I would prefer that my child's teacher not give me these reasons for working in private school:

[Anonymous]

To quote another parenting site: I call fake. OP is bored and is using cliches to start a thread. Interesting responses though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The class sizes are smaller, making work easier.
Less test pressure, making it easier.
Better behaved children, easier to work with.
Children who have been tested and are above average, making it easier to teach.

You see, from my perspective, I want a teacher who can work well with large classes of average children and test pressures teaching my kid in either environment. I believe that the teachers who are successful in the tougher environments are better teachers overall. I get suspicious when some individuals seek out the private schools perhaps because they are not up to the challenges.
Would you want a lawyer who only takes easy cases? What if your case gets more complicated?
Would you want a pediatrician who only wants to see well children? What happens when your child gets sick?

Would you prefer they give you the honest answer? That there's nothing else they can do with their liberal arts degrees and the public schools won't take them?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The class sizes are smaller, making work easier.
Less test pressure, making it easier.
Better behaved children, easier to work with.
Children who have been tested and are above average, making it easier to teach.

You see, from my perspective, I want a teacher who can work well with large classes of average children and test pressures teaching my kid in either environment. I believe that the teachers who are successful in the tougher environments are better teachers overall. I get suspicious when some individuals seek out the private schools perhaps because they are not up to the challenges.
Would you want a lawyer who only takes easy cases? What if your case gets more complicated?
Would you want a pediatrician who only wants to see well children? What happens when your child gets sick?

Would you prefer they give you the honest answer? That there's nothing else they can do with their liberal arts degrees and the public schools won't take them?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The class sizes are smaller, making work easier.
Less test pressure, making it easier.
Better behaved children, easier to work with.
Children who have been tested and are above average, making it easier to teach.

You see, from my perspective, I want a teacher who can work well with large classes of average children and test pressures teaching my kid in either environment. I believe that the teachers who are successful in the tougher environments are better teachers overall. I get suspicious when some individuals seek out the private schools perhaps because they are not up to the challenges.
Would you want a lawyer who only takes easy cases? What if your case gets more complicated?
Would you want a pediatrician who only wants to see well children? What happens when your child gets sick?

Would you prefer they give you the honest answer? That there's nothing else they can do with their liberal arts degrees and the public schools won't take them?

At DC's school the more likely answer would be I love the field I'm teaching. I'm happy to be at a school where I can develop my own curriculum, where I have great colleagues and opportunities for meaningful collaboration, where professional development isn't always in-services but includes grants for travel and study and even the occasional sabbatical. I want to work for/with an administration that values my knowledge and sees its job as supporting me and helping me improve rather than controlling me or using me as a scapegoat.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The class sizes are smaller, making work easier.
Less test pressure, making it easier.
Better behaved children, easier to work with.
Children who have been tested and are above average, making it easier to teach.

You see, from my perspective, I want a teacher who can work well with large classes of average children and test pressures teaching my kid in either environment. I believe that the teachers who are successful in the tougher environments are better teachers overall. I get suspicious when some individuals seek out the private schools perhaps because they are not up to the challenges.
Would you want a lawyer who only takes easy cases? What if your case gets more complicated?
Would you want a pediatrician who only wants to see well children? What happens when your child gets sick?

Would you prefer they give you the honest answer? That there's nothing else they can do with their liberal arts degrees and the public schools won't take them?

Yep, the angry trolls are out. Roll over and hit the snooze button, teachers, nothing to worry about here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The class sizes are smaller, making work easier.
Less test pressure, making it easier.
Better behaved children, easier to work with.
Children who have been tested and are above average, making it easier to teach.

You see, from my perspective, I want a teacher who can work well with large classes of average children and test pressures teaching my kid in either environment. I believe that the teachers who are successful in the tougher environments are better teachers overall. I get suspicious when some individuals seek out the private schools perhaps because they are not up to the challenges.
Would you want a lawyer who only takes easy cases? What if your case gets more complicated?
Would you want a pediatrician who only wants to see well children? What happens when your child gets sick?

Would you prefer they give you the honest answer? That there's nothing else they can do with their liberal arts degrees and the public schools won't take them?

Some of the best teachers my DCs have had are not qualified to teach in public schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The class sizes are smaller, making work easier.
Less test pressure, making it easier.
Better behaved children, easier to work with.
Children who have been tested and are above average, making it easier to teach.

"The class sizes are smaller, so I can focus on the emotional and social development of each child, not just his/her academic progress; and I can get to know their families as well.
Less test pressure -- so we have the freedom as a school to design what we believe to be a more meaningful curriculum than the state mandated one.
Better behaved children -- and support from administration and parents when children do behave badly to work with them and figure out a plan for what to do and why this is happening;
Children who are of above average intelligence -- so the kids are generally fast learners and ask a lot of questions -- this challenges me as a teacher and excites me!"

[Anonymous]

That may be what you'd like to hear, but if it's what I heard, I'd thinking it was BS.

I don't think private schools administrators and parents are more supportive of teachers when it comes to disciplinary issues. I don't think private school students are generally fast learners or of above average intelligence -- or even that those are the most fun/challenging/rewarding students to teach. (The B+ kids can be pretty uninspiring actually). And getting to know the families is a real mixed bag.

[Anonymous]

I think many would say "I don't have the proper certification to teach in public school." I know that is true for my sister in law.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The class sizes are smaller, making work easier.
Less test pressure, making it easier.
Better behaved children, easier to work with.
Children who have been tested and are above average, making it easier to teach.

You see, from my perspective, I want a teacher who can work well with large classes of average children and test pressures teaching my kid in either environment. I believe that the teachers who are successful in the tougher environments are better teachers overall. I get suspicious when some individuals seek out the private schools perhaps because they are not up to the challenges.
Would you want a lawyer who only takes easy cases? What if your case gets more complicated?
Would you want a pediatrician who only wants to see well children? What happens when your child gets sick?

+1 I agree whole heartedly. We are at a top private school and I have a feeling that many of the teachers are hiding out.

[Anonymous]

So what's stopping you from switching to public?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The class sizes are smaller, making work easier.
Less test pressure, making it easier.
Better behaved children, easier to work with.
Children who have been tested and are above average, making it easier to teach.

You see, from my perspective, I want a teacher who can work well with large classes of average children and test pressures teaching my kid in either environment. I believe that the teachers who are successful in the tougher environments are better teachers overall. I get suspicious when some individuals seek out the private schools perhaps because they are not up to the challenges.
Would you want a lawyer who only takes easy cases? What if your case gets more complicated?
Would you want a pediatrician who only wants to see well children? What happens when your child gets sick?

+1 I agree whole heartedly. We are at a top private school and I have a feeling that many of the teachers are hiding out.

If the teaching is so poor you're a sucker for paying $35,000.

This thread is so mean-spirited and ignorant. Hopefully it really was started by someone just trying to gin up a private school/public school debate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Children who have been tested and are above average, making it easier to teach.

OK, so the teacher is not very good
I say this because my nephew who is living abroad is in an advanced program, and happen to know his teacher has worked at a special needs school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Children who have been tested and are above average, making it easier to teach.

OK, so the teacher is not very good
I say this because my nephew who is living abroad is in an advanced program, and happen to know his teacher has worked at a special needs school.

Awesome non sequitur post.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would prefer private school teachers not:
-Tell me the reason they are working at the school is because of the tuition remission policy;
-tell me how much more money they could be making working at a public school or for a company; and
-complain about how little their raise was compared to the tuition increase (don’t they realize it affected me more?).
And yes, all of these things have happened to me multiple times.

Really? Multiple times? I'm a private school teacher and I can't even imagine a context in which this would come up in conversation with a parent, and even if it did, it's hard to believe that a teacher would say this to a parent.

I’m the PP and not the OP and sadly, it’s true. My oldest is out of college, so we’ve been in private school for years. In addition to the comments I identified, I’ve had teachers complain to me about other teachers, parents, and what’s worse, other kids. It’s the culture of the schools. The teachers are either very professional or they aren’t.

"Schools"? Maybe your school. At my school teachers certainly aren't using parents as a sounding board for gripes about other teachers and students (?!?!) I would be fired if I did this.