People who ruin neighborhoods (like tkpk) by putting their kids in private school

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Who is “we”? I’ll send my kid to whatever school I want, thank you very much. BTW there are also people who homeschool & send their kids to far-flung magnets. It’s really none of your business. I am free to live wherever I want, too. I am not going to sacrifice my child’s education on the altar of diversity.

Not to mention, my kid wouldn’t be allowed to discuss where we went on spring break, our other house or their ECs, or else your child would feel bad & complain of “bragging.”

Well-said. JFC, leftists want total control of others’ lives. Tyrants

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
It is child abuse to send your children to horribly failing schools when you have a 7-figure HHI. Enjoy your social experiment while your kids still speak to you.

So true. I could be wrong, but I believe Charles Murray sent his children to some backwater public district deep in Virginia or West Virginia. I vaguely recall him laughing during a public appearance that his then adult son said essentially he didn't find his father's social experience funny and couldn't wait to get the hell away from those people.

Some of those poors that you dislike have no choice. Y'all want diversity free immigration and equality and cheap labor. You want those poors taking jobs y'all don't want to do for a non liveable wage. You vote blue and then rant on here you want a nice big house that's cheap and send your kids to a private school to avoid the low performing poors that are bringing down the school rating. Y'all are hypocrites. Wolves in sheep's clothing. You're making things worse than better.

You’re right. It’s hypocritical for people to celebrate diversity but then move heaven and earth to avoid the diverse public schools they are zoned for. There’s no getting around it. I can understand your frustration.

+1

I think it’s very telling. And hilarious

[Anonymous]

I went to a 40k tuition private school and my commute was over an hour. It was awful. I was also forced to play team sports and my GPA suffered (much harder to earn a 4.0 at private). My SAT score was 96th percentile…but I had a tutor multiple times a week who had earned a perfect score. So I really attribute my SAT success to that.

My terrible private school GPA wasn’t competitive enough to earn me acceptance to a top university. Meanwhile there are public school kids with 4.2 GPAs and 30th percentile SAT scores. It’s a total joke.

I have four siblings who attended private schools (three different privates) and most of us are failures lol. My brother did go to an Ivy though. But he definitely would have been accepted from a public school. The GPAs are absurdly inflated. But their SAT scores usually suck. And no mandatory sports and long commute. Most days I didn’t get home until 9pm. And I had to wake up at 6am to shower, do makeup, and travel over an hour to school. I hated it so much and I would have had a WAY easier time in public school. It would have given me way more options to choose classes I was interested in and I’d likely develop stronger social skills (less sheltered environment, non-religious, more diversity, less stress, etc).

Anyway, my point is that I wish my parents had sent me to public school. We also lived in a house worth close to 13 million and it was not even that nice. I imagine we could have purchased some beautiful property in a more rural area. Idk you’d have to see my old house to understand what I mean. We didn’t live in your neighborhood though. But our public school was very good. So we should’ve just gone there. I bet I would have turned out more successful.

[Anonymous]

I think OP is confused about the root causes of people fleeing to privates. Maybe if we didn’t add an endless stream of high needs kids via half-legal immigration (“asylum seeking”) to our very own generational poverty kids our schools would have been more attractive?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:More of a vent, but i am uttterly frustrated by people with money who move into nice MC neighborhoods like tkpk or silver spring with relatively good schools to get bigger houses and then choose to put their precious kids in private schools.

We are trying to build a community and bring the schools up and these people create a bad trend of pulling a whole group of UMC kids out of the public schools because they cannot handle the diversity and challenges of public schools. All while claiming to be left leaning and to have a social compass. But that is pure white flight. It is depressing. And they dont even seem to see how political and impactful their choice is.

I really wish they stayed out of my city and went to live next to the private schools they send their kids to.

My general strategy heretofore has been to live in the best neighborhood I can afford and send my kids to the best schools I can given their individual needs. But after reading your post, I realize now that they should attend schools that are in accordance with your sensibilities. What else should our family be doing to please you? Help us all to be more like you, OP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When my kids went to public in DC, the school was hostile to parent volunteering, tracking, parent advocacy, reducing screen time, nutritional changes in the school lunches and increasing recess. Now my child attends a private more aligned with our educational beliefs.

And that is exactly why i dont want tkpk MD schools to get ruined. I love a lot of things about DC but not the school system and the limited number of good local schools

What are you talking about? The only people I know in Takoma Park who send their kids to private are Adventists/Jews or have kids with severe learning differences who send them to Sienna. PB, TPE, TPMC are bursting at the seams with neighborhood kids.

[Anonymous]

You see this in DC with people flocking to a neighborhood with great location, good walkability and public transportation, and good commercial areas. It becomes a hot place for young, married professionals to buy first homes, and over time it drives the cost of housing sky high.

But then they don’t use the neighborhood schools because they are historically low performing, and send kids to private or, more often, charters. So the neighborhood school doesn’t improve because there’s no buy in from inbound families.

So you wind up with incredibly expensive neighborhood full of amenities, but terrible schools. I wouldn’t say it “ruins” the neighborhood, but it does strike me as ridiculous, because if all those UMC people just sent their kids to the nearby school, it would magically improve with higher test scores (since income and test scores are highly correlated) and they could stop commuting halfway across the city, plus it would make it easier for their kids to make friends.

[Anonymous]

Sending kids to private schools is largely about shielding them from stress from kids under stress, who tend to act out and also require a more rigid academic environment. Private schools have a less stressed student population, which means the classroom can be more free-wheeling.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:More of a vent, but i am uttterly frustrated by people with money who move into nice MC neighborhoods like tkpk or silver spring with relatively good schools to get bigger houses and then choose to put their precious kids in private schools.

We are trying to build a community and bring the schools up and these people create a bad trend of pulling a whole group of UMC kids out of the public schools because they cannot handle the diversity and challenges of public schools. All while claiming to be left leaning and to have a social compass. But that is pure white flight. It is depressing. And they dont even seem to see how political and impactful their choice is.

I really wish they stayed out of my city and went to live next to the private schools they send their kids to.

My general strategy heretofore has been to live in the best neighborhood I can afford and send my kids to the best schools I can given their individual needs. But after reading your post, I realize now that they should attend schools that are in accordance with your sensibilities. What else should our family be doing to please you? Help us all to be more like you, OP.

I have a few close people in my life who all work in admissions (some are or had been the Dean) at an Ivy (or equivalent). Look at the STATs, your child is more likely to get into one of these top universities coming from public not private.

I attended private school as a kid in a single parent household because our public school was literally falling down and allegedly had mold issues. My parent worked extra so I could attend, we did not get financial aid as it was not really a thing back then. Now that I have my own kids I send them to public. It’s a great school but has a few more issues than I had attending private in high school. I also have the time to be an involved parent. I want my kid to get to know a wide range of people and families not just rich or upper middle class.

[Anonymous]

Blah blah blah… a lot of rationalization.

Not all private schools are good. But the good ones beat the socks off any public. Send your kids to the good ones. If you can’t, that’s fine. Not everyone can ski out west, skiing at Bryce is fun too. You still learn how to ski.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Blah blah blah… a lot of rationalization.

Not all private schools are good. But the good ones beat the socks off any public. Send your kids to the good ones. If you can’t, that’s fine. Not everyone can ski out west, skiing at Bryce is fun too. You still learn how to ski.

Blah blah blah... I have no first-hand experience of public schools but I need to justify that tuition so I'm going to slam them. And I'll toss in some Marie Antoinette stuff about skiing because I'm an a$$ who's hoping you'll think I'm worldly instead....

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think OP is confused about the root causes of people fleeing to privates. Maybe if we didn’t add an endless stream of high needs kids via half-legal immigration (“asylum seeking”) to our very own generational poverty kids our schools would have been more attractive?

The people who send their kids to privates benefit financially from hiring undocumented people who can't complain about being exploited.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I went to a 40k tuition private school and my commute was over an hour. It was awful. I was also forced to play team sports and my GPA suffered (much harder to earn a 4.0 at private). My SAT score was 96th percentile…but I had a tutor multiple times a week who had earned a perfect score. So I really attribute my SAT success to that.

My terrible private school GPA wasn’t competitive enough to earn me acceptance to a top university. Meanwhile there are public school kids with 4.2 GPAs and 30th percentile SAT scores. It’s a total joke.

I have four siblings who attended private schools (three different privates) and most of us are failures lol. My brother did go to an Ivy though. But he definitely would have been accepted from a public school. The GPAs are absurdly inflated. But their SAT scores usually suck. And no mandatory sports and long commute. Most days I didn’t get home until 9pm. And I had to wake up at 6am to shower, do makeup, and travel over an hour to school. I hated it so much and I would have had a WAY easier time in public school. It would have given me way more options to choose classes I was interested in and I’d likely develop stronger social skills (less sheltered environment, non-religious, more diversity, less stress, etc).

Anyway, my point is that I wish my parents had sent me to public school. We also lived in a house worth close to 13 million and it was not even that nice. I imagine we could have purchased some beautiful property in a more rural area. Idk you’d have to see my old house to understand what I mean. We didn’t live in your neighborhood though. But our public school was very good. So we should’ve just gone there. I bet I would have turned out more successful.

My friend, I promise you that your problems would not have been solved if your parents had bought a different $13 million property in a rural area and sent you to the rural public school.

That is a very, very strange fantasy you have woven for yourself.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You see this in DC with people flocking to a neighborhood with great location, good walkability and public transportation, and good commercial areas. It becomes a hot place for young, married professionals to buy first homes, and over time it drives the cost of housing sky high.

But then they don’t use the neighborhood schools because they are historically low performing, and send kids to private or, more often, charters. So the neighborhood school doesn’t improve because there’s no buy in from inbound families.

So you wind up with incredibly expensive neighborhood full of amenities, but terrible schools. I wouldn’t say it “ruins” the neighborhood, but it does strike me as ridiculous, because if all those UMC people just sent their kids to the nearby school, it would magically improve with higher test scores (since income and test scores are highly correlated) and they could stop commuting halfway across the city, plus it would make it easier for their kids to make friends.

I agree with a lot of this, but I do not think that UMC families sending their kids to school magically improves Theo IB school, at least not enough. Yes, it is a big win if you have a cohort of kids who are going to be on the more advanced side, but if your class is still made up mostly at risk kids, there is going to be a high baseline of chaos, and disruption, and generally disregulated kids that can make it hard for kids to focus and grow their love of learning.

Now here I’m talking about my own experience in a DCPS school. I hope the same is not true in TKPK.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:More of a vent, but i am uttterly frustrated by people with money who move into nice MC neighborhoods like tkpk or silver spring with relatively good schools to get bigger houses and then choose to put their precious kids in private schools.

We are trying to build a community and bring the schools up and these people create a bad trend of pulling a whole group of UMC kids out of the public schools because they cannot handle the diversity and challenges of public schools. All while claiming to be left leaning and to have a social compass. But that is pure white flight. It is depressing. And they dont even seem to see how political and impactful their choice is.

I really wish they stayed out of my city and went to live next to the private schools they send their kids to.

Your beef should be with the public school system. We were public school parents until the summer of 2020 when MCPS flipped the script on everyone and at the LAST minute (way after it was too late to apply out to private schools) and decided to convert from a hybrid plan to fully virtual. We were pissed as hell and found tiny private that had an opening in my kid's grade. Our plan was to return after the public schools opened. But you know what? MCPS continues to go downhill so we are staying put. And I HATE paying for private school tuition but I'm not compromising on this issue because it's my kid's education. You're blaming the wrong one(s) for your issue. MCPS should make itself so desirable that most parents don't even think of looking elsewhere. MCPS messed up big time during the pandemic and the it still hasn't recovered.