Thoughts on families with expensive houses and cars who send kids to public school?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I know people who are deemed as highly intelligent who buy Teslas, but their kids go to very crappy schools.

I don’t know what they’re thinking. Maybe that education is not important, maybe they think academics are not that important and they are teaching kids the necessary skills themselves. Who knows.

In our private school many kids go to the same state schools as the public school kids.

Aren't you sort of contradicting yourself here? Why does it matter if a kid goes to private school if he or she will just end up at VT, JM, or College Park anyway?

Because it’s not about the college, at least for me. I want to provide a thriving environment for my kid for 12 years that are formative development years.

My colleague drives a Tesla while his kids experience fights with hair pulling, smashing bodies into walls and floors, regular lockdowns for gun threats, low academic standards, prevalent drugs, etc.

I drive a Honda, but my kid is in a calm learning environment with high academic standards, teachers who work in making learning joyful, kids that are
motivated to succeed.

Sorry, that does not make you a better parent

I would disagree. Parents willing to sacrifice to provide their kids better experiences are indeed better parents.

It's not about "willing to sacrifice." Is it really a "better" experience to be in a little bubble of privilege for your formative years? I don't think that's clear at all.

It's not a bubble of privilege, it's an elite-college like learning experience while on a safe campus with similarly minded HS students. If you never experienced it, you can't really judge. People want to be in a certain environment, have smaller classes, have extra time to meet with teachers discuss their science assignments, have involved college advisors, meetings with corporate leaders describing their achievements, travel abroad and exchange experience.
It is indeed a huge difference and knowing it I would be very frustrated not to allow my child experience that, when I can afford it

Did you know that you can find all of those things in a public HS? I have one who graduated from an elite private school and one in a magnet program. The magnet program ticks all of those boxes (probably more than the elite private school), plus has my kid taking more classes, with more advanced STEM options, and an internship experience on top of it. The private school was good for the kid in its own way, but the public magnet is no slouch at preparing a kid to be successful in college.

I do realize it but I still doubt specifically for DC that a local magnet school would be better than an advanced class in a private school where my child is. We were accepted by couple Virginia magnet schools but didnt want to move there. It would be a very long commute from DC for both parents and early morning wake ups/late arrival from school leaving little time do to a typical 4-5 hour long HW assignments. My child is higher level than AP (will be able to skip his freshman's year in college as he already would have taken these course in his HS program)

Weird flex. Its fairly common at our run of the mill non-special public HS for students to start college with enough AP credit to be considered a sophomore.

It's not fairly common for public schools and also depends which college.

Whelp don’t know what to tell you. My kids go to a public school that most people on this board would never send their kids to and there are plenty of kids with 8 AP classes over the course of their HS experience which would make them technically a college sophomore. It’s available and an option to kids academically capable. Just off the top of my head kids can take AP in the following:


Calc AB
Calc BC
Stats
World history
US history
Government
World geography
Bio
Chem
Physics
French
Spanish
Latin
German
Literature

I’m sure I’m missing some…

Of course I agree all these are available but the environment wouldn't be conducive of learning: larger classes, teachers have less time to support through a number of AP classes, fighting, partying or very sexually active classmates. All families with daughters enrolled in public schools have issues with girls de-facto living with boyfriends (not at parents' home) in HS. These are McLean High, WW, Poolsville schools which are not bad at all. Kids just don't want and don't take these courses because it;s not "popular" that's it

“All families with daughters enrolled in public school” most definitely DO NOT have these issues. WTH are you talking about. I’m sure some do, as I’m sure some private kids do. But you apparently know nothing about public school if you think this.

I corrected myself - not all, but many. And I know many families from such "top rated" public schools from my child's sport team. More partying, drugs and sex talk for sure about schools' experiences

I'm still stuck on the part where you think there is no drinking, drugs, sex, and unsupervised teens in private school. You're kidding, right?

In ours (NW DC quadrant) it's zero. All who parties were informally and very insistently squeezed out by upper middle school and transferred elsewhere

This might be the funniest thing I've read today. I believe you that your child isn't doing those things, but I guarantee they are happening, even at your oh-so-special private school.

Nope, kids who party couldn't keep up and were asked to repeat grades. I know from families in question. Kids were moved to more "sports oriented" private schools in the area or to public for HS to get better grades

To clarify - kids were not kicked out. They were given very poor report cards with recommendation to repeat the current grade if they fell behind due to partying or other reasons. Families didn't want to pay extra $50K for another year and moved kids to less demanding programs

What is this amazing private school where nobody parties because anyone who even thinks of doing such a thing is easily identified and given discouraging grades? Seems inconceivable to me — not to mention inconsistent with my experience, albeit long ago, as an undergrad in the Ivy League — that absolutely no kids who use drugs or drink were also capable of keeping their grades up.

Probably Sidwell but they can barely get any kids into Cornell

I have known enough Sidwell alums over the years to suspect that either (a) it's not Sidwell or (b) they have done a LOT of work recently to absolutely crush the idea of partying out of the student body.

I can't confirm the school, but statement about doing a LOT of work addressing partying, socially obnoxious behaviors and drugs security was indeed done. I was in a position one being interrogated by a "diversity" counselor accompanied by a security guard once ( after a parent complaint at my son's behavior when in lower middle school). The meeting lasted 2 hours over a pretty minor incident and I can assure it was not pleasant. It's a pretty strict environment and kids who don't fit are squeezed out. You can believe it or not but the families attending impose very high expectations about what their kids experience when at school and from their classmates. Complaints are very common.

Behavior in lower middle school that the school believes necessitates an intervention with a diversity counselor is not quite the same as high school kids drinking or using drugs on the weekends — nor does that necessarily indicate that there's no partying going on.

Generally speaking, wealthier, more privileged kids use alcohol and drugs at least as much, if not more, than lower-income kids do. Why would this one private school where PP's kids go be so different — and how likely is that no one else is aware of its straight-edge ways, if it is?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I know people who are deemed as highly intelligent who buy Teslas, but their kids go to very crappy schools.

I don’t know what they’re thinking. Maybe that education is not important, maybe they think academics are not that important and they are teaching kids the necessary skills themselves. Who knows.

In our private school many kids go to the same state schools as the public school kids.

Aren't you sort of contradicting yourself here? Why does it matter if a kid goes to private school if he or she will just end up at VT, JM, or College Park anyway?

Because it’s not about the college, at least for me. I want to provide a thriving environment for my kid for 12 years that are formative development years.

My colleague drives a Tesla while his kids experience fights with hair pulling, smashing bodies into walls and floors, regular lockdowns for gun threats, low academic standards, prevalent drugs, etc.

I drive a Honda, but my kid is in a calm learning environment with high academic standards, teachers who work in making learning joyful, kids that are
motivated to succeed.

Sorry, that does not make you a better parent

I would disagree. Parents willing to sacrifice to provide their kids better experiences are indeed better parents.

It's not about "willing to sacrifice." Is it really a "better" experience to be in a little bubble of privilege for your formative years? I don't think that's clear at all.

It's not a bubble of privilege, it's an elite-college like learning experience while on a safe campus with similarly minded HS students. If you never experienced it, you can't really judge. People want to be in a certain environment, have smaller classes, have extra time to meet with teachers discuss their science assignments, have involved college advisors, meetings with corporate leaders describing their achievements, travel abroad and exchange experience.
It is indeed a huge difference and knowing it I would be very frustrated not to allow my child experience that, when I can afford it

Did you know that you can find all of those things in a public HS? I have one who graduated from an elite private school and one in a magnet program. The magnet program ticks all of those boxes (probably more than the elite private school), plus has my kid taking more classes, with more advanced STEM options, and an internship experience on top of it. The private school was good for the kid in its own way, but the public magnet is no slouch at preparing a kid to be successful in college.

I do realize it but I still doubt specifically for DC that a local magnet school would be better than an advanced class in a private school where my child is. We were accepted by couple Virginia magnet schools but didnt want to move there. It would be a very long commute from DC for both parents and early morning wake ups/late arrival from school leaving little time do to a typical 4-5 hour long HW assignments. My child is higher level than AP (will be able to skip his freshman's year in college as he already would have taken these course in his HS program)

Weird flex. Its fairly common at our run of the mill non-special public HS for students to start college with enough AP credit to be considered a sophomore.

It's not fairly common for public schools and also depends which college.

Whelp don’t know what to tell you. My kids go to a public school that most people on this board would never send their kids to and there are plenty of kids with 8 AP classes over the course of their HS experience which would make them technically a college sophomore. It’s available and an option to kids academically capable. Just off the top of my head kids can take AP in the following:


Calc AB
Calc BC
Stats
World history
US history
Government
World geography
Bio
Chem
Physics
French
Spanish
Latin
German
Literature

I’m sure I’m missing some…

Of course I agree all these are available but the environment wouldn't be conducive of learning: larger classes, teachers have less time to support through a number of AP classes, fighting, partying or very sexually active classmates. All families with daughters enrolled in public schools have issues with girls de-facto living with boyfriends (not at parents' home) in HS. These are McLean High, WW, Poolsville schools which are not bad at all. Kids just don't want and don't take these courses because it;s not "popular" that's it

“All families with daughters enrolled in public school” most definitely DO NOT have these issues. WTH are you talking about. I’m sure some do, as I’m sure some private kids do. But you apparently know nothing about public school if you think this.

I corrected myself - not all, but many. And I know many families from such "top rated" public schools from my child's sport team. More partying, drugs and sex talk for sure about schools' experiences

I'm still stuck on the part where you think there is no drinking, drugs, sex, and unsupervised teens in private school. You're kidding, right?

In ours (NW DC quadrant) it's zero. All who parties were informally and very insistently squeezed out by upper middle school and transferred elsewhere

This might be the funniest thing I've read today. I believe you that your child isn't doing those things, but I guarantee they are happening, even at your oh-so-special private school.

Nope, kids who party couldn't keep up and were asked to repeat grades. I know from families in question. Kids were moved to more "sports oriented" private schools in the area or to public for HS to get better grades

To clarify - kids were not kicked out. They were given very poor report cards with recommendation to repeat the current grade if they fell behind due to partying or other reasons. Families didn't want to pay extra $50K for another year and moved kids to less demanding programs

What is this amazing private school where nobody parties because anyone who even thinks of doing such a thing is easily identified and given discouraging grades? Seems inconceivable to me — not to mention inconsistent with my experience, albeit long ago, as an undergrad in the Ivy League — that absolutely no kids who use drugs or drink were also capable of keeping their grades up.

Probably Sidwell but they can barely get any kids into Cornell

I have known enough Sidwell alums over the years to suspect that either (a) it's not Sidwell or (b) they have done a LOT of work recently to absolutely crush the idea of partying out of the student body.

I can't confirm the school, but statement about doing a LOT of work addressing partying, socially obnoxious behaviors and drugs security was indeed done. I was in a position one being interrogated by a "diversity" counselor accompanied by a security guard once ( after a parent complaint at my son's behavior when in lower middle school). The meeting lasted 2 hours over a pretty minor incident and I can assure it was not pleasant. It's a pretty strict environment and kids who don't fit are squeezed out. You can believe it or not but the families attending impose very high expectations about what their kids experience when at school and from their classmates. Complaints are very common.

Behavior in lower middle school that the school believes necessitates an intervention with a diversity counselor is not quite the same as high school kids drinking or using drugs on the weekends — nor does that necessarily indicate that there's no partying going on.

Generally speaking, wealthier, more privileged kids use alcohol and drugs at least as much, if not more, than lower-income kids do. Why would this one private school where PP's kids go be so different — and how likely is that no one else is aware of its straight-edge ways, if it is?

I know my child's classmates pretty well and none of them drink alcohol. Maybe its your wishful thinking to assure and justify your decision not to invest in your child's education. But grades, SAT higher scores don't go along with heavy partying, drugs or drinking (on average). It's easy to check average scores for all schools, public and private on niche. Even better: go for coffee near Woodrow Wilson HS in the afternoon or to any of the named schools at dismissal. You'll see a dramatic behavioral difference for sure what kids do when they walk home

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know people who are deemed as highly intelligent who buy Teslas, but their kids go to very crappy schools.

I don’t know what they’re thinking. Maybe that education is not important, maybe they think academics are not that important and they are teaching kids the necessary skills themselves. Who knows.

In our private school many kids go to the same state schools as the public school kids.

Aren't you sort of contradicting yourself here? Why does it matter if a kid goes to private school if he or she will just end up at VT, JM, or College Park anyway?

Because it’s not about the college, at least for me. I want to provide a thriving environment for my kid for 12 years that are formative development years.

My colleague drives a Tesla while his kids experience fights with hair pulling, smashing bodies into walls and floors, regular lockdowns for gun threats, low academic standards, prevalent drugs, etc.

I drive a Honda, but my kid is in a calm learning environment with high academic standards, teachers who work in making learning joyful, kids that are
motivated to succeed.

Sorry, that does not make you a better parent

I would disagree. Parents willing to sacrifice to provide their kids better experiences are indeed better parents.

It's not about "willing to sacrifice." Is it really a "better" experience to be in a little bubble of privilege for your formative years? I don't think that's clear at all.

It's not a bubble of privilege, it's an elite-college like learning experience while on a safe campus with similarly minded HS students. If you never experienced it, you can't really judge. People want to be in a certain environment, have smaller classes, have extra time to meet with teachers discuss their science assignments, have involved college advisors, meetings with corporate leaders describing their achievements, travel abroad and exchange experience.
It is indeed a huge difference and knowing it I would be very frustrated not to allow my child experience that, when I can afford it

Did you know that you can find all of those things in a public HS? I have one who graduated from an elite private school and one in a magnet program. The magnet program ticks all of those boxes (probably more than the elite private school), plus has my kid taking more classes, with more advanced STEM options, and an internship experience on top of it. The private school was good for the kid in its own way, but the public magnet is no slouch at preparing a kid to be successful in college.

I do realize it but I still doubt specifically for DC that a local magnet school would be better than an advanced class in a private school where my child is. We were accepted by couple Virginia magnet schools but didnt want to move there. It would be a very long commute from DC for both parents and early morning wake ups/late arrival from school leaving little time do to a typical 4-5 hour long HW assignments. My child is higher level than AP (will be able to skip his freshman's year in college as he already would have taken these course in his HS program)

Weird flex. Its fairly common at our run of the mill non-special public HS for students to start college with enough AP credit to be considered a sophomore.

It's not fairly common for public schools and also depends which college.

Whelp don’t know what to tell you. My kids go to a public school that most people on this board would never send their kids to and there are plenty of kids with 8 AP classes over the course of their HS experience which would make them technically a college sophomore. It’s available and an option to kids academically capable. Just off the top of my head kids can take AP in the following:


Calc AB
Calc BC
Stats
World history
US history
Government
World geography
Bio
Chem
Physics
French
Spanish
Latin
German
Literature

I’m sure I’m missing some…

Of course I agree all these are available but the environment wouldn't be conducive of learning: larger classes, teachers have less time to support through a number of AP classes, fighting, partying or very sexually active classmates. All families with daughters enrolled in public schools have issues with girls de-facto living with boyfriends (not at parents' home) in HS. These are McLean High, WW, Poolsville schools which are not bad at all. Kids just don't want and don't take these courses because it;s not "popular" that's it

“All families with daughters enrolled in public school” most definitely DO NOT have these issues. WTH are you talking about. I’m sure some do, as I’m sure some private kids do. But you apparently know nothing about public school if you think this.

I corrected myself - not all, but many. And I know many families from such "top rated" public schools from my child's sport team. More partying, drugs and sex talk for sure about schools' experiences

I'm still stuck on the part where you think there is no drinking, drugs, sex, and unsupervised teens in private school. You're kidding, right?

In ours (NW DC quadrant) it's zero. All who parties were informally and very insistently squeezed out by upper middle school and transferred elsewhere

This might be the funniest thing I've read today. I believe you that your child isn't doing those things, but I guarantee they are happening, even at your oh-so-special private school.

Nope, kids who party couldn't keep up and were asked to repeat grades. I know from families in question. Kids were moved to more "sports oriented" private schools in the area or to public for HS to get better grades

To clarify - kids were not kicked out. They were given very poor report cards with recommendation to repeat the current grade if they fell behind due to partying or other reasons. Families didn't want to pay extra $50K for another year and moved kids to less demanding programs

What is this amazing private school where nobody parties because anyone who even thinks of doing such a thing is easily identified and given discouraging grades? Seems inconceivable to me — not to mention inconsistent with my experience, albeit long ago, as an undergrad in the Ivy League — that absolutely no kids who use drugs or drink were also capable of keeping their grades up.

Probably Sidwell but they can barely get any kids into Cornell

I have known enough Sidwell alums over the years to suspect that either (a) it's not Sidwell or (b) they have done a LOT of work recently to absolutely crush the idea of partying out of the student body.

I can't confirm the school, but statement about doing a LOT of work addressing partying, socially obnoxious behaviors and drugs security was indeed done. I was in a position one being interrogated by a "diversity" counselor accompanied by a security guard once ( after a parent complaint at my son's behavior when in lower middle school). The meeting lasted 2 hours over a pretty minor incident and I can assure it was not pleasant. It's a pretty strict environment and kids who don't fit are squeezed out. You can believe it or not but the families attending impose very high expectations about what their kids experience when at school and from their classmates. Complaints are very common.

Behavior in lower middle school that the school believes necessitates an intervention with a diversity counselor is not quite the same as high school kids drinking or using drugs on the weekends — nor does that necessarily indicate that there's no partying going on.

Generally speaking, wealthier, more privileged kids use alcohol and drugs at least as much, if not more, than lower-income kids do. Why would this one private school where PP's kids go be so different — and how likely is that no one else is aware of its straight-edge ways, if it is?

I know my child's classmates pretty well and none of them drink alcohol. Maybe its your wishful thinking to assure and justify your decision not to invest in your child's education. But grades, SAT higher scores don't go along with heavy partying, drugs or drinking (on average). It's easy to check average scores for all schools, public and private on niche. Even better: go for coffee near Woodrow Wilson HS in the afternoon or to any of the named schools at dismissal. You'll see a dramatic behavioral difference for sure what kids do when they walk home

NP. More $$$ = more partying.

“Work hard, play hard” is the prep school mantra. And the parents are always clueless.

Virtually every Ivy-bound kid at my private HS was heavily into the party scene, including one kid with a love of cocaine that would have shocked his traditional Korean parents.

He did well at Harvard and is now a quasi famous doctor.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know people who are deemed as highly intelligent who buy Teslas, but their kids go to very crappy schools.

I don’t know what they’re thinking. Maybe that education is not important, maybe they think academics are not that important and they are teaching kids the necessary skills themselves. Who knows.

In our private school many kids go to the same state schools as the public school kids.

Aren't you sort of contradicting yourself here? Why does it matter if a kid goes to private school if he or she will just end up at VT, JM, or College Park anyway?

Because it’s not about the college, at least for me. I want to provide a thriving environment for my kid for 12 years that are formative development years.

My colleague drives a Tesla while his kids experience fights with hair pulling, smashing bodies into walls and floors, regular lockdowns for gun threats, low academic standards, prevalent drugs, etc.

I drive a Honda, but my kid is in a calm learning environment with high academic standards, teachers who work in making learning joyful, kids that are
motivated to succeed.

Sorry, that does not make you a better parent

I would disagree. Parents willing to sacrifice to provide their kids better experiences are indeed better parents.

It's not about "willing to sacrifice." Is it really a "better" experience to be in a little bubble of privilege for your formative years? I don't think that's clear at all.

It's not a bubble of privilege, it's an elite-college like learning experience while on a safe campus with similarly minded HS students. If you never experienced it, you can't really judge. People want to be in a certain environment, have smaller classes, have extra time to meet with teachers discuss their science assignments, have involved college advisors, meetings with corporate leaders describing their achievements, travel abroad and exchange experience.
It is indeed a huge difference and knowing it I would be very frustrated not to allow my child experience that, when I can afford it

Did you know that you can find all of those things in a public HS? I have one who graduated from an elite private school and one in a magnet program. The magnet program ticks all of those boxes (probably more than the elite private school), plus has my kid taking more classes, with more advanced STEM options, and an internship experience on top of it. The private school was good for the kid in its own way, but the public magnet is no slouch at preparing a kid to be successful in college.

I do realize it but I still doubt specifically for DC that a local magnet school would be better than an advanced class in a private school where my child is. We were accepted by couple Virginia magnet schools but didnt want to move there. It would be a very long commute from DC for both parents and early morning wake ups/late arrival from school leaving little time do to a typical 4-5 hour long HW assignments. My child is higher level than AP (will be able to skip his freshman's year in college as he already would have taken these course in his HS program)

Weird flex. Its fairly common at our run of the mill non-special public HS for students to start college with enough AP credit to be considered a sophomore.

It's not fairly common for public schools and also depends which college.

Whelp don’t know what to tell you. My kids go to a public school that most people on this board would never send their kids to and there are plenty of kids with 8 AP classes over the course of their HS experience which would make them technically a college sophomore. It’s available and an option to kids academically capable. Just off the top of my head kids can take AP in the following:


Calc AB
Calc BC
Stats
World history
US history
Government
World geography
Bio
Chem
Physics
French
Spanish
Latin
German
Literature

I’m sure I’m missing some…

Of course I agree all these are available but the environment wouldn't be conducive of learning: larger classes, teachers have less time to support through a number of AP classes, fighting, partying or very sexually active classmates. All families with daughters enrolled in public schools have issues with girls de-facto living with boyfriends (not at parents' home) in HS. These are McLean High, WW, Poolsville schools which are not bad at all. Kids just don't want and don't take these courses because it;s not "popular" that's it

“All families with daughters enrolled in public school” most definitely DO NOT have these issues. WTH are you talking about. I’m sure some do, as I’m sure some private kids do. But you apparently know nothing about public school if you think this.

I corrected myself - not all, but many. And I know many families from such "top rated" public schools from my child's sport team. More partying, drugs and sex talk for sure about schools' experiences

I'm still stuck on the part where you think there is no drinking, drugs, sex, and unsupervised teens in private school. You're kidding, right?

In ours (NW DC quadrant) it's zero. All who parties were informally and very insistently squeezed out by upper middle school and transferred elsewhere

This might be the funniest thing I've read today. I believe you that your child isn't doing those things, but I guarantee they are happening, even at your oh-so-special private school.

Nope, kids who party couldn't keep up and were asked to repeat grades. I know from families in question. Kids were moved to more "sports oriented" private schools in the area or to public for HS to get better grades

To clarify - kids were not kicked out. They were given very poor report cards with recommendation to repeat the current grade if they fell behind due to partying or other reasons. Families didn't want to pay extra $50K for another year and moved kids to less demanding programs

What is this amazing private school where nobody parties because anyone who even thinks of doing such a thing is easily identified and given discouraging grades? Seems inconceivable to me — not to mention inconsistent with my experience, albeit long ago, as an undergrad in the Ivy League — that absolutely no kids who use drugs or drink were also capable of keeping their grades up.

Probably Sidwell but they can barely get any kids into Cornell

I have known enough Sidwell alums over the years to suspect that either (a) it's not Sidwell or (b) they have done a LOT of work recently to absolutely crush the idea of partying out of the student body.

I can't confirm the school, but statement about doing a LOT of work addressing partying, socially obnoxious behaviors and drugs security was indeed done. I was in a position one being interrogated by a "diversity" counselor accompanied by a security guard once ( after a parent complaint at my son's behavior when in lower middle school). The meeting lasted 2 hours over a pretty minor incident and I can assure it was not pleasant. It's a pretty strict environment and kids who don't fit are squeezed out. You can believe it or not but the families attending impose very high expectations about what their kids experience when at school and from their classmates. Complaints are very common.

Behavior in lower middle school that the school believes necessitates an intervention with a diversity counselor is not quite the same as high school kids drinking or using drugs on the weekends — nor does that necessarily indicate that there's no partying going on.

Generally speaking, wealthier, more privileged kids use alcohol and drugs at least as much, if not more, than lower-income kids do. Why would this one private school where PP's kids go be so different — and how likely is that no one else is aware of its straight-edge ways, if it is?

I know my child's classmates pretty well and none of them drink alcohol. Maybe its your wishful thinking to assure and justify your decision not to invest in your child's education. But grades, SAT higher scores don't go along with heavy partying, drugs or drinking (on average). It's easy to check average scores for all schools, public and private on niche. Even better: go for coffee near Woodrow Wilson HS in the afternoon or to any of the named schools at dismissal. You'll see a dramatic behavioral difference for sure what kids do when they walk home

NP. More $$$ = more partying.

“Work hard, play hard” is the prep school mantra. And the parents are always clueless.

Virtually every Ivy-bound kid at my private HS was heavily into the party scene, including one kid with a love of cocaine that would have shocked his traditional Korean parents.

He did well at Harvard and is now a quasi famous doctor.

Thanks for using a common logical fallacy - use of a single example known to you to make a generic conclusion about whole class. Poverty drives drugs just look at Mexico or certain DC areas in the evenings. These kids can’t buy expensive alcohol and often die from cheap synthetic drugs.

Show your statistics that wealthier people abuse substances and drugs more !

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know people who are deemed as highly intelligent who buy Teslas, but their kids go to very crappy schools.

I don’t know what they’re thinking. Maybe that education is not important, maybe they think academics are not that important and they are teaching kids the necessary skills themselves. Who knows.

In our private school many kids go to the same state schools as the public school kids.

Aren't you sort of contradicting yourself here? Why does it matter if a kid goes to private school if he or she will just end up at VT, JM, or College Park anyway?

Because it’s not about the college, at least for me. I want to provide a thriving environment for my kid for 12 years that are formative development years.

My colleague drives a Tesla while his kids experience fights with hair pulling, smashing bodies into walls and floors, regular lockdowns for gun threats, low academic standards, prevalent drugs, etc.

I drive a Honda, but my kid is in a calm learning environment with high academic standards, teachers who work in making learning joyful, kids that are
motivated to succeed.

Sorry, that does not make you a better parent

I would disagree. Parents willing to sacrifice to provide their kids better experiences are indeed better parents.

It's not about "willing to sacrifice." Is it really a "better" experience to be in a little bubble of privilege for your formative years? I don't think that's clear at all.

It's not a bubble of privilege, it's an elite-college like learning experience while on a safe campus with similarly minded HS students. If you never experienced it, you can't really judge. People want to be in a certain environment, have smaller classes, have extra time to meet with teachers discuss their science assignments, have involved college advisors, meetings with corporate leaders describing their achievements, travel abroad and exchange experience.
It is indeed a huge difference and knowing it I would be very frustrated not to allow my child experience that, when I can afford it

Did you know that you can find all of those things in a public HS? I have one who graduated from an elite private school and one in a magnet program. The magnet program ticks all of those boxes (probably more than the elite private school), plus has my kid taking more classes, with more advanced STEM options, and an internship experience on top of it. The private school was good for the kid in its own way, but the public magnet is no slouch at preparing a kid to be successful in college.

I do realize it but I still doubt specifically for DC that a local magnet school would be better than an advanced class in a private school where my child is. We were accepted by couple Virginia magnet schools but didnt want to move there. It would be a very long commute from DC for both parents and early morning wake ups/late arrival from school leaving little time do to a typical 4-5 hour long HW assignments. My child is higher level than AP (will be able to skip his freshman's year in college as he already would have taken these course in his HS program)

Weird flex. Its fairly common at our run of the mill non-special public HS for students to start college with enough AP credit to be considered a sophomore.

It's not fairly common for public schools and also depends which college.

Whelp don’t know what to tell you. My kids go to a public school that most people on this board would never send their kids to and there are plenty of kids with 8 AP classes over the course of their HS experience which would make them technically a college sophomore. It’s available and an option to kids academically capable. Just off the top of my head kids can take AP in the following:


Calc AB
Calc BC
Stats
World history
US history
Government
World geography
Bio
Chem
Physics
French
Spanish
Latin
German
Literature

I’m sure I’m missing some…

Of course I agree all these are available but the environment wouldn't be conducive of learning: larger classes, teachers have less time to support through a number of AP classes, fighting, partying or very sexually active classmates. All families with daughters enrolled in public schools have issues with girls de-facto living with boyfriends (not at parents' home) in HS. These are McLean High, WW, Poolsville schools which are not bad at all. Kids just don't want and don't take these courses because it;s not "popular" that's it

“All families with daughters enrolled in public school” most definitely DO NOT have these issues. WTH are you talking about. I’m sure some do, as I’m sure some private kids do. But you apparently know nothing about public school if you think this.

I corrected myself - not all, but many. And I know many families from such "top rated" public schools from my child's sport team. More partying, drugs and sex talk for sure about schools' experiences

I'm still stuck on the part where you think there is no drinking, drugs, sex, and unsupervised teens in private school. You're kidding, right?

In ours (NW DC quadrant) it's zero. All who parties were informally and very insistently squeezed out by upper middle school and transferred elsewhere

This might be the funniest thing I've read today. I believe you that your child isn't doing those things, but I guarantee they are happening, even at your oh-so-special private school.

Nope, kids who party couldn't keep up and were asked to repeat grades. I know from families in question. Kids were moved to more "sports oriented" private schools in the area or to public for HS to get better grades

To clarify - kids were not kicked out. They were given very poor report cards with recommendation to repeat the current grade if they fell behind due to partying or other reasons. Families didn't want to pay extra $50K for another year and moved kids to less demanding programs

What is this amazing private school where nobody parties because anyone who even thinks of doing such a thing is easily identified and given discouraging grades? Seems inconceivable to me — not to mention inconsistent with my experience, albeit long ago, as an undergrad in the Ivy League — that absolutely no kids who use drugs or drink were also capable of keeping their grades up.

Probably Sidwell but they can barely get any kids into Cornell

I have known enough Sidwell alums over the years to suspect that either (a) it's not Sidwell or (b) they have done a LOT of work recently to absolutely crush the idea of partying out of the student body.

I can't confirm the school, but statement about doing a LOT of work addressing partying, socially obnoxious behaviors and drugs security was indeed done. I was in a position one being interrogated by a "diversity" counselor accompanied by a security guard once ( after a parent complaint at my son's behavior when in lower middle school). The meeting lasted 2 hours over a pretty minor incident and I can assure it was not pleasant. It's a pretty strict environment and kids who don't fit are squeezed out. You can believe it or not but the families attending impose very high expectations about what their kids experience when at school and from their classmates. Complaints are very common.

Behavior in lower middle school that the school believes necessitates an intervention with a diversity counselor is not quite the same as high school kids drinking or using drugs on the weekends — nor does that necessarily indicate that there's no partying going on.

Generally speaking, wealthier, more privileged kids use alcohol and drugs at least as much, if not more, than lower-income kids do. Why would this one private school where PP's kids go be so different — and how likely is that no one else is aware of its straight-edge ways, if it is?

I know my child's classmates pretty well and none of them drink alcohol. Maybe its your wishful thinking to assure and justify your decision not to invest in your child's education. But grades, SAT higher scores don't go along with heavy partying, drugs or drinking (on average). It's easy to check average scores for all schools, public and private on niche. Even better: go for coffee near Woodrow Wilson HS in the afternoon or to any of the named schools at dismissal. You'll see a dramatic behavioral difference for sure what kids do when they walk home

NP. More $$$ = more partying.

“Work hard, play hard” is the prep school mantra. And the parents are always clueless.

Virtually every Ivy-bound kid at my private HS was heavily into the party scene, including one kid with a love of cocaine that would have shocked his traditional Korean parents.

He did well at Harvard and is now a quasi famous doctor.

Thanks for using a common logical fallacy - use of a single example known to you to make a generic conclusion about whole class. Poverty drives drugs just look at Mexico or certain DC areas in the evenings. These kids can’t buy expensive alcohol and often die from cheap synthetic drugs.

Show your statistics that wealthier people abuse substances and drugs more !

You mean vs. your statistically-based, scientifically-grounded, “I know these kids and they’d never lie to me” argument? Lol.

Lol. Compelling. But here’s one, just for fun: [url] https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2007/02/21/high-rates-of-teen-drug-abuse-found-in-affluent-areas/

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I know people who are deemed as highly intelligent who buy Teslas, but their kids go to very crappy schools.

I don’t know what they’re thinking. Maybe that education is not important, maybe they think academics are not that important and they are teaching kids the necessary skills themselves. Who knows.

In our private school many kids go to the same state schools as the public school kids.

Aren't you sort of contradicting yourself here? Why does it matter if a kid goes to private school if he or she will just end up at VT, JM, or College Park anyway?

Because it’s not about the college, at least for me. I want to provide a thriving environment for my kid for 12 years that are formative development years.

My colleague drives a Tesla while his kids experience fights with hair pulling, smashing bodies into walls and floors, regular lockdowns for gun threats, low academic standards, prevalent drugs, etc.

I drive a Honda, but my kid is in a calm learning environment with high academic standards, teachers who work in making learning joyful, kids that are
motivated to succeed.

Sorry, that does not make you a better parent

I would disagree. Parents willing to sacrifice to provide their kids better experiences are indeed better parents.

It's not about "willing to sacrifice." Is it really a "better" experience to be in a little bubble of privilege for your formative years? I don't think that's clear at all.

It's not a bubble of privilege, it's an elite-college like learning experience while on a safe campus with similarly minded HS students. If you never experienced it, you can't really judge. People want to be in a certain environment, have smaller classes, have extra time to meet with teachers discuss their science assignments, have involved college advisors, meetings with corporate leaders describing their achievements, travel abroad and exchange experience.
It is indeed a huge difference and knowing it I would be very frustrated not to allow my child experience that, when I can afford it

Did you know that you can find all of those things in a public HS? I have one who graduated from an elite private school and one in a magnet program. The magnet program ticks all of those boxes (probably more than the elite private school), plus has my kid taking more classes, with more advanced STEM options, and an internship experience on top of it. The private school was good for the kid in its own way, but the public magnet is no slouch at preparing a kid to be successful in college.

I do realize it but I still doubt specifically for DC that a local magnet school would be better than an advanced class in a private school where my child is. We were accepted by couple Virginia magnet schools but didnt want to move there. It would be a very long commute from DC for both parents and early morning wake ups/late arrival from school leaving little time do to a typical 4-5 hour long HW assignments. My child is higher level than AP (will be able to skip his freshman's year in college as he already would have taken these course in his HS program)

Weird flex. Its fairly common at our run of the mill non-special public HS for students to start college with enough AP credit to be considered a sophomore.

It's not fairly common for public schools and also depends which college.

Whelp don’t know what to tell you. My kids go to a public school that most people on this board would never send their kids to and there are plenty of kids with 8 AP classes over the course of their HS experience which would make them technically a college sophomore. It’s available and an option to kids academically capable. Just off the top of my head kids can take AP in the following:


Calc AB
Calc BC
Stats
World history
US history
Government
World geography
Bio
Chem
Physics
French
Spanish
Latin
German
Literature

I’m sure I’m missing some…

Of course I agree all these are available but the environment wouldn't be conducive of learning: larger classes, teachers have less time to support through a number of AP classes, fighting, partying or very sexually active classmates. All families with daughters enrolled in public schools have issues with girls de-facto living with boyfriends (not at parents' home) in HS. These are McLean High, WW, Poolsville schools which are not bad at all. Kids just don't want and don't take these courses because it;s not "popular" that's it

“All families with daughters enrolled in public school” most definitely DO NOT have these issues. WTH are you talking about. I’m sure some do, as I’m sure some private kids do. But you apparently know nothing about public school if you think this.

I corrected myself - not all, but many. And I know many families from such "top rated" public schools from my child's sport team. More partying, drugs and sex talk for sure about schools' experiences

I'm still stuck on the part where you think there is no drinking, drugs, sex, and unsupervised teens in private school. You're kidding, right?

In ours (NW DC quadrant) it's zero. All who parties were informally and very insistently squeezed out by upper middle school and transferred elsewhere

This might be the funniest thing I've read today. I believe you that your child isn't doing those things, but I guarantee they are happening, even at your oh-so-special private school.

Nope, kids who party couldn't keep up and were asked to repeat grades. I know from families in question. Kids were moved to more "sports oriented" private schools in the area or to public for HS to get better grades

You are delusional.

+1 There is not a high school in this country that is free of drinking, drugs, and sex. I would bet my life savings on it.

[Anonymous]

I feel sorry for pp who thinks her children must attend this specific private school in order for them to be studious and well-behaved.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I know people who are deemed as highly intelligent who buy Teslas, but their kids go to very crappy schools.

I don’t know what they’re thinking. Maybe that education is not important, maybe they think academics are not that important and they are teaching kids the necessary skills themselves. Who knows.

In our private school many kids go to the same state schools as the public school kids.

Aren't you sort of contradicting yourself here? Why does it matter if a kid goes to private school if he or she will just end up at VT, JM, or College Park anyway?

Because it’s not about the college, at least for me. I want to provide a thriving environment for my kid for 12 years that are formative development years.

My colleague drives a Tesla while his kids experience fights with hair pulling, smashing bodies into walls and floors, regular lockdowns for gun threats, low academic standards, prevalent drugs, etc.

I drive a Honda, but my kid is in a calm learning environment with high academic standards, teachers who work in making learning joyful, kids that are
motivated to succeed.

Sorry, that does not make you a better parent

I would disagree. Parents willing to sacrifice to provide their kids better experiences are indeed better parents.

It's not about "willing to sacrifice." Is it really a "better" experience to be in a little bubble of privilege for your formative years? I don't think that's clear at all.

It's not a bubble of privilege, it's an elite-college like learning experience while on a safe campus with similarly minded HS students. If you never experienced it, you can't really judge. People want to be in a certain environment, have smaller classes, have extra time to meet with teachers discuss their science assignments, have involved college advisors, meetings with corporate leaders describing their achievements, travel abroad and exchange experience.
It is indeed a huge difference and knowing it I would be very frustrated not to allow my child experience that, when I can afford it

Did you know that you can find all of those things in a public HS? I have one who graduated from an elite private school and one in a magnet program. The magnet program ticks all of those boxes (probably more than the elite private school), plus has my kid taking more classes, with more advanced STEM options, and an internship experience on top of it. The private school was good for the kid in its own way, but the public magnet is no slouch at preparing a kid to be successful in college.

I do realize it but I still doubt specifically for DC that a local magnet school would be better than an advanced class in a private school where my child is. We were accepted by couple Virginia magnet schools but didnt want to move there. It would be a very long commute from DC for both parents and early morning wake ups/late arrival from school leaving little time do to a typical 4-5 hour long HW assignments. My child is higher level than AP (will be able to skip his freshman's year in college as he already would have taken these course in his HS program)

Weird flex. Its fairly common at our run of the mill non-special public HS for students to start college with enough AP credit to be considered a sophomore.

It's not fairly common for public schools and also depends which college.

Whelp don’t know what to tell you. My kids go to a public school that most people on this board would never send their kids to and there are plenty of kids with 8 AP classes over the course of their HS experience which would make them technically a college sophomore. It’s available and an option to kids academically capable. Just off the top of my head kids can take AP in the following:


Calc AB
Calc BC
Stats
World history
US history
Government
World geography
Bio
Chem
Physics
French
Spanish
Latin
German
Literature

I’m sure I’m missing some…

Of course I agree all these are available but the environment wouldn't be conducive of learning: larger classes, teachers have less time to support through a number of AP classes, fighting, partying or very sexually active classmates. All families with daughters enrolled in public schools have issues with girls de-facto living with boyfriends (not at parents' home) in HS. These are McLean High, WW, Poolsville schools which are not bad at all. Kids just don't want and don't take these courses because it;s not "popular" that's it

“All families with daughters enrolled in public school” most definitely DO NOT have these issues. WTH are you talking about. I’m sure some do, as I’m sure some private kids do. But you apparently know nothing about public school if you think this.

I corrected myself - not all, but many. And I know many families from such "top rated" public schools from my child's sport team. More partying, drugs and sex talk for sure about schools' experiences

I'm still stuck on the part where you think there is no drinking, drugs, sex, and unsupervised teens in private school. You're kidding, right?

In ours (NW DC quadrant) it's zero. All who parties were informally and very insistently squeezed out by upper middle school and transferred elsewhere

This might be the funniest thing I've read today. I believe you that your child isn't doing those things, but I guarantee they are happening, even at your oh-so-special private school.

Nope, kids who party couldn't keep up and were asked to repeat grades. I know from families in question. Kids were moved to more "sports oriented" private schools in the area or to public for HS to get better grades

To clarify - kids were not kicked out. They were given very poor report cards with recommendation to repeat the current grade if they fell behind due to partying or other reasons. Families didn't want to pay extra $50K for another year and moved kids to less demanding programs

What is this amazing private school where nobody parties because anyone who even thinks of doing such a thing is easily identified and given discouraging grades? Seems inconceivable to me — not to mention inconsistent with my experience, albeit long ago, as an undergrad in the Ivy League — that absolutely no kids who use drugs or drink were also capable of keeping their grades up.

Probably Sidwell but they can barely get any kids into Cornell

I have known enough Sidwell alums over the years to suspect that either (a) it's not Sidwell or (b) they have done a LOT of work recently to absolutely crush the idea of partying out of the student body.

I can't confirm the school, but statement about doing a LOT of work addressing partying, socially obnoxious behaviors and drugs security was indeed done. I was in a position one being interrogated by a "diversity" counselor accompanied by a security guard once ( after a parent complaint at my son's behavior when in lower middle school). The meeting lasted 2 hours over a pretty minor incident and I can assure it was not pleasant. It's a pretty strict environment and kids who don't fit are squeezed out. You can believe it or not but the families attending impose very high expectations about what their kids experience when at school and from their classmates. Complaints are very common.

Behavior in lower middle school that the school believes necessitates an intervention with a diversity counselor is not quite the same as high school kids drinking or using drugs on the weekends — nor does that necessarily indicate that there's no partying going on.

Generally speaking, wealthier, more privileged kids use alcohol and drugs at least as much, if not more, than lower-income kids do. Why would this one private school where PP's kids go be so different — and how likely is that no one else is aware of its straight-edge ways, if it is?

I know my child's classmates pretty well and none of them drink alcohol. Maybe its your wishful thinking to assure and justify your decision not to invest in your child's education. But grades, SAT higher scores don't go along with heavy partying, drugs or drinking (on average). It's easy to check average scores for all schools, public and private on niche. Even better: go for coffee near Woodrow Wilson HS in the afternoon or to any of the named schools at dismissal. You'll see a dramatic behavioral difference for sure what kids do when they walk home

NP. More $$$ = more partying.

“Work hard, play hard” is the prep school mantra. And the parents are always clueless.

Virtually every Ivy-bound kid at my private HS was heavily into the party scene, including one kid with a love of cocaine that would have shocked his traditional Korean parents.

He did well at Harvard and is now a quasi famous doctor.

Thanks for using a common logical fallacy - use of a single example known to you to make a generic conclusion about whole class. Poverty drives drugs just look at Mexico or certain DC areas in the evenings. These kids can’t buy expensive alcohol and often die from cheap synthetic drugs.

Show your statistics that wealthier people abuse substances and drugs more !

You mean vs. your statistically-based, scientifically-grounded, “I know these kids and they’d never lie to me” argument? Lol.

Lol. Compelling. But here’s one, just for fun: [url] https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2007/02/21/high-rates-of-teen-drug-abuse-found-in-affluent-areas/

Oh, these are all those rich folks who sent their kids to public. Enjoying the fruits of their own making)

I am not saying private schools are completely immune but they do have higher educational outcomes. Drugs are partying are negatively correlated with educational outcomes, from which is logical to conclude that there are less drugs and partying in private schools.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I know people who are deemed as highly intelligent who buy Teslas, but their kids go to very crappy schools.

I don’t know what they’re thinking. Maybe that education is not important, maybe they think academics are not that important and they are teaching kids the necessary skills themselves. Who knows.

In our private school many kids go to the same state schools as the public school kids.

Aren't you sort of contradicting yourself here? Why does it matter if a kid goes to private school if he or she will just end up at VT, JM, or College Park anyway?

Because it’s not about the college, at least for me. I want to provide a thriving environment for my kid for 12 years that are formative development years.

My colleague drives a Tesla while his kids experience fights with hair pulling, smashing bodies into walls and floors, regular lockdowns for gun threats, low academic standards, prevalent drugs, etc.

I drive a Honda, but my kid is in a calm learning environment with high academic standards, teachers who work in making learning joyful, kids that are
motivated to succeed.

Sorry, that does not make you a better parent

I would disagree. Parents willing to sacrifice to provide their kids better experiences are indeed better parents.

It's not about "willing to sacrifice." Is it really a "better" experience to be in a little bubble of privilege for your formative years? I don't think that's clear at all.

It's not a bubble of privilege, it's an elite-college like learning experience while on a safe campus with similarly minded HS students. If you never experienced it, you can't really judge. People want to be in a certain environment, have smaller classes, have extra time to meet with teachers discuss their science assignments, have involved college advisors, meetings with corporate leaders describing their achievements, travel abroad and exchange experience.
It is indeed a huge difference and knowing it I would be very frustrated not to allow my child experience that, when I can afford it

Did you know that you can find all of those things in a public HS? I have one who graduated from an elite private school and one in a magnet program. The magnet program ticks all of those boxes (probably more than the elite private school), plus has my kid taking more classes, with more advanced STEM options, and an internship experience on top of it. The private school was good for the kid in its own way, but the public magnet is no slouch at preparing a kid to be successful in college.

I do realize it but I still doubt specifically for DC that a local magnet school would be better than an advanced class in a private school where my child is. We were accepted by couple Virginia magnet schools but didnt want to move there. It would be a very long commute from DC for both parents and early morning wake ups/late arrival from school leaving little time do to a typical 4-5 hour long HW assignments. My child is higher level than AP (will be able to skip his freshman's year in college as he already would have taken these course in his HS program)

Weird flex. Its fairly common at our run of the mill non-special public HS for students to start college with enough AP credit to be considered a sophomore.

It's not fairly common for public schools and also depends which college.

Whelp don’t know what to tell you. My kids go to a public school that most people on this board would never send their kids to and there are plenty of kids with 8 AP classes over the course of their HS experience which would make them technically a college sophomore. It’s available and an option to kids academically capable. Just off the top of my head kids can take AP in the following:


Calc AB
Calc BC
Stats
World history
US history
Government
World geography
Bio
Chem
Physics
French
Spanish
Latin
German
Literature

I’m sure I’m missing some…

Of course I agree all these are available but the environment wouldn't be conducive of learning: larger classes, teachers have less time to support through a number of AP classes, fighting, partying or very sexually active classmates. All families with daughters enrolled in public schools have issues with girls de-facto living with boyfriends (not at parents' home) in HS. These are McLean High, WW, Poolsville schools which are not bad at all. Kids just don't want and don't take these courses because it;s not "popular" that's it

“All families with daughters enrolled in public school” most definitely DO NOT have these issues. WTH are you talking about. I’m sure some do, as I’m sure some private kids do. But you apparently know nothing about public school if you think this.

I corrected myself - not all, but many. And I know many families from such "top rated" public schools from my child's sport team. More partying, drugs and sex talk for sure about schools' experiences

I'm still stuck on the part where you think there is no drinking, drugs, sex, and unsupervised teens in private school. You're kidding, right?

In ours (NW DC quadrant) it's zero. All who parties were informally and very insistently squeezed out by upper middle school and transferred elsewhere

This might be the funniest thing I've read today. I believe you that your child isn't doing those things, but I guarantee they are happening, even at your oh-so-special private school.

Nope, kids who party couldn't keep up and were asked to repeat grades. I know from families in question. Kids were moved to more "sports oriented" private schools in the area or to public for HS to get better grades

To clarify - kids were not kicked out. They were given very poor report cards with recommendation to repeat the current grade if they fell behind due to partying or other reasons. Families didn't want to pay extra $50K for another year and moved kids to less demanding programs

What is this amazing private school where nobody parties because anyone who even thinks of doing such a thing is easily identified and given discouraging grades? Seems inconceivable to me — not to mention inconsistent with my experience, albeit long ago, as an undergrad in the Ivy League — that absolutely no kids who use drugs or drink were also capable of keeping their grades up.

Probably Sidwell but they can barely get any kids into Cornell

I have known enough Sidwell alums over the years to suspect that either (a) it's not Sidwell or (b) they have done a LOT of work recently to absolutely crush the idea of partying out of the student body.

I can't confirm the school, but statement about doing a LOT of work addressing partying, socially obnoxious behaviors and drugs security was indeed done. I was in a position one being interrogated by a "diversity" counselor accompanied by a security guard once ( after a parent complaint at my son's behavior when in lower middle school). The meeting lasted 2 hours over a pretty minor incident and I can assure it was not pleasant. It's a pretty strict environment and kids who don't fit are squeezed out. You can believe it or not but the families attending impose very high expectations about what their kids experience when at school and from their classmates. Complaints are very common.

Behavior in lower middle school that the school believes necessitates an intervention with a diversity counselor is not quite the same as high school kids drinking or using drugs on the weekends — nor does that necessarily indicate that there's no partying going on.

Generally speaking, wealthier, more privileged kids use alcohol and drugs at least as much, if not more, than lower-income kids do. Why would this one private school where PP's kids go be so different — and how likely is that no one else is aware of its straight-edge ways, if it is?

I know my child's classmates pretty well and none of them drink alcohol. Maybe its your wishful thinking to assure and justify your decision not to invest in your child's education. But grades, SAT higher scores don't go along with heavy partying, drugs or drinking (on average). It's easy to check average scores for all schools, public and private on niche. Even better: go for coffee near Woodrow Wilson HS in the afternoon or to any of the named schools at dismissal. You'll see a dramatic behavioral difference for sure what kids do when they walk home

NP. More $$$ = more partying.

“Work hard, play hard” is the prep school mantra. And the parents are always clueless.

Virtually every Ivy-bound kid at my private HS was heavily into the party scene, including one kid with a love of cocaine that would have shocked his traditional Korean parents.

He did well at Harvard and is now a quasi famous doctor.

Thanks for using a common logical fallacy - use of a single example known to you to make a generic conclusion about whole class. Poverty drives drugs just look at Mexico or certain DC areas in the evenings. These kids can’t buy expensive alcohol and often die from cheap synthetic drugs.

Show your statistics that wealthier people abuse substances and drugs more !

You mean vs. your statistically-based, scientifically-grounded, “I know these kids and they’d never lie to me” argument? Lol.

Lol. Compelling. But here’s one, just for fun: [url] https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2007/02/21/high-rates-of-teen-drug-abuse-found-in-affluent-areas/

Oh, these are all those rich folks who sent their kids to public. Enjoying the fruits of their own making)

I am not saying private schools are completely immune but they do have higher educational outcomes. Drugs are partying are negatively correlated with educational outcomes, from which is logical to conclude that there are less drugs and partying in private schools.

There is no reasoning with you so I’m gonna stop trying.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:I know people who are deemed as highly intelligent who buy Teslas, but their kids go to very crappy schools.

I don’t know what they’re thinking. Maybe that education is not important, maybe they think academics are not that important and they are teaching kids the necessary skills themselves. Who knows.

In our private school many kids go to the same state schools as the public school kids.

Aren't you sort of contradicting yourself here? Why does it matter if a kid goes to private school if he or she will just end up at VT, JM, or College Park anyway?

Because it’s not about the college, at least for me. I want to provide a thriving environment for my kid for 12 years that are formative development years.

My colleague drives a Tesla while his kids experience fights with hair pulling, smashing bodies into walls and floors, regular lockdowns for gun threats, low academic standards, prevalent drugs, etc.

I drive a Honda, but my kid is in a calm learning environment with high academic standards, teachers who work in making learning joyful, kids that are
motivated to succeed.

Sorry, that does not make you a better parent

I would disagree. Parents willing to sacrifice to provide their kids better experiences are indeed better parents.

It's not about "willing to sacrifice." Is it really a "better" experience to be in a little bubble of privilege for your formative years? I don't think that's clear at all.

It's not a bubble of privilege, it's an elite-college like learning experience while on a safe campus with similarly minded HS students. If you never experienced it, you can't really judge. People want to be in a certain environment, have smaller classes, have extra time to meet with teachers discuss their science assignments, have involved college advisors, meetings with corporate leaders describing their achievements, travel abroad and exchange experience.
It is indeed a huge difference and knowing it I would be very frustrated not to allow my child experience that, when I can afford it

Did you know that you can find all of those things in a public HS? I have one who graduated from an elite private school and one in a magnet program. The magnet program ticks all of those boxes (probably more than the elite private school), plus has my kid taking more classes, with more advanced STEM options, and an internship experience on top of it. The private school was good for the kid in its own way, but the public magnet is no slouch at preparing a kid to be successful in college.

I do realize it but I still doubt specifically for DC that a local magnet school would be better than an advanced class in a private school where my child is. We were accepted by couple Virginia magnet schools but didnt want to move there. It would be a very long commute from DC for both parents and early morning wake ups/late arrival from school leaving little time do to a typical 4-5 hour long HW assignments. My child is higher level than AP (will be able to skip his freshman's year in college as he already would have taken these course in his HS program)

Weird flex. Its fairly common at our run of the mill non-special public HS for students to start college with enough AP credit to be considered a sophomore.

It's not fairly common for public schools and also depends which college.

Whelp don’t know what to tell you. My kids go to a public school that most people on this board would never send their kids to and there are plenty of kids with 8 AP classes over the course of their HS experience which would make them technically a college sophomore. It’s available and an option to kids academically capable. Just off the top of my head kids can take AP in the following:


Calc AB
Calc BC
Stats
World history
US history
Government
World geography
Bio
Chem
Physics
French
Spanish
Latin
German
Literature

I’m sure I’m missing some…

Of course I agree all these are available but the environment wouldn't be conducive of learning: larger classes, teachers have less time to support through a number of AP classes, fighting, partying or very sexually active classmates. All families with daughters enrolled in public schools have issues with girls de-facto living with boyfriends (not at parents' home) in HS. These are McLean High, WW, Poolsville schools which are not bad at all. Kids just don't want and don't take these courses because it;s not "popular" that's it

“All families with daughters enrolled in public school” most definitely DO NOT have these issues. WTH are you talking about. I’m sure some do, as I’m sure some private kids do. But you apparently know nothing about public school if you think this.

I corrected myself - not all, but many. And I know many families from such "top rated" public schools from my child's sport team. More partying, drugs and sex talk for sure about schools' experiences

I'm still stuck on the part where you think there is no drinking, drugs, sex, and unsupervised teens in private school. You're kidding, right?

In ours (NW DC quadrant) it's zero. All who parties were informally and very insistently squeezed out by upper middle school and transferred elsewhere

This might be the funniest thing I've read today. I believe you that your child isn't doing those things, but I guarantee they are happening, even at your oh-so-special private school.

Nope, kids who party couldn't keep up and were asked to repeat grades. I know from families in question. Kids were moved to more "sports oriented" private schools in the area or to public for HS to get better grades

To clarify - kids were not kicked out. They were given very poor report cards with recommendation to repeat the current grade if they fell behind due to partying or other reasons. Families didn't want to pay extra $50K for another year and moved kids to less demanding programs

What is this amazing private school where nobody parties because anyone who even thinks of doing such a thing is easily identified and given discouraging grades? Seems inconceivable to me — not to mention inconsistent with my experience, albeit long ago, as an undergrad in the Ivy League — that absolutely no kids who use drugs or drink were also capable of keeping their grades up.

Probably Sidwell but they can barely get any kids into Cornell

I have known enough Sidwell alums over the years to suspect that either (a) it's not Sidwell or (b) they have done a LOT of work recently to absolutely crush the idea of partying out of the student body.

I can't confirm the school, but statement about doing a LOT of work addressing partying, socially obnoxious behaviors and drugs security was indeed done. I was in a position one being interrogated by a "diversity" counselor accompanied by a security guard once ( after a parent complaint at my son's behavior when in lower middle school). The meeting lasted 2 hours over a pretty minor incident and I can assure it was not pleasant. It's a pretty strict environment and kids who don't fit are squeezed out. You can believe it or not but the families attending impose very high expectations about what their kids experience when at school and from their classmates. Complaints are very common.

Behavior in lower middle school that the school believes necessitates an intervention with a diversity counselor is not quite the same as high school kids drinking or using drugs on the weekends — nor does that necessarily indicate that there's no partying going on.

Generally speaking, wealthier, more privileged kids use alcohol and drugs at least as much, if not more, than lower-income kids do. Why would this one private school where PP's kids go be so different — and how likely is that no one else is aware of its straight-edge ways, if it is?

I know my child's classmates pretty well and none of them drink alcohol. Maybe its your wishful thinking to assure and justify your decision not to invest in your child's education. But grades, SAT higher scores don't go along with heavy partying, drugs or drinking (on average). It's easy to check average scores for all schools, public and private on niche. Even better: go for coffee near Woodrow Wilson HS in the afternoon or to any of the named schools at dismissal. You'll see a dramatic behavioral difference for sure what kids do when they walk home

NP. More $$$ = more partying.

“Work hard, play hard” is the prep school mantra. And the parents are always clueless.

Virtually every Ivy-bound kid at my private HS was heavily into the party scene, including one kid with a love of cocaine that would have shocked his traditional Korean parents.

He did well at Harvard and is now a quasi famous doctor.

Thanks for using a common logical fallacy - use of a single example known to you to make a generic conclusion about whole class. Poverty drives drugs just look at Mexico or certain DC areas in the evenings. These kids can’t buy expensive alcohol and often die from cheap synthetic drugs.

Show your statistics that wealthier people abuse substances and drugs more !

You mean vs. your statistically-based, scientifically-grounded, “I know these kids and they’d never lie to me” argument? Lol.

Lol. Compelling. But here’s one, just for fun: [url] https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2007/02/21/high-rates-of-teen-drug-abuse-found-in-affluent-areas/

Oh, these are all those rich folks who sent their kids to public. Enjoying the fruits of their own making)

I am not saying private schools are completely immune but they do have higher educational outcomes. Drugs are partying are negatively correlated with educational outcomes, from which is logical to conclude that there are less drugs and partying in private schools.

Did you attend a private?

You sure sound like you didn’t.

I did. You’re awfully naive.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I know people who are deemed as highly intelligent who buy Teslas, but their kids go to very crappy schools.

I don’t know what they’re thinking. Maybe that education is not important, maybe they think academics are not that important and they are teaching kids the necessary skills themselves. Who knows.

In our private school many kids go to the same state schools as the public school kids.

Aren't you sort of contradicting yourself here? Why does it matter if a kid goes to private school if he or she will just end up at VT, JM, or College Park anyway?

Because it’s not about the college, at least for me. I want to provide a thriving environment for my kid for 12 years that are formative development years.

My colleague drives a Tesla while his kids experience fights with hair pulling, smashing bodies into walls and floors, regular lockdowns for gun threats, low academic standards, prevalent drugs, etc.

I drive a Honda, but my kid is in a calm learning environment with high academic standards, teachers who work in making learning joyful, kids that are
motivated to succeed.

Sorry, that does not make you a better parent

I would disagree. Parents willing to sacrifice to provide their kids better experiences are indeed better parents.

It's not about "willing to sacrifice." Is it really a "better" experience to be in a little bubble of privilege for your formative years? I don't think that's clear at all.

It's not a bubble of privilege, it's an elite-college like learning experience while on a safe campus with similarly minded HS students. If you never experienced it, you can't really judge. People want to be in a certain environment, have smaller classes, have extra time to meet with teachers discuss their science assignments, have involved college advisors, meetings with corporate leaders describing their achievements, travel abroad and exchange experience.
It is indeed a huge difference and knowing it I would be very frustrated not to allow my child experience that, when I can afford it

Did you know that you can find all of those things in a public HS? I have one who graduated from an elite private school and one in a magnet program. The magnet program ticks all of those boxes (probably more than the elite private school), plus has my kid taking more classes, with more advanced STEM options, and an internship experience on top of it. The private school was good for the kid in its own way, but the public magnet is no slouch at preparing a kid to be successful in college.

I do realize it but I still doubt specifically for DC that a local magnet school would be better than an advanced class in a private school where my child is. We were accepted by couple Virginia magnet schools but didnt want to move there. It would be a very long commute from DC for both parents and early morning wake ups/late arrival from school leaving little time do to a typical 4-5 hour long HW assignments. My child is higher level than AP (will be able to skip his freshman's year in college as he already would have taken these course in his HS program)

Weird flex. Its fairly common at our run of the mill non-special public HS for students to start college with enough AP credit to be considered a sophomore.

It's not fairly common for public schools and also depends which college.

Whelp don’t know what to tell you. My kids go to a public school that most people on this board would never send their kids to and there are plenty of kids with 8 AP classes over the course of their HS experience which would make them technically a college sophomore. It’s available and an option to kids academically capable. Just off the top of my head kids can take AP in the following:


Calc AB
Calc BC
Stats
World history
US history
Government
World geography
Bio
Chem
Physics
French
Spanish
Latin
German
Literature

I’m sure I’m missing some…

Of course I agree all these are available but the environment wouldn't be conducive of learning: larger classes, teachers have less time to support through a number of AP classes, fighting, partying or very sexually active classmates. All families with daughters enrolled in public schools have issues with girls de-facto living with boyfriends (not at parents' home) in HS. These are McLean High, WW, Poolsville schools which are not bad at all. Kids just don't want and don't take these courses because it;s not "popular" that's it

“All families with daughters enrolled in public school” most definitely DO NOT have these issues. WTH are you talking about. I’m sure some do, as I’m sure some private kids do. But you apparently know nothing about public school if you think this.

I corrected myself - not all, but many. And I know many families from such "top rated" public schools from my child's sport team. More partying, drugs and sex talk for sure about schools' experiences

I'm still stuck on the part where you think there is no drinking, drugs, sex, and unsupervised teens in private school. You're kidding, right?

In ours (NW DC quadrant) it's zero. All who parties were informally and very insistently squeezed out by upper middle school and transferred elsewhere

This might be the funniest thing I've read today. I believe you that your child isn't doing those things, but I guarantee they are happening, even at your oh-so-special private school.

Nope, kids who party couldn't keep up and were asked to repeat grades. I know from families in question. Kids were moved to more "sports oriented" private schools in the area or to public for HS to get better grades

To clarify - kids were not kicked out. They were given very poor report cards with recommendation to repeat the current grade if they fell behind due to partying or other reasons. Families didn't want to pay extra $50K for another year and moved kids to less demanding programs

What is this amazing private school where nobody parties because anyone who even thinks of doing such a thing is easily identified and given discouraging grades? Seems inconceivable to me — not to mention inconsistent with my experience, albeit long ago, as an undergrad in the Ivy League — that absolutely no kids who use drugs or drink were also capable of keeping their grades up.

Probably Sidwell but they can barely get any kids into Cornell

I have known enough Sidwell alums over the years to suspect that either (a) it's not Sidwell or (b) they have done a LOT of work recently to absolutely crush the idea of partying out of the student body.

I can't confirm the school, but statement about doing a LOT of work addressing partying, socially obnoxious behaviors and drugs security was indeed done. I was in a position one being interrogated by a "diversity" counselor accompanied by a security guard once ( after a parent complaint at my son's behavior when in lower middle school). The meeting lasted 2 hours over a pretty minor incident and I can assure it was not pleasant. It's a pretty strict environment and kids who don't fit are squeezed out. You can believe it or not but the families attending impose very high expectations about what their kids experience when at school and from their classmates. Complaints are very common.

Behavior in lower middle school that the school believes necessitates an intervention with a diversity counselor is not quite the same as high school kids drinking or using drugs on the weekends — nor does that necessarily indicate that there's no partying going on.

Generally speaking, wealthier, more privileged kids use alcohol and drugs at least as much, if not more, than lower-income kids do. Why would this one private school where PP's kids go be so different — and how likely is that no one else is aware of its straight-edge ways, if it is?

I know my child's classmates pretty well and none of them drink alcohol. Maybe its your wishful thinking to assure and justify your decision not to invest in your child's education. But grades, SAT higher scores don't go along with heavy partying, drugs or drinking (on average). It's easy to check average scores for all schools, public and private on niche. Even better: go for coffee near Woodrow Wilson HS in the afternoon or to any of the named schools at dismissal. You'll see a dramatic behavioral difference for sure what kids do when they walk home

I don't really care about average scores, to be honest -- the only thing that'll show you is that there are kids at large public high schools who don't perform as well as other kids there. If I'm supposed to be sending my kids to elite private schools instead of to public schools, in your view, then I should also probably feel fairly confident that they will make up part of the upper end of the test score distribution. And I don't think it's bad for my kids to go to a school where some kids get lower grades, or lower SAT scores, or behave differently when they leave school.

I suppose it's possible that in the decades since I was in high school, things really have changed such that only public school kids ever drink, use drugs, or engage in behavior that most parents of teenagers would rather they didn't do. That wasn't the case back then. And it seems unlikely to have changed that way based on either news coverage of teenage life or common sense. Most research finds that wealthier kids and/or kids in private school are at the same, if not higher, risk of using drugs than public school kids are (here's one example: https://rehabs.com/blog/elite-schools-dont-protect-teens-from-drug-use/).

Finally, I hope you're right about none of your kids' friends using alcohol, but I bet my parents would have said the same about my friends years ago, and they would have been wrong.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know people who are deemed as highly intelligent who buy Teslas, but their kids go to very crappy schools.

I don’t know what they’re thinking. Maybe that education is not important, maybe they think academics are not that important and they are teaching kids the necessary skills themselves. Who knows.

In our private school many kids go to the same state schools as the public school kids.

Aren't you sort of contradicting yourself here? Why does it matter if a kid goes to private school if he or she will just end up at VT, JM, or College Park anyway?

Because it’s not about the college, at least for me. I want to provide a thriving environment for my kid for 12 years that are formative development years.

My colleague drives a Tesla while his kids experience fights with hair pulling, smashing bodies into walls and floors, regular lockdowns for gun threats, low academic standards, prevalent drugs, etc.

I drive a Honda, but my kid is in a calm learning environment with high academic standards, teachers who work in making learning joyful, kids that are
motivated to succeed.

Sorry, that does not make you a better parent

I would disagree. Parents willing to sacrifice to provide their kids better experiences are indeed better parents.

It's not about "willing to sacrifice." Is it really a "better" experience to be in a little bubble of privilege for your formative years? I don't think that's clear at all.

It's not a bubble of privilege, it's an elite-college like learning experience while on a safe campus with similarly minded HS students. If you never experienced it, you can't really judge. People want to be in a certain environment, have smaller classes, have extra time to meet with teachers discuss their science assignments, have involved college advisors, meetings with corporate leaders describing their achievements, travel abroad and exchange experience.
It is indeed a huge difference and knowing it I would be very frustrated not to allow my child experience that, when I can afford it

Did you know that you can find all of those things in a public HS? I have one who graduated from an elite private school and one in a magnet program. The magnet program ticks all of those boxes (probably more than the elite private school), plus has my kid taking more classes, with more advanced STEM options, and an internship experience on top of it. The private school was good for the kid in its own way, but the public magnet is no slouch at preparing a kid to be successful in college.

I do realize it but I still doubt specifically for DC that a local magnet school would be better than an advanced class in a private school where my child is. We were accepted by couple Virginia magnet schools but didnt want to move there. It would be a very long commute from DC for both parents and early morning wake ups/late arrival from school leaving little time do to a typical 4-5 hour long HW assignments. My child is higher level than AP (will be able to skip his freshman's year in college as he already would have taken these course in his HS program)

Weird flex. Its fairly common at our run of the mill non-special public HS for students to start college with enough AP credit to be considered a sophomore.

It's not fairly common for public schools and also depends which college.

Whelp don’t know what to tell you. My kids go to a public school that most people on this board would never send their kids to and there are plenty of kids with 8 AP classes over the course of their HS experience which would make them technically a college sophomore. It’s available and an option to kids academically capable. Just off the top of my head kids can take AP in the following:


Calc AB
Calc BC
Stats
World history
US history
Government
World geography
Bio
Chem
Physics
French
Spanish
Latin
German
Literature

I’m sure I’m missing some…

Of course I agree all these are available but the environment wouldn't be conducive of learning: larger classes, teachers have less time to support through a number of AP classes, fighting, partying or very sexually active classmates. All families with daughters enrolled in public schools have issues with girls de-facto living with boyfriends (not at parents' home) in HS. These are McLean High, WW, Poolsville schools which are not bad at all. Kids just don't want and don't take these courses because it;s not "popular" that's it

“All families with daughters enrolled in public school” most definitely DO NOT have these issues. WTH are you talking about. I’m sure some do, as I’m sure some private kids do. But you apparently know nothing about public school if you think this.

I corrected myself - not all, but many. And I know many families from such "top rated" public schools from my child's sport team. More partying, drugs and sex talk for sure about schools' experiences

I'm still stuck on the part where you think there is no drinking, drugs, sex, and unsupervised teens in private school. You're kidding, right?

In ours (NW DC quadrant) it's zero. All who parties were informally and very insistently squeezed out by upper middle school and transferred elsewhere

This might be the funniest thing I've read today. I believe you that your child isn't doing those things, but I guarantee they are happening, even at your oh-so-special private school.

Nope, kids who party couldn't keep up and were asked to repeat grades. I know from families in question. Kids were moved to more "sports oriented" private schools in the area or to public for HS to get better grades

To clarify - kids were not kicked out. They were given very poor report cards with recommendation to repeat the current grade if they fell behind due to partying or other reasons. Families didn't want to pay extra $50K for another year and moved kids to less demanding programs

What is this amazing private school where nobody parties because anyone who even thinks of doing such a thing is easily identified and given discouraging grades? Seems inconceivable to me — not to mention inconsistent with my experience, albeit long ago, as an undergrad in the Ivy League — that absolutely no kids who use drugs or drink were also capable of keeping their grades up.

Probably Sidwell but they can barely get any kids into Cornell

I have known enough Sidwell alums over the years to suspect that either (a) it's not Sidwell or (b) they have done a LOT of work recently to absolutely crush the idea of partying out of the student body.

I can't confirm the school, but statement about doing a LOT of work addressing partying, socially obnoxious behaviors and drugs security was indeed done. I was in a position one being interrogated by a "diversity" counselor accompanied by a security guard once ( after a parent complaint at my son's behavior when in lower middle school). The meeting lasted 2 hours over a pretty minor incident and I can assure it was not pleasant. It's a pretty strict environment and kids who don't fit are squeezed out. You can believe it or not but the families attending impose very high expectations about what their kids experience when at school and from their classmates. Complaints are very common.

Behavior in lower middle school that the school believes necessitates an intervention with a diversity counselor is not quite the same as high school kids drinking or using drugs on the weekends — nor does that necessarily indicate that there's no partying going on.

Generally speaking, wealthier, more privileged kids use alcohol and drugs at least as much, if not more, than lower-income kids do. Why would this one private school where PP's kids go be so different — and how likely is that no one else is aware of its straight-edge ways, if it is?

I know my child's classmates pretty well and none of them drink alcohol. Maybe its your wishful thinking to assure and justify your decision not to invest in your child's education. But grades, SAT higher scores don't go along with heavy partying, drugs or drinking (on average). It's easy to check average scores for all schools, public and private on niche. Even better: go for coffee near Woodrow Wilson HS in the afternoon or to any of the named schools at dismissal. You'll see a dramatic behavioral difference for sure what kids do when they walk home

NP. More $$$ = more partying.

“Work hard, play hard” is the prep school mantra. And the parents are always clueless.

Virtually every Ivy-bound kid at my private HS was heavily into the party scene, including one kid with a love of cocaine that would have shocked his traditional Korean parents.

He did well at Harvard and is now a quasi famous doctor.

Thanks for using a common logical fallacy - use of a single example known to you to make a generic conclusion about whole class. Poverty drives drugs just look at Mexico or certain DC areas in the evenings. These kids can’t buy expensive alcohol and often die from cheap synthetic drugs.

Show your statistics that wealthier people abuse substances and drugs more !

You mean vs. your statistically-based, scientifically-grounded, “I know these kids and they’d never lie to me” argument? Lol.

Lol. Compelling. But here’s one, just for fun: [url] https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2007/02/21/high-rates-of-teen-drug-abuse-found-in-affluent-areas/

Oh, these are all those rich folks who sent their kids to public. Enjoying the fruits of their own making)

I am not saying private schools are completely immune but they do have higher educational outcomes. Drugs are partying are negatively correlated with educational outcomes, from which is logical to conclude that there are less drugs and partying in private schools.

You know what also correlates strongly with educational outcomes? Household income and family socioeconomic status. I don't know if that explains the ENTIRE difference in outcomes between public and private schools, but I'd be willing to bet it goes farther than marginal variation in how much the average student drinks alcohol at each school.

[Anonymous]

This is us. We have prosocial, communitarian values. (Well, DH drives a $60k car. I drive a $30k car. Cars aren't really my thing. But we do have a nice primary residence and vacation home.)

My kids' schools are Title 1 and majority Black (we're white). There's a lot of misinformation bouncing around the neighborhood that I think is based on subconscious fear and bias. I went to a super competitive, highly ranked suburban high school. I taught in a well regarded suburban school district. I know a thing or two about schools and I can tell you that my kids are getting great educations, just in old buildings with janky furniture and not that many field trips. The schools didn't get laptops until the pandemic forced the district's hand. But the teachers are great, which is the most important thing. We don't have the same issues with fights, bullying, or drugs that you hear about from other schools. My kids are happy and engaged.

I definitely know people whose kids would do better in a private school setting, so I do think it's a case by case thing. But in general, when people put their kids in private and they've never even stepped foot in their neighborhood schools, I pity them for spending money they didn't have to spend just to make their kids less well-rounded and open-minded. Just last night my 7th grader was telling me about her friends at the small, all girls middle school and how they all dislike how insular and strict it is, and that she's glad she goes to a big public school.

Our biology has us wired to give our kids the greatest chance at surviving and thriving in life. It's normal to be driven by that. The key is discerning what really gives our kids a chance at a successful life. Is attending the highest ranked/most exclusive school the way to do that? What do those rankings really reflect? What is the likely difference in outcome if we spend our "private school money" on experiences instead, or we gift it to our kids as a nest egg for their adulthood?

My friend was asked as a public school PTA parent to speak to a group of kids from the most exclusive private school around here. The school wants their students to understand the challenges facing underfunded public schools. Yeah, because going to the most expensive and exclusive private school around doesn't teach you that. So . . . the public school is like an exhibit to be viewed? It's just very cringe-worthy, but it's also a real conundrum . . . how do you teach empathy and introduce the real world to children and teens being purposefully kept away from the real world?

[Anonymous]

In addition to household income, educational level of parents, I would add parental involvement to be a key factor in the educational outcome.

Me and my DH were swamped at work last year and we saw our elementary kids grades plummet. Not that grades matter in elementary but we noticed that he was putting in less effort and not doing his best. This school year, I check his papers from schools, ask when his next review test is, offer to help him understand any concepts that he is struggling with. I have started reading to him at bed time again and can clearly see his vocabulary improving over time. Plus enrolled him in extra tutoring services. Did this for two months and I see a remarkable difference in his attitude towards school. He does go to a top rated public school in our state

[Anonymous]

I guess, you have to really investigate how good your local public is.

In our local public schools, in addition to a lot violence and lockdowns, the academic standards are very low. A student may fail a class, but will be given a C so he/she can pass. A parent can ask the teacher to give student extra work to make up for failing grade.

It's like that Covid joke "C's are now B's, B's are A's and if you get an A, you skip a grade."

There are several kids I know from local public schools that were A students, got great test scores and spent their days playing video games and not studying.

They got scholarships to get into colleges because of their grade GPAs and failed the first year because they didn't have study habits.

In our private school you really have to work hard to get an A. It's not easy at all.