If you are Wealthy and in MCPS, what made you decide to stay in public school?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Because I didn't want to produce another Kavanaugh? Seriously, my kids are already entitled enough. And there are bad teachers/messed up admin everywhere. At least in public school there are formal requirements of certification. Also, privates traditionally aren't as good at STEM. I'd rather save my money and have kids who are a little more resilient and used to all types of people. Really. My HS kids will be pros at arguing their way into classes by college!

Hmm … interesting that you have no idea that private schools need to adhere to certification standards too.

NP. Most private schools don't require their teachers to be certified.

But the schools have to be accredited. You act like it’s a total free for all in private schools.

Certified is meaningless. All that matters is a passionate and dedicated educator. Talk about entitled, take a look at what some of the union member MCPS teachers have to say around here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was a private school lifer and hated it.

Would have actually had access to better colleges if I had attended the local public schools, with more STEM classes and more activities, and without the long bus ride.

I also think it's important to interact with different people; my lilly white and Asian private school with mostly UMC families didn't prepare me appropriately for life.

Yet you self-affiliate as wealthy, indicating that it did prepare you to be a successful contributor to society.

I think you also misunderstand how college access in public school works. Yes, kids can go to excellent colleges, particularly STEM. Kids also go to substantially worse colleges in large numbers, community college and even at “W” schools a lot of kids don’t go to college at all. These are all equal options and actually when you understand how exceptional the public students are that make it to top colleges, you realize that it’s less likely your child will be one of them.

Just be forewarned now, in public school you are in your own and there are big, potentially life-altering consequences for relatively small mistakes. That’s what growing up poor and being a public school lifer taught me.

To each their own, but just be prepared that the safety net is gone and there is a bottom that I don’t think you contemplate existing.

Dp. Those were ominous statements. Can you elaborate, please?

MCPS is trying to change this dynamic, but stupid mistakes in public school can easily leave students with criminal records. At private school, you might get expelled but unless kids do something with irreparable harm they are unlikely to call the police.

In public school, parents can be surprised by C and D grades at the end of the marking period if kids are telling you everything is fine. One semester with a 2.0 will clearly have a dramatic impact on college applications. Alternatively, private schools monitor performance closely and will intervene quickly for even just an abnormally poor result on one test.

And just to be real for a moment, kids can get lost and I’ve seen it. Fall in with the “wrong crowd” (like not just suburban privileged bad, but legitimately will end up in prison bad) and it takes a long time to deprogram that mindset. While private is not perfect and there are lots of issues, I would never believe that the bottom that private school kids could fall through would be anything close to what I’ve seen at the school I went to. I feel a great degree of sadness for what happened to some of the people I went to school with.

I don’t know about this. I have two high schoolers and know a lot of upper middle class kids in what you would probably consider “bad” MCPS high school, and literally there is zero overlap between “UMC going to college” kids and “headed to prison” kids. Like, they never even cross paths. My nerdy clarinet player is not getting invited to go rob people.

You are so naive. I was valedictorian, and my academic peer made friends with the druggies in an elective art class and it was all downhill from there. I went to an Ivy League and have a typical DC life, she ended up as a vet tech at petsmart. Still a nice person and not in prison, but as a parent not the life I want for my children.

DP.. oh please... I went to a "rough" HS and knew people who got pregnant in HS, did drugs, etc We hung out together sometimes. But, I went onto college, and started making six figures by 30, back in the 90s.

Association in and of itself doesn't mean much.

I'm sure there are private school kids who end up on drugs and in expensive rehabs, get pregnant, and have their parents pay for their abortion. Do the kids who associate with "those" private school kids end up in rehab, too?

My point was the PP who said their UMC would never cross paths with the “prison” crowd. They take classes together.

It’s bizarre right? These same folks yelling about segregated schools then say that good kids and bad kids don’t interact at all in school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was a private school lifer and hated it.

Would have actually had access to better colleges if I had attended the local public schools, with more STEM classes and more activities, and without the long bus ride.

I also think it's important to interact with different people; my lilly white and Asian private school with mostly UMC families didn't prepare me appropriately for life.

Yet you self-affiliate as wealthy, indicating that it did prepare you to be a successful contributor to society.

I think you also misunderstand how college access in public school works. Yes, kids can go to excellent colleges, particularly STEM. Kids also go to substantially worse colleges in large numbers, community college and even at “W” schools a lot of kids don’t go to college at all. These are all equal options and actually when you understand how exceptional the public students are that make it to top colleges, you realize that it’s less likely your child will be one of them.

Just be forewarned now, in public school you are in your own and there are big, potentially life-altering consequences for relatively small mistakes. That’s what growing up poor and being a public school lifer taught me.

To each their own, but just be prepared that the safety net is gone and there is a bottom that I don’t think you contemplate existing.

Dp. Those were ominous statements. Can you elaborate, please?

MCPS is trying to change this dynamic, but stupid mistakes in public school can easily leave students with criminal records. At private school, you might get expelled but unless kids do something with irreparable harm they are unlikely to call the police.

In public school, parents can be surprised by C and D grades at the end of the marking period if kids are telling you everything is fine. One semester with a 2.0 will clearly have a dramatic impact on college applications. Alternatively, private schools monitor performance closely and will intervene quickly for even just an abnormally poor result on one test.

And just to be real for a moment, kids can get lost and I’ve seen it. Fall in with the “wrong crowd” (like not just suburban privileged bad, but legitimately will end up in prison bad) and it takes a long time to deprogram that mindset. While private is not perfect and there are lots of issues, I would never believe that the bottom that private school kids could fall through would be anything close to what I’ve seen at the school I went to. I feel a great degree of sadness for what happened to some of the people I went to school with.

I don’t know about this. I have two high schoolers and know a lot of upper middle class kids in what you would probably consider “bad” MCPS high school, and literally there is zero overlap between “UMC going to college” kids and “headed to prison” kids. Like, they never even cross paths. My nerdy clarinet player is not getting invited to go rob people.

You are so naive. I was valedictorian, and my academic peer made friends with the druggies in an elective art class and it was all downhill from there. I went to an Ivy League and have a typical DC life, she ended up as a vet tech at petsmart. Still a nice person and not in prison, but as a parent not the life I want for my children.

This is very adolescent logic. Some bad person made her a “druggie” and suddenly it was all over? So, this person had all the same money and family support and mental health as you, and just happened to sit next to a bad kid and her life went boom? This is how Nancy Reagan thought drugs work, but not how they really work. Your friend was either poorer than you or more despairing with less family support.

Seriously. I had friends in high school who did a ton of drugs — pot, acid, shrooms … I didn’t take any drugs at all. The kids who did tended to have other things going on, including really acrimonious divorces and things like that.

I'm a PP who went to privates and has kids in MCPS elementary now. Yes, drugs, sex, and bad decisions were found all around in the private schools, and some kids certainly screwed up their lives.

In some ways, I think the privates could be worse. The public school kids I knew smoked weed or drank beer, but I had private school friends who did cocaine, heroin, crystal meth, ecstasy, shrooms, and acid and who carried water bottles filled with vodka to class.

Basically, the options to eff up are abundant in both private and public, and I don't think private offers any special insulation from those temptations. There are lots of reasons to go private in MS/HS, but I wouldn't count that as one of them.

This is the thing, to believe the “privates could be worse” is to misunderstand the differences in how accountability for these behaviors is treated in the two environments. A kid doing all of the drugs you mention at a private and getting caught would probably get expelled and then go to either a good public school or another private. A kid doing all of those drugs in public school and getting caught ends up getting arrested.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We did private after doing public for many years and it’s not worth the tuition and actually worse academically in some core subjects. Not what I thought it would be and was very disappointed, so back to public.

Sounds like you picked a bad private school.

Nope, a highly regarded one, which was why it was such a disappointment and unexpected.

Can you please name the highly regarded private school that is worse than MCPS and which of the core subjects? Math I might believe, depending on the schools being compared.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Because I didn't want to produce another Kavanaugh? Seriously, my kids are already entitled enough. And there are bad teachers/messed up admin everywhere. At least in public school there are formal requirements of certification. Also, privates traditionally aren't as good at STEM. I'd rather save my money and have kids who are a little more resilient and used to all types of people. Really. My HS kids will be pros at arguing their way into classes by college!

Hmm … interesting that you have no idea that private schools need to adhere to certification standards too.

NP. Most private schools don't require their teachers to be certified.

But the schools have to be accredited. You act like it’s a total free for all in private schools.

Um. Totally different thing. Nice pivot.

[Anonymous]

Who was it that very accurately said, “show me your friends and I’ll show you your future.” In our public, they said the choices made in 9th grade usually set the stage for all of high school.

Privates generally can’t come close to the AP and upper level math and science classes (multi variable calc, microbiology). This area is very rich in STEM experts and a lot of them are teaching as second careers in public schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If money is not an issue, what factors caused you to keep your child in MCPS?

The higher-quality of education that's available to those who seek it out mainly. DC is taking complex analysis, cellular physiology, macroeconomics, and Spanish lit. These varied offerings just aren't available at privates.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Who was it that very accurately said, “show me your friends and I’ll show you your future.” In our public, they said the choices made in 9th grade usually set the stage for all of high school.

Privates generally can’t come close to the AP and upper level math and science classes (multi variable calc, microbiology). This area is very rich in STEM experts and a lot of them are teaching as second careers in public schools.

We had friends in town last week looking at east coast colleges for their junior who is at a boarding school in California. My Wilson DC was telling her what classes they have/had. She said, “wow!” after several electives/APs and remarked how lucky DC was to have interesting classes. She was ready for senior year because she would finally have two interesting classes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Who was it that very accurately said, “show me your friends and I’ll show you your future.” In our public, they said the choices made in 9th grade usually set the stage for all of high school.

Privates generally can’t come close to the AP and upper level math and science classes (multi variable calc, microbiology). This area is very rich in STEM experts and a lot of them are teaching as second careers in public schools.

And as you expect at any school with 2000-3000 kids you can *choose* to be friends with many different kinds of people. There's also this saying about cream rising to the top. People will find where they belong. Mayube since privates are smaller and less varied there are fewer choices, but in the end, part of growing up is making choices for yourself. Further, although privates likely don't have large groups of people at the poverty level, they often do have troubled kids like anywhere.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was a private school lifer and hated it.

Would have actually had access to better colleges if I had attended the local public schools, with more STEM classes and more activities, and without the long bus ride.

I also think it's important to interact with different people; my lilly white and Asian private school with mostly UMC families didn't prepare me appropriately for life.

Yet you self-affiliate as wealthy, indicating that it did prepare you to be a successful contributor to society.

I think you also misunderstand how college access in public school works. Yes, kids can go to excellent colleges, particularly STEM. Kids also go to substantially worse colleges in large numbers, community college and even at “W” schools a lot of kids don’t go to college at all. These are all equal options and actually when you understand how exceptional the public students are that make it to top colleges, you realize that it’s less likely your child will be one of them.

Just be forewarned now, in public school you are in your own and there are big, potentially life-altering consequences for relatively small mistakes. That’s what growing up poor and being a public school lifer taught me.

To each their own, but just be prepared that the safety net is gone and there is a bottom that I don’t think you contemplate existing.

Dp. Those were ominous statements. Can you elaborate, please?

MCPS is trying to change this dynamic, but stupid mistakes in public school can easily leave students with criminal records. At private school, you might get expelled but unless kids do something with irreparable harm they are unlikely to call the police.

In public school, parents can be surprised by C and D grades at the end of the marking period if kids are telling you everything is fine. One semester with a 2.0 will clearly have a dramatic impact on college applications. Alternatively, private schools monitor performance closely and will intervene quickly for even just an abnormally poor result on one test.

And just to be real for a moment, kids can get lost and I’ve seen it. Fall in with the “wrong crowd” (like not just suburban privileged bad, but legitimately will end up in prison bad) and it takes a long time to deprogram that mindset. While private is not perfect and there are lots of issues, I would never believe that the bottom that private school kids could fall through would be anything close to what I’ve seen at the school I went to. I feel a great degree of sadness for what happened to some of the people I went to school with.

I don’t know about this. I have two high schoolers and know a lot of upper middle class kids in what you would probably consider “bad” MCPS high school, and literally there is zero overlap between “UMC going to college” kids and “headed to prison” kids. Like, they never even cross paths. My nerdy clarinet player is not getting invited to go rob people.

You are so naive. I was valedictorian, and my academic peer made friends with the druggies in an elective art class and it was all downhill from there. I went to an Ivy League and have a typical DC life, she ended up as a vet tech at petsmart. Still a nice person and not in prison, but as a parent not the life I want for my children.

This is very adolescent logic. Some bad person made her a “druggie” and suddenly it was all over? So, this person had all the same money and family support and mental health as you, and just happened to sit next to a bad kid and her life went boom? This is how Nancy Reagan thought drugs work, but not how they really work. Your friend was either poorer than you or more despairing with less family support.

Seriously. I had friends in high school who did a ton of drugs — pot, acid, shrooms … I didn’t take any drugs at all. The kids who did tended to have other things going on, including really acrimonious divorces and things like that.

I'm a PP who went to privates and has kids in MCPS elementary now. Yes, drugs, sex, and bad decisions were found all around in the private schools, and some kids certainly screwed up their lives.

In some ways, I think the privates could be worse. The public school kids I knew smoked weed or drank beer, but I had private school friends who did cocaine, heroin, crystal meth, ecstasy, shrooms, and acid and who carried water bottles filled with vodka to class.

Basically, the options to eff up are abundant in both private and public, and I don't think private offers any special insulation from those temptations. There are lots of reasons to go private in MS/HS, but I wouldn't count that as one of them.

This is the thing, to believe the “privates could be worse” is to misunderstand the differences in how accountability for these behaviors is treated in the two environments. A kid doing all of the drugs you mention at a private and getting caught would probably get expelled and then go to either a good public school or another private. A kid doing all of those drugs in public school and getting caught ends up getting arrested.

DP.. again, you seem confused. It's not about public vs private. That's about money vs no money.

A kid who gets caught doing hard drugs in private may get kicked out, but the one who has money can go to a different private and get a high priced lawyer to sweep it under the rug.

The not so rich kid in private would end up in public with that record in tact because the family doesn't have the means to hire a good lawyer to sweep it under the rug.

The same rich kid in a public school would still end up better off because of the same resources to get the drug incident swept under the rug.

Again, it's the affluenza effect and has nothing to do with private v public.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We did private after doing public for many years and it’s not worth the tuition and actually worse academically in some core subjects. Not what I thought it would be and was very disappointed, so back to public.

Sounds like you picked a bad private school.

Nope, a highly regarded one, which was why it was such a disappointment and unexpected.

Can you please name the highly regarded private school that is worse than MCPS and which of the core subjects? Math I might believe, depending on the schools being compared.

SAAS is one I hear complaints of their English program and educational consultant did not recommend. Not aware of STA or Sidwell.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Who was it that very accurately said, “show me your friends and I’ll show you your future.” In our public, they said the choices made in 9th grade usually set the stage for all of high school.

Privates generally can’t come close to the AP and upper level math and science classes (multi variable calc, microbiology). This area is very rich in STEM experts and a lot of them are teaching as second careers in public schools.

We had friends in town last week looking at east coast colleges for their junior who is at a boarding school in California. My Wilson DC was telling her what classes they have/had. She said, “wow!” after several electives/APs and remarked how lucky DC was to have interesting classes. She was ready for senior year because she would finally have two interesting classes.

I don't know about boarding school in CA, but I do know that a lot of HS in CA lack interesting classes because 1. budget 2. the "good" school districts are too small to offer a variety, similar to private schools.

Just looking at the HS we were zoned for in a very expensive Bay Area neighborhood, the highest math class offered is AP AB/BC Calc. My Jr here in MCPS is taking AP BC Calc now, as are many many other students here, and doing well.

CS -- they have only two offerings, one AP and one intro. These are just two examples of the lack of course offerings in a lot of other school districts.

As much as I complain about MCPS (and I have, a lot), the course offerings and programming here are so much better than most of the districts in the country, including expensive CA areas.

[Anonymous]

I don’t think there is an obvious private school in this area that would meet the needs of my kids. I would want academically challenging for my gifted kids but not a pressure cooker with tons of homework. Not religious because we are not, and not overly sporty because we are also not. Which eliminates most schools except a few small ones, which can be socially stifling. I have my issues with mcps and am really upset that they are trying to dismantle gifted Ed and magnets, which DO meet the needs of my kids. But for now, I don’t feel like I can identify a better alternative. That could change in the future. I also have nieces in a top tier private in a similar but different metro area and I find their friends very entitled, and their curriculum weak in stem areas and literature believe it or not.

[Anonymous]

What’s with spelling wealthy with a capital W — is it out of deference? You people creep me out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If money is not an issue, what factors caused you to keep your child in MCPS?

The higher-quality of education that's available to those who seek it out mainly. DC is taking complex analysis, cellular physiology, macroeconomics, and Spanish lit. These varied offerings just aren't available at privates.

That’s impressive, it really is.

My kid is smart, but not like yours. What he has gotten from private is a Rolodex and friendships that will follow him for life—think families who are close to billionaire status, Fortune 500 CEOs, high profile entrepreneurs…if you believe America is a pure meritocracy and contacts don’t mean much, I would beg to differ.

It’s not just what you know but who you know that is very important in determining your success in life. And the right private school gives you a Rolodex that is far superior to the best public schools.