Why choose private school? Here's why I did.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Would you mind sharing what the public school teacher relatives tell you that informed your decision?

What we heard from long-term public school teachers, especially my mother in law, who has taught elementary school for 30 years, is that teaching in the public schools is no longer a joy for them. The entire school day is assessment driven. Everything is geared to preparing for reading and math assessments. Each child has benchmarks for the assessments that they have to reach, and most classroom time goes exclusively to that. Disproportionate time goes to teaching to the lowest common denominator and trying to bring up the scores of the lowest performers. Worksheets, worksheets, worksheets. The smartest kids quickly lose their joy in learning. An inordinate amount of teaching time goes to classroom discipline. Teachers are demoralized. MIL said she used to spend a great deal of time coming up with fun, creative activities for her kids, and now she spends those hours on reporting, accountability, etc. Teachers who used to never miss a day of school now use all their sick and other leave days because they don't enjoy their work. This is not local, BTW, but I assume many of the conditions would be similar. I'm sure my MIL's experience and the others I've heard don't reflect everyone's experience. However, I used to be an education researcher and, like a PP or two, I spent some time looking at the recent studies. I agree with the OP about the statistical effects of not parsing out the schools by type and particularly by religious affiliation. I'm sure there are terrible private schools just as there are wonderful public schools, but this is the decision we've made. Hearing from my MIL in particular had a major impact on me. I remember when she loved her work. That's just not true anymore.

Question for current Montgomery County schools parents -- is this what you are finding at the elementary school level in your neighborhood schools? Are you leaving for the privates?

I'm the poster quoted here. I want to be clear that I said my MIL is not local. Here in my MC neighborhood the problem is not K-3, it's after that. Getting an intradistrict transfer is almost impossible, so our friends are either going private from the outset or from grade 4 on. I would not think this is a MC-wide problem at all and I'm not indicting Montgomery County schools. I also want to point out that this solution is right for our family and our child, not for everyone's. However, you may want to look at the Washington Post magazine story on public vs. private education that came out this fall. It again was one reporter's experience, but it was interesting.

[Anonymous]

Yes, understood. We are enrolling in our local K this fall and was just wondering if we too can expect this type of teach-to-the-standardized-test mentality.

[Anonymous]

I looked at the article in the Washington Post and thought it a bit wishy washy with little hard data.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I looked at the article in the Washington Post and thought it a bit wishy washy with little hard data.

The Post magazine issue I'm referring to is the one with two stories, one pro-private and one anti-private. The pro-private story was written by a Post reporter who had his children at Green Acres but found they could no longer afford it. The anti- story is by a writer who lives in Chevy Chase and says she wouldn't send her kids to private school regardless. Neither really includes data; as I pointed out, they were purely anecdotal accounts, but I found each of them enlightening.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Would you mind sharing what the public school teacher relatives tell you that informed your decision?

What we heard from long-term public school teachers, especially my mother in law, who has taught elementary school for 30 years, is that teaching in the public schools is no longer a joy for them. The entire school day is assessment driven. Everything is geared to preparing for reading and math assessments. Each child has benchmarks for the assessments that they have to reach, and most classroom time goes exclusively to that. Disproportionate time goes to teaching to the lowest common denominator and trying to bring up the scores of the lowest performers. Worksheets, worksheets, worksheets. The smartest kids quickly lose their joy in learning. An inordinate amount of teaching time goes to classroom discipline. Teachers are demoralized. MIL said she used to spend a great deal of time coming up with fun, creative activities for her kids, and now she spends those hours on reporting, accountability, etc. Teachers who used to never miss a day of school now use all their sick and other leave days because they don't enjoy their work. This is not local, BTW, but I assume many of the conditions would be similar. I'm sure my MIL's experience and the others I've heard don't reflect everyone's experience. However, I used to be an education researcher and, like a PP or two, I spent some time looking at the recent studies. I agree with the OP about the statistical effects of not parsing out the schools by type and particularly by religious affiliation. I'm sure there are terrible private schools just as there are wonderful public schools, but this is the decision we've made. Hearing from my MIL in particular had a major impact on me. I remember when she loved her work. That's just not true anymore.

AMEN!!! This couldn't be better said!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Would you mind sharing what the public school teacher relatives tell you that informed your decision?

What we heard from long-term public school teachers, especially my mother in law, who has taught elementary school for 30 years, is that teaching in the public schools is no longer a joy for them. The entire school day is assessment driven. Everything is geared to preparing for reading and math assessments. Each child has benchmarks for the assessments that they have to reach, and most classroom time goes exclusively to that. Disproportionate time goes to teaching to the lowest common denominator and trying to bring up the scores of the lowest performers. Worksheets, worksheets, worksheets. The smartest kids quickly lose their joy in learning. An inordinate amount of teaching time goes to classroom discipline. Teachers are demoralized. MIL said she used to spend a great deal of time coming up with fun, creative activities for her kids, and now she spends those hours on reporting, accountability, etc. Teachers who used to never miss a day of school now use all their sick and other leave days because they don't enjoy their work. This is not local, BTW, but I assume many of the conditions would be similar. I'm sure my MIL's experience and the others I've heard don't reflect everyone's experience. However, I used to be an education researcher and, like a PP or two, I spent some time looking at the recent studies. I agree with the OP about the statistical effects of not parsing out the schools by type and particularly by religious affiliation. I'm sure there are terrible private schools just as there are wonderful public schools, but this is the decision we've made. Hearing from my MIL in particular had a major impact on me. I remember when she loved her work. That's just not true anymore.

Question for current Montgomery County schools parents -- is this what you are finding at the elementary school level in your neighborhood schools? Are you leaving for the privates?

Yes, but we found the same situation at the privates (and in some cases-worse!). We went back to public.

[Anonymous]

Private schools are not beholden to such tests.

[Anonymous]

16:02 what private school did you try?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:16:02 what private school did you try?

Lowell and Green Acres. Neither environment worked well for our children. I don't want to post specific reasons (I will be flamed!), but it mostly had to to do with teacher devotion, curriculum and discipline tactics (or lack of).

[Anonymous]

pp, I am really interested in your experience, could you at least drop hints?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:16:02 what private school did you try?

Lowell and Green Acres. Neither environment worked well for our children. I don't want to post specific reasons (I will be flamed!), but it mostly had to to do with teacher devotion, curriculum and discipline tactics (or lack of).

Interesting -- two progressive schools. I've sometimes wondered if "progressive" is code for "we don't do discipline." That has very definitely been the case at the progressive church we were members of, and among the progressive homeschoolers we knew. I also feel like Green Acres and Lowell are so into their campuses and such, not their academics. Please, PP, can you share a little with us?

[Anonymous]

OP here, I have always questioned the progressive approach...and the research does not support it. But yes, those kids have fun.

[Anonymous]

When we toured Lowell (pre-k) we were shocked at the chaos we observed in some of the classrooms. Kids running all over the place, no orginization. Sure, the kids were having fun, but you know what, I'm not paying 20K+ for my child to have fun all day. The campus was beautiful but beyond that, I have no idea what they are charging for because to me, it looked like an overpriced daycare.

[Anonymous]

pp agree. that's a lot of money to pay for playing & having fun. i can do that at home. there system does not add up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: Lowell and Green Acres. Neither environment worked well for our children. I don't want to post specific reasons (I will be flamed!), but it mostly had to to do with teacher devotion, curriculum and discipline tactics (or lack of).

Very interesting. We left Lowell as well for these exact reasons.