Immediately PP here, with the story about her delinquent friend the product of privates.... That all said, we may do private in elementary in order to keep living where we live. I'm not particularly against it -- I just don't necessarily think it's worth it all things being equal.

Anonymous wrote:Only a few publics are as good as privates, and those are usually in wealthy areas. More benefits for the rich! we have a large family with mixed educational backgrounds. Overall the private school students do better in life. Better colleges, better jobs. but it costs the parents a small fortune. We have one in magnet and one in private. The magnet has a big name and is very hard. Its public so some of the teachers are awful. Private is not perfect, but all of the teachers are on a certain level, and they are very motivated to teach well. It is a sacrifice for us to pay the tuition, but our parents did it for us. Private is a much more supportive environment. We determined that our DC needed that, compared to our other one, who is OK in public.

This is interesting because it has not been our experience as adults. Perhaps at age 22, the private kids are in better schools, and at 25 they are in fancier sounding jobs. But my husband and my experience as we hit age 40 (public school, public college, and private grad school for both of us) is that our friends who have had genuine professional success are almost exclusively the product of the public track. When I say "professional success", I mean people who have had tremendous upward promotions, who haven't changed jobs too frequently but when they have, they moved into well-regarded organizations and roles, and people who are well-recognized in their industry. At 40, you kind of know who has genuine success.

Our private school friends (most of whom we met in our prestigious grad schools) often had fantastic-sounding jobs straight out of school, but much has turned out to be fluff over the past 15-20 years -- frequent job changes without any substantial upward movement, lots of women who finished grad school, did 2 years of working and then became sahms (so you never got to see how successful they would have been), lots of men who quit their corporate jobs 4 years out to do a start up (clearly funded by parents' money - but without any evidence that it's been successful), and lots of people who ended up in fancy sounding but not necessarily substantive jobs that were gotten through friends or family (i.e. family business, family medical practice, small law practice, family real estate development, etc).

It's actually not the result I would have expected, but the contrast is pretty glaring at this point.

One of my closest girlfriends is a product of public school, then good but not stellar private college and grad school. Her husband was the product of very prestigious boarding school and then Harvard, and he is a total f-up, and gets fired at least once a year. Despite not having any money (see previous comment about his regular job-losses), she is insistent their three kids all need to go private starting at K. Without saying it outright, I've tried to gentry point out the non-success her husband has had on that path. But they are obsessed with the notion that "it's not where you end up, but the path you take", and that the experiences her husband had during his exclusive education were so important despite the fact that those experiences apparently robbed him of any ability to function in society. It's just an anecdote, and he's obviously an extreme example, but I find it an interesting glimpse of their thinking on the issue.

Worth it for us. DH and I were lifelong public school kids who thought only rich kids and delinquents went to private schools. We live in a changing, but not quite there neighborhood. The schools are fine, but there's a decent percentage of families who clearly do not prioritize education or good behavior. It makes it harder for the teachers to focus on the needs of all of the students when a handful take up all of their time. We ended up going private because we liked the idea of every family being all in. Nobody gets to just show up. The learning environment feels more supportive because everyone actually values learning, sees education as an investment, and the classes are small enough that teachers really can work with the students wherever they are. Our very shy son will not be slipping through the cracks. The lack of emphasis on testing and overtly academic activities for the PKs was also a draw for us.

Only a few publics are as good as privates, and those are usually in wealthy areas. More benefits for the rich! we have a large family with mixed educational backgrounds. Overall the private school students do better in life. Better colleges, better jobs. but it costs the parents a small fortune. We have one in magnet and one in private. The magnet has a big name and is very hard. Its public so some of the teachers are awful. Private is not perfect, but all of the teachers are on a certain level, and they are very motivated to teach well. It is a sacrifice for us to pay the tuition, but our parents did it for us. Private is a much more supportive environment. We determined that our DC needed that, compared to our other one, who is OK in public.

We did both. One kid did Pk-8 in private school and public high school. Our public schools are excellent and I suspect DC would have done well in public all the way through. His friends who started public in K are smart, well adjusted kids. I don't regret spending the money on private school but in retrospect it wasn't necessary. I think that depends in large part on the public school system/cluster you are in and the kid. We are in one of the best MoCo clusters.

Anonymous wrote:It was worth nothing to us; academically, private proved to be a fraud compared to public. Glad we pulled.

Please elaborate.

Anonymous wrote:We pay full freight mostly for the sticker and the opportunities for my real estate maven wife to hawk her wares like a Parisian hooker during the G7. The opportunity to tailgate before each and every sporting event is an added bonus. My old man rocks espadrilles and I still have an add a bead necklace and some Dean Sweaters. We live in a bubble of self-entitlement and were damn proud. Care to sneak a peak over the fence? We pay full-freight.

Lol. I trust you overbid at the auction as well?

It was worth nothing to us; academically, private proved to be a fraud compared to public. Glad we pulled.

We pay full freight mostly for the sticker and the opportunities for my real estate maven wife to hawk her wares like a Parisian hooker during the G7. The opportunity to tailgate before each and every sporting event is an added bonus. My old man rocks espadrilles and I still have an add a bead necklace and some Dean Sweaters. We live in a bubble of self-entitlement and were damn proud. Care to sneak a peak over the fence? We pay full-freight.

Anonymous wrote:I'm not getting your post from a financial sense. After school and mortgage, you have $5000 left and you are complaining about not taking vacations and other cut backs but that is plenty of money for a family of 4 to live off of, including savings, especially for college.

+1 from a family living on very close to $5K a month before tuition or housing costs. I'm also curious why the OP thinks her kid wouldn't have gone out for track (a no cut sport at every HS I know in the area) or the arts in public.

Private school has been worth it for my family, but it's also been a huge expense, even though we're at the lowest cost option around. My kid was drowning in public, so we definitely made the right choice.

Anonymous wrote:I grew up in a state where Catholic schools were heavily established and economically feasible for middle class families. The nuns were lifetime teachers who dedicated themselves to their subject and also enforced a discipline that doesn't exist in my children's private. Wish there were more of those in the DMV.

When grandma offered to pay 'full freight' for our kiddos to attend private, we saw the value and were immensely grateful that we didn't have to bear the financial burden. They go to a $30k/year school and it would be very difficult to step into the breech if her backing dissolves. I'd have to go back FT instead of PT. But now that I've seen one get up through middle school, I know we'd do it. Middle School alone is reason to go private. My neighbors talk about SOLs, overcrowding and fights in the cafeteria. I just can't put mine into that situation when we could afford private, even if we have to give up other niceties.

What niceties are you giving up if grandparents are paying?! And you work PT!

Math's tricky at all schools, especially given the 'new method' it's being taught...
I don't know if you can figure out if a child's 'behind' until, say 3rd grade...it just takes some children a little longer to figure out math and reading.
Just saying...we're at a private, and our child is doing just fine--'on grade' level, and that's fine with us...

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My son is a K student in GDS. I have been thinking about the same problem since he entered prk there. My friends' children in very good public school could write a full paragraph the end year of K. They also did research paper writing about the frog's life. But my son's class just showed parents what they could do in playground now. Now I really don't know if it is worth the money to go private. My view is that what students can achieve in playground was a development by themselves over the one year in the school, not related to school very much. I am afraid my son will be left behind accademically, compared to public school students. Could someone share more of their experience in private and their views about it? Maybe the writing in K is not important? I recently feel so frastrated that we paid the money while it seemed that great public school could provid similar or even better education.

I switched from private to public in elementary school and remember being behind, especially in math.

Good Lord!

How can you be behind in Math in 1st / 2nd grade in a public school?!!!

Has any of you actually *looked* at the curriculum?!!! Never mind that Johnnie can remember addition and subtraction facts to 100. That's not what makes a gifted math student. There's really not that much that relies on previous knowledge in any of the k-2nd grade years. There is no assumption that a child has been exposed to any preK / K in either K or 1st grade. 2nd grade essentially starts just as slowly. DD, not particularly gifted at math, learned distraction in those classes. Really.

I grew up in a state where Catholic schools were heavily established and economically feasible for middle class families. The nuns were lifetime teachers who dedicated themselves to their subject and also enforced a discipline that doesn't exist in my children's private. Wish there were more of those in the DMV.

When grandma offered to pay 'full freight' for our kiddos to attend private, we saw the value and were immensely grateful that we didn't have to bear the financial burden. They go to a $30k/year school and it would be very difficult to step into the breech if her backing dissolves. I'd have to go back FT instead of PT. But now that I've seen one get up through middle school, I know we'd do it. Middle School alone is reason to go private. My neighbors talk about SOLs, overcrowding and fights in the cafeteria. I just can't put mine into that situation when we could afford private, even if we have to give up other niceties.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Of course almost everybody opts out of public transit. And a significantly smaller group opts out of public education.

well, if a car costs 40,000 a year, more would opt into public transit. Gas has to get close to 10.00 a gallon before the metro is cheaper than my drive to work

So do you assume that people would abandon public schools if private education were more affordable? I don't, actually. I think the underlying subtext of the transportation/education comparison in our car-oriented society was of course everybody considers "public" substandard and would buy their way out of it if they could afford to.... Which seemed inaccurate and objectionable to me wrt education.

I know tons of people in MoCo who would abandon the public schools if privates were more affordable. I have moms in my neighborhood tell me all the time that they wish they could afford private but at its current cost, with 2 or 3 kids, they can't .