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Why do you send your DC to private?
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Anonymous
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I posted this in another thread but I wanted more feedback.
It all depends on why you are sending your kid there in the first place. For the last 10 years our public schools have gotten progressively worse. What I mean by that is the fact that they have all the joy of learning sucked right out of them due to overcrowding, no child left behind, high stakes testing, constantly changing curricula, etc. My dc's went to public for K-4th grade so I have firsthand experience of the frustration. I send my dc's to private because I feel they are getting a well-rounded education in an environment that encourages learning and exploration. Will they go to Harvard? No, but that is not my goal. I want them to find a path that works for them. If they go to a 3rd tier school that would be fine with me. On the other hand, if they were still in public I would hope that they would get into a top tier school in order to make all their k-12 suffering worth it. My reasons are as follows (we did not find any of this in our public school) small classes more individual attention well rounded education must take art, music, theater teacher can teach at pace students are learning (faster or slower) community service during school athletics and physical fitness for everyone down time during day to study or socialize independent study with teacher sponsor parent efforts directed toward to raising money for various programs administration that actually listens to parent concerns and implements solutions my personal efforts are directed to helping the school in it's role of educating my child clubs of interest held during the school day (everyone has to sign up for one) teachers know my child school is a community These are many of the reasons that spring to mind. |
Anonymous
| I responded in agreement to your post on the other thread. Your list is a very good one ... I notice that your list does NOT include "getting child into top high school and ivy league university" ... although I suppose it would be nice, that is not one of our family's goals either. |
Anonymous
| We are applying this year because my child in DCPS brought home a survey last night asking whether, in light of DC budget cuts, the school should cut (a) the reading and math spocialists, (b) the librarian and computer teacher, (3) the art and music teachers, or (d) the science teacher. Those are all fundamental parts of an elementary school education, and I'm just offended that they would consider putting any of them on the chopping block. |
Anonymous
My DC's are in schools that go through 12 grade. I did not want to go through the app process more than once! And no, my list does not include getting them into an ivy league university. The colleges they will apply to are dependent on what their interests and strengths are at the time. I'm not completely lacking in ambition for them, they WILL go to college unless something traumatic happens. I just want them to have well rounded experiences and education on which to base their future on. |
Anonymous
Yep, I totally agree. Nice to know there's at least two of us out there! 
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Anonymous
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In elementary school, one child went to public in a DC neighborhood highly regarded school, one to private, and I am not absolutely convinced that in that age range that there was a really strong reason to be in private.
However, in middle school, the focus on positive learning and social interactions, smaller classes, engaged teachers, and strong sports, music, arts kept my daughters engaged and more positive than I remember ever being in much larger classes with somewhat burned out junior high school teachers. But thus far high school has been the most positive experience that I would not give back for the world for my daughters, compared to what I hear about even the most highly rated local public schools such as Whitman or even TJ and what I remember from my huge but highly rated public high school. Both love going to school and their classes 90% of the time, the teaching and level of interaction in class has been absolutely superb overall. They have had incredible instruction and input into their writing, can articlulate their positions on all sorts of topics from literature to history to current events to science, can speak comfortably in public, and seem to have had instilled a real sense of the need to engage in lifelong learning. They read the paper, they read novels and non-fiction outside of school, and are stimulating and challenging to discuss all sorts of topics with. They have each had several truly inspiring and life-changing teachers. Not to say this couldn;t happen in public, but with class sizes that seem double, and much more emphasis on testing, the actual in school classroom experience in public does not seem as positive. One daughter is a senior, and hearing from her friends now in college they say by comparison the workload is much less and in general many of their classes are less stimulating than in high school (and their professors a lot less engaged) whether at Ivys or the top small liberal arts schools, or big state research universities. So the actual experience itself in high school is what they and I value, not whether or not their private helps them get into a "better" college, I doubt it, except that the college counseling has been generally excellent in terms of guiding students to places that are a good fit and they will likely get into. If getting into a name college were the only goal, going to a not as strong public school may even help, because a student stands out more, but if they wasted four years there not learning anything and just prepared for college by taking SAT classes, then not to me worth it even if they get into HYPS more easily. |
Anonymous
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I found the thread with people who had done both public and private a lot more interesting. So far, this thread seems to feature generalizations about public schools ("they may read novels there, but not as many novels") that just aren't backed up by personal experience with both types of schools.
Also, I'm having the same problem with this thread that I'm having with the other thread. Namely, it all depends what your choices are. Got accepted at a great private and your local public sucks? Or the local public is actually pretty good but your kid only got accepted into a so-so private? It's not clear that apples are being compared with apples here. |
Anonymous
| Worse, the very title of this thread seems designed to exclude perspectives from people like me, who had a so-so experience with two DCs in private schools, and are now back in public. There is a risk of looking smug and uninformed.... |
Anonymous
So why did you send your kids to private, and what changed that made you switch to public? I agree with the OP's list (and my DC is only in K right now, so things might change). I would add to that the fact that the smaller class sizes allow her not to get lost in a sea of kids who might need special attention, as she would likely end up in that middle-of-the-pack group that's smart enough to get through, not so smart that they require additional resources, but also not trouble-making enough to draw attention to herself. That was me in public school, and while I did fine, I thrived when I switched to private because it did allow me to break out of the pack and bit and discover where my talents were (other than my talents for staying quiet and getting by while passing notes to my friends in class and doodling through lectures). |
Anonymous
| It's funny how experiences can be so different. I started out in private and begged my parents to switch me to public for high school, which turned out to be a much better fit for me. My private high school had a reputation for being the area's source of drugs. In this environment, I was a nerd with just a few friends. When I got to public high school, I found a wide circle of kids like me. |
Anonymous
| We sent our kids to private after a disappointing experience in public schools. Our quiet, introspective and smart DC was labled deficient by teachers and not pushed. despite high test scores. Tried private and watched DC thrive. We're back in public HS now but have put other kids through private with now regrets academically or socially. |
Anonymous
| *no regrets |
Anonymous
| I sent my kid to private because I still can't imagine anything that is free (public) being any good...that old adage "no free lunch" rings in my ears. |
Anonymous
| OP - do you mind sharing what public your DC went to before you moved to private? |
Anonymous
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This video elegantly explains why I send my kids to private school.
https://www.sps.edu/podium/default.aspx?t=52562&a=86468&play=1 |