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

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

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]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. [/quote]

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.[/quote]
+1 Can't have too many diverse opinions when the class sizes are super small, and where being &quot;different&quot; 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.[/quote]

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.[/quote]

Bullis has around 100 per grade in high school. The largest class for my child had 20 students. The smallest had 10.

One huge difference that allowed diversity in the discussions was that all students are expected to actively participate. It’s a mandatory part of the class grade.

My child said that at Hoover and Churchill he could sit in the back of the classroom and tune out. The same students answered teacher questions so everyone else could be quiet if they wanted.

At Bullis, some classes were taught in a circle in which everyone could see each other. My child said he had to do the homework and follow along in class because he would be asked questions by the teacher several times in class. He didn’t want to be unprepared in front of his peers.

For those who have a preconceived idea of the types of students who attend private schools, I would encourage you to tour campus on a school day and compare the diversity to a W school. Students wear uniforms so there’s no popularity contest based on clothes. Bullying of others is a dismissible offense so my son thought as a transfer student he was more welcomed there than Churchill.

I will just leave it at this - Sure, there are very wealthy students at Bullis. It’s in Potomac after all. However, my son has also made friends from good families with limited means so they lived in neighborhoods where poverty is an issue and there is gun violence in their neighborhoods. Bullis offers a far better education than their local public schools, with transportation and scholarships so they travel long distances for the opportunities. Bullis has a wonderful counseling department that has hands on help so students whose parents don’t understand the college search process are not left to miss out on scholarships and admission deadlines. Churchill has only one College and Career counselor for about 500 students so there is very little help with the process. One my child’s friends described in an English class the first time a white adult at a public park called him the N word. A very important lesson about the power and hurt words can cause. Students feel even in the small classes that Bullis has that it is safe place to share without judgement.  For a school that gained national news attention for N Word cards, I don’t think this friend would have shared the same experience in a class discussion at Churchill.[/quote]
yes, but the point is that most kids at these expensive private schools will not have too divergent opinions.   Most of them come from the same SES/income background.  Hard to have a discussion with divergent opinions when most kids are from the same class background.[/quote]

And you think it’s different at W schools with &lt;5% FARMS and all the kids from one geographic area? Give me a fking break.[/quote]
There are more lower income kids at W schools than at privates, and there are more kids, period. So  yes, a public school, even a wealthyish one, will have more divergent view points than a private one where the school gatekeeps who is in and who is not.[/quote]

&lt;5% FARMS vs 20% on financial aid.[/quote]
A private school definition of "need financial aid" is very different from the federal FARMS definition.

My goodness, you live in a bubble. It's laughable.[/quote]

You’re delusional if you think a W school is a socioeconomically diverse environment.[/quote]
more so than privates.

W schools are less SES diverse than non W schools, but more so than privates, and given that MCPS and BOE are h3ll bent on making the schools as diverse as possible, these schools will become even more diverse in the future.  Not so with private schools that can deny anyone that they don't want.  Not so with publics.

I think you're the deluded one.[/quote]

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