Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not DC private but NYC private school alums. Our kid goes to YY. We really want DS to learn Mandarin. Will go private in DC for middle school and return to NYC for high school - either NYC private or Stuy or NE boarding school.

Also NYC private alum at YY. What year is your kid in?

1st. Yours?

1st. too funny.

There are quite a few New Yorkers among parents and many of the teachers/admins are from there or went to school there.

Although most of the kids are "DC natives" and born here.

Yu Ying is a very nice, kind, nurturing school despite the presence of so many New Yorkers. Must be the Southern influence...

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not DC private but NYC private school alums. Our kid goes to YY. We really want DS to learn Mandarin. Will go private in DC for middle school and return to NYC for high school - either NYC private or Stuy or NE boarding school.

Also NYC private alum at YY. What year is your kid in?

1st. Yours?

1st. too funny.

If I wasted hundreds of thousands of dollars on pre-k through 6 I would transfer to private. Happily my kids learned their ABC's and 1+1 for free. Now they are focused and the academics are rich, and my kids are not spoon-fed snobs. Also I'm not infuriated by the ineptitude of DCPS in high school.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: [No it's not. And, every region in China has a variation in tones anyway, so they can barely understand each other. I learned Chinese as an adult, lived there for years, and was able to communicate with the natives just fine. It was clear that I wasn't a native speaker, but who cares if you're understood. If your child is highly motivated to learn Chinese, rather than have it forced on him, then he can be as good as Canadian Da Shan, who sounds like a native. His parents didn't send him to immersion.

THIS. This whole fascination with US kids being immersed in Chinese in particular is interesting. I deal with the Chinese regarding economic and business issues (and people from many other countries) extensively, and frankly, English and French are the languages of commerce and will be for quite a while (unless something incredibly drastic happens -- something that totally upends the world economy), and most of them understand at least one of those two languages without need for interpreters. Just my opinion and NO, I am not "euro-centric." I would think that immersion in Spanish would be more generally useful.

(I'm not addressing other reasons why parents might want to have their kids immersed in Chinese in particular -- only adressing theeffectiveness of doing so if its to have them prepared to somehow be competitive with the Chinese).

Anecdotal? yes. But this is a messageboard lol

The number of Spanish immersion schools outnumber the Mandarin one, 10?, 20? To 1. So there you have it. Spanish is considerably more popular (deemed useful to know by parents) than Mandarin. Don't understand all this quibbling about the fact that the one Chinese immersion school is popular with some...

Anonymous wrote: [No it's not. And, every region in China has a variation in tones anyway, so they can barely understand each other. I learned Chinese as an adult, lived there for years, and was able to communicate with the natives just fine. It was clear that I wasn't a native speaker, but who cares if you're understood. If your child is highly motivated to learn Chinese, rather than have it forced on him, then he can be as good as Canadian Da Shan, who sounds like a native. His parents didn't send him to immersion.

THIS. This whole fascination with US kids being immersed in Chinese in particular is interesting. I deal with the Chinese regarding economic and business issues (and people from many other countries) extensively, and frankly, English and French are the languages of commerce and will be for quite a while (unless something incredibly drastic happens -- something that totally upends the world economy), and most of them understand at least one of those two languages without need for interpreters. Just my opinion and NO, I am not "euro-centric." I would think that immersion in Spanish would be more generally useful.

(I'm not addressing other reasons why parents might want to have their kids immersed in Chinese in particular -- only adressing theeffectiveness of doing so if its to have them prepared to somehow be competitive with the Chinese).

Anecdotal? yes. But this is a messageboard lol

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not DC private but NYC private school alums. Our kid goes to YY. We really want DS to learn Mandarin. Will go private in DC for middle school and return to NYC for high school - either NYC private or Stuy or NE boarding school.

Also NYC private alum at YY. What year is your kid in?

1st. Yours?

Anonymous wrote:Not DC private but NYC private school alums. Our kid goes to YY. We really want DS to learn Mandarin. Will go private in DC for middle school and return to NYC for high school - either NYC private or Stuy or NE boarding school.

Also NYC private alum at YY. What year is your kid in?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"Independent" is what people say to mean "private" when they are trying to sound less pretentious, only it sounds more snooty.

Also, to add to the Chinese language discussion. My kids are all DCPS, one at Wilson taking Chinese after 3 years of Chinese at Deal culminating in a fantastic 10 day trip to China during spring break-my kid did very well communicating in Chinese while there. Wilson teacher explained that if you get through AP Chinese at Wilson, kids can continue Chinese at AU.

I'm afraid that won't work for us, it's too late to master the tones. Middle school is too late to master the tones.

No it's not. And, every region in China has a variation in tones anyway, so they can barely understand each other. I learned Chinese as an adult, lived there for years, and was able to communicate with the natives just fine. It was clear that I wasn't a native speaker, but who cares if you're understood. If your child is highly motivated to learn Chinese, rather than have it forced on him, then he can be as good as Canadian Da Shan, who sounds like a native. His parents didn't send him to immersion.

Anonymous wrote:I went thought DCPS growing up and would never in a million years subject my kids to that. It was an awful education all the way through.

I think it depends on the child and whether you live in an area with good inboundary schools. If your child is self motivating, fairly smart and does not need a lot of support or any accomodations, public school can work for them and they will be fine. I was that way. I was not an exceptional student but I did not require a lot of assistance with work and I knew my strengths. My DS is different. He has some special needs, not severe, and he has spent enough time in DCPS for me to know that the public school system cannot adequately serve him and help him develop the tools he needs to be successful in life. He just started middle school is now in private school. I would like to be able to switch him back to public school in HS but in reality I know that is probably unlikely if I want to make sure he is prepared to get into a decent college. The only way we would go back to public is if for some reason we no longer had the funds to afford private school.

I went thought DCPS growing up and would never in a million years subject my kids to that. It was an awful education all the way through.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I graduated from Sidwell. I feel very lucky to have kids attend Mundo Verde.

Are you planning on staying with MV all the way?

+1 Curious too. Are you planning to stay for DCI?

Yes, we plan to stay and are excited about DCI. However, our kids are young, so the school will have been in operation for a number of years before we will have to make a firm decision.

NP--my child is also at MV and I attended a boarding school in the northeast (parochial school for ES). Very pleased with MV and hope DCI is successful and will consider (if we are still in the DC area). I don't think my child is boarding school material so we are considering public and private day schools in this area. My parents sent me to an elite boarding school and my brother went to a public magnate school in the northeast. My mom thought public was a better fit for my brother and he was on the science/math track (I was humanities). He got into Harvard, I got into Penn.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I graduated from Sidwell. I feel very lucky to have kids attend Mundo Verde.

Are you planning on staying with MV all the way?

+1 Curious too. Are you planning to stay for DCI?

Yes, we plan to stay and are excited about DCI. However, our kids are young, so the school will have been in operation for a number of years before we will have to make a firm decision.

Anonymous wrote:I think the pp who spoke of $70k-$104k for private tuition in DC considered the amount to be doled out annually every year for 13 years if one had 2-3 children. That number over the course of 13 years would barely cover extracurriculars or transportation.

Ah, that makes more sense. I couldn't think of a single DC private where $70K would cover 13 years' tuition for one child. Sad, but true.

I attended a well regarded private in DC, have a child at a different well regarded private and a child at a well regarded charter.

Tuition seems formidable, but financial aid made it very possible.

I intend to transfer the charter child to my alma mater at some point.

Needless to say, I won't be naming the schools, as I don't seem to be in a very common arrangement.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I went to DCPS (eaton, deal, wilson) I send my kids to private. The DCPS education I got was not, I feel, all that great. We all bring our own baggage when it comes to making choices for our kids.

I suppose my baggage is that I don't feel my private school high school education was worth $140k. It was probably worth the roughly $30k my parents paid back then.

Wilson seems about the same to me now as it was then, but my high school doesn't seem to have improved exponentially.

Agree totally, my parents spend about $150k on my private school education. My husband went to public. Can't say either of us received a "better education". I am more traveled them him and I think more worldly which we both feel is more important, we are she ding our money on that.