Public schools
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Anonymous
Again, this is going to really depend on the specific districts you are comparing. There’s no point in looking at national or even multi state averages. What matters is the specific options a parent has in their school district and how the privates/publics accessible to that family compare in terms of college admissions. Unfortunately there are some areas where public schools are seriously underperforming. |
Anonymous
| This is OP. Thank you everyone! Great discussion and nice takeaways. |
Anonymous
Still, there are more mediocre private schools than good ones. The mediocre private kids are going to JMU and CNU with the mediocre public kids. |
Anonymous
Agree most privates are mediocre, but they are still overall better than medicocre-good publics. The only publics that trump mediocre privates are the ones with majority very high level learners with parents that actively push them to academic success, but those are the minority of public schools. |
Anonymous
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I’m sure it depends, but what I have seen/heard from private school families: smaller class sizes, more personal attention, fewer behavioral issues in the classroom, more space in sports and extracurriculars- especially in MS and HS, sometimes better “extras”- lunches, facilities etc. I think a lot of the benefits are simply being a smaller school, as opposed to publics which are larger.
We can’t afford private school but would have at least considered it if we had the $$. That said, we are overall happy with our public schools. |
Anonymous
Its really hard to know this because when you look at college placement data, it doesn't support what you are saying. |
Anonymous
| OP, you (and spouse) as parent, have FAR more influence on your child’s education than any school ever would. |
Anonymous
It's difficult to give a general answer to questions like these. There are some very excellent public schools, and some rather mediocre private schools. There are also many of both in the middle. I do not necessarily think you are missing out by not sending your kids to private school. We have been sending our child to private school, but it was a close call on whether to do that. In the end, we chose that route after we got poor lottery numbers and after COVID-19 shutdowns threw a wrench in usual machinery of the school system. We like our private school. Our child is happy there. But, sometimes, I still think about going to public. That may be a result of the fact that I attended public schools all the way through, and based on that experience, I view them positively. Also, we know a lot of public school kids in the neighborhood. We think they are great kids, too. |
Anonymous
Yes, so cringe. My SN kid is a real live awesome person. He doesn't exist to teach your children human decency before they go on to achieve wonderful things at private school. Blech. |
Anonymous
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Agree that you simply can’t broadly compare private v. public schools. And no comment re the people who think all private is necessarily better simply because they can pay for it.
But one broad observation, in my experience with both: — there are some great public schools and great teachers at public schools. If your local school works for you, you’re in luck. — if public doesn’t work for whatever reason, whether it’s because they’re not meeting the needs of an intellectually curious and gifted kid, and/or a kid needs special learning supports/has special needs, or a kid is just getting lost in a big classroom, then in general, you will find what you need if you can go the private school route. There’s an incredibly broad spectrum of private schools in this area; most will provide smaller classes and more focused attention. Some provide more rigor and enrichment, some provide more supports. Some cater to families with kids with special needs and “behaviors.” It’s all generally self selecting and you have to figure out the right fit for your kid. |
Anonymous
| I think private schools parents are fanatical about private schools because of the sunk cost fallacy. If you are spending thousands on tuition you need to justify why it's superior. I remember during covid there were posters from private school who'd come to public school forums just to brag about how their private school was better. Very tacky nouveau riche behavior |
Anonymous
First of all, “Entrepreneur India?” Please. Second, did you even read the article? “Solomon Admissions used aggregate data to analyze the admit rates of 160 similar students who attended public and private high schools from across twenty-two states and who worked with the college admissions consulting company in 2018 and 2019.” They only looked at the students who hired them. This is not a study and doesn’t prove a thing. |
Anonymous
The private school crowd perfers monochromatic hues |