Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is more teacher dependant in my opinion, than anything else. I felt the same way, and had actually planned to keep my September bday DD in one extra year of "Reggio" based preschool versus Kindergarten last year. Pandemic and virtual opportunity changed this - as we decided to give our in-boundary school a try and not stress over what our kid accomplished academically. The teacher we had was amazing. I could not have asked for a better experience, albeit online, for my kids introduction to academics. I was not as thrilled with the assistant teacher, and had she been at the helm, the experience would have been entirely different.

Point being - you can end up with amazing and not so great teachers in public and private, it's the luck of the draw; some privates do claim to foster a love of learning, as do some publics. In practice it is not exactly so. There are a few DC publics/charters that do seem to veer that way and are by far better than some privates, which may actually be a more stressful learning environment in some respects. My kid does not go there, but I visited Murch, and it was amazing. I have also heard some great things about Mundo Verde and other charters.

I’m a teacher and I completely agree with this. Love of learning is infectious. The attitude/enthusiasm/mindset of the teacher matters very much in the early years. Look for excellent school leadership that sets a tone for the whole school. Public/private doesn’t matter if the faculty is top-notch.

This remains true for middle and high school. But, by middle school, your child will be developmentally in a different place and his/her peers will start to be a bigger influence than the adults in their life ( who are still important, but in different ways). By middle school, you want to be sure your child has at least a pool of classmates who are invested in learning and school, because they will absorb the attitudes of their peers. I watched my own kids gravitate away from the peers who blew off school and thought it was all stupid and thankfully they had alternative social groups to remake close friendships with kids who do care, value the same things academically. By high school,
Make sure that cohort is there, whether public or private. What I’ll say is that private doesn’t guarantee this kind of kid. Many could be achievement-oriented, but not intellectually incurious and more interested in making the grade. Take the time to get to know school communities and school leadership before you choose. It’s not just test scores/size of tuition/college acceptances that matter. It’s the culture of the school.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is more teacher dependant in my opinion, than anything else. I felt the same way, and had actually planned to keep my September bday DD in one extra year of "Reggio" based preschool versus Kindergarten last year. Pandemic and virtual opportunity changed this - as we decided to give our in-boundary school a try and not stress over what our kid accomplished academically. The teacher we had was amazing. I could not have asked for a better experience, albeit online, for my kids introduction to academics. I was not as thrilled with the assistant teacher, and had she been at the helm, the experience would have been entirely different.

Point being - you can end up with amazing and not so great teachers in public and private, it's the luck of the draw; some privates do claim to foster a love of learning, as do some publics. In practice it is not exactly so. There are a few DC publics/charters that do seem to veer that way and are by far better than some privates, which may actually be a more stressful learning environment in some respects. My kid does not go there, but I visited Murch, and it was amazing. I have also heard some great things about Mundo Verde and other charters.

I’m a teacher and I completely agree with this. Love of learning is infectious. The attitude/enthusiasm/mindset of the teacher matters very much in the early years. Look for excellent school leadership that sets a tone for the whole school. Public/private doesn’t matter if the faculty is top-notch.

This remains true for middle and high school. But, by middle school, your child will be developmentally in a different place and his/her peers will start to be a bigger influence than the adults in their life ( who are still important, but in different ways). By middle school, you want to be sure your child has at least a pool of classmates who are invested in learning and school, because they will absorb the attitudes of their peers. I watched my own kids gravitate away from the peers who blew off school and thought it was all stupid and thankfully they had alternative social groups to remake close friendships with kids who do care, value the same things academically. By high school,
Make sure that cohort is there, whether public or private. What I’ll say is that private doesn’t guarantee this kind of kid. Many could be achievement-oriented, but not intellectually incurious and more interested in making the grade. Take the time to get to know school communities and school leadership before you choose. It’s not just test scores/size of tuition/college acceptances that matter. It’s the culture of the school.

Question: how does one come to know the culture of the school, before attending/sending a child there? As well, how does one know if the faculty is top notch? These are not things we can find out easily without experience in the school itself. Word of mouth only tells you so much.

I agree with your whole statement, except - I was close with kids who did not like school and indeed most dropped out during high school. Yet I had access to high level classes and continued to enjoy them at the same time. I now believe that the peers in those classes were overly achievement oriented and honestly seemed more incurious than the dropouts. This was a public school. The peers were there, but I avoided them, in other words... As you point out, a worry about a private school might be that you do end up with only status and achievement oriented kids, and they don't love learning. They love success.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is more teacher dependant in my opinion, than anything else. I felt the same way, and had actually planned to keep my September bday DD in one extra year of "Reggio" based preschool versus Kindergarten last year. Pandemic and virtual opportunity changed this - as we decided to give our in-boundary school a try and not stress over what our kid accomplished academically. The teacher we had was amazing. I could not have asked for a better experience, albeit online, for my kids introduction to academics. I was not as thrilled with the assistant teacher, and had she been at the helm, the experience would have been entirely different.

Point being - you can end up with amazing and not so great teachers in public and private, it's the luck of the draw; some privates do claim to foster a love of learning, as do some publics. In practice it is not exactly so. There are a few DC publics/charters that do seem to veer that way and are by far better than some privates, which may actually be a more stressful learning environment in some respects. My kid does not go there, but I visited Murch, and it was amazing. I have also heard some great things about Mundo Verde and other charters.

I’m a teacher and I completely agree with this. Love of learning is infectious. The attitude/enthusiasm/mindset of the teacher matters very much in the early years. Look for excellent school leadership that sets a tone for the whole school. Public/private doesn’t matter if the faculty is top-notch.

This remains true for middle and high school. But, by middle school, your child will be developmentally in a different place and his/her peers will start to be a bigger influence than the adults in their life ( who are still important, but in different ways). By middle school, you want to be sure your child has at least a pool of classmates who are invested in learning and school, because they will absorb the attitudes of their peers. I watched my own kids gravitate away from the peers who blew off school and thought it was all stupid and thankfully they had alternative social groups to remake close friendships with kids who do care, value the same things academically. By high school,
Make sure that cohort is there, whether public or private. What I’ll say is that private doesn’t guarantee this kind of kid. Many could be achievement-oriented, but not intellectually incurious and more interested in making the grade. Take the time to get to know school communities and school leadership before you choose. It’s not just test scores/size of tuition/college acceptances that matter. It’s the culture of the school.

Anonymous wrote:This is more teacher dependant in my opinion, than anything else. I felt the same way, and had actually planned to keep my September bday DD in one extra year of "Reggio" based preschool versus Kindergarten last year. Pandemic and virtual opportunity changed this - as we decided to give our in-boundary school a try and not stress over what our kid accomplished academically. The teacher we had was amazing. I could not have asked for a better experience, albeit online, for my kids introduction to academics. I was not as thrilled with the assistant teacher, and had she been at the helm, the experience would have been entirely different.

Point being - you can end up with amazing and not so great teachers in public and private, it's the luck of the draw; some privates do claim to foster a love of learning, as do some publics. In practice it is not exactly so. There are a few DC publics/charters that do seem to veer that way and are by far better than some privates, which may actually be a more stressful learning environment in some respects. My kid does not go there, but I visited Murch, and it was amazing. I have also heard some great things about Mundo Verde and other charters.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just be sure to pick a DCPS school with many good teachers. If there's strong neighborhood buy-in, with a school that's at least 2/3s in-boundary students, you'll probably find that. I don't think you need to pay for private for an elementary school kid in DC these days. Even if you're well-off, you don't want a cocoon kid who may not be able to roll with the punches a little.

My kids love their longtime DCPS school and are thrilled to be back there this quarter in 3rd and 5th grades. They read one or two ahead of grade level, play musical instruments decently after years of very cheap music lessons at the school, and loop up a grade for math.

What school is this with the music lessons?

Anonymous wrote:Just be sure to pick a DCPS school with many good teachers. If there's strong neighborhood buy-in, with a school that's at least 2/3s in-boundary students, you'll probably find that. I don't think you need to pay for private for an elementary school kid in DC these days. Even if you're well-off, you don't want a cocoon kid who may not be able to roll with the punches a little.

My kids love their longtime DCPS school and are thrilled to be back there this quarter in 3rd and 5th grades. They read one or two ahead of grade level, play musical instruments decently after years of very cheap music lessons at the school, and loop up a grade for math.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Most of those qualities are intrinsic and come from the home setting. No school is going to do that. DCPS is good at teaching kids to read and write (better than privates as far ad I can tell).

I was going to say this as well. Parents teach “love of learning” not school. I will also say this is a personality trait, to a degree. One of my children LOVES learning, the other, eh, not so much....

I think people say "love of learning" when they really mean "love of school" -- as in a child who is happy to go to school and learn whatever they teach there. One of my children is like that and happily goes and learns whatever the teacher teachers. My other one has a "love of learning" but not of all things. He loves learning about dinosaurs for example. He does not love all that is covered in school, some of which he declares to be "boring." Still it is important that he learn how to add and write... so off to school he must go.

Anonymous wrote:Just be sure to pick a DCPS school with many good teachers. If there's strong neighborhood buy-in, with a school that's at least 2/3s in-boundary students, you'll probably find that. I don't think you need to pay for private for an elementary school kid in DC these days. Even if you're well-off, you don't want a cocoon kid who may not be able to roll with the punches a little.

My kids love their longtime DCPS school and are thrilled to be back there this quarter in 3rd and 5th grades. They read one or two ahead of grade level, play musical instruments decently after years of very cheap music lessons at the school, and loop up a grade for math.