Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our entire block has kids in private
Little Langley, flint hill, O’Connell, SSSAS, not one family in APS

We might be neighbors bc same: Flint Hill, Langley, Gds, SSSAS, visi, etc.

We left APS a couple years ago with kid going into 6th and one kid going into 2nd to one of these schools and we are very happy. It isn't perfect, so if it is going to be a big financial strain, then you may not be as happy, but we are glad we left.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DE isn’t as highly regarded as AP.

And class size matters A LOT. Public school student don’t get robust feedback on their writing assignments. Sometimes they get nothing at all. The teachers simply don’t have time to actually give meaningful feedback.

Right, granted. But you can pay a fine writing tutor, say 5K a year. Last time I checked, that was legal in this country. And there's probably nothing stopping your from providing regular input on student writing assignments yourself. My spouse and I do this with our two APS HS students several times a week. I have a PhD in a humanities subject and my spouse is a senior govt attorney. Goodness, we might be as qualified to provide "robust feedback" as your kid's private school humanities teachers.

Unless you're both loaded and lazy, don't pay a private school 30-55K a year. Don't drop your kid into a peer group where most of the others are well-off, pampered and white in a world where more than 80 percent of human beings are not. Don't raise absurdly sheltered teens.

Save your hard-earned dough to pay for college, retirement and whatever else.

As I’ve explained to you before, your child is much more likely to be surrounded by white people at W&L and YHS than top DC privates due to housing segregation. But, keep insisting your view of the world is correct.

And your nonsense idea that kids at W&L and YHS are less “sheltered” than my kid at a DC private is so questionable. I see you Jeep driving white kid with your music blasting from country club hills. That kid is really getting a dose of unsheltering forced to attend a “public” school with loads of kids from different backgrounds (hahahaha) at Yorktown. Give me a break.

W-L is majority minority. You don't seem very familiar with it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DE isn’t as highly regarded as AP.

And class size matters A LOT. Public school student don’t get robust feedback on their writing assignments. Sometimes they get nothing at all. The teachers simply don’t have time to actually give meaningful feedback.

Right, granted. But you can pay a fine writing tutor, say 5K a year. Last time I checked, that was legal in this country. And there's probably nothing stopping your from providing regular input on student writing assignments yourself. My spouse and I do this with our two APS HS students several times a week. I have a PhD in a humanities subject and my spouse is a senior govt attorney. Goodness, we might be as qualified to provide "robust feedback" as your kid's private school humanities teachers.

Unless you're both loaded and lazy, don't pay a private school 30-55K a year. Don't drop your kid into a peer group where most of the others are well-off, pampered and white in a world where more than 80 percent of human beings are not. Don't raise absurdly sheltered teens.

Save your hard-earned dough to pay for college, retirement and whatever else.

As I’ve explained to you before, your child is much more likely to be surrounded by white people at W&L and YHS than top DC privates due to housing segregation. But, keep insisting your view of the world is correct.

And your nonsense idea that kids at W&L and YHS are less “sheltered” than my kid at a DC private is so questionable. I see you Jeep driving white kid with your music blasting from country club hills. That kid is really getting a dose of unsheltering forced to attend a “public” school with loads of kids from different backgrounds (hahahaha) at Yorktown. Give me a break.

Anonymous wrote:DE isn’t as highly regarded as AP.

And class size matters A LOT. Public school student don’t get robust feedback on their writing assignments. Sometimes they get nothing at all. The teachers simply don’t have time to actually give meaningful feedback.

Right, granted. But you can pay a fine writing tutor, say 5K a year. Last time I checked, that was legal in this country. And there's probably nothing stopping your from providing regular input on student writing assignments yourself. My spouse and I do this with our two APS HS students several times a week. I have a PhD in a humanities subject and my spouse is a senior govt attorney. Goodness, we might be as qualified to provide "robust feedback" as your kid's private school humanities teachers.

Unless you're both loaded and lazy, don't pay a private school 30-55K a year. Don't drop your kid into a peer group where most of the others are well-off, pampered and white in a world where more than 80 percent of human beings are not. Don't raise absurdly sheltered teens.

Save your hard-earned dough to pay for college, retirement and whatever else.

Not buying it.

Plenty of APS kids are getting 5s on AP Calculus, including BC. Other are scoring 6s and 7s on Higher Level IB Diploma math. My kid has been two years accelerated in math since 6th grade in APS. He's taking BC Calc in 10th grade.

You get to pay for college courses from a private school. Few families bother. What you don't have in a private school is "way more" choice. W-L offers more than 70 electives.

Anonymous wrote:DE isn’t as highly regarded as AP.

And class size matters A LOT. Public school student don’t get robust feedback on their writing assignments. Sometimes they get nothing at all. The teachers simply don’t have time to actually give meaningful feedback.

Most rational APS parents concede the writing point. But, they believe in the fallacy that science and math are higher level and also “better” at their publics. Something along the lines of: more kids = more classes = more higher level science/math is offered/supported.

These parents don’t actually know what the high level math and science at the elite private schools is actually like. My kid went to APS middle school. My kid was “accelerated” in your fast track math and took geometry in 8th. My kids is a very very good test taker and scored in the top of the SSAT, particularly strong in math. My kids did not move to the top level track at our private school due to the lack of depth in his middle school education.

Moreover the depth of the math and science has been a million times more challenging. How many APS kids are getting 5s on AP Calculus? AP Physics? It’s impossible to find. I’ve tried! Please send/post it if you can. My kids school tells us. Almost every kid taking AP calculus BC gets a 5. So, true, super APs will accelerate you but so what? Who cares if you don’t have an actual deep understanding?

Finally, this delusion that the top privates can’t accommodate college level courses is dumb. Of course they can. There are students at my child’s school taking college courses. It’s a private school; they have way more flexibility.

DE isn’t as highly regarded as AP.

And class size matters A LOT. Public school student don’t get robust feedback on their writing assignments. Sometimes they get nothing at all. The teachers simply don’t have time to actually give meaningful feedback.

Anonymous wrote:Most of the people in Arlington we know who've left for privates did so without exploring the best of IBD at W-L or AP offerings either. Contrary to popular belief, you're not going to find tougher STEM or foreign language classes in privates. Humanities, yes. Few privates are teaching Higher Level AP languages (AP is at least a year behind, sometimes two). They also don't offer dual enrollment in VA public colleges for when your kid runs out of HS challenge in APS. Parents go for privates for smaller classes, strong humanities instruction and a more protected social scene.

+1

Exactly.

-Kid in APS and a kid in private

Most of the people in Arlington we know who've left for privates did so without exploring the best of IBD at W-L or AP offerings either. Contrary to popular belief, you're not going to find tougher STEM or foreign language classes in privates. Humanities, yes. Few privates are teaching Higher Level AP languages (AP is at least a year behind, sometimes two). They also don't offer dual enrollment in VA public colleges for when your kid runs out of HS challenge in APS. Parents go for privates for smaller classes, strong humanities instruction and a more protected social scene.

We're at W-L for IB in 9th grade and an APS middle school for 7th. I've taught IBD humanities subjects at two private high schools in DMV (but no longer do). We're a Federal employee and think tank researcher who could swing a private for HS but not easily. We considered privates and our eldest was admitted to several. We decided to stick with APS for HS because of IBD at W-L while paying to supplement for this and that. We mainly supplement for writing instruction and language immersion. We pay roughly 10K a year to supplement for our HS student and 5K for our middle school student. Our HS student does several hours of homework a night every day of the week to keep up, plenty. But she doesn't do v. time consuming extra curriculars, e.g. sports, to focus on IBD academics but excels at art and playing a musical instrument (in a competitive ensemble at Strathmore). We're public-school grads, from a rural community and NYC, who went to Ivies for undergrad and grad. We plan to have our eldest apply to colleges, mainly abroad, during the fall of a gap year, after her IBD exam results are in. I'm not convinced that we're missing anything of value by avoiding a private that we can't furnish independently, other than perhaps smaller class sizes.

Anonymous wrote:Private school may be more “diverse” in that it may have several wealthy POC families.

There are NO students who speak no English.

NO students that came to school not having access to food at home.

NO kids with major learning difficulties/behavioral issues. (*Unless your child is at a school that specifically serves sped kids)

They simply aren’t going to tolerate having students with chronic absenteeism issues.

No matter the hue of the student population, the diversity of top DC privates isn’t going to come close to that of public schools (who have to accept everyone).

Yep, 100% agree with this. In fact, I am paying in order that my well-behaved, academically oriented kids are the whole focus of the school and the teachers. I found in APS they were an afterthought and the admin wasn’t at all focused on them. My only point was that racial diversity increased, which it did. Period.

Private school may be more “diverse” in that it may have several wealthy POC families.

There are NO students who speak no English.

NO students that came to school not having access to food at home.

NO kids with major learning difficulties/behavioral issues. (*Unless your child is at a school that specifically serves sped kids)

They simply aren’t going to tolerate having students with chronic absenteeism issues.

No matter the hue of the student population, the diversity of top DC privates isn’t going to come close to that of public schools (who have to accept everyone).

I'm the PP. Ok well I guarantee you that APS public will be more diverse than a private that is within vicinity to OP!

I mean our private is "diverse" in enrollment but let's face it, there's diverse and then there's going to private school diverse.

My point is that you will have more kids in school to get to know and more opportunities to mingle with different personalities in public v private. Always better opportunities in a larger school to find your tribe that's all.

Anonymous wrote:It's so dependent on your kid, OP. DD plays Arlington travel sports and almost her entire team is public school MS. They are amazing girls and from what we have seen we wish we were there! We are in private not zoned for Arl public.

That being said, we also have good friends in our hood who go to public and also doing well.

The key is what kind of kid you have. If they are well adjusted, no learning issues, motivated and pretty good socially, they will succeed anywhere - they will prob have a better shot at a top college coming from public as well.

If your kid is bored academically, not great socially or has any exec function issues, private really may be a better fit.

The experience of MS+HS is 7 yrs. It's never been about college admissions for us but the quality of life for that timeframe. Private is def pricey and I don't know that you need it if your kid is happy and it's you who is just wanting what you feel may be "better" for them.

My kids in MS and HS prob are getting more academically than APS. But for me, I don't know if it's that big of a deal. To me, school is a social experience and it's just as important for a kid to relate to peers and function in team environments than just do a page of math without a calculator. It's got to be a holistic experience. In another country, it's about focusing on academics but in the US, sales skills is social skills so there has to be a balance.

I hire talent for a living across the board including executive C level recruiting and the person is just as important as the resume.

So think about what makes sense for your kid. What they want, what's going to play to their strengths and why you think private could help them be happier. A happy kid will always be more successful. Our kids really needed private but it's not perfect. Socially, I think the diversity if public is great and it's academically easier which is not actually a horrible thing. Life is hard. Make it as easy as possible if you can and when it's not sone big deal, choose the path that's easy because there are more times it will be really hard. Arlington isn't the ghetto - they will be fine with a public school education if they make grades - from there they have to continue onward so let them have the 7 yrs to be as happy as they can.

I agree with much of what you have said. I disagree with this, however. My experience with N Arlington APS and DC privates is that DC privates are way more racially diverse. They are not limited to the segregated housing neighborhood model and their clientele expects/demands this. It was actually a bit of a surprise to come from APS to private DC high school and get a such more racially diverse class. Just a very small note.

It's so dependent on your kid, OP. DD plays Arlington travel sports and almost her entire team is public school MS. They are amazing girls and from what we have seen we wish we were there! We are in private not zoned for Arl public.

That being said, we also have good friends in our hood who go to public and also doing well.

The key is what kind of kid you have. If they are well adjusted, no learning issues, motivated and pretty good socially, they will succeed anywhere - they will prob have a better shot at a top college coming from public as well.

If your kid is bored academically, not great socially or has any exec function issues, private really may be a better fit.

The experience of MS+HS is 7 yrs. It's never been about college admissions for us but the quality of life for that timeframe. Private is def pricey and I don't know that you need it if your kid is happy and it's you who is just wanting what you feel may be "better" for them.

My kids in MS and HS prob are getting more academically than APS. But for me, I don't know if it's that big of a deal. To me, school is a social experience and it's just as important for a kid to relate to peers and function in team environments than just do a page of math without a calculator. It's got to be a holistic experience. In another country, it's about focusing on academics but in the US, sales skills is social skills so there has to be a balance.

I hire talent for a living across the board including executive C level recruiting and the person is just as important as the resume.

So think about what makes sense for your kid. What they want, what's going to play to their strengths and why you think private could help them be happier. A happy kid will always be more successful. Our kids really needed private but it's not perfect. Socially, I think the diversity if public is great and it's academically easier which is not actually a horrible thing. Life is hard. Make it as easy as possible if you can and when it's not sone big deal, choose the path that's easy because there are more times it will be really hard. Arlington isn't the ghetto - they will be fine with a public school education if they make grades - from there they have to continue onward so let them have the 7 yrs to be as happy as they can.