Private School Cost

[Anonymous]

The cost of private schools in the DC area appear to be above $25,000 per year now. It also seems like most private schools do fundraising to fill the gap between tuition and the true cost of educating students, making the per pupil cost closer to $30,000. The average cost of a public school education is about $10,000. Will knowledgable people enlighten me on what "extras" are paid for by this rather large gap in spending per student? How much of this difference is going to academics compared to "enrichment" such as art, music, gym, etc.?

[Anonymous]

Speaking for the school I am familiar with, lower grades:

art several times a week
music several times a week
PE several times a week
science several times a week
spanish twice a week
computer twice a week

rising/competitive faculty salary
financial aid, to help promote or maintain economic diversity

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
financial aid, to help promote or maintain economic diversity

This one made me smile, because undoubtedly you could get much better diversity for free in the public schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
financial aid, to help promote or maintain economic diversity

This one made me smile, because undoubtedly you could get much better diversity for free in the public schools.

Actually, I think assuming that one can find more diversity in a public school depends heavily on where you live. Public school does not necessarily equate to more diversity, especially in the more affluent neighborhoods in Fairfax County and Montgomery County. We live in the BCC cluster. My neighborhood elementary school has about 15 minority children out of a total enrollment of about 350. We opted out of public school for that reason, among several.

[Anonymous]

I expect my kids to learn to read and write. Not sure the DCPS in my district can do that.

[Anonymous]

One other intangible that private school offers is just a much better, "customer"-oriented attitude and better "service": things like the head of school calling you at home if you have a question, incredible teacher-accessibility, etc. At our local public school (a well-regarded MoCo on, BTW), a friend of mine has a child who is having a rocky start to kindergarten, yet she doesn't even have any idea of what is going on, and the school discourages her from trying to find out by contacting the teacher, etc. At DC's private school, we had a concern last year and the teacher called us at home that same evening. Similarly, when we had a question about the math curriculum at DC's private school, the math-teacher-supervisor called us at home to answer our questions. Not saying this attentiveness is worth the exorbitant tuition on its own, LOL, but along with the other benefits noted by PPs, it helps.

[Anonymous]

This one made me smile, because undoubtedly you could get much better diversity for free in the public schools.

This statement is not true in my local public school district. One reason why we chose private was to have economic, racial, familial, and religious diversity for our child.

[Anonymous]

OP, I think that the public schools spend a little more than the $10k you mention, that number seems to be from a few years ago.
However, The problem with many private schools is that they do not share expenses with anyone else. I wish that expenses could be pooled. All the privates in MC for instance could share Spanish teachers, special ed teachers, school buses, or PE equipment.
They also don't ask the parents for ideas to save money, they just ask for money. I do wish that they had more of a co-op mentality.
Also, those heads of school can each make what the MCPS head makes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The cost of private schools in the DC area appear to be above $25,000 per year now. It also seems like most private schools do fundraising to fill the gap between tuition and the true cost of educating students, making the per pupil cost closer to $30,000. The average cost of a public school education is about $10,000. Will knowledgable people enlighten me on what "extras" are paid for by this rather large gap in spending per student? How much of this difference is going to academics compared to "enrichment" such as art, music, gym, etc.?

Some of differential is staffing. At our private school there are 2 full-time lead teachers with a class size of 24 kids as well as specialists for math, science, reading, art, etc. At our public school there is 1 full-time teacher with a class size of 30 kids.

[Anonymous]

Three cheers for a Voucher Program...

Why can't I take my $10,000 that I now give to a DCPS that my DC does not attend, and funnel it towards a private school education? Why can't EVERYONE have that option?

[Anonymous]

I'm remembering numbers more like $13,000-$15,000 per head for public, but maybe someone else can find the exact figures.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
financial aid, to help promote or maintain economic diversity

This one made me smile, because undoubtedly you could get much better diversity for free in the public schools.

Not our elementary school. We're going private because our elementary school lacks heavily in diversity-it's 98% white. We're a multi-racial family--I don't want my son getting the wrong message.

[Anonymous]

Spanish beginning in kindergarten. Latin or Chinese beginning in sixth grade. Also everything 23:31 mentioned plus library several days a week.

[Anonymous]

National average per pupil expenditure is about $9,000 but it is about $13,500 in DC for FY 2006.

[Anonymous]

National average per pupil expenditure is about $9,000 but it is about $13,500 in DC for FY 2006.

Yes, but isn't a huge part of that figure the amount that DCPS spends every year to reimburse parents of special needs children who send their special needs kids to private schools because DCPS cannot adequately address their needs (divided by the # of all DCPS pupils)? I read recently in the Post, I think, that without that figure, the cost-per-pupil in DCPS ~ the national average or less.