It's consistently most advantageous to be rich and white. |
This was before COVID and the answer came from a Director who is now in an even higher position in public education. I agree were probably given misinformation and few options given the lack of transportation offered by MCPS. The solution for us was to transfer my son to a close by private where they had peers and classes to continue to progress forward with math. I guess the moral of this example is don’t trust what Central Officials tells you. I also wonder why all MCPS public schools don’t offer math courses beyond Calculus BC. |
Yes. That is the point. So to keep it relevant to this topic - would one send their kids to a private school or a well regarded public when the advantage is clear? If one can afford it, private. If not, public. If in the middle - go with child needs and schools' pros and cons. |
Except when you have to compete with the other rich white people. Then it's better to be different and offer the diversity card. |
Defined above. Soft skills are anything not measurable with numbers - grades, test scores, etc. |
full circle argument.. there are a lot of pretty wealthy parents in the W clusters who could afford private but choose to send their kids to public for whatever reason. |
I'm much darker than paper and much lighter than my wooden desk. Non-white. |
But, it's not. Whitman Asian population is 15% ; Hispanic 12%. Fair number of biracial - 8%. The Black population is tiny, though. https://ww2.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/regulatoryaccountability/glance/currentyear/schools/04427.pdf |
Put area into perspective. MCPS consistently has 20% of its population in the top 5% of students nationally. This is why they have to locally norm MAP test scores, for example.
MCPS education locally is likely equivalent to private school education anywhere else in the country. It offers more services and provide a broad range of support for the diverse student population. It is also the largest school district in MD. All bad things about MCPS aside, if you look at the whole, it's not a bad bet. |
Can you define it in a positive way referring to something you DO mean, not what you don’t? |
No, that’s not what soft skills mean. Most understand soft skills as ability to work with others, leadership, critical thinking, decision making, etc. Often they are developed in extracurricular activities, it’s ridiculous to claim that they are developed better in private than in public. In reality it varies widely, it depends more on the student himself rather than the high school he attends. Regarding the benefits of privates for admission to selective universities, using Slate as a reference for making your point is not the most compelling. Then you don’t seem to understand the difference between correlation and causation. Just because 40% of Harvard students go to private doesn’t mean you’re more likely to go to Harvard if you go to private. It just means that Harvard preferentially admits rich kids that are more likely to go to private schools. There’s also the argument that by going to private the middle class student will compete with the kids of rich and powerful and is actually at a disadvantage compared to the public school peers. |
Nah, it's always most advantageous to be rich and white. |
Anywhere else? No way. Not comparable to top private schools in any major city. |
You make it seem that private schools are the pinnacle of high school education. First, it’s not true and second by what metric? How rich they are when they grow up, the university they go to? How do you decouple the outcome from other variables that are likely to play a stronger role like parent education and SES etc? The answer is not as clear as you claim. One thing is sure, there are brilliant kids that thrive in public and in private schools who will have great accomplishments in their lifetime. Just leave it at that and say it made more sense for you and your family to go that route. The problem is that often you see people going to privates they can’t afford, sacrifice a lot financially to make it work, and end up rationalizing it to themselves that it’s a huge leg up for success in life. It isn’t, but for some small subset of kids it can be a huge factor if the kid would do better in a smaller class, with more individual attention etc. if that’s worth the price of tuition to you, great, good luck you you and your child. But don’t claim the kids that are left in the public are just settling with second hand education and are starting life with a handicap. |
DP.. you clearly don't know much about privates in other major cities. My DC met some kids from another major city via discord during the pandemic. They were playing computer games together and got to talking about school. One kid was from a private school in a major city and said they were having trouble with math. DC is a math whiz, and tutored this kid online. This kid told my DC what their highest level math course was, and DC was floored. Our non W school has two math class higher than their most advanced math class. I don't think you realize how advanced the math tracks in the DC area public schools are. I moved from out west, so I know a bit about other school districts. |