If you are wealthy would you send your kids to a W school over private?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:IF both W schools and privates were free, what would you choose?

I am a new poster and have not been able to read all 46 pages of this thread but I did skim through a it and approached our choice much like you posed this question. We are in a W cluster but had considered private. Particularly Bullis. We decided to stick with our W cluster for many reasons but mostly because the diversity that you speak of at Bullis turned us off. We went to a football game and all the kids they bussed in were playing and the remaining student section was not diverse at all. I also truly believe that the math curriculm in our W cluster is leaps and bounds ahead of Bullis. Other factors lead to our decision as well but in the end even if it was free we decided to pass on private. In my opinion Private is worth it if you go for name recognition which is therefore only worth it when looking for single sex schools and that was not appealing for us.

Students who play sports are also students who are in the classroom. The Bulls football program is one of the best high school football program in the US. It has phenomenal athletes that earn the attention of D1 schools for college scholarship opportunities. Same for other athletic programs at the school.

A better measurement of the academic atmosphere is a tour of the school during the school day. Unlike public schools, athletes wear the same uniform as all other students. There’s nothing on them that represents themselves as a football player.

For math, child left Churchill for Bullis specifically for their STEM program. There were more advanced classes at Bullis for math and electives not offered at Churchill. The peer group for advanced math was around 12 students to Churchill’s 2 (hence why my son, if he stayed at Churchill, wouldn’t have a math class past 11th grade). The top math, science, and AP economics classes were taught by university professors. The quality of instruction and availability for help during office hours was also a huge benefit at Bullis.

Finally, help with the college search process was another benefit of private. Counselors at Bullis have a small fraction of students compared to their MCPS counterparts. Bullis counselors actually have several meetings with students to help them come up with a list of colleges, read essays, and provide feedback. They also help students chunk out the deadlines. At Churchill there was zero help with navigating the college process.

dp.. I call BS. It's a simple numbers game. Public schools like the Ws have way more students than Bullis, and many are also UMC. There are way more high achieving students in public schools than there are at Bullis simply because there are more public school students than private schools.

if your DS was that advanced in math he could've gone to Blair STEM, but it seems to me that he is probably not intuitively advanced as much as he is coached to be advanced. And yes, a lot of public school students are also tutored and coached to be advanced in math, as well, but they don't send their kids to private because they think private is much more advanced in STEM than Blair, for example.

BS meter is showing all the way to the right.

PP - this thread is asking if money wasn’t a factor, would you send your child to a W school or private. Blair is not a W school nor do most people in Potomac wish to put their child on a 45 minute bus ride to Silver Spring for access to a challenging math class and a segregated school within a school.

You may not agree with our choice, however, Bullis was a wonderful experience for my son. Bullis met his needs and provided a more challenging curriculum than Churchill. Bullis was also only 10 minutes from our house.

How did Bullis provide a more challenging math curriculum than your W school?

I’m not the person you’re responding to, but we’ve posted course catalogs for private schools repeatedly and compared them to W schools. The course offerings at private schools on the high school level are just as advanced if not more than the W schools.

Course offerings in catalogs are marketing brochures. It doesn't mean that the courses are taught every year. It will depend on if there are enough students who want or have the ability to take those classes. Works the same way in public schools and colleges. There are course offerings in catalogues that aren't always offered every year at that particular school.

That’s your excuse? Ok, so post proof that private schools don’t actually offer the advanced courses as much as public schools do. Otherwise it’s just obvious you’re grasping at straws to crap on private schools.

? not an excuse. Just stating the way it is. Colleges do the same.

But to use it as a way to argue private schools are weaker in math, you’d have to prove that the advanced courses are offered less often than at public schools.

ok, then maybe the Bullis parent could tell which advanced math course their kid took at Bullis that a W school didn't have, and also how many kids were in that advanced math class?

The kids in the advanced math classes in public are getting outside enrichment for math. It’s not from the teachings of public.

Nonsense. My kid at a W took multivariable calculus and I can assure that neither he nor his peers used tutors or outside help. We moved our kids from private to public for lots of reasons, and more advanced math and science classes was very much one of those reasons. The schools may be larger, but within each of those W schools there is a very significant cohort of smart, disciplined, and motivated students who do not need the coddling that so many private school kids do. No regrets.

No peers getting tutors or outside help? Now I know you are a damn liar. Plenty are doing this and if you don’t know, then you know nothing.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I’m not sure why a PP feels so defensive about MCPS. MCPS class sizes are ridiculously too large for students to receive individualized instruction. MCPS is demoralized by the demands due to the staffing shortages, unaddressed misconduct by superiors, and low pay.Finally, private schools returned to in person instruction for the 2020-2021 school year while MCPS remained online. Private schools never adjusted their curriculum during the pandemic and thus, students didn’t experience learning loss like their MCPS peers.

Keep fooling yourself that MCPS is superior school system. MCPS is the free option, not the academically superior option. Like another PP said, in life you get what you pay for.

While I certainly recognize the problems facing MCPS and other public school districts, private schools are not superior for everyone. DD's best friend hated their private. Other parents would kill to have their kids there but for her it was not really challenging, not enough smart kids, not enough ideas. She felt the classroom discussion was always mediocre because only a small percentage of kids were actually smart and motivated. She was bored. Most of them came from similar backgrounds. In her public magnet the entire class is smart and motivated and the perspectives are more eye-opening. FWIW, DD is very smart and likes the private.

+1 Can't have too many diverse opinions when the class sizes are super small, and where being "different" could mean being a social outcast. Speaking of which, not a lot of social groups to choose from. If you are on the oust with your friend group, you don't have a lot of other friend groups to choose from in a small private. That could be a death sentence for a kid who is not popular or just different.

I understand the desire for small class sizes and more focused students in the class. Those would be good reasons to put your kid in private.

I feel like you all think these schools have like 20 kids in a grade. Most top private schools have grades with 50-60 kids. Not a 2,000 person MCPS high school, but also not minuscule.

This private has about 120-130 kids per grade so not that situation.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m not sure why a PP feels so defensive about MCPS. MCPS class sizes are ridiculously too large for students to receive individualized instruction. MCPS is demoralized by the demands due to the staffing shortages, unaddressed misconduct by superiors, and low pay.Finally, private schools returned to in person instruction for the 2020-2021 school year while MCPS remained online. Private schools never adjusted their curriculum during the pandemic and thus, students didn’t experience learning loss like their MCPS peers.

Keep fooling yourself that MCPS is superior school system. MCPS is the free option, not the academically superior option. Like another PP said, in life you get what you pay for.

While I certainly recognize the problems facing MCPS and other public school districts, private schools are not superior for everyone. DD's best friend hated their private. Other parents would kill to have their kids there but for her it was not really challenging, not enough smart kids, not enough ideas. She felt the classroom discussion was always mediocre because only a small percentage of kids were actually smart and motivated. She was bored. Most of them came from similar backgrounds. In her public magnet the entire class is smart and motivated and the perspectives are more eye-opening. FWIW, DD is very smart and likes the private.

+1 Can't have too many diverse opinions when the class sizes are super small, and where being "different" could mean being a social outcast. Speaking of which, not a lot of social groups to choose from. If you are on the oust with your friend group, you don't have a lot of other friend groups to choose from in a small private. That could be a death sentence for a kid who is not popular or just different.

I understand the desire for small class sizes and more focused students in the class. Those would be good reasons to put your kid in private.

I feel like you all think these schools have like 20 kids in a grade. Most top private schools have grades with 50-60 kids. Not a 2,000 person MCPS high school, but also not minuscule.

This private has about 120-130 kids per grade so not that situation.

My son's school has 250 per grade. Plenty of opportunity to find his people.

[Anonymous]

In our W neighborhood probably about 1/3 of the kids go to private. A large percentage were struggling in public for one reason or another. Many are quirky and could not deal socially with the big competitive environment of public schools and others were having trouble being motivated academically. I can think of only a handful of popular well adjusted kids who are A students who decided to go to private even for 9th.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:IF both W schools and privates were free, what would you choose?

I am a new poster and have not been able to read all 46 pages of this thread but I did skim through a it and approached our choice much like you posed this question. We are in a W cluster but had considered private. Particularly Bullis. We decided to stick with our W cluster for many reasons but mostly because the diversity that you speak of at Bullis turned us off. We went to a football game and all the kids they bussed in were playing and the remaining student section was not diverse at all. I also truly believe that the math curriculm in our W cluster is leaps and bounds ahead of Bullis. Other factors lead to our decision as well but in the end even if it was free we decided to pass on private. In my opinion Private is worth it if you go for name recognition which is therefore only worth it when looking for single sex schools and that was not appealing for us.

Students who play sports are also students who are in the classroom. The Bulls football program is one of the best high school football program in the US. It has phenomenal athletes that earn the attention of D1 schools for college scholarship opportunities. Same for other athletic programs at the school.

A better measurement of the academic atmosphere is a tour of the school during the school day. Unlike public schools, athletes wear the same uniform as all other students. There’s nothing on them that represents themselves as a football player.

For math, child left Churchill for Bullis specifically for their STEM program. There were more advanced classes at Bullis for math and electives not offered at Churchill. The peer group for advanced math was around 12 students to Churchill’s 2 (hence why my son, if he stayed at Churchill, wouldn’t have a math class past 11th grade). The top math, science, and AP economics classes were taught by university professors. The quality of instruction and availability for help during office hours was also a huge benefit at Bullis.

Finally, help with the college search process was another benefit of private. Counselors at Bullis have a small fraction of students compared to their MCPS counterparts. Bullis counselors actually have several meetings with students to help them come up with a list of colleges, read essays, and provide feedback. They also help students chunk out the deadlines. At Churchill there was zero help with navigating the college process.

dp.. I call BS. It's a simple numbers game. Public schools like the Ws have way more students than Bullis, and many are also UMC. There are way more high achieving students in public schools than there are at Bullis simply because there are more public school students than private schools.

if your DS was that advanced in math he could've gone to Blair STEM, but it seems to me that he is probably not intuitively advanced as much as he is coached to be advanced. And yes, a lot of public school students are also tutored and coached to be advanced in math, as well, but they don't send their kids to private because they think private is much more advanced in STEM than Blair, for example.

BS meter is showing all the way to the right.

PP - this thread is asking if money wasn’t a factor, would you send your child to a W school or private. Blair is not a W school nor do most people in Potomac wish to put their child on a 45 minute bus ride to Silver Spring for access to a challenging math class and a segregated school within a school.

You may not agree with our choice, however, Bullis was a wonderful experience for my son. Bullis met his needs and provided a more challenging curriculum than Churchill. Bullis was also only 10 minutes from our house.

How did Bullis provide a more challenging math curriculum than your W school?

I’m not the person you’re responding to, but we’ve posted course catalogs for private schools repeatedly and compared them to W schools. The course offerings at private schools on the high school level are just as advanced if not more than the W schools.

Course offerings in catalogs are marketing brochures. It doesn't mean that the courses are taught every year. It will depend on if there are enough students who want or have the ability to take those classes. Works the same way in public schools and colleges. There are course offerings in catalogues that aren't always offered every year at that particular school.

That’s your excuse? Ok, so post proof that private schools don’t actually offer the advanced courses as much as public schools do. Otherwise it’s just obvious you’re grasping at straws to crap on private schools.

? not an excuse. Just stating the way it is. Colleges do the same.

But to use it as a way to argue private schools are weaker in math, you’d have to prove that the advanced courses are offered less often than at public schools.

ok, then maybe the Bullis parent could tell which advanced math course their kid took at Bullis that a W school didn't have, and also how many kids were in that advanced math class?

The kids in the advanced math classes in public are getting outside enrichment for math. It’s not from the teachings of public.

Nonsense. My kid at a W took multivariable calculus and I can assure that neither he nor his peers used tutors or outside help. We moved our kids from private to public for lots of reasons, and more advanced math and science classes was very much one of those reasons. The schools may be larger, but within each of those W schools there is a very significant cohort of smart, disciplined, and motivated students who do not need the coddling that so many private school kids do. No regrets.

No peers getting tutors or outside help? Now I know you are a damn liar. Plenty are doing this and if you don’t know, then you know nothing.

Why would that PP bother lying? I believe them but I also don't know why people get hung up on this question. Why does it matter? Almost all of DD's peers who play higher level travel got private coaching at one point or another or "supplemented" outside the regular club by going to extra camps or intensive training. Do you have a problem with that too?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In our W neighborhood probably about 1/3 of the kids go to private. A large percentage were struggling in public for one reason or another. Many are quirky and could not deal socially with the big competitive environment of public schools and others were having trouble being motivated academically. I can think of only a handful of popular well adjusted kids who are A students who decided to go to private even for 9th.

Well in my Churchill zoned neighborhood, most go to public. The only ones who are in private are because of religious choice (that's us) or those going to privates like McLean School or Lab School for significant learning differences. However, with my daughter being in private, we find that her classmates live in much more affluent neighborhoods like Avenel and areas Chevy Chase and Bethesda. So I am guessing that people in our neighborhood stayed in mcps because they just couldn't swing the tuition or wanted to use that extra money for cars and vacations.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:IF both W schools and privates were free, what would you choose?

I am a new poster and have not been able to read all 46 pages of this thread but I did skim through a it and approached our choice much like you posed this question. We are in a W cluster but had considered private. Particularly Bullis. We decided to stick with our W cluster for many reasons but mostly because the diversity that you speak of at Bullis turned us off. We went to a football game and all the kids they bussed in were playing and the remaining student section was not diverse at all. I also truly believe that the math curriculm in our W cluster is leaps and bounds ahead of Bullis. Other factors lead to our decision as well but in the end even if it was free we decided to pass on private. In my opinion Private is worth it if you go for name recognition which is therefore only worth it when looking for single sex schools and that was not appealing for us.

Students who play sports are also students who are in the classroom. The Bulls football program is one of the best high school football program in the US. It has phenomenal athletes that earn the attention of D1 schools for college scholarship opportunities. Same for other athletic programs at the school.

A better measurement of the academic atmosphere is a tour of the school during the school day. Unlike public schools, athletes wear the same uniform as all other students. There’s nothing on them that represents themselves as a football player.

For math, child left Churchill for Bullis specifically for their STEM program. There were more advanced classes at Bullis for math and electives not offered at Churchill. The peer group for advanced math was around 12 students to Churchill’s 2 (hence why my son, if he stayed at Churchill, wouldn’t have a math class past 11th grade). The top math, science, and AP economics classes were taught by university professors. The quality of instruction and availability for help during office hours was also a huge benefit at Bullis.

Finally, help with the college search process was another benefit of private. Counselors at Bullis have a small fraction of students compared to their MCPS counterparts. Bullis counselors actually have several meetings with students to help them come up with a list of colleges, read essays, and provide feedback. They also help students chunk out the deadlines. At Churchill there was zero help with navigating the college process.

dp.. I call BS. It's a simple numbers game. Public schools like the Ws have way more students than Bullis, and many are also UMC. There are way more high achieving students in public schools than there are at Bullis simply because there are more public school students than private schools.

if your DS was that advanced in math he could've gone to Blair STEM, but it seems to me that he is probably not intuitively advanced as much as he is coached to be advanced. And yes, a lot of public school students are also tutored and coached to be advanced in math, as well, but they don't send their kids to private because they think private is much more advanced in STEM than Blair, for example.

BS meter is showing all the way to the right.

PP - this thread is asking if money wasn’t a factor, would you send your child to a W school or private. Blair is not a W school nor do most people in Potomac wish to put their child on a 45 minute bus ride to Silver Spring for access to a challenging math class and a segregated school within a school.

You may not agree with our choice, however, Bullis was a wonderful experience for my son. Bullis met his needs and provided a more challenging curriculum than Churchill. Bullis was also only 10 minutes from our house.

How did Bullis provide a more challenging math curriculum than your W school?

I’m not the person you’re responding to, but we’ve posted course catalogs for private schools repeatedly and compared them to W schools. The course offerings at private schools on the high school level are just as advanced if not more than the W schools.

Course offerings in catalogs are marketing brochures. It doesn't mean that the courses are taught every year. It will depend on if there are enough students who want or have the ability to take those classes. Works the same way in public schools and colleges. There are course offerings in catalogues that aren't always offered every year at that particular school.

That’s your excuse? Ok, so post proof that private schools don’t actually offer the advanced courses as much as public schools do. Otherwise it’s just obvious you’re grasping at straws to crap on private schools.

? not an excuse. Just stating the way it is. Colleges do the same.

But to use it as a way to argue private schools are weaker in math, you’d have to prove that the advanced courses are offered less often than at public schools.

ok, then maybe the Bullis parent could tell which advanced math course their kid took at Bullis that a W school didn't have, and also how many kids were in that advanced math class?

The kids in the advanced math classes in public are getting outside enrichment for math. It’s not from the teachings of public.

Nonsense. My kid at a W took multivariable calculus and I can assure that neither he nor his peers used tutors or outside help. We moved our kids from private to public for lots of reasons, and more advanced math and science classes was very much one of those reasons. The schools may be larger, but within each of those W schools there is a very significant cohort of smart, disciplined, and motivated students who do not need the coddling that so many private school kids do. No regrets.

Not sure which private school you came from or what anonymous W school your children attended. However, not all W high schools offer math beyond Calculus BC. We were in this situation and either my child had to transfer to a public school other than our neighborhood W school or not have an opportunity to participate in after school athletics so he could travel to Montgomery College for math. Transportation to the other school or to Montgomery College had to be supplied by our family. MCPS said that because there were not enough students in our school to take multi variable so it wasn’t being offered.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:IF both W schools and privates were free, what would you choose?

I am a new poster and have not been able to read all 46 pages of this thread but I did skim through a it and approached our choice much like you posed this question. We are in a W cluster but had considered private. Particularly Bullis. We decided to stick with our W cluster for many reasons but mostly because the diversity that you speak of at Bullis turned us off. We went to a football game and all the kids they bussed in were playing and the remaining student section was not diverse at all. I also truly believe that the math curriculm in our W cluster is leaps and bounds ahead of Bullis. Other factors lead to our decision as well but in the end even if it was free we decided to pass on private. In my opinion Private is worth it if you go for name recognition which is therefore only worth it when looking for single sex schools and that was not appealing for us.

Students who play sports are also students who are in the classroom. The Bulls football program is one of the best high school football program in the US. It has phenomenal athletes that earn the attention of D1 schools for college scholarship opportunities. Same for other athletic programs at the school.

A better measurement of the academic atmosphere is a tour of the school during the school day. Unlike public schools, athletes wear the same uniform as all other students. There’s nothing on them that represents themselves as a football player.

For math, child left Churchill for Bullis specifically for their STEM program. There were more advanced classes at Bullis for math and electives not offered at Churchill. The peer group for advanced math was around 12 students to Churchill’s 2 (hence why my son, if he stayed at Churchill, wouldn’t have a math class past 11th grade). The top math, science, and AP economics classes were taught by university professors. The quality of instruction and availability for help during office hours was also a huge benefit at Bullis.

Finally, help with the college search process was another benefit of private. Counselors at Bullis have a small fraction of students compared to their MCPS counterparts. Bullis counselors actually have several meetings with students to help them come up with a list of colleges, read essays, and provide feedback. They also help students chunk out the deadlines. At Churchill there was zero help with navigating the college process.

dp.. I call BS. It's a simple numbers game. Public schools like the Ws have way more students than Bullis, and many are also UMC. There are way more high achieving students in public schools than there are at Bullis simply because there are more public school students than private schools.

if your DS was that advanced in math he could've gone to Blair STEM, but it seems to me that he is probably not intuitively advanced as much as he is coached to be advanced. And yes, a lot of public school students are also tutored and coached to be advanced in math, as well, but they don't send their kids to private because they think private is much more advanced in STEM than Blair, for example.

BS meter is showing all the way to the right.

PP - this thread is asking if money wasn’t a factor, would you send your child to a W school or private. Blair is not a W school nor do most people in Potomac wish to put their child on a 45 minute bus ride to Silver Spring for access to a challenging math class and a segregated school within a school.

You may not agree with our choice, however, Bullis was a wonderful experience for my son. Bullis met his needs and provided a more challenging curriculum than Churchill. Bullis was also only 10 minutes from our house.

How did Bullis provide a more challenging math curriculum than your W school?

I’m not the person you’re responding to, but we’ve posted course catalogs for private schools repeatedly and compared them to W schools. The course offerings at private schools on the high school level are just as advanced if not more than the W schools.

Course offerings in catalogs are marketing brochures. It doesn't mean that the courses are taught every year. It will depend on if there are enough students who want or have the ability to take those classes. Works the same way in public schools and colleges. There are course offerings in catalogues that aren't always offered every year at that particular school.

That’s your excuse? Ok, so post proof that private schools don’t actually offer the advanced courses as much as public schools do. Otherwise it’s just obvious you’re grasping at straws to crap on private schools.

? not an excuse. Just stating the way it is. Colleges do the same.

But to use it as a way to argue private schools are weaker in math, you’d have to prove that the advanced courses are offered less often than at public schools.

ok, then maybe the Bullis parent could tell which advanced math course their kid took at Bullis that a W school didn't have, and also how many kids were in that advanced math class?

The kids in the advanced math classes in public are getting outside enrichment for math. It’s not from the teachings of public.

Nonsense. My kid at a W took multivariable calculus and I can assure that neither he nor his peers used tutors or outside help. We moved our kids from private to public for lots of reasons, and more advanced math and science classes was very much one of those reasons. The schools may be larger, but within each of those W schools there is a very significant cohort of smart, disciplined, and motivated students who do not need the coddling that so many private school kids do. No regrets.

Not sure which private school you came from or what anonymous W school your children attended. However, not all W high schools offer math beyond Calculus BC. We were in this situation and either my child had to transfer to a public school other than our neighborhood W school or not have an opportunity to participate in after school athletics so he could travel to Montgomery College for math. Transportation to the other school or to Montgomery College had to be supplied by our family. MCPS said that because there were not enough students in our school to take multi variable so it wasn’t being offered.

Ooohh...please name the school.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:MCPS focus is cramming 32+ students into a classroom. Students in W public schools are routinely placed into curriculums that are below or above their ability and skills. W schools are also neglected by Central Officials because MCPS resources are prioritized for public schools with high FARMS rates.

Private school students take entrance exams when they transfer from public to private. Private high schools also still give final exams so students have to demonstrate they are ready for the next level. The focus of private schools is to place students in the appropriate level classes.

Please stop. Seriously. Private school is a self selected and then curated selection of students and families in small quantity. A place free of many of the state, federal requirements that a public school must adhere, not to mention from the burden of having three eyes of the entire public. Most don’t serve many special needs. And even with all that advantage, most are still on par or worst than public schools.

Stop acting like private schools are some great slice of heaven in comparison to public schools. It’s a false comparison and not true, especially not for all private’s. Their focus is on exclusivity, name recognition, and appearing better than other private’s and public’s. It’s one of the reasons why they continue to invest in ridiculous campuses. And I say that as someone who graduated from a good one.

If you like your private great. If you think it’s better than public for your kids, great. But the original question has been asked and answered, Repeatedly. Not all wealthy parents or people who can afford it would choose private. Some would some wouldn’t.

Wealthy people choose private in disproportionately high numbers compared to public...90% of the people at my country club do private school...and most people I know that live in 2 million dollar + homes do private. Sometimes, you get what you pay for.[/quote

Because I’m to believe you’ve done a survey of your entire country club. Oh and your country club represents a good slice of wealthy people (despite the fact that there are several in the area). And should we ignore that a good portion of wealthy choose private not because it’s better but because of perception and expectation. This isn’t something I’m guessing at either. I’m completely aware of the conversations and mindset. Which is why I stand by the assessment, some will choose private, some won’t. Regardless, it won’t mean one child will be guaranteed a better education over another. Choose the school and experience that works best for each kid. They’ll be happier that way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In our W neighborhood probably about 1/3 of the kids go to private. A large percentage were struggling in public for one reason or another. Many are quirky and could not deal socially with the big competitive environment of public schools and others were having trouble being motivated academically. I can think of only a handful of popular well adjusted kids who are A students who decided to go to private even for 9th.

Where I live in Bethesda 20817, everyone--or nearly everyone--with money is doing private. Liberal or Conservative. They have the resources and want out of MCPS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m not sure why a PP feels so defensive about MCPS. MCPS class sizes are ridiculously too large for students to receive individualized instruction. MCPS is demoralized by the demands due to the staffing shortages, unaddressed misconduct by superiors, and low pay.Finally, private schools returned to in person instruction for the 2020-2021 school year while MCPS remained online. Private schools never adjusted their curriculum during the pandemic and thus, students didn’t experience learning loss like their MCPS peers.

Keep fooling yourself that MCPS is superior school system. MCPS is the free option, not the academically superior option. Like another PP said, in life you get what you pay for.

While I certainly recognize the problems facing MCPS and other public school districts, private schools are not superior for everyone. DD's best friend hated their private. Other parents would kill to have their kids there but for her it was not really challenging, not enough smart kids, not enough ideas. She felt the classroom discussion was always mediocre because only a small percentage of kids were actually smart and motivated. She was bored. Most of them came from similar backgrounds. In her public magnet the entire class is smart and motivated and the perspectives are more eye-opening. FWIW, DD is very smart and likes the private.

Fascinating. Did DD’s best friend fill you in on those “eye opening” perspectives herself? 🙄

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:IF both W schools and privates were free, what would you choose?

I am a new poster and have not been able to read all 46 pages of this thread but I did skim through a it and approached our choice much like you posed this question. We are in a W cluster but had considered private. Particularly Bullis. We decided to stick with our W cluster for many reasons but mostly because the diversity that you speak of at Bullis turned us off. We went to a football game and all the kids they bussed in were playing and the remaining student section was not diverse at all. I also truly believe that the math curriculm in our W cluster is leaps and bounds ahead of Bullis. Other factors lead to our decision as well but in the end even if it was free we decided to pass on private. In my opinion Private is worth it if you go for name recognition which is therefore only worth it when looking for single sex schools and that was not appealing for us.

Students who play sports are also students who are in the classroom. The Bulls football program is one of the best high school football program in the US. It has phenomenal athletes that earn the attention of D1 schools for college scholarship opportunities. Same for other athletic programs at the school.

A better measurement of the academic atmosphere is a tour of the school during the school day. Unlike public schools, athletes wear the same uniform as all other students. There’s nothing on them that represents themselves as a football player.

For math, child left Churchill for Bullis specifically for their STEM program. There were more advanced classes at Bullis for math and electives not offered at Churchill. The peer group for advanced math was around 12 students to Churchill’s 2 (hence why my son, if he stayed at Churchill, wouldn’t have a math class past 11th grade). The top math, science, and AP economics classes were taught by university professors. The quality of instruction and availability for help during office hours was also a huge benefit at Bullis.

Finally, help with the college search process was another benefit of private. Counselors at Bullis have a small fraction of students compared to their MCPS counterparts. Bullis counselors actually have several meetings with students to help them come up with a list of colleges, read essays, and provide feedback. They also help students chunk out the deadlines. At Churchill there was zero help with navigating the college process.

dp.. I call BS. It's a simple numbers game. Public schools like the Ws have way more students than Bullis, and many are also UMC. There are way more high achieving students in public schools than there are at Bullis simply because there are more public school students than private schools.

if your DS was that advanced in math he could've gone to Blair STEM, but it seems to me that he is probably not intuitively advanced as much as he is coached to be advanced. And yes, a lot of public school students are also tutored and coached to be advanced in math, as well, but they don't send their kids to private because they think private is much more advanced in STEM than Blair, for example.

BS meter is showing all the way to the right.

PP - this thread is asking if money wasn’t a factor, would you send your child to a W school or private. Blair is not a W school nor do most people in Potomac wish to put their child on a 45 minute bus ride to Silver Spring for access to a challenging math class and a segregated school within a school.

You may not agree with our choice, however, Bullis was a wonderful experience for my son. Bullis met his needs and provided a more challenging curriculum than Churchill. Bullis was also only 10 minutes from our house.

How did Bullis provide a more challenging math curriculum than your W school?

I’m not the person you’re responding to, but we’ve posted course catalogs for private schools repeatedly and compared them to W schools. The course offerings at private schools on the high school level are just as advanced if not more than the W schools.

Course offerings in catalogs are marketing brochures. It doesn't mean that the courses are taught every year. It will depend on if there are enough students who want or have the ability to take those classes. Works the same way in public schools and colleges. There are course offerings in catalogues that aren't always offered every year at that particular school.

That’s your excuse? Ok, so post proof that private schools don’t actually offer the advanced courses as much as public schools do. Otherwise it’s just obvious you’re grasping at straws to crap on private schools.

? not an excuse. Just stating the way it is. Colleges do the same.

But to use it as a way to argue private schools are weaker in math, you’d have to prove that the advanced courses are offered less often than at public schools.

ok, then maybe the Bullis parent could tell which advanced math course their kid took at Bullis that a W school didn't have, and also how many kids were in that advanced math class?

The kids in the advanced math classes in public are getting outside enrichment for math. It’s not from the teachings of public.

Nonsense. My kid at a W took multivariable calculus and I can assure that neither he nor his peers used tutors or outside help. We moved our kids from private to public for lots of reasons, and more advanced math and science classes was very much one of those reasons. The schools may be larger, but within each of those W schools there is a very significant cohort of smart, disciplined, and motivated students who do not need the coddling that so many private school kids do. No regrets.

Not sure which private school you came from or what anonymous W school your children attended. However, not all W high schools offer math beyond Calculus BC. We were in this situation and either my child had to transfer to a public school other than our neighborhood W school or not have an opportunity to participate in after school athletics so he could travel to Montgomery College for math. Transportation to the other school or to Montgomery College had to be supplied by our family. MCPS said that because there were not enough students in our school to take multi variable so it wasn’t being offered.

How recently?

Wootton, Whitman, and WJ all advertise it in their catalog currently.

And virtual academy is being deployed more since COVID, avoiding commute.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In our W neighborhood probably about 1/3 of the kids go to private. A large percentage were struggling in public for one reason or another. Many are quirky and could not deal socially with the big competitive environment of public schools and others were having trouble being motivated academically. I can think of only a handful of popular well adjusted kids who are A students who decided to go to private even for 9th.

Where I live in Bethesda 20817, everyone--or nearly everyone--with money is doing private. Liberal or Conservative. They have the resources and want out of MCPS.

I grew up in Bethesda, specifically the Whitman catchment, and graduated from there in 2009. Back then, most people I knew who lived in gigantic $2M+ homes were going to private schools instead of Whitman, though there were still a handful of kids in those homes who attended Whitman. Most kids actually attending Whitman back then lived in $600k-$1.5M homes. Fast forward to today, and homes zoned for Whitman and Churchill that are less than $1M are nearly non-existent, and even tear-downs are going for $900k. Homes that sold for just $1.3M as recently as 2019 could sell for $2.2M today. I find it extremely difficult to imagine that people living in an area that is as prohibitively expensive as Bethesda are abandoning MCPS for privates when the school enrollment trends in Bethesda show otherwise. In fact, I worry that Whitman and other schools in Bethesda/Potomac areas (and even RM at this point) are increasingly becoming "private public schools." Whitman was really affluent when I attended in the 2000s, but we still had an actual cohort of real middle-class students. Not DCUM "middle-class," but actual middle-class. I'm talking about dual fed families, households where one parent was a teacher for MCPS, and even a handful of students with a parent or parents who worked in high-paying blue-collar jobs. You won't find any families like that in Whitman anymore. In the next decade, there will be almost no kids at Whitman whose parents didn't buy their house (at least partially) with family money unless MoCo strives to bring more desperately needed affordable housing in the Whitman catchment.

[Anonymous]

Anyways, to answer your question OP, we are wealthy and we would not send our kids to most W schools. We have a budget of up to $1.8M (ironically enough, in part thanks to my parents selling their house zoned for Whitman, which I realize I am ultra-privileged for). We want our kids to be exposed to diversity, especially because they are Middle Eastern. Though we are in our early 30s and our kids aren't school-aged yet, we wouldn't send our kids to Whitman or Churchill. Walter Johnson/Woodward and B-CC, maybe. However, W schools that are <5% Black that have a preponderance of racist incidents? Hell no. I don't want to send my kids to private schools either.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In our W neighborhood probably about 1/3 of the kids go to private. A large percentage were struggling in public for one reason or another. Many are quirky and could not deal socially with the big competitive environment of public schools and others were having trouble being motivated academically. I can think of only a handful of popular well adjusted kids who are A students who decided to go to private even for 9th.

LOL. You say this to make yourself feel better. In public, you get 50% if you DON'T even turn anything in. In private you get NOTHING - 0% - nada if you turn nothing in. At our private school, you need a 93% to get an A and people rarely get As.