Anonymous wrote:I'll never understand the parents who send their kids to McLean or Bethesda or Potomac type public schools and then criticize private school parents for not exposing their children to diversity, FARMs kids, etc. Seriously, you live in Potomac. Not exactly brimming with socioeconomic and racial diversity.

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Anonymous wrote:I'll never understand the parents who send their kids to McLean or Bethesda or Potomac type public schools and then criticize private school parents for not exposing their children to diversity, FARMs kids, etc. Seriously, you live in Potomac. Not exactly brimming with socioeconomic and racial diversity.

But Potomac public schools have more diversity than at the private schools in these areas. Let's not pretend otherwise.

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Yup, and because I choose to spend money on their education instead of the usual status symbols like cars, houses, handbags, etc. I value my kids only for their achievements unlike the people who choose public schools who flash their houses, cars, handbags... and could care less about Princeton eating clubs and such.

Please, you've beaten this meme to death, and you've been rebutted several times. Various posters have explained that many of us are middle class, that some of us bought million dollar houses for the school district, and that foregoing a few Kate Spade bags and even a new Prius every year isn't going to miraculously free up another $35K or $70K for private school. Drop it, already.

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Yup, and because I choose to spend money on their education instead of the usual status symbols like cars, houses, handbags, etc. I value my kids only for their achievements unlike the people who choose public schools who flash their houses, cars, handbags... and could care less about Princeton eating clubs and such.

Anonymous wrote:I'll never understand the parents who send their kids to McLean or Bethesda or Potomac type public schools and then criticize private school parents for not exposing their children to diversity, FARMs kids, etc. Seriously, you live in Potomac. Not exactly brimming with socioeconomic and racial diversity.

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Anonymous wrote:My children have done private and public and I have a child in private now but will probably do public for hs. I think it is more humane/ I do not see the right private school for my kid. The all boys would not be his thing, Sidwell is hard for the sake of being hard, Maret is too small. Maybe GDs would work. But I have to admit I just do not see the benefit. I see tradeoffs but not really benefits. I know many kids at dc privates get burned out. I do not want that to happen.

You are looking at a really small pool of privates. There are tons of great schools in DC. Look beyond the Big 3, and you'll probably find a good fit for your son. My kids are in great small privates that have rigorous academics, balanced with a rich complement of extracurriculars. They definitely would not fit in to the pressure cooker schools like the Big 3.

Anonymous wrote:My children have done private and public and I have a child in private now but will probably do public for hs. I think it is more humane/ I do not see the right private school for my kid. The all boys would not be his thing, Sidwell is hard for the sake of being hard, Maret is too small. Maybe GDs would work. But I have to admit I just do not see the benefit. I see tradeoffs but not really benefits. I know many kids at dc privates get burned out. I do not want that to happen.

Anonymous wrote:Okay, I'm calling troll on this one.

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Anonymous wrote:We never tell this to others but one of the reasons we send DC to an elite private school is b/c we want him to get into the most elite frat, eating club, secret society, etc at an Ivy.

Some of us care about stuff like that.

+100000

And why effin not? Why's it SO horrif if DC does this? Good for you!

It's notnhorrible if they do it, but i don't understand why anyone would care. DH and I were both ivy (covered 3 ivys between us with grad school), and it never seemed to us that the "elite" frat or secret society (not very secret) made any difference in success or opportunities. It can be fun though, i'm sure. Is that the reason you want it? We didn't go to princeton, and i suspect the eating clubs are important. Personally, that always seemed awful to me, though.

We want it b/c it's family tradition (not politically correct at all on DCUM) and we really care about that stuff which is kind of embarrassing to admit. It's made a lot of difference in the opportunities DC will have: I knew where he'll intern in high school and college before he was born. It's also a lot of fun too...

I suspect that many of you think your kids are status symbols, vehicles to make you, the parents, look good. Also, you will value your kids more if they get into Princeton eating clubs, and less if they don't. Your kids know this, too.

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Anonymous wrote:Here is an all-new thought I'll share about why we like our private school and avoid our decently performing public -- we are pleased to avoid all the disruptive, impulsive, "handy", overly talkative, overly "active" kids that go public in our neighborhood. And of course, they all have IEPs and receive accommodations -- of which I am certain because their moms talk about this on the sidelines during sports, etc.

Someone will surely point out to me "why, there are TONS! of ADHD kids in privates!!!!!" Maybe, but to them I'd respond that the disruptive ones don't seem to make it past the door of our kid's school. In fact I can name four random neighbor families where the parents send one of their kids to my kid's private and one of their other kids -- the one I know firsthand to be a behavioral challenge -- to a ward 3 dcps so kid #2 gets services and accommodations.

I am happy to be able to buy our way out of that for the formative years.

Maybe you have kids at PRIVATE !!! school, but I DOUBT it 'cause TONS and TONS of people know that this kind of grammar is pretty low rent !!!

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Anonymous wrote:We live in a seriously marginal neighborhood so we can afford to send our kids to private school. Why? Because if we bought into an expensive neighborhood, we'd then be locked into that school – and if it didn't work out, would be screwed. If our private school doesn't work out, we can send them to a different private school.

We made a similar choice, although our neighborhood schools are good. We just preferred to keep our options open so didn't go all-in at the highest-rated schools. Not only can schools change (a local middle school has gone from "do not send your children there, ever" to "a great up and coming school" in the past 10 years, and a local elementary has gone from "fantastic!" to "ehhhh, it's ok") during a child's years, but different children have different needs. We under bought in terms of what we could afford to give us general life flexibility and that extends to our educational choices for our children.

Thank goodness we did, since public turned out to be a total nightmare. We had choices, we could fix the problem. I know too many people who deal with "well, the 3rd grade teacher was worthless, but the 4th grade teacher has been great!" Ok, I suppose you can accept that your child's enduring a complete waste of time for a year, as long as the child's not being mistreated, but I find that unacceptable.

I do wish we lived in an area with more school choice at the public level. Had we been able to change public schools (without moving), we probably would have tried that remedy before going private.