Did both parents go to public but you're now sending kids to private?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We're the opposite. Both of us have advanced degrees and neither have ever attended anything but private schools. Our kids are in public. We know it's not worth the money.

I find this fascinating and something I hear often. Just wondering why you don't give credit where credit is due.

I am always amused by posters like this. Despite their educational advantages they are not analytical enough to realize their educational advantages.

Wait, this getting meta, perhaps they are right as private school did not teach them how how to be analytical.

[Anonymous]

We actually did the opposite situation. It's simply not worth the tuition that they're charging. The ROI is not there. We'll set our kids up with nice trust funds instead. I doubt that there are many 25-year-olds who would choose the having attended private K-12 over a 7-figure trust fund.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We're the opposite. Both of us have advanced degrees and neither have ever attended anything but private schools. Our kids are in public. We know it's not worth the money.

I find this fascinating and something I hear often. Just wondering why you don't give credit where credit is due.

I am always amused by posters like this. Despite their educational advantages they are not analytical enough to realize their educational advantages.

Wait, this getting meta, perhaps they are right as private school did not teach them how how to be analytical.

+1 - LOL!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:07:34 -- I'm curious which school you chose, since you are an educator. Did you find in the end that the school delivered on its promises and your child was better than if he/she attended the local public?

GDS, it delivered on its promises, and DC got a better education than should could have at any local public, given her interests and abilities and given our academic values.

I can't tell how much is here and now (compared to how and where I grew up) and how much is private school, but I think there were substantial downsides as well, especially in HS. There's a lot of unhealthy pressure and so many demands/enticements that I think the environment gives kids a really skewed sense of reality and gets in the way of personal/intellectual development. Under different leadership, that's a dynamic that might have been tempered if not reversed, but unfortunately I think it's full speed ahead for the foreseeable future.

This is one of the more interesting ideas I've seen posted in quite some time. DW and I grew up in public schools but opted for a different private for our kids. I agree that one down side is that there is risk of an increased skewed view of the world, as despite the efforts of privates to offer financial aid there remains a disproportionately high number of affluent families -- including those choosing to live an affluent lifestyle (size of homes, extensive travel, etc.). That said, I also have observed that my kids are far more confident than I was at their age. While I dreamed of being deemed worthy to attend a leading college-- not necessarily ivy, just anything top 25 or so, never sure if I would make it -- my reality was that only in-state schools were on the table. My kids coming from privates certainly expect that they will be attend a very good college, and the only issue is which one and how selective. Granted, much of this is simply generational differences in socio-economic circumstances, but I do believe the private school education instills a certain sense that if you work hard you can expect to be in the most successful circles of whatever you do. In some kids that can be arrogance or entitlement. Fortunately, in my kids I think it manifests only as health confidence and realistic ambition. As a public school kid in a working class neighborhood, I was certainly recognized as having potential and my ambition was encouraged, but not to the same degree or in the same way as my kids in private schools. Parents, family friends, teachers and counselors -- they just didn't know how.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:07:34 -- I'm curious which school you chose, since you are an educator. Did you find in the end that the school delivered on its promises and your child was better than if he/she attended the local public?

GDS, it delivered on its promises, and DC got a better education than should could have at any local public, given her interests and abilities and given our academic values.

I can't tell how much is here and now (compared to how and where I grew up) and how much is private school, but I think there were substantial downsides as well, especially in HS. There's a lot of unhealthy pressure and so many demands/enticements that I think the environment gives kids a really skewed sense of reality and gets in the way of personal/intellectual development. Under different leadership, that's a dynamic that might have been tempered if not reversed, but unfortunately I think it's full speed ahead for the foreseeable future.

This is one of the more interesting ideas I've seen posted in quite some time. DW and I grew up in public schools but opted for a different private for our kids. I agree that one down side is that there is risk of an increased skewed view of the world, as despite the efforts of privates to offer financial aid there remains a disproportionately high number of affluent families -- including those choosing to live an affluent lifestyle (size of homes, extensive travel, etc.). That said, I also have observed that my kids are far more confident than I was at their age. While I dreamed of being deemed worthy to attend a leading college-- not necessarily ivy, just anything top 25 or so, never sure if I would make it -- my reality was that only in-state schools were on the table. My kids coming from privates certainly expect that they will be attend a very good college, and the only issue is which one and how selective. Granted, much of this is simply generational differences in socio-economic circumstances, but I do believe the private school education instills a certain sense that if you work hard you can expect to be in the most successful circles of whatever you do. In some kids that can be arrogance or entitlement. Fortunately, in my kids I think it manifests only as health confidence and realistic ambition. As a public school kid in a working class neighborhood, I was certainly recognized as having potential and my ambition was encouraged, but not to the same degree or in the same way as my kids in private schools. Parents, family friends, teachers and counselors -- they just didn't know how.

Many (most?) of those private school kids who feel entitled to admission to highly selective colleges are due for a disappointment. I'm not sure how that's an advantage.

[Anonymous]

7:34 here. I'd say the confidence thing worked out differently in our family. Coming from a working class background, I was more confident than DD is. Basically, for me, there was nowhere to go but up and the academic demands imposed upon me were minimal. (Though housekeeping, childcare, employment demands were higher.) DD, by contrast, has felt like there's no place to go but down and has faced pretty relentless academic demands.

Some of these differences are situational/generational but private school culture has certainly been a contributing factor. FWIW, DD has done just as well as DH and I did academically and wrt college admissions, so it's not a situation where there's any difference in abilities -- just perspective and experience.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yup. Public school ain't what it used to be, and it wasn't ever really any good where we live now. DH and I grew up in upper middle class suburbs with great schools but we now live in a city without good public schools and with great privates.

Meaning what, specifically?

Not PP, but NCLB, emphasis on standardized testing, scapegoating of teachers, deskilling of the profession all strike me as big changes over the past 20 or so years.

No, scapegoating is a constant. NCLB is gone. The emphasis on standardized testing, in my experience, is overhyped, especially by people who do not currently have children in public school. As for deskilling of the profession -- I haven't noticed the professional requirements for teachers becoming more lax; what am I missing?

[Anonymous]

Churn, TFA, alternative credentialing.

NCLB has been in place throughout the period when most people posting here have made decisions about where to send their kids to school. It's been transformative enough during that time that its unclear what will emerge in its wake. The status quo ante seems an unlikely bet.

Reasonable people can disagree about the quality of public schools, comparative merits of public vs private, or differences among publics. But that public schools aren't what they used to be seems pretty indisputable to me, for a host of different reasons, some of which (e.g. changing career opportunities for women, rise of charter schools) haven't even been mentioned yet.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Churn, TFA, alternative credentialing.

NCLB has been in place throughout the period when most people posting here have made decisions about where to send their kids to school. It's been transformative enough during that time that its unclear what will emerge in its wake. The status quo ante seems an unlikely bet.

Reasonable people can disagree about the quality of public schools, comparative merits of public vs private, or differences among publics. But that public schools aren't what they used to be seems pretty indisputable to me, for a host of different reasons, some of which (e.g. changing career opportunities for women, rise of charter schools) haven't even been mentioned yet.

Well, yes, it's indisputable that public schools aren't what they used to be, but it's also so general as to be basically meaningless. Nothing is what it used to be. Nothing has ever been what it used to be.

[Anonymous]

^^^Private schools aren't what they used to be, too, of course.

[Anonymous]

Yes, Heraclitus, we know. But we're talking recent history here (a single generation) and there are some pretty obvious reference points for marking what the nature of the changes have been. And those changes explain why some people who valued their own public school education don't believe that they can replicate that education for their children by sending them to public schools today.

[Anonymous]

I have currently have kids in public and private and there is a big difference. The positives of private education...

Communication, teacher/student ratios, happiness of staff/teachers, more autonomy in private teaching, less paperwork, less standardized testing "teaching", more PE, more recess, less time just sitting in desks listening, more science and history in lower school, more field trips, lower school foreign language classes, more labs and hands on learning, more clubs and after school-learning opportunities, more arts/music, mandatory instrument lessons, uniforms, more school functions/school spirit, more sports options, better facilities, MUCH better cafeteria food (breakfast and lunch included in tuition), mainly around kids that actually enjoy learning, it is cool to be smart, etc..

One kid can work in the greenhouse or build robotics for science, does a play for English/comprehension, has math outside on the playground (because it is way too nice to sit inside!) doing multiplication facts with four square and division with basketball. Have all the kids out on a snowy day for recess. Have your teachers and heads sit with you and your class at lunch and talk about what is going on in everyone's lives.

The other kid sits in a classroom all day and usually even has their 25min of recess indoors with 50+ kids to a room because it is wet, cold, rainy, snowy, etc... There is no outside-the-box learning in public. It is a straight up curriculum the teachers must abide by and quickly get thru it for tests or before the next unit starts.

Honestly, it is night and day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have currently have kids in public and private and there is a big difference. The positives of private education...

Communication, teacher/student ratios, happiness of staff/teachers, more autonomy in private teaching, less paperwork, less standardized testing "teaching", more PE, more recess, less time just sitting in desks listening, more science and history in lower school, more field trips, lower school foreign language classes, more labs and hands on learning, more clubs and after school-learning opportunities, more arts/music, mandatory instrument lessons, uniforms, more school functions/school spirit, more sports options, better facilities, MUCH better cafeteria food (breakfast and lunch included in tuition), mainly around kids that actually enjoy learning, it is cool to be smart, etc..

One kid can work in the greenhouse or build robotics for science, does a play for English/comprehension, has math outside on the playground (because it is way too nice to sit inside!) doing multiplication facts with four square and division with basketball. Have all the kids out on a snowy day for recess. Have your teachers and heads sit with you and your class at lunch and talk about what is going on in everyone's lives.

The other kid sits in a classroom all day and usually even has their 25min of recess indoors with 50+ kids to a room because it is wet, cold, rainy, snowy, etc... There is no outside-the-box learning in public. It is a straight up curriculum the teachers must abide by and quickly get thru it for tests or before the next unit starts.

Honestly, it is night and day.

I'm a pp - another parent (public schooled, both me and my husband) with one in public, one in private. You summed this up VERY well. It makes it really hard for the child who is not in private, IMHO, but we really felt we had no option with our eldest. Hopefully we will get some F/A and have the younger one benefit from this experience as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We actually did the opposite situation. It's simply not worth the tuition that they're charging. The ROI is not there. We'll set our kids up with nice trust funds instead. I doubt that there are many 25-year-olds who would choose the having attended private K-12 over a 7-figure trust fund.

What is wrong with people? What does a 25 year old news with a trust fund, other than yet another reason to not make anything of themselves? Disgusting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We actually did the opposite situation. It's simply not worth the tuition that they're charging. The ROI is not there. We'll set our kids up with nice trust funds instead. I doubt that there are many 25-year-olds who would choose the having attended private K-12 over a 7-figure trust fund.

What is wrong with people? What does a 25 year old news with a trust fund, other than yet another reason to not make anything of themselves? Disgusting.

Agree. This is disgusting and the values it represents are not admirable.