If you could mix the best parts of private school and the best parts of public school

[Anonymous]

what would your dream school look like?

[Anonymous]

Oh, I'll play. I've had kids in both public and private:

My ideal school would be big and diverse enough to have the benefits of public schools, where kids meet and interact with a wide range of people economically and otherwise. But classes would be smaller than the average public -- a limit of 16 kids in elementary and 20 kids for high school.

The school would have the energy of a large school, with lots of clubs and activities, but teachers and administrators would know my child as an individual. High school kids would have a teacher assigned as a mentor/advisor, and I don't just mean a guidance counselor.

The class day would start at a human hour -- between 8 and 9am -- and would end a bit later, say at 3 or 3:30 pm. In high school, kids would have block schedules. Classes would be longer and meet every other day. All kids would get one free period a day, apart from lunch, to meet with teachers, get started on homework, or just relax.

Ideally, my school would welcome kids from all backgrounds, including kids with special needs, but would have the ability to remove kids who were disruptive to the learning environment.

Finally, my ideal school would ask everyone to pay on a sliding scale, according to what the family could afford. Everyone, however, would have to pay something for their child to attend. Also, parents would be required to commit to some minimal level of involvement. Not helicopter level, but something to ensure they had a stake in their child's education.

My ideal school could never exist, of course. It just doesn't work that way.

[Anonymous]

I like 13:13's list, although I'm not sure about the requirement that everyone pay some tuition which would exclude the poorest families. Also I worry about having "the ability to remove disruptive kids" because that's so nebulous and, once you start charging any tuition, I can't see it working any better than it did in our private. Unless we are making completely pie-in-the-sky lists, in which case we can assume away these problems, so go for it.

Can I add,

- Real language instruction. I had one kid in public immersion and one kid in a well-regarded area private where they learned the colors over again every year and made little progress towards fluency. Some blend of this would be nice. Maybe having the language classes meet more often than happened in our private school would be a good compromise.

- Lots of kids from the neighborhood. (Crazy talk, I know, but boy did we get sick of driving when DC was in private.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Oh, I'll play. I've had kids in both public and private:

My ideal school would be big and diverse enough to have the benefits of public schools, where kids meet and interact with a wide range of people economically and otherwise. But classes would be smaller than the average public -- a limit of 16 kids in elementary and 20 kids for high school.

The school would have the energy of a large school, with lots of clubs and activities, but teachers and administrators would know my child as an individual. High school kids would have a teacher assigned as a mentor/advisor, and I don't just mean a guidance counselor.

The class day would start at a human hour -- between 8 and 9am -- and would end a bit later, say at 3 or 3:30 pm. In high school, kids would have block schedules. Classes would be longer and meet every other day. All kids would get one free period a day, apart from lunch, to meet with teachers, get started on homework, or just relax.

Ideally, my school would welcome kids from all backgrounds, including kids with special needs, but would have the ability to remove kids who were disruptive to the learning environment.

Finally, my ideal school would ask everyone to pay on a sliding scale, according to what the family could afford. Everyone, however, would have to pay something for their child to attend. Also, parents would be required to commit to some minimal level of involvement. Not helicopter level, but something to ensure they had a stake in their child's education.

My ideal school could never exist, of course. It just doesn't work that way.

And that is a damned shame. If anyone ever finds this school, please report back. I would step on my own mother's face to get my son into a school like that!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Oh, I'll play. I've had kids in both public and private:

My ideal school would be big and diverse enough to have the benefits of public schools, where kids meet and interact with a wide range of people economically and otherwise. But classes would be smaller than the average public -- a limit of 16 kids in elementary and 20 kids for high school.

The school would have the energy of a large school, with lots of clubs and activities, but teachers and administrators would know my child as an individual. High school kids would have a teacher assigned as a mentor/advisor, and I don't just mean a guidance counselor.

The class day would start at a human hour -- between 8 and 9am -- and would end a bit later, say at 3 or 3:30 pm. In high school, kids would have block schedules. Classes would be longer and meet every other day. All kids would get one free period a day, apart from lunch, to meet with teachers, get started on homework, or just relax.

Ideally, my school would welcome kids from all backgrounds, including kids with special needs, but would have the ability to remove kids who were disruptive to the learning environment.

Finally, my ideal school would ask everyone to pay on a sliding scale, according to what the family could afford. Everyone, however, would have to pay something for their child to attend. Also, parents would be required to commit to some minimal level of involvement. Not helicopter level, but something to ensure they had a stake in their child's education.

My ideal school could never exist, of course. It just doesn't work that way.

And that is a damned shame. If anyone ever finds this school, please report back. I would step on my own mother's face to get my son into a school like that!!

I would spend a year in a filthy Mount Everest base camp to get my kid in. Seriously.

[Anonymous]

Aside from sometimes having smaller class sizes, I don't know any thing else I would take from private schools..

[Anonymous]

What I would take from the privates:
Teachers who act like they care. Some might really care, but they all act like they do, which the kids like.
Small class size.
Music, art more than once a week.
PE daily.

What I take from publics:
Better trained teachers.
Cost.

I would add the sliding scale tuition that pp mentioned.
I would demand best practices. Neither private or public does that. Privates don't know any better, publics don't have the money.

[Anonymous]

From privates:
Beautiful campus and facilities
Generally smart, motivated kids with majority of parents very invested in the school
Responsive faculty and staff
Ability to expel kids with behavior problems
Teaching ethics
Teaching respectful behavior
Family style lunch in an attractive dining room
Excellent college counseling

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Oh, I'll play. I've had kids in both public and private:

My ideal school would be big and diverse enough to have the benefits of public schools, where kids meet and interact with a wide range of people economically and otherwise. But classes would be smaller than the average public -- a limit of 16 kids in elementary and 20 kids for high school.

The school would have the energy of a large school, with lots of clubs and activities, but teachers and administrators would know my child as an individual. High school kids would have a teacher assigned as a mentor/advisor, and I don't just mean a guidance counselor.

The class day would start at a human hour -- between 8 and 9am -- and would end a bit later, say at 3 or 3:30 pm. In high school, kids would have block schedules. Classes would be longer and meet every other day. All kids would get one free period a day, apart from lunch, to meet with teachers, get started on homework, or just relax.

Ideally, my school would welcome kids from all backgrounds, including kids with special needs, but would have the ability to remove kids who were disruptive to the learning environment.

Finally, my ideal school would ask everyone to pay on a sliding scale, according to what the family could afford. Everyone, however, would have to pay something for their child to attend. Also, parents would be required to commit to some minimal level of involvement. Not helicopter level, but something to ensure they had a stake in their child's education.

My ideal school could never exist, of course. It just doesn't work that way.

That pretty much describes our private. My only complaint is the cost.

[Anonymous]

Great lists. A few other things I'd add that I don't think have been mentioned, but I definitely subscribe to the lists above. We're searching for a school for DD now and I went to private myself so my experiences color my views, admittedly.

- to the point of a free period that a PP mentioned, real opportunities for recess at the younger grades. Wide range of PE offerings for older grades. Emphasis (in a good way) on sports and active, healthy lifestyle.
- NOT teaching to the test. Focus on children learning to think critically, to write, to research, not just be prepared to fill in bubbles on a government-mandated test.
- Strong foreign language offerings
- Teachers who actually know the subject matter. e.g. the history teacher doesn't just have a degree in education, but has a degree in history.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:From privates:
Beautiful campus and facilities
Generally smart, motivated kids with majority of parents very invested in the school
Responsive faculty and staff
Ability to expel kids with behavior problems
Teaching ethics
Teaching respectful behavior
Family style lunch in an attractive dining room
Excellent college counseling

Almost everything on this list costs $$$$ (except for ethics). The sad thing is, there are so many on DCUM who send their kids to private schools and at the same time rant in favor of lower taxes so the public schools can't have any of these things.

[Anonymous]

8:51, what school is that? Sorry, but I can't think of any school in the DC area that meets all of these excellent standards. And I'm familiar (professionally) with many of them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:8:51, what school is that? Sorry, but I can't think of any school in the DC area that meets all of these excellent standards. And I'm familiar (professionally) with many of them.

Applies to most privates and some publics.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:8:51, what school is that? Sorry, but I can't think of any school in the DC area that meets all of these excellent standards. And I'm familiar (professionally) with many of them.

Applies to most privates and some publics.

Not the high quality highly paid teachers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Oh, I'll play. I've had kids in both public and private:

My ideal school would be big and diverse enough to have the benefits of public schools, where kids meet and interact with a wide range of people economically and otherwise. But classes would be smaller than the average public -- a limit of 16 kids in elementary and 20 kids for high school.

The school would have the energy of a large school, with lots of clubs and activities, but teachers and administrators would know my child as an individual. High school kids would have a teacher assigned as a mentor/advisor, and I don't just mean a guidance counselor.

The class day would start at a human hour -- between 8 and 9am -- and would end a bit later, say at 3 or 3:30 pm. In high school, kids would have block schedules. Classes would be longer and meet every other day. All kids would get one free period a day, apart from lunch, to meet with teachers, get started on homework, or just relax.

Ideally, my school would welcome kids from all backgrounds, including kids with special needs, but would have the ability to remove kids who were disruptive to the learning environment.

Finally, my ideal school would ask everyone to pay on a sliding scale, according to what the family could afford. Everyone, however, would have to pay something for their child to attend. Also, parents would be required to commit to some minimal level of involvement. Not helicopter level, but something to ensure they had a stake in their child's education.

My ideal school could never exist, of course. It just doesn't work that way.

With the execpt of the smaller class sizes, my public elementary school was most of this.
Started at 8:30am and ended at 3:15pm (or so they kept tweaking it by 5 minutes every year)
Kids from all backgrounds
Special needs children integrated into the classrooms, with some pullouts
Teachers that knew my children
Teachers than could manage classrooms so that there were minimal disruptions
Lots of clubs and afterschool activities

The HS has block scheduling, my junior has found a teacher who is mentoring him, tons of clubs, wide range of economic and ethnic backgrounds. They have time set aside everyday to see teachers outside the class to perhaps take a makeup quiz or get help from the teacher. They do have larger class sizes and start early (but we are larks and not owls, so the early start is fine for us).