I figure the majority of responses on these threads are trolls. My kids are in private school now. They were in public elementary and it didn't go so great. My expectations for public education were way too high for what it actually was.

I can't imagine going back to public. It's strange people think it isn't worth it. We have never looked back. Smaller classes, agility during covid, less politics, more funding and more opportunities.

Where are these unicorn public schools everyone goes to? We didn't have this experience in Annapolis.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not OP but I puzzle over the same question. I’m an alum of an elite public high school (not around here) and an Ivy plus elite public university so I’ve got a good grasp of what fantastic academic education looks like and I just really worry I’m not going to find it for my dc around here. I have a few years to game it out still but private would likely involve selling our home with tons of equity to supplement an HHI of about 260k. Seriously wondering if I might have to go back to my hometown. A public with elite academics, fewer discipline issues, and less of the “rich kids” social mores of private would be the sweet spot. Does that exist in the DMV? School without Walls? TJ? Frankly I prefer a humanities emphasis in high school but again, this unicorn might not exist. My dc is still too young for me to know exactly just what stripe of academics will be the best fit, but a feel a superior humanities-oriented hs serves you well no matter where career choices may take you. Welcome ideas if I’m missing a hidden local gem.

We moved back. We tried private and public in DMV and private was too $$ for our HHI and public was way too bulky, schools and classrooms too large, school district and school board and closures and all the rest. We are happy. Middle school is fantastic in our local public. Math is strong but the Language Arts and writing curriculum have been a major hidden gem; that is some of what we were paying for with private in DMV, so it's made our difficult decision to move really a net positive.

Yes -- things are much more complicated on the school front nowadays vs my time in the 80s/90s. So much more to consider (or are we just in a different headspace now?). We are content with our current DC charter but resigned to going private for middle school unless we luck on in the lottery, and even then... Grateful to have the option, even if writing those checks will hurt, if not necessarily financially, certainly on principle!

Anonymous wrote:Not OP but I puzzle over the same question. I’m an alum of an elite public high school (not around here) and an Ivy plus elite public university so I’ve got a good grasp of what fantastic academic education looks like and I just really worry I’m not going to find it for my dc around here. I have a few years to game it out still but private would likely involve selling our home with tons of equity to supplement an HHI of about 260k. Seriously wondering if I might have to go back to my hometown. A public with elite academics, fewer discipline issues, and less of the “rich kids” social mores of private would be the sweet spot. Does that exist in the DMV? School without Walls? TJ? Frankly I prefer a humanities emphasis in high school but again, this unicorn might not exist. My dc is still too young for me to know exactly just what stripe of academics will be the best fit, but a feel a superior humanities-oriented hs serves you well no matter where career choices may take you. Welcome ideas if I’m missing a hidden local gem.

We moved back. We tried private and public in DMV and private was too $$ for our HHI and public was way too bulky, schools and classrooms too large, school district and school board and closures and all the rest. We are happy. Middle school is fantastic in our local public. Math is strong but the Language Arts and writing curriculum have been a major hidden gem; that is some of what we were paying for with private in DMV, so it's made our difficult decision to move really a net positive.

Nope. I prefer public or homeschool. I have sent my children to private, public, and I have homeschooled. I HATE private schools.

Anonymous wrote:I agonize about sending my children to private school vs public. The small classes, network they build, and facilities are something I would love for them to have. If money were no object, they would already be at a local private. Given our finances--too high for much financial aid but not high enough to allow us avoid struggling, we are sticking with MCPS. Is money the only thing that keeps you in public or would you do it if money was no object?

No since it's vastly inferior to the magnet education my children received.

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Public education journos and public school teachers send their kids to private, as do I.

Well then you won’t mind paying my tuition at over $30 grand annually that I’m not getting value out of and then filling in the gaps where my child’s private school is lacking in instruction.

Yet you continue to pay it, so clearly you prefer it over the public option.

No idiot, but nice try. Clearly you don’t know what the school option is that I chose once this school year is up. Thanks for helping me identify you as the dumbest moron on here.

Some anger and frustration issues here?

Dp- it smarts when jr isn’t invited to return for the next year.
As stated above, private school gets to pick and choose.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Public education journos and public school teachers send their kids to private, as do I.

Well then you won’t mind paying my tuition at over $30 grand annually that I’m not getting value out of and then filling in the gaps where my child’s private school is lacking in instruction.

Yet you continue to pay it, so clearly you prefer it over the public option.

No idiot, but nice try. Clearly you don’t know what the school option is that I chose once this school year is up. Thanks for helping me identify you as the dumbest moron on here.

Some anger and frustration issues here?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Public education journos and public school teachers send their kids to private, as do I.

Well then you won’t mind paying my tuition at over $30 grand annually that I’m not getting value out of and then filling in the gaps where my child’s private school is lacking in instruction.

Yet you continue to pay it, so clearly you prefer it over the public option.

No idiot, but nice try. Clearly you don’t know what the school option is that I chose once this school year is up. Thanks for helping me identify you as the dumbest moron on here.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Public education journos and public school teachers send their kids to private, as do I.

Well then you won’t mind paying my tuition at over $30 grand annually that I’m not getting value out of and then filling in the gaps where my child’s private school is lacking in instruction.

Yet you continue to pay it, so clearly you prefer it over the public option.

Anonymous wrote:Public education journos and public school teachers send their kids to private, as do I.

Well then you won’t mind paying my tuition at over $30 grand annually that I’m not getting value out of and then filling in the gaps where my child’s private school is lacking in instruction.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Even when money was an issue we chose private schools for our children. It has been worth every penny. I firmly believe that our children are better educated than they would have been at our local public schools AND we very much appreciate that our children have been in schools where the families have similar value systems. Don't mistake value systems for diversity. The schools have been satisfactorily diverse (important to us because we are a multi-racial family and we wanted our children to feel like they belonged) but it is the similarity in values, social mores and ethics that have been the most important to us. We would have paid any amount of money for our children to be in the private schools we chose for them.

When people say value system I hear religion or wonder what exactly are these “ values, social mores and ethics” that you’re looking for that aren’t found in publics?

By values I suspect that they mean the schools can weed out the kids with more serious ADHD/LDs and other issues that might cause disruptions, minor or major, in the classroom or slow the class down academically.

Private schools use intelligence tests and interviews and applications to choose their students. Do you think that they are aiming for the kids who they can predict are going to struggle with academics or behavior? Nope.

The parents will tell you that everyone at their school values education and are willing to pay to be in a classroom with no, or limited distractions. They are happy to report that the problem kid normally isn't invited back the next year because they caused issues or that the kid who is struggling with math is not invited back and the class can work at a normal pace.

They don't want to send their kid to public schools because public schools have to educate the kids with LDs and ADHD and the disruptive kids who slow the class down.

They also tend to ignore that the number of kids from public school who end up at the same college as their kid who went to private school is pretty high and that those public school kids tend to do as well as their private school counterparts in classes and the like.

And that is fine, if people want to pay for that, good for them. Have at it. But short of wanting a religious education, values is code for "kids without any issues so that our classes run smoothly and the school boots the troublemakers."

I wouldn't mind paying for a private school where my kid who is ahead in school could be with other kids like himself and where the pace of the class moved far more quickly then what it does right now. For the record, the normal private school is not a good fit for my kid because many of the private schools are not great with differentiation. It costs a ton for parents of kids with LDs/ADHD/ASD/Gifted kids to send their kids to schools that are developed specifically for kids with those traits. The price tag is in the $40,000 or higher for those schools. It is kind of crazy.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Even when money was an issue we chose private schools for our children. It has been worth every penny. I firmly believe that our children are better educated than they would have been at our local public schools AND we very much appreciate that our children have been in schools where the families have similar value systems. Don't mistake value systems for diversity. The schools have been satisfactorily diverse (important to us because we are a multi-racial family and we wanted our children to feel like they belonged) but it is the similarity in values, social mores and ethics that have been the most important to us. We would have paid any amount of money for our children to be in the private schools we chose for them.

That sounds nice, but that hasn’t been my experience. There are terrible parents (and thus reflected in their kids) at every income level. There are plenty of private school parents/families that look the part of outstanding citizen, but are totally checked out from actually parenting their kids. They outsource most things and have do none of the grit real parenting takes. Their very average intelligence kids are spoiled, entitled, and think they are something special. They do all the same “bad kid” stuff too, just aren’t as obvious about it. These types of kids to me, are a worse influence than the troubled kids of the low income struggling parents found at public schools.

That's an interesting perspective and, in my opinion, a well-established public school trope about private school parents and their children. I have not seen what you're describing with any of the parents or children in the schools my children attend. IMO a big part of that may be the intensive screening process conducted by the schools our children attend. They don't want what you describe any more than I, as a parent at the schools, want it. The parent populations of our kids' schools seem very involved in all aspects of their children's lives. But you do you. That's what makes this such a great country. We have options. You exercise your right to send your kids to public school and we will exercise our right to send our kids to private school. It is all good.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not OP but I puzzle over the same question. I’m an alum of an elite public high school (not around here) and an Ivy plus elite public university so I’ve got a good grasp of what fantastic academic education looks like and I just really worry I’m not going to find it for my dc around here. I have a few years to game it out still but private would likely involve selling our home with tons of equity to supplement an HHI of about 260k. Seriously wondering if I might have to go back to my hometown. A public with elite academics, fewer discipline issues, and less of the “rich kids” social mores of private would be the sweet spot. Does that exist in the DMV? School without Walls? TJ? Frankly I prefer a humanities emphasis in high school but again, this unicorn might not exist. My dc is still too young for me to know exactly just what stripe of academics will be the best fit, but a feel a superior humanities-oriented hs serves you well no matter where career choices may take you. Welcome ideas if I’m missing a hidden local gem.

Where is this unicorn hometown, op? Massachusetts?

Somewhere much warmer, thankfully. But I’d guess Mass has a fair number of schools that would fit the bill.

Maybe. I went to top-rated public schools just outside of Boston. I'm not sure there are many better. I think my kid's private school education is an order of magnitude better than the education I received at what was supposedly the best of the best.

Anonymous wrote:Even when money was an issue we chose private schools for our children. It has been worth every penny. I firmly believe that our children are better educated than they would have been at our local public schools AND we very much appreciate that our children have been in schools where the families have similar value systems. Don't mistake value systems for diversity. The schools have been satisfactorily diverse (important to us because we are a multi-racial family and we wanted our children to feel like they belonged) but it is the similarity in values, social mores and ethics that have been the most important to us. We would have paid any amount of money for our children to be in the private schools we chose for them.

When people say value system I hear religion or wonder what exactly are these “ values, social mores and ethics” that you’re looking for that aren’t found in publics?

Public education journos and public school teachers send their kids to private, as do I.