Reply to Any questions for someone who went through 12 years at a DC private school?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Why are you thinking public school for your kids? Is it mostly financial? [/quote]

The money is certainly important. I decided a long time ago that I never wanted to work for biglaw like one of my parents. The government pays less, but I make a very comfortable salary, and have amazing work/life balance.

In terms of non-financial factors, my husband has many public school teachers in his family (though not in the DC system) and public schools were important to him. Additionally, many of the kids I went to school with had a fairly elitist perspective. Honestly, I don't want my kids to be called poor because they don't fly private (literally happened to me), or think people who work to get through school are in a way below them. Obviously this was NOT true of all the kids at my school, but I would guess, at least in my grade, the "loudest" 25% were like that. I legitimately thought my family was very middle class until I went to college, when all of a sudden I was considered rich. Obviously this doesn't matter to a lot of parents, or to many it's outweighed by the benefits, but I think that at this point, many DC public schools/charter schools are so good that (for me) private school isn't necessary. [/quote]

This is interesting.   I went all the way through at one of the top DC privates. My husbands family are also public-school teachers. What really influenced my decision was the snobby, elitist culture that the schools have developed. I'm older than you – graduated 20 years ago – but it was not like this when I went there. The culture of celebrity has overtaken the school. I just don't want my kids surrounded by that atmosphere (or myself surrounded by the parents!)

The majority of my high school classmates are not sending their kids there. Obviously money is a factor for some, but far from for all. I'm not naïve enough to separate the fact that I can afford a great public school district from the results of my education, but plenty of my neighbors went to public school and turned out more than fine. Including my husband. It's also important to me that my kids go to school with friends from the neighborhood. That was something I really missed going to private as a kid.

There is an unspoken thought amongst a lot of big three graduates that sending your kids there is sort of a "new money" - for lack of a better way to put it - thing these days. A lot of people trying to prove a point.[/quote]

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