Class size
School size Community Differentiated education Student is "known" Better parent group - my kid went to public for a year and some of the parents were hyper-competitive to the point of abusive IMO to their kids, my kid's friends - lots of issues around that, some cultural issues. Less repetitive homework, more focus on critical thinking |
+1. This is EXACTLY how I feel. |
It's not about JUST academics. Your logic is like saying both the Cadillac and Nissan drive to the same place so therefore there's no difference. It's simply not true, one has a much better experience. |
Trump, why do you have such a bee in your bonnet about IQ. It's not a measure of success, which has been proven a million times over. |
Not all of us moved to private with the misguided idea that the "return on investment" would be "better" college placement. We wanted a better day to day experience for our children. We absolutely got that. They have teachers who care about them, smaller classes, more chances to participate in ECs and sports, the school has an administration that can be nimble in their decision-making on everything from cell phone policy to weather closures, and we don't worry about massive behavioral issues. DCs are held to high standards. They enjoy school. They will go to a college that is a good fit for them and I am confident that the CCs at their school will help them manage that process. It's a lot of money, but to us it's worth it. +1 |
- wokism
- behavioral issues in class - dumbing down of curriculum - too much tech use |
Here's my source for Private schools by county (school district) in Maryland (marylandpublicschools.org). I'm sure this exists in other States and there may be a national data base as well. https://www.marylandpublicschools.org/about/Documents/DCAA/SSP/20222023Student/2023NonpublicSchoolEnrollment.pdf |
Our "excellent" MCPS school failed my ADHD child. So we moved to private. |
OP I was in your shoes. First of all I'm not sure why you think struggling kids would be drawn to a private religious school. Generally they have very strict behavioral standards.
At our school the "very religious" families are a minority. About half the school is very wealthy families who have always attended Catholic school and can't imagine anything different. They are rather laissez faire. Then about a third is families who live in a poorly performing district nearby and are "refugees". Finally there are families like mine who live in the good district but have to scrape together the money for the school. I guess we are the most religious of the three groups and we definitely seem to care the most about the school. |
We wanted Montessori and it isn’t available in our school district. Our daughter is still in the Primary (pk3-k) classroom but the elementary (1st- 6th) and adolescent 7th - 9th) students are impressive in academics, social development, and executive skills. |
Without a breakdown by school attendance zone and religious vs independent privates you really cannot draw any useful conclusion from these stats. |
Nonsense. You can conclude that 17% of the high school students are in private schools. You can bet the MCPS people are well aware of this. From this, using your own common sense and experience, you can make some educated guesses. I, for example, would believe that the percentage of of high schoolers at private schools is greater in Bethesda and Potomac than it is in Montgomery Village or Derwood. The MCPS doesn’t differentiate between religious and secular privates. To them Prep and Landon are the same thing as I suspect they are to most. This data doesn’t shed any light on the question of why people in the sending areas of the “best” free public high schools pay to send their kids to private ones. But it certainly shows there are a whole lot of them that do this. (9,000 of them or enough to fill six additional high schools with 1500 students each). |
As a public school parent at a “good” school who has seen numerous friends pull their kids for private, I’d honestly say most of them have these reasons. Kid was struggling and “needed small class sizes” or had social or mental health issues, or a diagnosis like dyslexia, anxiety or mild autism, etc. I only know 3 kids out of probably 30 who were academically and socially fine. I think those families always planned on private because older siblings were in private after ES or after MS. I personally think of religious/parochial schools separately from independent schools. There are a few exceptions, but most seem to attract families who want homogeneity with their school community. The schools themselves aren’t usually better than public, just more insular. I think the wealthy “lifers” who were too good for public in the first place are another group of families you’ll find. I’ll be the first to say that there are issues in the public schools for sure. But I don’t think your perception is off that privates do attract a good amount of entitled people, kids who require attention and hand holding, and people who wish to be insular and exclude. The whole idea of private school is exclusivity! |
I work at a private but my kids go to a good public. Public has its issues but the teachers at the public school seem more professional, generally invested in education as a field. I assumed the pay gap has something to do with this. Private teachers seem like more 2nd and 3rd career types. |
You’re not even close. You think 1 family in 5 is doing this for “exclusivity”? For a variety of reasons, they think it’s better. You can’t see that? Great. Enjoy the public schools. |