Politically Incorrect Private School Thread What Do You Really Think?

[Anonymous]

Can we please get back on topic? This is the politically incorrect private school thread.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My children have done private and public and I have a child in private now but will probably do public for hs. I think it is more humane/ I do not see the right private school for my kid. The all boys would not be his thing, Sidwell is hard for the sake of being hard, Maret is too small. Maybe GDs would work. But I have to admit I just do not see the benefit. I see tradeoffs but not really benefits. I know many kids at dc privates get burned out. I do not want that to happen.

You are looking at a really small pool of privates. There are tons of great schools in DC. Look beyond the Big 3, and you'll probably find a good fit for your son. My kids are in great small privates that have rigorous academics, balanced with a rich complement of extracurriculars. They definitely would not fit in to the pressure cooker schools like the Big 3.

Different PP here. You have a point about stress at the top privates, and we actually know parents who choose Bullis over Sidwell for this reason (as Dave Barry would say, I'm not making this up and the kid was accepted at both schools). But a recurring question on DCUM is, are some of these second-tier privates really better than the local publics combined with using part of the $30K to buy music lessons and trips to exotic places? I don't want to get into a name-throwing. But I think it's legitimate to ask what you're buying in terms of academic quality. At the second tier privates, it becomes more of an issue of small class sizes and nurturing environment, which is a great thing for kids who need it, but that's not every kid.

I have kids in both. I've posted before, and we are pulling our MS kid from public and putting him in private. There is a huge disparity in the quality of the education my MS public school child is receiving vs. my other two who are in privates. Why was he in public? Because he was in a magnet program that arguably was a better fit for him. Turned out to be a huge shell game and we are putting him private where he can be in the optimal educational setting for him. I've said it before, in public school, the children and parents are NOT the customers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We never tell this to others but one of the reasons we send DC to an elite private school is b/c we want him to get into the most elite frat, eating club, secret society, etc at an Ivy.

Some of us care about stuff like that.

I secretly think lots of the parents at our private school are first generation social climbers without any real class. My family came over on the Mayflower, so this stuff is irrelevant to me. If you think elite frat = class, you've missed the point completely.

Besides, don't send your kid to private to get into an Ivy. He'd have a better chance from Whitman.

This is akin to bragging that your family started slavery in the US. Nice!

It's actually not. Puritans were not slave owners. You must have gone to a public school.

Not PP, but i did go to public. And Harvard. And my parents didn't buy my spot. Moron.

Exactly why I would never pay for a Harvard education. Your statement about slavery was probably one of the most ignorant statements

I've ever heard on DCUM.

Wow, you have trouble reading. I said i was not the PP. I wouldn't have made that statement re slavery because i know better. And i went to public, which is the point. That you missed. Must have gone to private.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

This! I hate discussing schools with people. It is a conversation riddled with ego land mines. I don't care what people think about my choice but I don't like it when people think my choice is a rejection of theirs.

My feelings exactly!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

This! I hate discussing schools with people. It is a conversation riddled with ego land mines. I don't care what people think about my choice but I don't like it when people think my choice is a rejection of theirs.

My feelings exactly!

In an ideal world, one would not mean the other. Let's get this conversation back on track please. 5 of us went to top DC privates from the early 70s to late 80s, a time at which no white parent was sending their kid anywhere but Mann. This was possible on a one household income. It is no longer possible.

My friends from MY high school, who tend to be college professors and the like, have moved from DC to take advantage of educational opportunities in Md. and Va. A large part of it for me is I never want my kids to feel poor. They are not, by any means. These schools have changed in the last 25 years. I know very few of my peers who are continuing their family tradition at the expense of their retirement, etc. In fact, I know of very few who want to deal with this new breed of Washington DCer.

We are hopeful about our school in DC. But if it does not work, we will move to Md. or VA. We will make no attempt to perpetuate the fraud that is going on in the private schools today - they will and do rob you blind. and I do think our dc have a better chance getting into the top colleges and universities from a DC non-private school, and we can prepare them academically. There are quotas here people, x number in DC from privates, x number from publics. My kids will stand out.

[Anonymous]

I know several university profs who send their kids to our immersion language public charter school and others who chose it over private schools so the public school options are getting better in DC east of the park. But I'll be honest, we'll be going private from middle school onwards even though we are at a feeder for DCI.

We can easily afford private school without it having any dent on our retirement or lifestyle and having only gone to private schools ourselves would feel guilty for not doing the same for our kids at least from middle school and beyond.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

This! I hate discussing schools with people. It is a conversation riddled with ego land mines. I don't care what people think about my choice but I don't like it when people think my choice is a rejection of theirs.

My feelings exactly!

I've had friends come right out and tell me that we're making a mistake by sending our child to public school, that even what we consider to be a good public school will almost definitely fail us, and that we'll only be happy in a private school. We don't have high enough HHI to feel comfortable going private. So now we're left feeling like we're sending our kid to a crappy school, but without the resources to do otherwise. awesome.

[Anonymous]

Some friends.

Many people do underestimate their eligibility for financial aid, though. Still, your friends sound like jerks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Some friends.

Many people do underestimate their eligibility for financial aid, though. Still, your friends sound like jerks.

I think they overestimate our HHI and just think we're being financially conservative. Unfortunately, that's not the case.

[Anonymous]

Then see above regarding eligibility for financial aid. My DC goes to a pretty expensive school. I've had friends with similar incomes enviously remark that we must be rich. I cheerfully tell them that we're on financial aid. But I can tell they don't really believe me and think that we have a secret trust fund somewhere. Wish it were true!

The other truth is that we live very modestly in order to be able to afford even our portion of the expensive school. It's worth it to us. If you live in a good school district, I can see how it might not be. We don't and it is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

This! I hate discussing schools with people. It is a conversation riddled with ego land mines. I don't care what people think about my choice but I don't like it when people think my choice is a rejection of theirs.

My feelings exactly!

I've had friends come right out and tell me that we're making a mistake by sending our child to public school, that even what we consider to be a good public school will almost definitely fail us, and that we'll only be happy in a private school. We don't have high enough HHI to feel comfortable going private. So now we're left feeling like we're sending our kid to a crappy school, but without the resources to do otherwise. awesome.

Is your child currently at the public school? If so, I think you have a better idea than your friends ("friends"?) do about whether or not it's a good public school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I don't care what people think about my choice but I don't like it when people think my choice is a rejection of theirs.

I love this comment, especially the last part.

+1. I would love to be friends with the PP who said this.

[Anonymous]

I am a public school graduate, as is my husband. If public schools were similar to how we grew up, we would enroll our kids. I spent a lot of time up at ours, and every few years check in again. The teaching to the test is real. The funds for extracurriculars, as well as music, art, and language are slim. The classes are overfilled. My kids are not the top of the top, but in a private school environment, they do well and I know they are getting a great education. I also know that their teachers really know them, and that matters to me. I also feel like I have a relationship with the teachers, the administration and other faculty. I like that and I think it helps promote a sense of community.
I value the college advising and in this day and age, think it is very helpful resource.

I feel like I know most of the parents in the grade, and as issues arise in high school, etc. I will be able to talk to these parents openly and honestly about things that may be going on, parties and other issues.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We live in a seriously marginal neighborhood so we can afford to send our kids to private school. Why? Because if we bought into an expensive neighborhood, we'd then be locked into that school – and if it didn't work out, would be screwed. If our private school doesn't work out, we can send them to a different private school.

Our decision was influenced by the fact that both DH and I had truly, truly terrible public-school experiences. My parents knew I was in misery, but couldn't afford to send me to private school with the mortgage they were paying. I always want the freedom to be able to yank my kids and send them someplace else.

I freely admit that this is a very unusual calculus to have made, and most people think we're crazy, including my family. It just goes to show how very individual these choices are. Loving parents with the same amount of money can come to very different decisions depending on their personal experiences, values, and tolerance for risk.

I will say that our decision has been made much easier because DH and I are absolutely on the same page. Moral: marry someone who agrees with you about education.

Just wanted to say that I could have written your post word-for-word. DH and I are planning on private education & bought into an inexpensive neighborhood just to allow room for in our budget for a private education. I went to a great public school as a kid, but it was a terrible experience and a bad fit for me.

I do not maintain for a moment that some of the very good publics in the DC area are anything other than excellent, quite possibly on par with all or most of their private competitors. But I won't be locked into a particular school. We want to put DS into a school that seems like best match we can find. If it's not, we will move him to a school that is a better match.

For us, this has nothing to do with getting an Ivy acceptance letter. It has everything to do with ensuring that DS becomes the best person he can be, that he wants and owns his education, and that sees a path toward finding meaningful work in the world.

My impolitic statements:
1. I'm afraid that in a private school environment, DS may take privilege for granted or absorb the idea that selective college admittance is the be-all and end-all of his efforts. I want him to be happy and confident, not anxious.
2. Contrary to my own social and political beliefs, I am worried about enrolling in my neighborhood public because there are a large cadre of kids there whose family's don't value education. I want DS to have some drive and ambition. And to foster that, I want achievement to seem like the default or norm for his peer group, not something just the "serious kids" have. I realize this attitude is elitist. But I feel that culture and expectations are learned in childhood, and if I put him in a very different cultural/educational environment from the one in his family for 8+ hours a day, he'll be shaped by the school as much as by us.

[Anonymous]

Random responses here:

One, to the PP, who mentioned a few Kate Spade bags still would not make a dent. My guess is the poster who is saying that is more likely addressing the folks who are spending a couple to a few grand each on 5 Stella McCartney, Marni, Birkin etc purses for a year. We have friends who just doubled the size of their house. They built the addition after they decided that they would continue in public through middle school. I think that's what posters mean when they say folks spending money on the family rather than schooling. I am not making a judgement on any of those choices, just explaining what the posters probably meant in their comments.

Two, we have one set of friends who mention the cost of private school tuition every time we get together. The mom, especially, implies that paying this cost negates any other progressive choice or impulse on the part of a family. I don't think that necessarily squares but this couple definitely does.