Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There’s no perfect school and some of the problems discussed here are overblown or not applicable

+1

Fearmongering is out of control

A school shooting is my greatest fear right now for my kids.

School shootings occur in private schools too. You'll have to move out of America if you want to reduce that fear.

Out of 134 school shootings from 2000 to 2018, 8 occurred in private schools, while 122 occurred in public schools. https://www.cato.org/blog/are-shootings-more-likely-occur-public-schools

OK now do it by percent of the population who attends

2018 was a long time ago. Update your statistics.

Anonymous wrote:I’m generally curious why anyone would stay at MCPS for middle or high school with the budget cuts that are coming, along with the safety concerns in public and how they are handling things in general. The grade inflation is crazy and many kids can’t even pass their AP classes. I understand there are families who can’t afford it, but if you can, why wouldn’t you leave? I’m genuinely curious, not trying to be rude. Also if you are religious at all why wouldn’t you chose a parochial or Jewish school that are not that out of reach. I get paying 60k by why not 12k?

My kid is not white or rich. I know because I work in a local independent school and my kid used to go to one. The one I’m at now is all about appearances and celebrations. Kids can’t actually read, write, or think independently.

The majority of privates aren’t better, they just have the ability to cherry pick their students and expel those that don’t comply with their rules. I am also a huge supporter of free and public education for all. I want my children to have the opportunity to interact with peers from all walks of life.

The only reason I would consider private schools is if there was a serious safety concern. But again, private schools aren’t immune to that either.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There’s no perfect school and some of the problems discussed here are overblown or not applicable

+1

Fearmongering is out of control

A school shooting is my greatest fear right now for my kids.

School shootings occur in private schools too. You'll have to move out of America if you want to reduce that fear.

Out of 134 school shootings from 2000 to 2018, 8 occurred in private schools, while 122 occurred in public schools. https://www.cato.org/blog/are-shootings-more-likely-occur-public-schools

OK now do it by percent of the population who attends

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There’s no perfect school and some of the problems discussed here are overblown or not applicable

+1

Fearmongering is out of control

A school shooting is my greatest fear right now for my kids.

School shootings occur in private schools too. You'll have to move out of America if you want to reduce that fear.

Come on. You can think MCPS is a good option without being ridiculous. Yes, there have been shootings on private schools but they are really rare. Think of all the guns (and shootings) in MCpS just this year. When is the last time you have heard of a gun in a DMV private let alone a shooting. And then there is the trauma inflicted on MCPS students from the frequent lockdowns and bomb threats (and if your kids don’t care about these it’s because they have been desensitized to violence which is bad).

The county pays for security for some privates.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Because we're in a position to make up for MCPS's deficiencies. MCPS fails all students, but those failures don't fall evenly. If you're an educated, UMC family you can fill in the gaps. Maybe you luck into the advanced options that still exist, and if you don't you supplement that at home. If you've got a gifted kid but you're not in a position to supplement or if you have a special needs kid that MCPS is really fighting giving services, you're probably out of luck, but that's not us.

That’s the ticket. If you ask nothing of MCPS except what they are currently offering then yes you probably feel it is excellent. For anyone that has a neurodivergent or special-needs child public education in Montgomery County is hell.

I disagree. My neurodivergent 2E child is thriving in his magnet program. We looked into privates for him and quickly realized that he would never get the acceleration he needed outside of public school. He also had a robust IEP that served him very well.

Anonymous wrote:Because there are still a lot of good programs in MCPS. If your kid is really advanced in math and science, it's your best option to keep that going.

Because MCPS offers more special ed services and support for kids with learning differences than most privates and religious schools.

Because lots of kids can thrive in larger, more diverse environments. And if you care about diversity you're going get to get far less in the private school system (especially economic diversity) than in public.

Because some people believe tuition money is better saved/invested/spent on college than K-12.

Of course there are problems in public schools (news flash: privates have their own issues too), and yeah, I think we're all upset about the chaos that's being introduced by all the changes happening next year. But the fact is, something like 90% of kids will be educated in public schools. That's worth supporting (and pushing for better) for the good of society, even if you put your kids on a different path.

Yes! 100%

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would argue that the science curriculum is much stronger at their parochial school than an MCPS, which is a joke. Also, the language arts, writing and humanities are much stronger in the private schools. I will say that the kids at MCPS are further along in math, however, most of them do not have great foundational skills, and this comes and hurts them later on. I believe MCPS parents want to believe that their kids are getting a good education, but I can assure you, starting in middle school, that is rarely the case. I also think if you look at the college attrition list even the better public schools, W Schools, at MCPS have gone down recently in terms of the schools kids have been getting into and the number of kids that used to get into play top universities.

I think more private school parents want to believe that the majority of kids in public are suffering when this is not true holistically. The gaps that students are displaying that are seen at the university level are seen from both public and private students. Really depends on the school they are coming from. However public students still seen more ready to adapt to circumstances as they have been training to do so.

I’d also add that attrition rates to colleges and universities nowadays has more to do with cost and overall competition. Public school students are competing against a greater pool.

+1 My MCPS kid is doing more advanced math than our friend's kid who is at a 55K/year DMV private school. You can say that my kid isn't taught properly and that the private school teachers were better, but his MCPS teachers have been excellent (even though class sizes were big).

+2 Especially compared to parochial schools in Maryland, I prefer MCPS. My kid has classmates from K-8 Catholic schools in his HS, and they're in the weak math classes. They just aren't as prepared.

Look at the NMSF lists for Maryland. Very few of the finalists are from private schools, except for Holton Arms, even after controlling for the smaller size of public schools.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There’s no perfect school and some of the problems discussed here are overblown or not applicable

+1

Fearmongering is out of control

A school shooting is my greatest fear right now for my kids.

School shootings occur in private schools too. You'll have to move out of America if you want to reduce that fear.

Yes, shootings do happen at private schools, but they happen far more often — I believe 15x as often — in public schools. Especially suburban and rural public schools. This is Googleable.

The risk of a shooting is my #1 fear about sending my kids to public and my #1 fear about living in America. It’s horrible, and I see no viable solutions on the table.

You know what is also Googleable? Basic statistics. 80%+ of American students go to public school rather than private school. So the fact that shootings happen far more often in public schools is what one would expect given that most students attend public school.

Having done both for myself and kids I’m not sure one is completely better than the other. Really depends on kids, school and finding the right fit.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There’s no perfect school and some of the problems discussed here are overblown or not applicable

+1

Fearmongering is out of control

A school shooting is my greatest fear right now for my kids.

School shootings occur in private schools too. You'll have to move out of America if you want to reduce that fear.

Yes, shootings do happen at private schools, but they happen far more often — I believe 15x as often — in public schools. Especially suburban and rural public schools. This is Googleable.

The risk of a shooting is my #1 fear about sending my kids to public and my #1 fear about living in America. It’s horrible, and I see no viable solutions on the table.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would argue that the science curriculum is much stronger at their parochial school than an MCPS, which is a joke. Also, the language arts, writing and humanities are much stronger in the private schools. I will say that the kids at MCPS are further along in math, however, most of them do not have great foundational skills, and this comes and hurts them later on. I believe MCPS parents want to believe that their kids are getting a good education, but I can assure you, starting in middle school, that is rarely the case. I also think if you look at the college attrition list even the better public schools, W Schools, at MCPS have gone down recently in terms of the schools kids have been getting into and the number of kids that used to get into play top universities.

I think more private school parents want to believe that the majority of kids in public are suffering when this is not true holistically. The gaps that students are displaying that are seen at the university level are seen from both public and private students. Really depends on the school they are coming from. However public students still seen more ready to adapt to circumstances as they have been training to do so.

I’d also add that attrition rates to colleges and universities nowadays has more to do with cost and overall competition. Public school students are competing against a greater pool.

+1 My MCPS kid is doing more advanced math than our friend's kid who is at a 55K/year DMV private school. You can say that my kid isn't taught properly and that the private school teachers were better, but his MCPS teachers have been excellent (even though class sizes were big).

+2 Especially compared to parochial schools in Maryland, I prefer MCPS. My kid has classmates from K-8 Catholic schools in his HS, and they're in the weak math classes. They just aren't as prepared.

Anonymous wrote:My kid is in MCPS because she’s getting a pretty solid education and she has a really great social network of friends and their parents who live in our neighborhood within walking/biking distance. Losing that community would be a very serious negative for switching to private. It’s just not possible to maintain as close of a group/community when not in the same school. Also, kid is old enough to weigh in and strongly wanted to remain in MCPS though older sib switched to private in MS. There were some differences re: academic needs but the bigger difference between the two situations was social.

The social piece of it is probably the biggest for us. I sent my first to a fancy preschool about 20 minutes from us and it was just a night and day difference compared to the social aspect of school friends in the neighborhood or a 3 minute drive away. For my kids that’s an important piece. My oldest is also very advanced in math and had compacted math which was the right pace for them or possibly not accelerated enough. We looked into the private schools near us and none had an advanced track that seemed comparable. However my younger child will not have those advanced options available since ELC was replaced by on-level instruction based on excerpts instead of real books and compacted math is no more. We are seriously considering private for that child though I expect them to fight us because they will want to stay with their friends. I know several families in the same boat- decent MCPS experiences for their older kids and continuously worse experiences for their younger ones so they are looking into private for the first time. It’s all such a shame. We have had good teachers in general, it’s these decisions coming down from the central office that ruin everything.

Anonymous wrote:I would argue that the science curriculum is much stronger at their parochial school than an MCPS, which is a joke. Also, the language arts, writing and humanities are much stronger in the private schools. I will say that the kids at MCPS are further along in math, however, most of them do not have great foundational skills, and this comes and hurts them later on. I believe MCPS parents want to believe that their kids are getting a good education, but I can assure you, starting in middle school, that is rarely the case. I also think if you look at the college attrition list even the better public schools, W Schools, at MCPS have gone down recently in terms of the schools kids have been getting into and the number of kids that used to get into play top universities.

I agree with this.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There’s no perfect school and some of the problems discussed here are overblown or not applicable

+1

Fearmongering is out of control

A school shooting is my greatest fear right now for my kids.

School shootings occur in private schools too. You'll have to move out of America if you want to reduce that fear.

Come on. You can think MCPS is a good option without being ridiculous. Yes, there have been shootings on private schools but they are really rare. Think of all the guns (and shootings) in MCpS just this year. When is the last time you have heard of a gun in a DMV private let alone a shooting. And then there is the trauma inflicted on MCPS students from the frequent lockdowns and bomb threats (and if your kids don’t care about these it’s because they have been desensitized to violence which is bad).