Anonymous wrote:In terms of local reputation: Miss B's Basement Boarding School.

sounds like dungeon for naughty Congressmen

Nysmith, St. Anselm's, and HOMESCHOOL

bump

In terms of local reputation: Miss B's Basement Boarding School.

In terms of international reputation: WIS and Kirov Academy.

In terms of national reputation: Sidwell, St. Albans, Potomac

I intended to quote only the snide comment to which I was responding, not the entire post, which included the reference to those three DC schools.

Thanks, 11:11 -- that explains the confusion. When you quoted the Janney/Murch/Lafayette post and then referenced public school gifted programs, I thought you were referring to those three schools.

I am 11:11. I was referring to my post last night of Haycock, Archer, and Canterbury Woods as my 'big 3'. I was responding to the earlier poster who made a snide comment implying that the posters listing public schools didn't understand that this was the private school forum.

The OP asked people to be creative and have fun with his/her question, and IMO the posters listing public schools had just as much right to post their 'big 3' as those listing only private schools. The schools that people consider their personal 'big 3' aren't necessarily private....many people constantly weigh the tradeoffs between excellent private and excellent public schools.

No one said that the absence of a gifted program makes any school "substandard." (Private schools generally don't have gifted programs either.) But 11:11 referred to Murch, Lafayette, and Janney as "public school gifted programs." Aren't they, in fact, neighborhood schools that do not have gifted programs? Sure, the neighborhoods may all be Lake Woebegone, but let's get the facts straight.

Thank you, 12:54, for your helpful response!

St. Anselm's, Landon, St. Albans

Anonymous wrote:11:11

But Murch, Janney, and Lafayette don't have gifted programs, do they?

That said, I agree that for many families (we're among them), it's not a question of which private school. The only private school worth considering are the specific schools you think are significantly better than your public school options.

Top "three" strikes me as another arbitrary divide. You start with a long short list, visit those schools, decide which to apply to, then have preferences among them. No reason that the relevant number at any stage should be 3.

Simply because they don't have gifted programs doesn't mean they are providing a substandard education. Students at Murch, Janney and Lafayette are offspring of highly-educated, overachieving parents. Most, if not all of them, would be competitive applicants for any independent in the city.

11:11

But Murch, Janney, and Lafayette don't have gifted programs, do they?

That said, I agree that for many families (we're among them), it's not a question of which private school. The only private school worth considering are the specific schools you think are significantly better than your public school options.

Top "three" strikes me as another arbitrary divide. You start with a long short list, visit those schools, decide which to apply to, then have preferences among them. No reason that the relevant number at any stage should be 3.

11:32 First, two caveats. Linguist friend and her colleagues were all French (not Americans) and this was a few years' back, so YMMV.

But they were unsatisfied with the results of dual language instruction. The claim was that the kids didn't learn as much or as well, either with respect to the second language or in other subject areas (where two languages slowed down instruction). So you'd sacrifice math/science to get a foreign language but the foreign language acquisition wasn't that much greater than if it had been taken as a single subject.

Her take was either send the kid to full immersion in the non-native language (Rochambeau in our case) and work on English at home. Or send the kid to the school with the best academics (according to one's own standards/kid's needs and abilities) and pursue a foreign language on the side. We chose the latter option and looked for a school where relatively serious foreign language instruction began early.