Anonymous
Post 02/22/2025 15:54     Subject: If you live in area with excellent publics, why did you choose private?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Struggling with this decision and would like to hear others’ perspectives. Also worried that since we are in a top rated public district, the people opting for private will be extremely religious families and kids with behavior or social issues, neither of which describes us.


As a public school parent at a “good” school who has seen numerous friends pull their kids for private, I’d honestly say most of them have these reasons. Kid was struggling and “needed small class sizes” or had social or mental health issues, or a diagnosis like dyslexia, anxiety or mild autism, etc. I only know 3 kids out of probably 30 who were academically and socially fine. I think those families always planned on private because older siblings were in private after ES or after MS.

I personally think of religious/parochial schools separately from independent schools. There are a few exceptions, but most seem to attract families who want homogeneity with their school community. The schools themselves aren’t usually better than public, just more insular.

I think the wealthy “lifers” who were too good for public in the first place are another group of families you’ll find.

I’ll be the first to say that there are issues in the public schools for sure. But I don’t think your perception is off that privates do attract a good amount of entitled people, kids who require attention and hand holding, and people who wish to be insular and exclude. The whole idea of private school is exclusivity!


You’re not even close.

You think 1 family in 5 is doing this for “exclusivity”?

For a variety of reasons, they think it’s better. You can’t see that? Great. Enjoy the public schools.
Anonymous
Post 02/22/2025 15:19     Subject: If you live in area with excellent publics, why did you choose private?
I work at a private but my kids go to a good public. Public has its issues but the teachers at the public school seem more professional, generally invested in education as a field. I assumed the pay gap has something to do with this. Private teachers seem like more 2nd and 3rd career types.
Anonymous
Post 02/22/2025 15:08     Subject: If you live in area with excellent publics, why did you choose private?
Anonymous wrote:Struggling with this decision and would like to hear others’ perspectives. Also worried that since we are in a top rated public district, the people opting for private will be extremely religious families and kids with behavior or social issues, neither of which describes us.


As a public school parent at a “good” school who has seen numerous friends pull their kids for private, I’d honestly say most of them have these reasons. Kid was struggling and “needed small class sizes” or had social or mental health issues, or a diagnosis like dyslexia, anxiety or mild autism, etc. I only know 3 kids out of probably 30 who were academically and socially fine. I think those families always planned on private because older siblings were in private after ES or after MS.

I personally think of religious/parochial schools separately from independent schools. There are a few exceptions, but most seem to attract families who want homogeneity with their school community. The schools themselves aren’t usually better than public, just more insular.

I think the wealthy “lifers” who were too good for public in the first place are another group of families you’ll find.

I’ll be the first to say that there are issues in the public schools for sure. But I don’t think your perception is off that privates do attract a good amount of entitled people, kids who require attention and hand holding, and people who wish to be insular and exclude. The whole idea of private school is exclusivity!
Anonymous
Post 02/22/2025 14:21     Subject: Re:If you live in area with excellent publics, why did you choose private?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Based on 2023/2024 from Montgomerypublicschools.org

Student populations:

Grades 9-12
MCPS - 52227
Private - 9109
% at Private - 17.4%

Grades 1-8
MCPS - 93158
Private - 15681
% at Private - 16.8

What this demonstrates is that a little less than 1 in 5 students are not in the “excellent “ public schools.

I’m just guessing, but I think it’s reasonable that the percentage of students at private schools from the areas where the best MCPS schools are is higher than 17%.

So a very large number of people in the more affluent areas have arrived at the conclusion that they would rather pay than attend these top public schools.


Without a breakdown by school attendance zone and religious vs independent privates you really cannot draw any useful conclusion from these stats.


Nonsense.

You can conclude that 17% of the high school students are in private schools.

You can bet the MCPS people are well aware of this.

From this, using your own common sense and experience, you can make some educated guesses. I, for example, would believe that the percentage of of high schoolers at private schools is greater in Bethesda and Potomac than it is in Montgomery Village or Derwood.

The MCPS doesn’t differentiate between religious and secular privates. To them Prep and Landon are the same thing as I suspect they are to most.

This data doesn’t shed any light on the question of why people in the sending areas of the “best” free public high schools pay to send their kids to private ones. But it certainly shows there are a whole lot of them that do this. (9,000 of them or enough to fill six additional high schools with 1500 students each).

Anonymous
Post 02/22/2025 13:23     Subject: Re:If you live in area with excellent publics, why did you choose private?
Anonymous wrote:Based on 2023/2024 from Montgomerypublicschools.org

Student populations:

Grades 9-12
MCPS - 52227
Private - 9109
% at Private - 17.4%

Grades 1-8
MCPS - 93158
Private - 15681
% at Private - 16.8

What this demonstrates is that a little less than 1 in 5 students are not in the “excellent “ public schools.

I’m just guessing, but I think it’s reasonable that the percentage of students at private schools from the areas where the best MCPS schools are is higher than 17%.

So a very large number of people in the more affluent areas have arrived at the conclusion that they would rather pay than attend these top public schools.


Without a breakdown by school attendance zone and religious vs independent privates you really cannot draw any useful conclusion from these stats.
Anonymous
Post 02/22/2025 12:40     Subject: If you live in area with excellent publics, why did you choose private?
We wanted Montessori and it isn’t available in our school district. Our daughter is still in the Primary (pk3-k) classroom but the elementary (1st- 6th) and adolescent 7th - 9th) students are impressive in academics, social development, and executive skills.
Anonymous
Post 02/22/2025 12:37     Subject: If you live in area with excellent publics, why did you choose private?
OP I was in your shoes. First of all I'm not sure why you think struggling kids would be drawn to a private religious school. Generally they have very strict behavioral standards.
At our school the "very religious" families are a minority. About half the school is very wealthy families who have always attended Catholic school and can't imagine anything different. They are rather laissez faire. Then about a third is families who live in a poorly performing district nearby and are "refugees". Finally there are families like mine who live in the good district but have to scrape together the money for the school. I guess we are the most religious of the three groups and we definitely seem to care the most about the school.
Anonymous
Post 02/22/2025 12:23     Subject: If you live in area with excellent publics, why did you choose private?
Our "excellent" MCPS school failed my ADHD child. So we moved to private.
Anonymous
Post 02/22/2025 12:23     Subject: Re:If you live in area with excellent publics, why did you choose private?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Based on 2023/2024 from Montgomerypublicschools.org

Student populations:

Grades 9-12
MCPS - 52227
Private - 9109
% at Private - 17.4%

Grades 1-8
MCPS - 93158
Private - 15681
% at Private - 16.8

What this demonstrates is that a little less than 1 in 5 students are not in the “excellent “ public schools.

I’m just guessing, but I think it’s reasonable that the percentage of students at private schools from the areas where the best MCPS schools are is higher than 17%.

So a very large number of people in the more affluent areas have arrived at the conclusion that they would rather pay than attend these top public schools.


Where do you get this data? I’d love to look at this data (public pop vs private pop) for different districts and different states.


Here's my source for Private schools by county (school district) in Maryland (marylandpublicschools.org). I'm sure this exists in other States and there may be a national data base as well.

https://www.marylandpublicschools.org/about/Documents/DCAA/SSP/20222023Student/2023NonpublicSchoolEnrollment.pdf
Anonymous
Post 02/22/2025 12:13     Subject: If you live in area with excellent publics, why did you choose private?
- wokism
- behavioral issues in class
- dumbing down of curriculum
- too much tech use
Anonymous
Post 02/22/2025 12:06     Subject: If you live in area with excellent publics, why did you choose private?

Not all of us moved to private with the misguided idea that the "return on investment" would be "better" college placement. We wanted a better day to day experience for our children. We absolutely got that. They have teachers who care about them, smaller classes, more chances to participate in ECs and sports, the school has an administration that can be nimble in their decision-making on everything from cell phone policy to weather closures, and we don't worry about massive behavioral issues. DCs are held to high standards. They enjoy school. They will go to a college that is a good fit for them and I am confident that the CCs at their school will help them manage that process. It's a lot of money, but to us it's worth it.


+1
Anonymous
Post 02/22/2025 12:02     Subject: If you live in area with excellent publics, why did you choose private?
Anonymous wrote:I cant stand middle class families with all their economic and IQ deficiencies. I feel more comfortable in private schools.


Trump, why do you have such a bee in your bonnet about IQ. It's not a measure of success, which has been proven a million times over.
Anonymous
Post 02/22/2025 12:00     Subject: If you live in area with excellent publics, why did you choose private?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:You get what you pay for.

Not true. It takes more than just money. Some pull their kid out of good public high school for a private one. Then the kid ends up going to a mediocre college anyways. Look at the local private HS College Commitments Websites.


It's not about JUST academics.

Your logic is like saying both the Cadillac and Nissan drive to the same place so therefore there's no difference. It's simply not true, one has a much better experience.
Anonymous
Post 02/22/2025 11:51     Subject: If you live in area with excellent publics, why did you choose private?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:You get what you pay for.

Not true. It takes more than just money. Some pull their kid out of good public high school for a private one. Then the kid ends up going to a mediocre college anyways. Look at the local private HS College Commitments Websites.


Not all of us moved to private with the misguided idea that the "return on investment" would be "better" college placement. We wanted a better day to day experience for our children. We absolutely got that. They have teachers who care about them, smaller classes, more chances to participate in ECs and sports, the school has an administration that can be nimble in their decision-making on everything from cell phone policy to weather closures, and we don't worry about massive behavioral issues. DCs are held to high standards. They enjoy school. They will go to a college that is a good fit for them and I am confident that the CCs at their school will help them manage that process. It's a lot of money, but to us it's worth it.


+1. This is EXACTLY how I feel.
Anonymous
Post 02/22/2025 11:33     Subject: If you live in area with excellent publics, why did you choose private?
Class size
School size
Community
Differentiated education
Student is "known"
Better parent group - my kid went to public for a year and some of the parents were hyper-competitive to the point of abusive IMO to their kids, my kid's friends - lots of issues around that, some cultural issues.
Less repetitive homework, more focus on critical thinking