Anonymous wrote: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.
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.
All parents should absolutely care about generally accepted stats about schools their kids are attending. And you are not understanding statistics correctly: the mean SAT score shows you that your child's class will have the most common value of X score at graduation. It's not the deviations from the mean (you said "some kids" - that would be an equivalent of more than 2 standard deviations).
And this averages do work: almost everyone (80%) in my child's class at private school tested exact average score as shown on niche, with only a few students being lower or significantly higher. Education, certain training of your brain and plugging in the braid of certain information takes years, and I was shocked to realize how pre-determined the outcome could be (exact same scores as published obtained in class testing!)
On the opposite end, many kids of my friends who are graduating public schools don't even have a 1000 SAT score! They have no college choices beside community colleges that don't require SAT
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.
All parents should absolutely care about generally accepted stats about schools their kids are attending. And you are not understanding statistics correctly: the mean SAT score shows you that your child's class will have the most common value of X score at graduation. It's not the deviations from the mean (you said "some kids" - that would be an equivalent of more than 2 standard deviations).
And this averages do work: almost everyone (80%) in my child's class at private school tested exact average score as shown on niche, with only a few students being lower or significantly higher. Education, certain training of your brain and plugging in the braid of certain information takes years, and I was shocked to realize how pre-determined the outcome could be (exact same scores as published obtained in class testing!)
On the opposite end, many kids of my friends who are graduating public schools don't even have a 1000 SAT score! They have no college choices beside community colleges that don't require SAT
In fact, what shows you the most common value is the mode, not the mean. And the mean can be easily skewed by outliers at the top or the bottom. I know that even though I graduated from (shudder) a public high school.
We have three kids in DCPS. We have a very nice house, but not fancy cars. We believe in community and that our kids need to learn to do well in public school, which represents a realistic version of the world. We don't want them to be in an all-day bubble, coddled and catered to because we are paying a high tuition. We believe that this reality will serve them better in life. We are not concerned about them attending ivy leagues. We want them to attend a decent school and find a career path that they are passionate about.
We have been pleased with their public school education so far. It's not perfect, but we can supplement as needed. We like their school community.
With the money we have saved from not sending them to privates, we will provide them with undergrad tuition and money for their first house. Being debt free and having the ability to buy your first house early on in life is a huge huge help. If they want to attend grad school, they are on their own.
All parents should absolutely care about generally accepted stats about schools their kids are attending. And you are not understanding statistics correctly: the mean SAT score shows you that your child's class will have the most common value of X score at graduation. It's not the deviations from the mean (you said "some kids" - that would be an equivalent of more than 2 standard deviations).
And this averages do work: almost everyone (80%) in my child's class at private school tested exact average score as shown on niche, with only a few students being lower or significantly higher. Education, certain training of your brain and plugging in the braid of certain information takes years, and I was shocked to realize how pre-determined the outcome could be (exact same scores as published obtained in class testing!)
On the opposite end, many kids of my friends who are graduating public schools don't even have a 1000 SAT score! They have no college choices beside community colleges that don't require SAT
At our A rated by Niche public high school only 60% of kids can read at grade level.
All parents should absolutely care about generally accepted stats about schools their kids are attending. And you are not understanding statistics correctly: the mean SAT score shows you that your child's class will have the most common value of X score at graduation. It's not the deviations from the mean (you said "some kids" - that would be an equivalent of more than 2 standard deviations).
And this averages do work: almost everyone (80%) in my child's class at private school tested exact average score as shown on niche, with only a few students being lower or significantly higher. Education, certain training of your brain and plugging in the braid of certain information takes years, and I was shocked to realize how pre-determined the outcome could be (exact same scores as published obtained in class testing!)
On the opposite end, many kids of my friends who are graduating public schools don't even have a 1000 SAT score! They have no college choices beside community colleges that don't require SAT
At our A rated by Niche public high school only 60% of kids can read at grade level.
Anonymous wrote:We have three kids in DCPS. We have a very nice house, but not fancy cars. We believe in community and that our kids need to learn to do well in public school, which represents a realistic version of the world. We don't want them to be in an all-day bubble, coddled and catered to because we are paying a high tuition. We believe that this reality will serve them better in life. We are not concerned about them attending ivy leagues. We want them to attend a decent school and find a career path that they are passionate about.
We have been pleased with their public school education so far. It's not perfect, but we can supplement as needed. We like their school community.
With the money we have saved from not sending them to privates, we will provide them with undergrad tuition and money for their first house. Being debt free and having the ability to buy your first house early on in life is a huge huge help. If they want to attend grad school, they are on their own.
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