Families who can afford private but go public, why?

[Anonymous]

How is grandparents paying a sacrifice (of anything other than your pride?)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:Because it made me want to vomit sending my kid to a school that was not available to all. Financial aid only goes so far and all private schools are bubbles. I do have complaints about our public, I know just as many private school friends who’ve had complaints as well and they’re paying $$$. I would rather invest $ snd energy into making public schools better.

Meh. Not all public schools are, either. Like...many of the schools around here are only available to the kids whose parents make really high incomes and can afford to buy a $$$$ house in the school zone. Private has financial aid. There isn’t really financial aid for a mortgage or rent in N Arlington or McLean.

I laughed at that post too.

I digress, but "everyone can't get it" is a terrible reason to reject something for your child. Every kid can't have a stable home environment and hundreds of books but that's no reason to deprive my own children.

Different schools can be a great fit for the varying personalities and needs of children, and that's wonderful.

I'm not that poster, but give me a break. Either you're intentionally creating a false dichotomy or you're not very bright.

Public schools, regardless of their neighborhood, are required to educate every student. Some of us - even those who went to fancy privates, like I did - don't want an environment where a bunch of snooty holier-than-thou elitists pick and choose which families may sit at their table. Elitism is ugly.

Lol! Might I direct you to the Arlington boundary threads? Phrases such as “peer group” or FARMs kids?

+ 1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Because it made me want to vomit sending my kid to a school that was not available to all. Financial aid only goes so far and all private schools are bubbles. I do have complaints about our public, I know just as many private school friends who’ve had complaints as well and they’re paying $$$. I would rather invest $ snd energy into making public schools better.

Meh. Not all public schools are, either. Like...many of the schools around here are only available to the kids whose parents make really high incomes and can afford to buy a $$$$ house in the school zone. Private has financial aid. There isn’t really financial aid for a mortgage or rent in N Arlington or McLean.

I laughed at that post too.

I digress, but "everyone can't get it" is a terrible reason to reject something for your child. Every kid can't have a stable home environment and hundreds of books but that's no reason to deprive my own children.

Different schools can be a great fit for the varying personalities and needs of children, and that's wonderful.

I'm not that poster, but give me a break. Either you're intentionally creating a false dichotomy or you're not very bright.

Public schools, regardless of their neighborhood, are required to educate every student. Some of us - even those who went to fancy privates, like I did - don't want an environment where a bunch of snooty holier-than-thou elitists pick and choose which families may sit at their table. Elitism is ugly.

Lol! Might I direct you to the Arlington boundary threads? Phrases such as “peer group” or FARMs kids?

+ 1

Are you actually arguing that public school parents - including the numerous ones who are on here telling you that they want to avoid the elitism of private school, even if they went there themselves - are as elitist as private school parents? Are there some elitists in public? Of course. But if we tell you we can afford it but choose not to have our kids in that environment, I'm not sure why you'd argue. YM, of course, MV.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:, but give me a break. Either you're intentionally creating a false dichotomy or you're not very bright.

Public schools, regardless of their neighborhood, are required to educate every student. Some of us - even those who went to fancy privates, like I did - don't want an environment where a bunch of snooty holier-than-thou elitists pick and choose which families may sit at their table. Elitism is ugly.

Well, when a public school actually does what it’s required to do, call me at my elitist bubble. Because they are not doing what their required to do if they have less than 90% kids achieve grade level in reading, math and science. And how many schools do you know that have 90% kids test on grade level?

I can’t blame the schools for this either. Because you can’t fix the culture or family failures.

Wow.

And privates have inflated numbers because they just kick out underachievers. It's not as if they're actually educating kids any better, they're just discarding them or not letting them in. You clearly aren't very bright. Did you go to a private school?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:And privates have inflated numbers because they just kick out underachievers. It's not as if they're actually educating kids any better, they're just discarding them or not letting them in. You clearly aren't very bright. Did you go to a private school?

32+ kids per class at Langley HS versus 12 kids per class at STA. I'll go with STA, no brainer. Thanks.

[Anonymous]

Because I went to a private. The plus with privates is they can kick any student out for anything, they are not mandated to educate the under motivated, learning disabled, or anyone with a behavior problem. Public schools tend to have more to offer everyone and less of a need for students to work so hard to fit in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Because I went to a private. The plus with privates is they can kick any student out for anything, they are not mandated to educate the under motivated, learning disabled, or anyone with a behavior problem. Public schools tend to have more to offer everyone and less of a need for students to work so hard to fit in.

I don’t think all this kids that test below grade level have learning disabilities. Most don’t.
Also, I believe that public schools should be able to kick out kids with behavior problems. They disrupt instruction for everyone and drain teachers energy and time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I just looked up a local Catholic school that's pretty good by all accounts. It's cheap! and white.

I giggled.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We attended public secondary schools and felt our kids would be well served by attending FCPS schools with kids from many different backgrounds and a wide range of academic and extra-curricular programs.

Having said that, our youngest recently graduated and we’d seriously hesitate to send them to our overcrowded neighborhood high school (McLean) if they were only now in high school. The indifference to the overcrowding there speaks to a larger lack of competence on the part of current FCPS leadership, not to mention the utter hypocrisy of School Board members like Karen Corbett Sanders, who get taxpayers to fund huge addition at schools in their district (West Potomac, Madison, etc) and then object to any effort to help other overcrowded schools (Chantilly, McLean).

In other words, making the same decision now, we’d explore private rather than put up with the nonsense in FCPS any longer. It is just too dysfunctional.

My last nephew graduates from a different (highly ranked) fcps high school this June. His parents are glad to be finished and extend their sympathies to us dealing with fcps for the next several years.

We were happy with McLean, but the ongoing degradation of the pyramid is hard to watch. I don’t think there is a single FCPS staff member at Gatehouse who cares, and while a couple of the new School Board members (Tholen, Frisch) would like to help they will get steamrolled by other members. Parents who can should just bail.

I think Tholen and McLaughlin actually care.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
And privates have inflated numbers because they just kick out underachievers. It's not as if they're actually educating kids any better, they're just discarding them or not letting them in. You clearly aren't very bright. Did you go to a private school?

They are actually educating better because they don’t have class disruptions and don’t have to spend time to discipline students.

There are special private schools just for kids with learning disabilities.

If a kid falls behind private school do work individually with students to help them catch up, there are a lot more resources for individual approach. My DC’s French teacher sends me an email that my child is acting very tired in class. In public school I’m not sure they even noticed she was in the class. When DC missed a few days due to sickness the academic advisor at private school together with teachers worked with her to help her catch up on material. I feel they’re vested in her success.

There was nothing like this in public school. The attitude was “you are doing OK? Good.
I don’t have to spend any attention on you.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If your family can afford private school but you opt-in to public school, why?

As you can guess from the question, we can afford private but for a variety of complicated reasons decided to go public. A big one of which was that we went to public school ourselves and turned out fine. I now find myself continually second-guessing myself with a bit of a “grass is greener” perspective. I feel like if I can afford private I should, and that I need to justify the decision to myself to continue to go public.

Would be helpful to hear from other people in a similar situation.

(I hope this question doesn’t come off the wrong way. I know these boards get hella judgy and hopefully you didn’t read the title and get mad thinking someone was judging people who choose to go to public school. I also recognize we are in a good situation to be able to have the choice, and that my consternation about it is a luxury problem.)

So far public has been a fit.

We both went to very good public schools and turned out very well, even if we do say so ourselves.

We have friends with children in the local privates and they really love them for their children. Some of them needed a smaller school population and other aspects that particular privates can offer. One family has a child who has gone through public but will be doing private for high school, and another who has done private from k-7 and is considering public for high school (we are in one of the top pyramids).

I'm glad to live in an area where we don't have to go private because the public schools are "avoid at any cost". I went to a small private school for college after a large public high school and I see the appeal of both environments.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:, but give me a break. Either you're intentionally creating a false dichotomy or you're not very bright.

Public schools, regardless of their neighborhood, are required to educate every student. Some of us - even those who went to fancy privates, like I did - don't want an environment where a bunch of snooty holier-than-thou elitists pick and choose which families may sit at their table. Elitism is ugly.

Well, when a public school actually does what it’s required to do, call me at my elitist bubble. Because they are not doing what their required to do if they have less than 90% kids achieve grade level in reading, math and science. And how many schools do you know that have 90% kids test on grade level?

I can’t blame the schools for this either. Because you can’t fix the culture or family failures.

Average FCPS pass rates across all the schools, across subjects are at around 85% (varies year to year and by subject, so maybe 81-86% is a more accurate representation). So there are quite a few that are at 90+. And given that public schools have to accept everyone that comes their way, and FCPS has a significant population of ELL and FARMS that's more of an achievement than at a private that can more carefully cull who they want to include.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How is grandparents paying a sacrifice (of anything other than your pride?)

Why would being privileged hurt my pride? I’m so proud of my hard working and smart grandparents, and the generations that came before them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Where I’m from private school is for kids who can’t handle public. The stigma it carries is something you can’t over come. You can’t get any job if people know you went to private school. It basically means you don’t have any hope for your child of ever having a career or even going to college. It’s for extremely slow learners and extremely violent children who get kicked out of public.

Not a valid concern here.

[Anonymous]

Because I went to public school and an ok (not stellar) college and a top 20 (but not top 10) law school and work with and supervise people who went to privates, boarding schools, and Ivy League colleges. I make the same if not more than they do. Why waste my money for similar outcomes. My kids are smarter than I am. They'll be fine.