On a very basic level, it just takes a lot of time away from learning and skills. Kids spend a lot of mental energy trying to answer these big questions about how they may or may not need to fix a world they don’t even know yet. They aren’t naturally interested in it, and it kind of deadens their enthusiasm. Would you want to be stuck in an HR lecture all day?

It also turns the admin focus and the teaches focus away from the individual kids and their achievement. If a kid wins a math tournament, instead of it being like woah, look at that, good for you, let’s get more kids up there with you — it becomes a discussion among adults about what that child’s race says about whether they as teachers are racist or not.

It also means spending a lot of money for a group of educational professionals who aren’t in the classroom and don’t know the kids but have a lot of power to tell teachers how to teach. It just creates a lot of busy work for the faculty and mainly benefits adults who like meetings.

Mississippi is leading the nation at teaching poor children of all races reading, writing and math and it’s doing none of this. How that isn’t equity is a mystery to me, but it isn’t according to the people who are really into equity.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Seems to me the entire point of TT is for status and networking. It goes along with the country house, classic six and charity events.

It’s debatable whether the education is better than a suburban public and probably not. Your kid is simply more likely to befriend someone whose parent is a billionaire and travels via PJ.

One issue I see is that kids at NYC privates don’t have PT jobs. A PT job is instrumental in teaching life skills. It’s a humbling experience and important. Given AI, I’m more focused on my kids learning life skills than some elite resume.

FWIW I attended a selective private and then a public HS. I didn’t think either was really better just different. The public had more diverse makeup. Not racial but socioeconomic and the kids were meaner. Better athletics and math. At the private I was constantly told how special I was and a lot of brainwashing about public schools and how terrible they are.

I went to a top ranked public school in NJ. In no way are public schools able to match the quality of private school education, especially now with the focus on equity (with the possible exception of science magnet school). Of course, there are very good private schools in the suburbs as well. Presumably your budget will cover that as well.

Genuinely curious, how has the focus on equity changed curriculums in public? I've heard anecdotally that standards keep on getting lowered but have no direct experience with this nor have spoken to other parents in depth about this. Was the top ranked school district you attended similar to a Summit, Princeton, Mountain Lakes, Tenafly, etc.?

Anonymous wrote:Yes I think it’s fair to consider that upper level calculus is not a foundation to succeed in life. I’ve never taken anything beyond calculus AB and I guarantee many would consider me successful. We’re really splitting hairs here on how important these types of math classes are. And in any event, most of the TTs have them so it’s moot.

Anonymous wrote:Maybe, but of the basic things you should or want for your kids out of school is math. Reading may only be the more important basic skill set. Are we really going to argue about whether math should be an important part of a solid educational foundation to succeed at life?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Math, like music or a language, is best taught as quickly as possible as fast as possible. True quants think the math at most of these private schools is absolute bullshit and enroll their kids in Russian math. I thought it was achievement culture that they did this, but it’s truly not. They want their kids taught math in a way that works and encourage individual skills. These private schools don’t do differential learning until way too late to cultivate longterm talent.
There is so much educational research from other counties and other states on how the way we now teach math doesn’t lead to longterm success. Singapore has great math scores, but the Singapore math they teach in these schools is sold by one corporation. Its research backs its curriculum but it’s like edtech — it’s not vetted by an outside agency. Speyer and it sounds like Horace Mann are the only two I know that seem to know how to teach math to accelerated learners. All people at these schools use to judge the quality of their kid’s education is exmissions to HYP.

Or maybe they and their kids don't care much about math. Can you believe that different people have different interests? Nuts, right?

Agree with this. I took the most basic calculus and people would definitely consider me successful in my career. But my career has nothing to do with upper level math skills.

I think upper level math skills are really important for students for whom math is their “thing.” Or students who want to continue to college where math is a must have skill.

Yes I think it’s fair to consider that upper level calculus is not a foundation to succeed in life. I’ve never taken anything beyond calculus AB and I guarantee many would consider me successful. We’re really splitting hairs here on how important these types of math classes are. And in any event, most of the TTs have them so it’s moot.

Anonymous wrote:Maybe, but of the basic things you should or want for your kids out of school is math. Reading may only be the more important basic skill set. Are we really going to argue about whether math should be an important part of a solid educational foundation to succeed at life?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Math, like music or a language, is best taught as quickly as possible as fast as possible. True quants think the math at most of these private schools is absolute bullshit and enroll their kids in Russian math. I thought it was achievement culture that they did this, but it’s truly not. They want their kids taught math in a way that works and encourage individual skills. These private schools don’t do differential learning until way too late to cultivate longterm talent.
There is so much educational research from other counties and other states on how the way we now teach math doesn’t lead to longterm success. Singapore has great math scores, but the Singapore math they teach in these schools is sold by one corporation. Its research backs its curriculum but it’s like edtech — it’s not vetted by an outside agency. Speyer and it sounds like Horace Mann are the only two I know that seem to know how to teach math to accelerated learners. All people at these schools use to judge the quality of their kid’s education is exmissions to HYP.

Or maybe they and their kids don't care much about math. Can you believe that different people have different interests? Nuts, right?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Math, like music or a language, is best taught as quickly as possible as fast as possible. True quants think the math at most of these private schools is absolute bullshit and enroll their kids in Russian math. I thought it was achievement culture that they did this, but it’s truly not. They want their kids taught math in a way that works and encourage individual skills. These private schools don’t do differential learning until way too late to cultivate longterm talent.
There is so much educational research from other counties and other states on how the way we now teach math doesn’t lead to longterm success. Singapore has great math scores, but the Singapore math they teach in these schools is sold by one corporation. Its research backs its curriculum but it’s like edtech — it’s not vetted by an outside agency. Speyer and it sounds like Horace Mann are the only two I know that seem to know how to teach math to accelerated learners. All people at these schools use to judge the quality of their kid’s education is exmissions to HYP.

Or maybe they and their kids don't care much about math. Can you believe that different people have different interests? Nuts, right?

OP here, yes I do think it's absolutely nuts how these schools approach math. It's a pretty critical skill to learn and I'd argue the logic and discipline involved in math translates directly to being good at writing, debate and other areas within the humanities.

Getting to multivariable and beyond in high school is not critical to any of the things you’ve stated. Prior posts were talking about the pace and lack of upper tier options, which are relevant for only a small percentage of these kids. That was obviously to what I was referring.

A lot of the TT schools in Manhattan are focused on equity, too. They hire the same educational consultants and are influenced by the same ideas. If you want to avoid equity pedagogy, you have to be very careful when looking at a TT. They are so beholden to the education schools at the Ivies, which is where these ideas came from in the first place.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Seems to me the entire point of TT is for status and networking. It goes along with the country house, classic six and charity events.

It’s debatable whether the education is better than a suburban public and probably not. Your kid is simply more likely to befriend someone whose parent is a billionaire and travels via PJ.

One issue I see is that kids at NYC privates don’t have PT jobs. A PT job is instrumental in teaching life skills. It’s a humbling experience and important. Given AI, I’m more focused on my kids learning life skills than some elite resume.

FWIW I attended a selective private and then a public HS. I didn’t think either was really better just different. The public had more diverse makeup. Not racial but socioeconomic and the kids were meaner. Better athletics and math. At the private I was constantly told how special I was and a lot of brainwashing about public schools and how terrible they are.

I went to a top ranked public school in NJ. In no way are public schools able to match the quality of private school education, especially now with the focus on equity (with the possible exception of science magnet school). Of course, there are very good private schools in the suburbs as well. Presumably your budget will cover that as well.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Seems to me the entire point of TT is for status and networking. It goes along with the country house, classic six and charity events.

It’s debatable whether the education is better than a suburban public and probably not. Your kid is simply more likely to befriend someone whose parent is a billionaire and travels via PJ.

One issue I see is that kids at NYC privates don’t have PT jobs. A PT job is instrumental in teaching life skills. It’s a humbling experience and important. Given AI, I’m more focused on my kids learning life skills than some elite resume.

FWIW I attended a selective private and then a public HS. I didn’t think either was really better just different. The public had more diverse makeup. Not racial but socioeconomic and the kids were meaner. Better athletics and math. At the private I was constantly told how special I was and a lot of brainwashing about public schools and how terrible they are.

I went to a top ranked public school in NJ. In no way are public schools able to match the quality of private school education, especially now with the focus on equity (with the possible exception of science magnet school). Of course, there are very good private schools in the suburbs as well. Presumably your budget will cover that as well.

Genuinely curious, how has the focus on equity changed curriculums in public? I've heard anecdotally that standards keep on getting lowered but have no direct experience with this nor have spoken to other parents in depth about this. Was the top ranked school district you attended similar to a Summit, Princeton, Mountain Lakes, Tenafly, etc.?

(The people who want a private school education, I mean, although I think several schools in Chicago have had really bad bullying incidents, poor outcomes, so maybe it’s less regional than I want to think it is).

It’s a lack of leadership at the heads of these places. Because people are so in to the social aspect of them, they are willing to put up with what no one else in any other part of the country would.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Math, like music or a language, is best taught as quickly as possible as fast as possible. True quants think the math at most of these private schools is absolute bullshit and enroll their kids in Russian math. I thought it was achievement culture that they did this, but it’s truly not. They want their kids taught math in a way that works and encourage individual skills. These private schools don’t do differential learning until way too late to cultivate longterm talent.
There is so much educational research from other counties and other states on how the way we now teach math doesn’t lead to longterm success. Singapore has great math scores, but the Singapore math they teach in these schools is sold by one corporation. Its research backs its curriculum but it’s like edtech — it’s not vetted by an outside agency. Speyer and it sounds like Horace Mann are the only two I know that seem to know how to teach math to accelerated learners. All people at these schools use to judge the quality of their kid’s education is exmissions to HYP.

Or maybe they and their kids don't care much about math. Can you believe that different people have different interests? Nuts, right?

OP here, yes I do think it's absolutely nuts how these schools approach math. It's a pretty critical skill to learn and I'd argue the logic and discipline involved in math translates directly to being good at writing, debate and other areas within the humanities.

Maybe, but of the basic things you should or want for your kids out of school is math. Reading may only be the more important basic skill set. Are we really going to argue about whether math should be an important part of a solid educational foundation to succeed at life?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Math, like music or a language, is best taught as quickly as possible as fast as possible. True quants think the math at most of these private schools is absolute bullshit and enroll their kids in Russian math. I thought it was achievement culture that they did this, but it’s truly not. They want their kids taught math in a way that works and encourage individual skills. These private schools don’t do differential learning until way too late to cultivate longterm talent.
There is so much educational research from other counties and other states on how the way we now teach math doesn’t lead to longterm success. Singapore has great math scores, but the Singapore math they teach in these schools is sold by one corporation. Its research backs its curriculum but it’s like edtech — it’s not vetted by an outside agency. Speyer and it sounds like Horace Mann are the only two I know that seem to know how to teach math to accelerated learners. All people at these schools use to judge the quality of their kid’s education is exmissions to HYP.

Or maybe they and their kids don't care much about math. Can you believe that different people have different interests? Nuts, right?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Math, like music or a language, is best taught as quickly as possible as fast as possible. True quants think the math at most of these private schools is absolute bullshit and enroll their kids in Russian math. I thought it was achievement culture that they did this, but it’s truly not. They want their kids taught math in a way that works and encourage individual skills. These private schools don’t do differential learning until way too late to cultivate longterm talent.
There is so much educational research from other counties and other states on how the way we now teach math doesn’t lead to longterm success. Singapore has great math scores, but the Singapore math they teach in these schools is sold by one corporation. Its research backs its curriculum but it’s like edtech — it’s not vetted by an outside agency. Speyer and it sounds like Horace Mann are the only two I know that seem to know how to teach math to accelerated learners. All people at these schools use to judge the quality of their kid’s education is exmissions to HYP.

Or maybe they and their kids don't care much about math. Can you believe that different people have different interests? Nuts, right?

OP here, yes I do think it's absolutely nuts how these schools approach math. It's a pretty critical skill to learn and I'd argue the logic and discipline involved in math translates directly to being good at writing, debate and other areas within the humanities.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Seems to me the entire point of TT is for status and networking. It goes along with the country house, classic six and charity events.

It’s debatable whether the education is better than a suburban public and probably not. Your kid is simply more likely to befriend someone whose parent is a billionaire and travels via PJ.

One issue I see is that kids at NYC privates don’t have PT jobs. A PT job is instrumental in teaching life skills. It’s a humbling experience and important. Given AI, I’m more focused on my kids learning life skills than some elite resume.

FWIW I attended a selective private and then a public HS. I didn’t think either was really better just different. The public had more diverse makeup. Not racial but socioeconomic and the kids were meaner. Better athletics and math. At the private I was constantly told how special I was and a lot of brainwashing about public schools and how terrible they are.

I went to a top ranked public school in NJ. In no way are public schools able to match the quality of private school education, especially now with the focus on equity (with the possible exception of science magnet school). Of course, there are very good private schools in the suburbs as well. Presumably your budget will cover that as well.

Adding the other difference between public and private that didn’t exist when most parents were children is mainstreaming of kids with special needs. When my child was in public school, there were three kids in her base class with their own aides and two of these kids had significant behavioral issues. Even though the school tracked for math and language arts, half the day was spent in base class. It was very challenging for the teachers.

Anonymous wrote:Math, like music or a language, is best taught as quickly as possible as fast as possible. True quants think the math at most of these private schools is absolute bullshit and enroll their kids in Russian math. I thought it was achievement culture that they did this, but it’s truly not. They want their kids taught math in a way that works and encourage individual skills. These private schools don’t do differential learning until way too late to cultivate longterm talent.
There is so much educational research from other counties and other states on how the way we now teach math doesn’t lead to longterm success. Singapore has great math scores, but the Singapore math they teach in these schools is sold by one corporation. Its research backs its curriculum but it’s like edtech — it’s not vetted by an outside agency. Speyer and it sounds like Horace Mann are the only two I know that seem to know how to teach math to accelerated learners. All people at these schools use to judge the quality of their kid’s education is exmissions to HYP.

Or maybe they and their kids don't care much about math. Can you believe that different people have different interests? Nuts, right?

Anonymous wrote:Seems to me the entire point of TT is for status and networking. It goes along with the country house, classic six and charity events.

It’s debatable whether the education is better than a suburban public and probably not. Your kid is simply more likely to befriend someone whose parent is a billionaire and travels via PJ.

One issue I see is that kids at NYC privates don’t have PT jobs. A PT job is instrumental in teaching life skills. It’s a humbling experience and important. Given AI, I’m more focused on my kids learning life skills than some elite resume.

FWIW I attended a selective private and then a public HS. I didn’t think either was really better just different. The public had more diverse makeup. Not racial but socioeconomic and the kids were meaner. Better athletics and math. At the private I was constantly told how special I was and a lot of brainwashing about public schools and how terrible they are.

I went to a top ranked public school in NJ. In no way are public schools able to match the quality of private school education, especially now with the focus on equity (with the possible exception of science magnet school). Of course, there are very good private schools in the suburbs as well. Presumably your budget will cover that as well.

I went to a very good suburban public school and a TT college, as did my spouse. This was back when being top of your class at those schools and being "well-rounded" could make you pretty certain you would get into a top college - much less of the drama there is today.

My child went to very good NYC publics K-8 then 2T private for HS. We earn mid-high six figures so four years of private HS was not easy but not a major strain - K-12 would have been a stretch, especially because our salaries grew significantly from K-8. We had options for top publics but turned them down.

We found that there were plenty of people like us at this school. Which is perhaps why we chose it and didn't aim as much for TT, even though our child would have done well there. There were also plenty of super rich people, but we felt minimal classism, likely partially because we could play the game - we went on enough nice trips and interacted with enough rich friends that we could talk the talk. But I don't think that was required.

We chose private as we thought our child would thrive in a smaller environment. They participated a lot in big public school classes and likely would have continued at a public HS, but they developed very meaningful relationships with teachers in HS. Particularly for the humanities, the smaller classes fostered more interesting projects and more discussion, which we appreciated. They were able to do some other activities that might not have been possible at public schools.

There were definitely times we questioned the decision to go private and who knows whether it was the right choice. But our child had a challenging yet "relatively" relaxed high school experience. Their intellectual curiosity was pushed and engaged but not in an overwhelming way. As much as high school is a major stepping stone, it is also a period of life that should be enjoyed, and we accomplished this.

I do not judge other people's decisions because everyone has different circumstances. So I offer my perspective, making sure to be clear about the situation and constraints we faced. And generally speaking I don't think there is a "wrong" answer.

Anonymous wrote:Seems to me the entire point of TT is for status and networking. It goes along with the country house, classic six and charity events.

It’s debatable whether the education is better than a suburban public and probably not. Your kid is simply more likely to befriend someone whose parent is a billionaire and travels via PJ.

One issue I see is that kids at NYC privates don’t have PT jobs. A PT job is instrumental in teaching life skills. It’s a humbling experience and important. Given AI, I’m more focused on my kids learning life skills than some elite resume.

FWIW I attended a selective private and then a public HS. I didn’t think either was really better just different. The public had more diverse makeup. Not racial but socioeconomic and the kids were meaner. Better athletics and math. At the private I was constantly told how special I was and a lot of brainwashing about public schools and how terrible they are.

I totally respect this take but would love to see if anyone would be able to offer any pushback on the benefits of a TT. Within the class there are many families with accomplished parents who are PE partners, law firm partners or proprietors of significant businesses. From what I can tell not many families who travel via PJ but many who are just a single rung below economically. Can anyone speak to whether this type of class make-up does in fact provide more career opportunities for the kids down the line? Also, the point a prior post made about needing to max out on APs in the suburbs feels pretty valid. It feels like TTs definitely do provide a more engaging learning environment but not sure if that better learning experience is in any way transformational to the long-term character or life outcomes of the students.