Anonymous wrote:Not sure if anyone already said this. But I thought people paid the premium to live in N. Arlington FOR the public schools. If you are paying 1.5mil for your house to be in a good school pyramid, why wouldn't you use said school?

I might understand this thread more if someone was flashing wealth and sending their child to a poor performing school, but this thread is dumb and judgy.

This. Only the wealthy can afford this board’s favorite schools. The Poors are told to suck it up and rent in the right pyramid.

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Anonymous wrote:Pp here. I was just thinking what I would have done if I won the billion dollar lottery. I remember thinking I would keep them in public school.

Oh hell, no. Your kids haven't been in private so you have no comparison, right? I have one in private on scholarship and it is just complete night and day to my other 2 kids. Amazing. Public is teaching the masses and just bringing up the rear. And by private, I mean decent college prep private. Not parochial school.

If you lived in a better school district you wouldn't see a disparity between the two. There are great publics in this area.

Where? Ones with teachers who have 12-15 kids per class. Who actually grade and correct homework, essays, and papers. Give ideas on the sides and give comments for improvement. Who know each child by name, know them personally, and are positive mentors in their lives.

You think public school teachers don’t know the names of the kids in their classes?

I know they don’t. My 4th grader’s treacher still calls her 3 different names, depending on the day. In high school, teachers have 120-150 kids they teach and grade a day. A private high school teacher at a decent school may have 50 max a day. You don’t think that effects effort, grading, corrections, mentoring, teachable moments, 1 on 1 help and tutoring, etc...? My kids get “great job” on assignments that are incorrect and misspelled - with zero corrections.

14 kids in my 2nd grade public. She knows them all, and teaches so much better than last year’s private.

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Anonymous wrote:I was talking to a mom from a public ES one afternoon while we were waiting for our kids and she told me that when they had their new house build, she had an entire room put together just to display her handbags. I'm serious. She was telling the wrong person though because all I could think was "WHY?" its just so boring, its not like it was a library or a sculpture room or a room displaying paintings.

Name the ES, or it didn't happen. I'm serious.

Jamestown, duh.

I didn't read all 12 pages of this but I think it's simple:

Some people believe that public schools are important. They feel that private schools essentially opt out our best and brightest, and make public schools worse for all. It's an ethical dilemma for some that has nothing to do with "flashiness" in terms of luxury goods.

Some people spend more money than they have, and perhaps school is too much, or private school isn't valued, or is a much bigger ticket item than a $3,000 handbag or $5,000 nip and tuck.

Some people are happy with public school. Some of these people are wealthy, or look wealthy. Or perhaps their kids couldn't get in. Who knows.

Really? You can't put this together?

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Anonymous wrote:To answer your question OP:

They're public school alums that came into a little money. The intrinsic value of a private k-12 education is outside of their scope, over their head. That's all. It's not necessarily bad, they just don't get it.

Or they know better than to send their kids to school with kids raised by people like you.

^exactly,

-Married to an old money Andover grad who was quite insistent (rightly so, I later realized) that we send our kids to public even though we can easily afford private.

Andover grad marrying some public spouse teases out a lifelong pattern of poor decisions.

They're not as rich as the pretend to be, period.

And they know it - and they're deeply cognizant and insecure of that fact.

Are there any good private schools in Arlington? I'm not familiar with any. There are mostly second rate privates and catholics in Va.

I can understand sending kids to private school when living in DC. I'm from Long Island, NY. Everyone I knew went to public school where many kids in the city went to private.

Flashy purses and flashy cars (and even fancy vacations) aren't that expensive compared to $40K/year/kid for 13 years. Maybe these flashy parents just don't have enough money for that much tuition without the payments being uncomfortable, but have enough to afford other luxuries in life. There's a pretty wide range of wealth to accommodate the material luxuries in life, but spending over $400K/child for private school--when public schools are very good--requires either so much wealth that that sum of money doesn't fundamentally change a family's lifestyle, or the family is deeply committed to private education for some other reason.

Not sure if anyone already said this. But I thought people paid the premium to live in N. Arlington FOR the public schools. If you are paying 1.5mil for your house to be in a good school pyramid, why wouldn't you use said school?

I might understand this thread more if someone was flashing wealth and sending their child to a poor performing school, but this thread is dumb and judgy.

Anonymous wrote:This whole thread is insufferable. I am embarrassed for all of the "wealthy" people bragging about what they can afford but "choose" not too. I don't care how much money those people have, why do they feel the need to come on an anonymous board to compare? What trash!

You need to calm down.

And I can’t understand those parents who send their kids to private schools and then the kids end up at some mediocre college like Elon. You can get into UVA from public.

Anonymous wrote:You are being extremely judgmental. While I don't have a YSL bag, I could, and we could easily afford to send our kids to private. Why don't we? Because I want my kids to go to a school with all of their friends within walking distance. I don't want to drive to NW or Bethesda each day. I find Arlington to be very down to earth for the most part.

All of this is true except the last sentence. Lived in Arlington for 8 years and have never been in such a high-strung community so filled with anxious type A people in my life.

This whole thread is insufferable. I am embarrassed for all of the "wealthy" people bragging about what they can afford but "choose" not too. I don't care how much money those people have, why do they feel the need to come on an anonymous board to compare? What trash!

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Anonymous wrote:To answer your question OP:

They're public school alums that came into a little money. The intrinsic value of a private k-12 education is outside of their scope, over their head. That's all. It's not necessarily bad, they just don't get it.

Or they know better than to send their kids to school with kids raised by people like you.

^exactly,

-Married to an old money Andover grad who was quite insistent (rightly so, I later realized) that we send our kids to public even though we can easily afford private.

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Anonymous wrote:Pp here. I was just thinking what I would have done if I won the billion dollar lottery. I remember thinking I would keep them in public school.

Oh hell, no. Your kids haven't been in private so you have no comparison, right? I have one in private on scholarship and it is just complete night and day to my other 2 kids. Amazing. Public is teaching the masses and just bringing up the rear. And by private, I mean decent college prep private. Not parochial school.

If you lived in a better school district you wouldn't see a disparity between the two. There are great publics in this area.

Where? Ones with teachers who have 12-15 kids per class. Who actually grade and correct homework, essays, and papers. Give ideas on the sides and give comments for improvement. Who know each child by name, know them personally, and are positive mentors in their lives.

My public school (Richard Montgomery) had all of this!