Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wouldn't Cathlolic "light" = Episcopal?

This except Episcopal schools are generally far more $$$. Sounds like OP is asking because they are looking for a school with lower tuition (but maybe there’s another motivation???).

OP said she likes the curriculum of. Catholic schools, except the religion part. Do Episcopap schools have a similar curriculum?

Anonymous wrote:Wouldn't Cathlolic "light" = Episcopal?

This except Episcopal schools are generally far more $$$. Sounds like OP is asking because they are looking for a school with lower tuition (but maybe there’s another motivation???).

Anonymous wrote:Wouldn't Cathlolic "light" = Episcopal?

This

OP here - reason I was asking is I went to school in the UK- public school.

We had prayers in assembly most days and at lunch.

We all learned to read and write, far far better than what I am seeing at my MCPS public school. It’s insane how poor of an education MCPS is providing and how little anyone seems to care!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Mass and “churchy” stuff are fine. Just don’t do it at the EXPENSE of “schooly” academics. Make the days and/or school year a bit longer to accommodate. And no more BS half days.

Catholic teachers want the best of both worlds — public school calendars/pay AND the churchy stuff / well-behaved religious students. Sorry, pick one.

What Catholic school teachers are getting anywhere close to public school salaries?

Religious education is another opportunity to practice reading and writing. One reason why Catholic school writing instruction is better is because they have another writing heavy class.

I just checked the Catholic school and local public school for our MCPS neighborhood. The Catholic is 8 - 3 (7 hours) the public is 9:00 to 3:25 (6:25) so the Catholic school has 35 more minutes a day, or 175 more a week. Mass is probably 45 minutes of that, so that's 2 more hours of instruction a week. Likely more since public school dismissal takes a lot of time due to longer kiss and ride lines, and the complication of buses.

I’m a Catholic school teacher. I make 7% less than I did when I worked public. I happily took the pay cut! Never looked back.

I also send my kids to Catholic school partly because of the emphasis on writing. My high school senior writes essays better than I did in college. And I was an English major.

Anonymous wrote:Mass and “churchy” stuff are fine. Just don’t do it at the EXPENSE of “schooly” academics. Make the days and/or school year a bit longer to accommodate. And no more BS half days.

Catholic teachers want the best of both worlds — public school calendars/pay AND the churchy stuff / well-behaved religious students. Sorry, pick one.

What Catholic school teachers are getting anywhere close to public school salaries?

Religious education is another opportunity to practice reading and writing. One reason why Catholic school writing instruction is better is because they have another writing heavy class.

I just checked the Catholic school and local public school for our MCPS neighborhood. The Catholic is 8 - 3 (7 hours) the public is 9:00 to 3:25 (6:25) so the Catholic school has 35 more minutes a day, or 175 more a week. Mass is probably 45 minutes of that, so that's 2 more hours of instruction a week. Likely more since public school dismissal takes a lot of time due to longer kiss and ride lines, and the complication of buses.

Anonymous wrote:I’m guessing the OP is a troll. Do Catholic schools actually teach reading and writing better than public’s and privates?

IMO, absolutely. We went from a progressive charter to Catholic and he made progress he never would have made if he'd stayed put. It prepared him very well for the secular private he's in now.

Would Christian Family Montessori fit this? I honestly don't know.

Our ADW school is half an hour longer than MCPS.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wouldn't Cathlolic "light" = Episcopal?

That's too expensive, they want the cheaper price tag without the inconvenient spiritual part.

Off topic but why are episcopal schools so expensive vs Catholic? Don't they have a church structure that could financially support a school? The episcopal church is rich.

On some level, it's a choice in church priorities. And also the Episcopalians are probably looser structured than the Catholics, because there's no single head of the church and everything's more loosely woven. So there's not as much of a single set of financial priorities.

Also often Episcopal schools are like non-Diocesan Catholic schools in that they are independent of a specific church. This has it's benefits. We're at a school that was started by a Protestant church, but the church rapidly spun the school off to stand on it's own. It's therefore more expensive than a parish school, but also not tied to the ups-and-downs of the long-ago founding church.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wouldn't Cathlolic "light" = Episcopal?

That's too expensive, they want the cheaper price tag without the inconvenient spiritual part.

Off topic but why are episcopal schools so expensive vs Catholic? Don't they have a church structure that could financially support a school? The episcopal church is rich.

Anonymous wrote:Mass and “churchy” stuff are fine. Just don’t do it at the EXPENSE of “schooly” academics. Make the days and/or school year a bit longer to accommodate. And no more BS half days.

Catholic teachers want the best of both worlds — public school calendars/pay AND the churchy stuff / well-behaved religious students. Sorry, pick one.

We have done public and Catholic elementary schools. The Catholic’s school day was 45 minutes shorter and included religion class daily and weekly mass, so I get the argument that the school provides less instructional time. But in our experience, a lot of instructional time at public was actually just wasted time. Wasted in transition, wasted on the lowest 3 kids, wasted on correcting behavioral issues that didn’t really happen in the Catholic school, and in showing Disney and Pixar movies. I’m totally fine with Catholic school teachers taking an extra day. They do a lot more grading of written work and they spend a lot more time “on” versus just showing a movie or sticking kids on “educational apps.” Again, just our experience with our specific public elementary schools and Catholic elementary school.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Mass and “churchy” stuff are fine. Just don’t do it at the EXPENSE of “schooly” academics. Make the days and/or school year a bit longer to accommodate. And no more BS half days.

Catholic teachers want the best of both worlds — public school calendars/pay AND the churchy stuff / well-behaved religious students. Sorry, pick one.

LOL. No, if you don't like it, YOU pick a different school. Catholic schools don't need to change. They are very clear about what they are.

This. And many of us send our kids there to get this. It’s a feature, not a bug.

Anonymous wrote:I’m guessing the OP is a troll. Do Catholic schools actually teach reading and writing better than public’s and privates?

Generally speaking, they are known for that. My eighth grader has spent alot of time on writing in English class. The teacher devotes class time to writing, and gives direct feedback to students on their drafts. They explicitly learn grammar and spelling. They read full-length novels in school.

From what I hear from my friends with kids in public schools, that doesn’t really happen there. Obviously, YMMV on that one.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Mass and “churchy” stuff are fine. Just don’t do it at the EXPENSE of “schooly” academics. Make the days and/or school year a bit longer to accommodate. And no more BS half days.

Catholic teachers want the best of both worlds — public school calendars/pay AND the churchy stuff / well-behaved religious students. Sorry, pick one.

LOL. No, if you don't like it, YOU pick a different school. Catholic schools don't need to change. They are very clear about what they are.

I went to public school, and especially in middle school the amount of time spent on substantive learning was pretty minimal. A lot of time was spent on dealing with misbehavior, and that was almost 30 years ago--and certainly pre-iPhone--when student behavior was on the whole better than it is today. I don't mind at all that my daughter's parochial school spends a lot of time on religion--the behavior expectations at her school are very high and the children are taught to be focused and on task, so they're actually getting a lot more done during the time when they're working on reading and math. We do supplement academics at home because it's an important priority for us and we want to give her an edge.