Disagreement between Spouse on Public vs Private

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Easy OP. If you can afford private -- go private. If you can't ...go public. What is so hard about that. If you can't afford it, don't fret over it...that's not going to help your child.

Not the OP but another family struggling with this. We earn 500k-1mill and we are still undecided. I don't necessarily think all private schools are better just because they are private. DH specifically does not want our kids to only be around wealthy kids.

Most public school boundaries in MCPS cluster wealth so I am curious how your kids wouldn't be going to public school with other wealthy kids if you are living somewhere with the best public schools that 500k-1 mil could afford. I do agree though that private isn't better because it is private.

We live in a wealthy MoCo neighborhood. The wealthiest people still opt for private. Yes, you have a lot of wealth at MCPS schools, but it's certainly not like the wealth you see at privates.

Our experience has been different. Much more wealth at our MoCo public than at our private school. Public certain has a wider range of income that private school, but in our neighborhood, where everyone probably could afford private school, about 1/2-2/3rds go to public. We sent one to each and it had nothing to do with money.

You can buy a $900k to $1M house in the Whitman and BCC school districts on a household income if $250k -- we know, we looked into this recently. But you can't send two kids to private for $75k/year on the same income, or at least go private and still save for college and retirement. So yes, you will find many families in west MoCo school districts who are doing well and bought into the school districts, but who fall below the $350k income that DCUM thinks you need to afford private school.

That doesn't mean there aren't plenty of wealthy families sending their kids to public school though. You should see the cars in the parking lot at our high school. We've done both and chose public high school because it was the best fit for DC. The fact that it is free is a nice bonus but for us really wasn't a factor in the decision. I know the same is true for a lot of families and a good number of kids come into the middle school and high school from private schools.

[Anonymous]

PP, you may be correct, but I don't know any truly wealthy people who send their kids to public school. We live in a neighborhood where houses start around $800K and go up to several million. You almost never (I can't think of a single case) see someone living in a house that costs over a certain point- say $1.7M- and using the public schools. Those houses all have cars in the driveway with private school magnets. Many of the lower costing houses have kids in private too. These families would be able to afford to double their mortgages, but they instead choose to invest in private school educations.