Stretching to pay for private preschool

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I guess I'm the only one, but I disagree with all the previous posters. The early years are the most important for learning, and I would go with the best one you could afford. You can save that money when they go to kindergarten...

Actually, the research tends to show that preschool has the greatest marginal benefit for kids on the bottom rungs of the SES scale. It has the least marginal utility for MC/UMC kids, who have educated parents who talk to them and read to them and take them to music classes and museums and the like.

Also, cost doesn't perfectly correlate with quality. You might be paying more for newer or fancier facilities, but that means very little to a kid's educational experience.

This is true, and even with very low SES kids the effects of any preschool at all are completely gone by the time the child reaches 5th or 6th grade. The main measurable effect of preschool on kids is that it allows the mother to work outside of the house and earn more money for the family, not that it helps the kids much.

[Anonymous]

As a proud PS 86 Kindergarten Graduate in Bronx New York who has an MBA and large corner office in DC I can say for a fact pre-school and Kindergarten are meaningless.

[Anonymous]

I have two grandchildren in a private preschool that costs $23,000 per year.....each. It’s insane! My DIL always went to private school and believes it is “the best”. I’m sure it’s a very good school but please! My son lost that battle. They also have a nanny who costs at least $40,000 per year. Our kids went to a church pre-school and then public schools and then great colleges - two Ivies. All I can do is keep my mouth shut!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have two grandchildren in a private preschool that costs $23,000 per year.....each. It’s insane! My DIL always went to private school and believes it is “the best”. I’m sure it’s a very good school but please! My son lost that battle. They also have a nanny who costs at least $40,000 per year. Our kids went to a church pre-school and then public schools and then great colleges - two Ivies. All I can do is keep my mouth shut!

Wow. I hope they are making seven figures!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What are you ACTUALLY getting for that money that you would not be getting with daycare?

Nothing significant, and nothing worth more than a small fraction of the price difference.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I guess I'm the only one, but I disagree with all the previous posters. The early years are the most important for learning, and I would go with the best one you could afford. You can save that money when they go to kindergarten...

+1 Totally agree.

But you're basically assuming that the pricier a preschool is, the better it is, and I think anyone who's been through preschool knows that's not the case. All the good ones do basically the same things (in a warm, welcoming environment) - practicing social skills, learning letters/phonetics/numbers/colors, plenty of active play, art projects for the parents to hang on the fridge, and naptime... and usually with some bonus instruction in Spanish (or Mandarin or French). You don't have to pay tens of thousands of dollars for that, and doing so is more of a social leg up for mom than an educational one for the kids.

Besides, for UMC kids, they already get a lot of that at home, and where preschool makes the biggest impact is with parents who aren't already trying to teach their three-year-old to read or haven't read to them daily from birth.

Exactly. And many of the pricier ones can be overly academic for that age, anyway.

I do think it's worth paying for a program that really emphasizes social/emotional development and walks that walk. Physical activity, too. But you can get that at plenty of different price points.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If your income is $150k + with 3-4 family members good luck getting any aid in any school.
Also we did private Montessori from age 2 to age 10 and what a huge difference. The first was daycare and public.

And a few years later, it makes really no difference: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2018-01-02/studies-shed-light-on-merits-of-montessori-education%3fcontext=amp

There is a lot of extrapolation in this article (which it does a good job of highlighting), so I would be careful to dismiss Montessori so smugly. Anecdotally, DH and I grew up in very different parts of the country with very different parenting styles/home lives, but we both ended up with STEM PhDs in highly quantitative fields. Both of us attribute our mathematical abilities to the approaches we were taught in our Montessori pre-schools and Kindergartens. These approaches are substantively different than traditional approaches to teaching math at those ages.

It's obviously difficult to say, but our kids are showing signs of having better than average math aptitude. We are opting for Montessori pre-school and are enrolling DD in an AMI-certified, Montessori K-5 this fall. The school said it's very common for kids to mainstream school from 6th grade onward, and that is generally what we think we will do. As standard curricula become more academic, the contrast to Montessori methodologies that stress independence and responsibility is starker. I personally feel that the latter two are far more important to long-term personal and professional success than the ability to perform on standardized tests, which is why we are considering Montessori.

[Anonymous]

Shoot, OP, you don't even need to bother with the daycare preschool if you live in DC proper. Send the kid to your DCPS or DC charter for pre-school for free!

[Anonymous]

My daughters full day private preschool (fantastic school) in Bethesda is about the same price as daycare. Keep looking.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If your income is $150k + with 3-4 family members good luck getting any aid in any school.
Also we did private Montessori from age 2 to age 10 and what a huge difference. The first was daycare and public.

And a few years later, it makes really no difference: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2018-01-02/studies-shed-light-on-merits-of-montessori-education%3fcontext=amp

There is a lot of extrapolation in this article (which it does a good job of highlighting), so I would be careful to dismiss Montessori so smugly. Anecdotally, DH and I grew up in very different parts of the country with very different parenting styles/home lives, but we both ended up with STEM PhDs in highly quantitative fields. Both of us attribute our mathematical abilities to the approaches we were taught in our Montessori pre-schools and Kindergartens. These approaches are substantively different than traditional approaches to teaching math at those ages.

It's obviously difficult to say, but our kids are showing signs of having better than average math aptitude. We are opting for Montessori pre-school and are enrolling DD in an AMI-certified, Montessori K-5 this fall. The school said it's very common for kids to mainstream school from 6th grade onward, and that is generally what we think we will do. As standard curricula become more academic, the contrast to Montessori methodologies that stress independence and responsibility is starker. I personally feel that the latter two are far more important to long-term personal and professional success than the ability to perform on standardized tests, which is why we are considering Montessori.

+1000. People really don't understand Montessori at all. Which is fine, except when they start spouting erroneous "facts" or knee jerk opinions.

Signed, parent of kid in Montessori preschool-6th grade who would do it all over again in a nanosecond.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DW and I are looking into what we're going to do for our son when we transition out of a nanny share down the road. If we stretch, we could afford to send him to a well-regarded but expensive full-day private preschool in NWDC. Or we could send him to a great daycare with a prek curriculum for way less $$$. To me, this is a no-brainer - we send him to daycare and save that money for other things. My wife is a bit more emotional about it and feels guilty, as though we wouldn't be doing what is "best" for him. So, from a financial standpoint, what is the return on investment for sending your kid to a fancy private preschool? What are you ACTUALLY getting for that money that you would not be getting with daycare?

Would not spend the money for pre-school program. Now once you get into elementary school - totally different calculation....

[Anonymous]

If you have the money you should send your child to the expensive full-day private preschool. It is totally worth it.
They will take care of your child like royalty. Plus, your child will be with other rich kids. Do you really want to send your child to a
daycare where they will have to play with poor kids?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If your income is $150k + with 3-4 family members good luck getting any aid in any school.
Also we did private Montessori from age 2 to age 10 and what a huge difference. The first was daycare and public.

And a few years later, it makes really no difference: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2018-01-02/studies-shed-light-on-merits-of-montessori-education%3fcontext=amp

There is a lot of extrapolation in this article (which it does a good job of highlighting), so I would be careful to dismiss Montessori so smugly. Anecdotally, DH and I grew up in very different parts of the country with very different parenting styles/home lives, but we both ended up with STEM PhDs in highly quantitative fields. Both of us attribute our mathematical abilities to the approaches we were taught in our Montessori pre-schools and Kindergartens. These approaches are substantively different than traditional approaches to teaching math at those ages.

It's obviously difficult to say, but our kids are showing signs of having better than average math aptitude. We are opting for Montessori pre-school and are enrolling DD in an AMI-certified, Montessori K-5 this fall. The school said it's very common for kids to mainstream school from 6th grade onward, and that is generally what we think we will do. As standard curricula become more academic, the contrast to Montessori methodologies that stress independence and responsibility is starker. I personally feel that the latter two are far more important to long-term personal and professional success than the ability to perform on standardized tests, which is why we are considering Montessori.

+1000. People really don't understand Montessori at all. Which is fine, except when they start spouting erroneous "facts" or knee jerk opinions.

Signed, parent of kid in Montessori preschool-6th grade who would do it all over again in a nanosecond.

Another Montessori parent. Soft skills will rule.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have two grandchildren in a private preschool that costs $23,000 per year.....each. It’s insane! My DIL always went to private school and believes it is “the best”. I’m sure it’s a very good school but please! My son lost that battle. They also have a nanny who costs at least $40,000 per year. Our kids went to a church pre-school and then public schools and then great colleges - two Ivies. All I can do is keep my mouth shut!

This does also depend a lot on where you live. If they're somewhere like NY or SF, that is not that far off the going rate for full-time year-round preschool (though agreed that there would be no need for a nanny on top of that, which is crazy if you don't also have a younger child). You can find some "cheaper" home-based options that only run $18K a year, but it's still insanely expensive. The church preschools still exist in those areas, but they're mostly part-time, so aren't options unless you can afford to have one parent stay home. Public preschool is not available in all (or even most) states, and where it does exist is often limited to low-income families. DC is really fortunate to have universal public PreK--sadly it's not yet the norm.

[Anonymous]

Preschool feels like a big deal to first time parents because OMG we have to do SCHOOL. In reality it is the least consequential thing ever. If there's loving providers, books, and plenty of time to learn through play, they will thrive. No label or pedigree or fancy school logo necessary.