what do you say to neighbors about why you are choosing private vs the local public?
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Anonymous
Singapore Please explain. Also, how do you think an education system for a city/country with a population of 5.3 million would scale up? |
Anonymous
Is your local elementary school in DC? There is plenty of capacity at the non-very very highly regarded public elementaries in DCPS. So much capacity, in fact, that DCPS has been closing schools. If you are in DC, then the solution to the overcrowding at your local elementary is rezoning. But rezoning is a political impossibility. And even if it weren't, the parents who were rezoned from the very very highly regarded public elementary to one of the other ones would probably pull their kids and put them in private, or move. (And yes, they might have to raise taxes. That happens. I would support it. You say that you would too.) We had the opposite experience in our MCPS high school. The principal was very helpful and encouraging because they like kids who are coming in from the good private schools. My DC has contributed quite positively to the average SAT score and the number of APs taken with high scores. And our school has grown quite a bit in the last few years with an influx of kids from private schools and done just fine. The school is allocated more resources when the number of students goes up. Obviously long term this will increase our taxes but so be it. |
Anonymous
OMG, chillax it's an analogy! Makes plenty of sense. Of course when you've deemed something (a boyfriend, a school, a house, etc.) not good enough for you and then your friend chooses it there will be friction. BTW, I think you missed the premise of the analogy (which specified that "he wasn't good enough" for friend #1). |
Anonymous
I'm not willing to sacrifice my child on the altar of good intentions. I had to withdraw my child from public school because of an abusive teacher. I attempted to rectify the situation and learned that the public school administration wasn't interested in providing a safe place for children to learn. It meant more to them to protect their abusive teacher. If the public schools were actually interested in parental involvement and improving the environment for children, it might be worthwhile to stick around. As it stands, the relationship is entirely one-sided and the only power I had as a parent was to pull my child and make alternate arrangements for his education. |
Anonymous
We came very close to doing that, but the public school ultimately listened to us and transferred our child to a new teacher who was not abusive. When public school teachers and administrators post on DCUM, however, their disdain for parents is often thinly veiled. They are held accountable for performance, but that's often about it, and they will circle the wagons fast and furiously around colleagues who humiliate and abuse children in their classrooms. It is quite distressing, and they are aided and abetted by some parents, who adopt a "Lord of the Flies" attitude about the whole situation because they own children are not the targets of a teacher's abuse. And this is probably more rampant in the "good" school pyramids, because the administrators can take credit for their high-achieving students and ignore the misery that some of their teachers inflict. If we could do it over again, we would likely choose private. |
Anonymous
Is your local elementary school in DC? There is plenty of capacity at the non-very very highly regarded public elementaries in DCPS. So much capacity, in fact, that DCPS has been closing schools. If you are in DC, then the solution to the overcrowding at your local elementary is rezoning. But rezoning is a political impossibility. And even if it weren't, the parents who were rezoned from the very very highly regarded public elementary to one of the other ones would probably pull their kids and put them in private, or move. (And yes, they might have to raise taxes. That happens. I would support it. You say that you would too.) Nope - MCPS and school has already been expanded recently - no way they would expand it again any time soon... Like I say - prinicipal was nowhere close to feeling like there was a flight from her school that was causing any issues. She has plenty of good testers at her school. Told us we probably wouldn't get what we needed by choosing public K. This is very different from DC situation you refer to above - and I totally understand where you are coming from - as my own public elementary was very similar to what you describe. But I have to say - a small group of us were accomodated academically (with extra challenge) in a way that seems to be no longer done in schools these days. As long as you are doing good - they don't seem to worry about whether you are challenged because your "test score" is already good and focus needs to be on those whose scores are not good. It used to be you could focus attention on the different groups of kids to get what they need and not have resources all depend on the school's mean score on a standardized test. Too bad - I think that hurts everyone. |
Anonymous
| I generally find that people who ask about your choice are insecure or trying to start something. I ignore them or give them a vague answer. I am fine with my choices and feel no need to defend them to anyone. |
Anonymous
And I wouldn't ask you to. Of course you should make the decision based on what's best for your child. It's the difference between "I'm going to do what's best for my child, which may or may not be what's best for society" (you) and "What's best for my child is also best for society (and society should be grateful)" (the "school choice is good!" PP). |
Anonymous
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"very very highly regarded public elementary to one of the other ones would probably pull their kids and put them in private, or move."
then they are already basically in private school. it just comes bundled with more expensive real estate. so unless an advocate for public education is willing to stay in such a system, regardless of how the lines are drawn, then they are not in favor of public education. so you can't fight rezoning and say you support public schools. not went your opposition is designed to exclude and/or limit enrollment. This is basically a debate on what education is ... a private or public good. It's clearly private (with a positive externality), but we don't like to admit it. |
Anonymous
In my experience, this is a complaint one hears much more often from parents at the very very highly regarded elementary schools in MCPS than from parents at the less-regarded elementary schools, the generally-ignored elementary schools, and the actively-shunned elementary schools -- from the point of view of the DCUM demographic. (My kids are at a generally-ignored elementary school.) But that is an issue that is endlessly argued on the MD Public Schools forum. |
Anonymous
It's not inherently private. But I agree that the way we've set it up in the US is private. School segregation is a function of residential segregation is a function of school segregation... Though at least the county-wide school districts in Maryland (where I live) mean that all students within the county get the same financial resources, regardless of the value of their real estate, which mitigates it somewhat. |
Anonymous
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It's not inherently private. But I agree that the way we've set it up in the US is private. School segregation is a function of residential segregation is a function of school segregation... Though at least the county-wide school districts in Maryland (where I live) mean that all students within the county get the same financial resources, regardless of the value of their real estate, which mitigates it somewhat. You might find this interesting reading: David F. Labaree, entitled “Public Goods, Private Goods: The American Struggle over Educational Goals. Basically three schools of thought on what the system is designed to do and how the private/public goods overlap. |
Anonymous
So are you saying that at your "generally ignored" elementary school - they do a really good job at meeting the needs of all groups of kids equally? The supporting the kids that need help to keep on track, not ignoring the kids who are on track and giving more challenge to the kids that need it? Because I have rarely heard this being the case since the move to all the testing for public school accountability. I have a family member that teaches inner city kids (not DC area) who says it's very difficult to meet the needs of all the children given the class sizes and the heavy focus on tests. And the common core makes it even more complicated for these kids from households where many parents can't read. She has kids that are bright in math but are still at a disdavantage and not allowed to progress (and feel bad about their math skills) because of all the word problems and explaining of answers with words. It's sad. |
Anonymous
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On this subject of whether someone sending their kid to private school helps/hurts the public school system, perhaps the issues become more transparent if we use a different hypothetical example rather than schools. It's often difficult to think the issue through clearly when the subject is schools, because people are so emotionally invested in one model or the other.
But pretend we weren't talking schools here, but something like food or cars. The government requires everyone to pay taxes and they all get the same standard issue car. At one point a bunch of citizens say, "We don't want this crummy car," and state that they are willing to pay extra to buy their own car from a private company even though they're still paying taxes to support the public car system. These citizens then stop sending orders to the government for their cars. The first-order effects here are obvious. The government loses no revenue from these citizens' decisions, but is relieved from having to fulfill as many orders for cars. So a number of options arise; perhaps the government can invest more resources per car in the cars they make, and thereby improve them. Or they can give everyone a break on their taxes, reducing the cost per car for those still buying from the government (a third option, just running higher profits with the savings would exist if we weren't talking about the public sector). The first-order effects of these citizens' choice to buy their cars privately are clearly beneficial for the purchasers of government cars. And they're clearly beneficial for those workers who make the cars, as now they have additional employment options, creating more competition for their services. Now, someone could argue that there will be negative second-order effects from this dynamic; those who simply believe that all car production should be done through the government will be concerned, and some more would be concerned if the government reacted by cutting taxes and reducing resources to its public car industry rather than by improving public car quality. But these are second-order effects, and they don't change the fact that the first-order effects, both for the purchasers of the cars and for those who work on the cars, are positive. And there's absolutely no empirical reason to believe that any cut backs in public spending on cars would exceed the amount of savings that comes from no longer having to send public-made cars to those citizens who chose voluntarily not to accept them even though they paid for them. The private car purchasers are basically giving the government an additional subsidy through their choice, and it would be illogical that this would actually be a net minus for the public system. In any case, the first-order effect of people voluntarily buying private services while still paying taxes to support public ones is unequivocally positive for those who receive the public services. One argue about the extent to which negative second-order effects cut into this, but the first-order effect is clearly positive. Similarly, the line that somehow people sending their kids to private school "hurts" the public school system focuses on the second-order effects while ignoring that the first-order effects are positive and have to be at least of greater magnitude (unless one believes paradoxically that providing an additional net subsidy to the government, as private school parents are doing, reduces its ability to provide a service). It's basically a line that has become popular for political reasons, but contradicts the economics of the underlying transactions. |
Anonymous
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I don't find the need to justify anything to anyone but just for the sake of discussing this on this thread...
I would say.... "We went the public school route for so many years, I wanted to give my DC something different during his/her middle school years and to avoid those overcrowded middle schools. Middle school years are transitional and critical years for a child, I wanted to make sure she had adequate support. I was lucky enough to afford it, so why not try it out for a couple years and reevaluate after he/she is done with middle school" |