school experience in a more affordable way they'd make a mint. Until that happens we will remain in public and muddle through the annoying, bureaucratic and joyless bits.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My son is a K student in GDS. I have been thinking about the same problem since he entered prk there. My friends' children in very good public school could write a full paragraph the end year of K. They also did research paper writing about the frog's life. But my son's class just showed parents what they could do in playground now. Now I really don't know if it is worth the money to go private. My view is that what students can achieve in playground was a development by themselves over the one year in the school, not related to school very much. I am afraid my son will be left behind accademically, compared to public school students. Could someone share more of their experience in private and their views about it? Maybe the writing in K is not important? I recently feel so frastrated that we paid the money while it seemed that great public school could provid similar or even better education.

FWIW, I watched other parents worry about this when our kids were in Prek at GDS. I don't think it was GDS-specific so much as a function of the transition from home to FT school. Especially for mothers who closely watched/superintended their preschoolers' learning experiences, school felt like putting the breaks on progress rather than taking it to the next level. Part of that was that individualized attention was replaced by a situation in which the program had to work for a group, but another part was that a broader/more stable base was being laid down than the kids were getting at home where, typically and understandably, parents often focussed on the things their little ones were good at or interested in or on the things they themselves valued.

Flash forward many years to HS. Most everyone stayed. And now thinks their kids are better educated than they would have been had they done public the whole way. Are they right now? Were they right before? My take is that they were too quick to judge in the early years and didn't know what to look for. (Often focussed on skill acquisition and speed vs. reasoning and breadth/depth). Invented spelling (coming up next!) drove a few crazy, but there were lasting payoffs (good phonics, comfort with writing, adorable mementos) and kids did, in fact, learn conventional spelling (both with lists and as they became experienced readers). Basically, invented spelling lets kids write before they read and it doesn't reduce writing to correct letter/word/sentence formation.

Re now. Having taught at an elite college in the area for years, I've seen a lot of work produced by high-performing students from MoCo and Ffx public schools. My DC's work in HS would have stood out among the undergrad papers I typically received. Similarly, DC's textual interpretation skills are more sophisticated than what I generally encountered in undergrad seminars. I taught in humanities, so can't compare math/science to my undergrads, but DC has post-AP work in both. Ditto foreign language. So I don't worry about DC coming out of private school behind or us having wasted our money.

That said, there are some trade-offs. Depending on personality and interests, the workload can be brutal and the competition demoralizing. (I don't assume this is a public vs. private school thing, but school- and kid-specific.) There's also a socially-engineered quality to the environment that has its pros and cons. On the one hand, my kid will never assume that people of color are less intelligent than whites. (A not uncommon assumption at the U where I taught). On the other hand, standards about what it means to do something well (and about respect for different choices) are out of sync with mainstream America and I could see that leading to alienation and/or rude awakenings somewhere down the road.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the very thoughtful and detailed reply. May I ask what private school your DC went?

[Anonymous]

Yes, it is worth it. Our neighborhood school sadly does not serve the kids well, and it doesn't teach a majority to read or do math at grade level. And no charters in PG. Add to that my kid is dyslexic and the public school was unlikely to meet his specific needs, and I feel like we've spent our money in the right place. I'd rather use it for my kid's daily happiness and education and than pretty much any other use I can think of.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My son is a K student in GDS. I have been thinking about the same problem since he entered prk there. My friends' children in very good public school could write a full paragraph the end year of K. They also did research paper writing about the frog's life. But my son's class just showed parents what they could do in playground now. Now I really don't know if it is worth the money to go private. My view is that what students can achieve in playground was a development by themselves over the one year in the school, not related to school very much. I am afraid my son will be left behind accademically, compared to public school students. Could someone share more of their experience in private and their views about it? Maybe the writing in K is not important? I recently feel so frastrated that we paid the money while it seemed that great public school could provid similar or even better education.

My DC was still napping (hard!) in private her KDG year. She was the last one to give it up, in fact. The others were all reading, doodling, etc., during quiet time Teacher told us not to worry, she would be able to do it eventually, meanwhile she was playing games and doing outside recess all year long and making friends and learning about rocketships and fashion and recycling and everyone was happy.

10 years later she is finishing 9th grade and reads more than anyone I know. Writes well, loves science and math. Straight As in a very good HS. Was well-prepared for 9th grade. Would NOT have happened in any of our public options. Still sleeps a lot, though .

Main point being: don't despair now, the private schools will often catch up and by 3rd he will be impressing you with all he knows about frogs (or mealworms, or lizards, or dinosaurs...).

I will add one caveat, though: if and only if [u]you have a math genius (and I mean TRUE genius), some of the local public schools here do have an edge over many small private schools in math. It is hard for small schools to differentiate much in math , and last spring while on high school tours, I saw several of my daughter's supposed peers 2 or even 3 years ahead of her "advanced" status as an Algebra 1 student in 8th grade.

This only matters if your local public actually has outstanding math options though (many don't); in the real world. Algebra 1 in 8th is just fine .

[Anonymous]

We paid full-freight. Nuff said.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Thanks for the very thoughtful and detailed reply. May I ask what private school your DC went?

GDS

[Anonymous]

Very thoughtful post, 08:16 -- thanks.

[Anonymous]

Asking this question in the Private/Independent School forum....I think you are looking for peers to reaffirmed you made the right decision.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Asking this question in the Private/Independent School forum....I think you are looking for peers to reaffirmed you made the right decision.

Would be weird to ask in any other forum - this is the only place where people would have actually paid the money to send their kids to private school.

[Anonymous]

Not directly on point, but i'll play devil's advocate: I went to private from grades two through five. My mom pulled me out of public because our in-bounds school had two tracks: immersion (which now everyone loves, so it's crazy to think in the 80s that people were worried this wasn't a great option) and split classes (i.e. 30 kids from 1st and 2nd in one room with 2 teachers - chaos!). I went to all girls school, which cost around $4500 a year back then. I was highly gifted, and spent much of my time doing independent work. My mother was chummy with the vice-principal, who ultimately suggested to her that I transfer to the local public middle school that had a strong gifted program. Apparently, the VP told my mom that their job was to take bright but not stellar young women and get them into good colleges. From a quick scan of facebook, looks like most of my old classmates met upper middle class men and have lots of babies staying home in the same suburb we grew up in. I don't think the school ever saw its role as educating the next supreme court justice. This was in a suburb with good schools, but the private did come anywhere near matching the competitive, academic and special schools that we seem to have today in DC. So definitely a different era and not an apples to apples comparison.

We used to live in Florida, and I would never ever ever send my kids to private there. Most of the people with money in Florida do so through, well, non academic means. Lawyers don't get particularly rich down there. So you have professional atheletes, real estate developers, modeling and film industry, and a lot of people stashing their money from other shady economies (like Russians, Venezuelans etc who likely made money under the counter and needed to get it out). The private schools are consequently a non-academic sh*t show. Crazy drugs, partying and stuff you don't want to think of 16 year olds doing. There is no way I'd put my kid in private there. Very different than DC where there is such an emphasis on education and career.