Parents who went to Big 3 private who chose to send their kids public

[Anonymous]

I have kids in both. Prefer public ES. Good experience in the classroom. Nothing beats it for building relationships in the community. For HS prefer private. Smaller class size gives teachers opportunities that are hard to replicate in public. There is no one size fits all answer. Depends a lot on your child and family. What child needs. Financial trade offs. Your friend is off base suggesting you are denying your child "the best". Maybe time to reevaluate friendship and friend's values.

[Anonymous]

Both of our parents were and are obsessed with status and prestige. We are interested in good education for our children. Our neighborhood public compared to privates offer differences not worth the expense to us.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So you are ok with the sacrifices your parents made, but aren't willing to do the same for your kids?

Some people think the public education is BETTER.

Lol. Only because they don't really comprehend the differences

Really? Have you seen the list of most-challenging high schools in the area in today's WaPost?

Our kids inbound school (BCC) was no. 9, I think.

Didn't see Sidwell, Maret, St. Albans, Landon, Georgetown Day, Georgetown Prep, Potomac in the top 50.

Here's a quote from Jay Mathews explanation of the methodology used which applies to the two big 3 schools you listed. "The Challenge Index is designed to identify schools that have done the best job in persuading average students to take college-level courses and tests. It does not work with schools that have no, or almost no, average students." I believe he uses average SAT scores to determine which schools not to include.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So you are ok with the sacrifices your parents made, but aren't willing to do the same for your kids?

Huh? You have no idea what my circumstances were.

Tuition has skyrocketed. Public schools have gotten much better. Try again.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is me as well and like one of the PPs, there are a bunch of Big 3 parents at our school as well. Part of it is that the costs are that much higher, but part of it is that we know what the benefits are -- and aren't.

+1

There is also much more of a 'culture of celebrity' than there used to be, and a lot of us don't want our kids (or ourselves!) in that environment. We live in MoCo and one thing I really missed as a kid was going to our neighborhood school.

This is an interesting point -- regarding the backdrop: I've noticed at my child's "elite" private preschool there are many social climbers who seem just as vested in what the school can do for them (from a social/networking standpoint) as they are in what the school is doing for their child's development. Luckily the school is excellent in terms of teaching and nurturing the kid's in a developmentally appropriate way, which was important for these crucial first 5 years. But these are the same folks that will be going on to the Big 3 privates. These Big 3s have drastically changed since we were growing up, like a PP said. And SO much is focused on soliciting donations.

This is 100% why we are not going private.
- big 3 grad

Wow! You must be really scarred based on the number of times I've seen you post this same compliant.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So you are ok with the sacrifices your parents made, but aren't willing to do the same for your kids?

Some people think the public education is BETTER.

Lol. Only because they don't really comprehend the differences

Really? Have you seen the list of most-challenging high schools in the area in today's WaPost?

Our kids inbound school (BCC) was no. 9, I think.

Didn't see Sidwell, Maret, St. Albans, Landon, Georgetown Day, Georgetown Prep, Potomac in the top 50.

Here's a quote from Jay Mathews explanation of the methodology used which applies to the two big 3 schools you listed. "The Challenge Index is designed to identify schools that have done the best job in persuading average students to take college-level courses and tests. It does not work with schools that have no, or almost no, average students." I believe he uses average SAT scores to determine which schools not to include.

But there are certainly average (and below average) students at Big 3s. Money doesn't always = above average student, and sometimes money is what gets certain students into those schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is me as well and like one of the PPs, there are a bunch of Big 3 parents at our school as well. Part of it is that the costs are that much higher, but part of it is that we know what the benefits are -- and aren't.

+1

There is also much more of a 'culture of celebrity' than there used to be, and a lot of us don't want our kids (or ourselves!) in that environment. We live in MoCo and one thing I really missed as a kid was going to our neighborhood school.

This is an interesting point -- regarding the backdrop: I've noticed at my child's "elite" private preschool there are many social climbers who seem just as vested in what the school can do for them (from a social/networking standpoint) as they are in what the school is doing for their child's development. Luckily the school is excellent in terms of teaching and nurturing the kid's in a developmentally appropriate way, which was important for these crucial first 5 years. But these are the same folks that will be going on to the Big 3 privates. These Big 3s have drastically changed since we were growing up, like a PP said. And SO much is focused on soliciting donations.

This is 100% why we are not going private.
- big 3 grad

Wow! You must be really scarred based on the number of times I've seen you post this same compliant.

Do you mean "complaint?" Who are you talking to, the poster who explained it or the poster who agreed? And scarred ... but they're saying it happens now, not that it happened in the past.

Try your post again if you want to be a mean girl.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So you are ok with the sacrifices your parents made, but aren't willing to do the same for your kids?

Some people think the public education is BETTER.

Lol. Only because they don't really comprehend the differences

Really? Have you seen the list of most-challenging high schools in the area in today's WaPost?

Our kids inbound school (BCC) was no. 9, I think.

Didn't see Sidwell, Maret, St. Albans, Landon, Georgetown Day, Georgetown Prep, Potomac in the top 50.

Here's a quote from Jay Mathews explanation of the methodology used which applies to the two big 3 schools you listed. "The Challenge Index is designed to identify schools that have done the best job in persuading average students to take college-level courses and tests. It does not work with schools that have no, or almost no, average students." I believe he uses average SAT scores to determine which schools not to include.

But there are certainly average (and below average) students at Big 3s. Money doesn't always = above average student, and sometimes money is what gets certain students into those schools.

Possibly. I'm not in the business of defending private schools. I was just answering a question as it relates to big 3 schools. Some of the local magnates are also excluded from the list for the same reason.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, not only the gut but the science is on your side. The Economist this week, specifically about DC, confirming that private adds no value, not when it comes to academics anyway. The article uses it to inform the voucher question but the analysis underpinning it basically asks the question whether "one and the same child" (controlling for all sorts of variables) does differently in private vs. public school. The result is that "one and the same child" learns more and faster in public school. So you'd want to choose private to slow your child's academic progress. I'm guessing there could be good reasons to do that but the rest is conspicuous consumption, i.e. should be considered only if you don't what to do with your money.
http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21721640-should-you-spend-your-voucher-one-private-schools-are-doing-worse-washington-dc

Does someone know the link to the original study at the basis of that article?

This is the report that you're looking for:

https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/pubs/20174022/pdf/20174022.pdf

Is there a list of which privates take vouchers? It would be nice to know.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, not only the gut but the science is on your side. The Economist this week, specifically about DC, confirming that private adds no value, not when it comes to academics anyway. The article uses it to inform the voucher question but the analysis underpinning it basically asks the question whether "one and the same child" (controlling for all sorts of variables) does differently in private vs. public school. The result is that "one and the same child" learns more and faster in public school. So you'd want to choose private to slow your child's academic progress. I'm guessing there could be good reasons to do that but the rest is conspicuous consumption, i.e. should be considered only if you don't what to do with your money.
http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21721640-should-you-spend-your-voucher-one-private-schools-are-doing-worse-washington-dc

Does someone know the link to the original study at the basis of that article?

This is the report that you're looking for:

https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/pubs/20174022/pdf/20174022.pdf

Is there a list of which privates take vouchers? It would be nice to know.

I think almost all schools will take them. I'm looking for a list of which private schools were actually attended by the students in this study, but no joy yet. I read the study, and it definitely doesn't say public schools are more effective than private schools. It's really a suggestion that vouchers are not effective. IMHO, the study is pretty thin on useful data, and needs lots more data to generate viable conclusions about vouchers and anything else.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, not only the gut but the science is on your side. The Economist this week, specifically about DC, confirming that private adds no value, not when it comes to academics anyway. The article uses it to inform the voucher question but the analysis underpinning it basically asks the question whether "one and the same child" (controlling for all sorts of variables) does differently in private vs. public school. The result is that "one and the same child" learns more and faster in public school. So you'd want to choose private to slow your child's academic progress. I'm guessing there could be good reasons to do that but the rest is conspicuous consumption, i.e. should be considered only if you don't what to do with your money.
http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21721640-should-you-spend-your-voucher-one-private-schools-are-doing-worse-washington-dc

Does someone know the link to the original study at the basis of that article?

This is the report that you're looking for:

https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/pubs/20174022/pdf/20174022.pdf

Is there a list of which privates take vouchers? It would be nice to know.

I think almost all schools will take them. I'm looking for a list of which private schools were actually attended by the students in this study, but no joy yet. I read the study, and it definitely doesn't say public schools are more effective than private schools. It's really a suggestion that vouchers are not effective. IMHO, the study is pretty thin on useful data, and needs lots more data to generate viable conclusions about vouchers and anything else.

The article that cites this study talks about private Catholic schools, which definitely have seen a drop in enrollment. The Big 3s we're discussing would not report that same experience.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Didn't see Sidwell, Maret, St. Albans, Landon, Georgetown Day, Georgetown Prep, Potomac in the top 50.

Here's a quote from Jay Mathews explanation of the methodology used which applies to the two big 3 schools you listed. "The Challenge Index is designed to identify schools that have done the best job in persuading average students to take college-level courses and tests. It does not work with schools that have no, or almost no, average students." I believe he uses average SAT scores to determine which schools not to include.

Different poster. I've followed Mathews' Index for years now, and even quizzed him about how it works on the WaPo comments section. Here's what he does ....

Mathews excludes selective public schools from the AP-index list where their SAT average is higher than the highest "regular" public school SAT in his sample. I think his SAT cutoff is something like 1362 this year. He says he excludes those high-SAT selective public schools because they do not have many average students, so the AP-index doesn't really mean much for them because the AP-index calculation is really aimed at challenging average students. But for some odd reason, Mathews leaves private schools (at least those that will give him AP data) in the AP-index list, even if they are selective private schools with SAT averages far higher than his 1362 cutoff. Mathews says he leaves these private schools on the AP-index list "so parents can compare" or something like that. But that explanation doesn't make much sense in light of his explanation for why he's pulling selective public schools off the list.

After having looked at his results for several years, and having traded messages with him, I think I know why he does it this way. Mathew really cherishes the TJ magnet, and he really likes taking shots at private schools. That's just a bias he carries as a reporter. He's written countless articles extolling the virtues of TJ, and countless more articles criticizing private schools. Mathews doesn't want TJ having a poor nationwide result on the AP-index list (which it would if he included TJ on the normal list), and he probably knows the TJ community would come after him with pitchforks if TJ fared poorly. So Mathews created his "public elites" list to remove the selective public schools like TJ from the scoring model. But Mathews also wants to crap on private schools, so he continues to list them "for comparison's sake" alongside the regular public schools, even though they do not fit into his self-professed methodology because they do not have enough average students.

I've challenged him to use the same SAT cutoff for both selective public and private schools, but he's refused.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Didn't see Sidwell, Maret, St. Albans, Landon, Georgetown Day, Georgetown Prep, Potomac in the top 50.

Here's a quote from Jay Mathews explanation of the methodology used which applies to the two big 3 schools you listed. "The Challenge Index is designed to identify schools that have done the best job in persuading average students to take college-level courses and tests. It does not work with schools that have no, or almost no, average students." I believe he uses average SAT scores to determine which schools not to include.

Different poster. I've followed Mathews' Index for years now, and even quizzed him about how it works on the WaPo comments section. Here's what he does ....

Mathews excludes selective public schools from the AP-index list where their SAT average is higher than the highest "regular" public school SAT in his sample. I think his SAT cutoff is something like 1362 this year. He says he excludes those high-SAT selective public schools because they do not have many average students, so the AP-index doesn't really mean much for them because the AP-index calculation is really aimed at challenging average students. But for some odd reason, Mathews leaves private schools (at least those that will give him AP data) in the AP-index list, even if they are selective private schools with SAT averages far higher than his 1362 cutoff. Mathews says he leaves these private schools on the AP-index list "so parents can compare" or something like that. But that explanation doesn't make much sense in light of his explanation for why he's pulling selective public schools off the list.

After having looked at his results for several years, and having traded messages with him, I think I know why he does it this way. Mathew really cherishes the TJ magnet, and he really likes taking shots at private schools. That's just a bias he carries as a reporter. He's written countless articles extolling the virtues of TJ, and countless more articles criticizing private schools. Mathews doesn't want TJ having a poor nationwide result on the AP-index list (which it would if he included TJ on the normal list), and he probably knows the TJ community would come after him with pitchforks if TJ fared poorly. So Mathews created his "public elites" list to remove the selective public schools like TJ from the scoring model. But Mathews also wants to crap on private schools, so he continues to list them "for comparison's sake" alongside the regular public schools, even though they do not fit into his self-professed methodology because they do not have enough average students.

I've challenged him to use the same SAT cutoff for both selective public and private schools, but he's refused.

Jay Mathews is the worst.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is me as well and like one of the PPs, there are a bunch of Big 3 parents at our school as well. Part of it is that the costs are that much higher, but part of it is that we know what the benefits are -- and aren't.

+1

There is also much more of a 'culture of celebrity' than there used to be, and a lot of us don't want our kids (or ourselves!) in that environment. We live in MoCo and one thing I really missed as a kid was going to our neighborhood school.

This is an interesting point -- regarding the backdrop: I've noticed at my child's "elite" private preschool there are many social climbers who seem just as vested in what the school can do for them (from a social/networking standpoint) as they are in what the school is doing for their child's development. Luckily the school is excellent in terms of teaching and nurturing the kid's in a developmentally appropriate way, which was important for these crucial first 5 years. But these are the same folks that will be going on to the Big 3 privates. These Big 3s have drastically changed since we were growing up, like a PP said. And SO much is focused on soliciting donations.

This is 100% why we are not going private.
- big 3 grad

Wow! You must be really scarred based on the number of times I've seen you post this same compliant.

This was the first time I've said that to anyone (or typed it).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Didn't see Sidwell, Maret, St. Albans, Landon, Georgetown Day, Georgetown Prep, Potomac in the top 50.

Here's a quote from Jay Mathews explanation of the methodology used which applies to the two big 3 schools you listed. "The Challenge Index is designed to identify schools that have done the best job in persuading average students to take college-level courses and tests. It does not work with schools that have no, or almost no, average students." I believe he uses average SAT scores to determine which schools not to include.

Different poster. I've followed Mathews' Index for years now, and even quizzed him about how it works on the WaPo comments section. Here's what he does ....

Mathews excludes selective public schools from the AP-index list where their SAT average is higher than the highest "regular" public school SAT in his sample. I think his SAT cutoff is something like 1362 this year. He says he excludes those high-SAT selective public schools because they do not have many average students, so the AP-index doesn't really mean much for them because the AP-index calculation is really aimed at challenging average students. But for some odd reason, Mathews leaves private schools (at least those that will give him AP data) in the AP-index list, even if they are selective private schools with SAT averages far higher than his 1362 cutoff. Mathews says he leaves these private schools on the AP-index list "so parents can compare" or something like that. But that explanation doesn't make much sense in light of his explanation for why he's pulling selective public schools off the list.

After having looked at his results for several years, and having traded messages with him, I think I know why he does it this way. Mathew really cherishes the TJ magnet, and he really likes taking shots at private schools. That's just a bias he carries as a reporter. He's written countless articles extolling the virtues of TJ, and countless more articles criticizing private schools. Mathews doesn't want TJ having a poor nationwide result on the AP-index list (which it would if he included TJ on the normal list), and he probably knows the TJ community would come after him with pitchforks if TJ fared poorly. So Mathews created his "public elites" list to remove the selective public schools like TJ from the scoring model. But Mathews also wants to crap on private schools, so he continues to list them "for comparison's sake" alongside the regular public schools, even though they do not fit into his self-professed methodology because they do not have enough average students.

I've challenged him to use the same SAT cutoff for both selective public and private schools, but he's refused.

So Sidwell gets the highest USNWR ranking and the lowest Challenging Schools ranking and everyone is happy.