We do this for our two kids & perhaps it's the same private if everyone buses? I wanted to love our top ranked public school and if I had looked at it in a vacuum, it would have been fine, but after comparing it to the private, I wanted the smaller classes, more resources and ability to work with different levels of learning, the incredible art & music resources, etc. I'm not sure how to articulate it without sounding completely snobby, but at our private, all of the teachers & staff are 100% committed & feel proud to be there. There's no grumbling about things or bureaucracy to deal with.

Also, even though we live far away from the school, there is a really nice community of neighborhood families who attend. Finally, because the screening process for new kids is rigorous, it's unlikely you'll end up with a child who will really distract the class & suck up all of the teacher's time. In a class of 24-26 kids, one child like that could ruin the year for the others.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is good or bad teacher in private or public. But I heard for kids in average range, private is better for them. That's our case and that's why we have very excellent public school, we choose private for our Kindergartener. We might re-evaluate our situation and go back to public later, but happy that we have a choice and going back to public is always available.

But is it worth spending over 500k to send your kid to private school??

Yes.

I'm the pp and yes, it worth the extra money to get the extra attention. To a top student, it doesn't matter so much, but for the middle layer that gets lost or ignored, it matters a lot. Think about this, it is not very easy to push a 99% kid to 99.5%, but it is much easier to push a 50% kid to 75% if not higher.

Not sure what you mean by "top student" but wanted to add that private school is worth it for my super smart, quiet, but not are working kid. They ALL get a lot of individualized attention that helps them develop their strengths and address their weaknesses.

Anonymous wrote:There will always be excellent teachers who happily take the trade-off with the lower salary.

But if the difference is "only" (because everything is relative) $10-15k, the non-salary benefits may make a huge difference. At our school for example, faculty parents get half tuition reduction for their kids, and free extended day care. That's an extra $16k or so per kid. THey are eligible for additional financial aid as well.

I often wonder how teachers without kids or those who choose not to send their kids to the school feel about this.

We are in-boundary for a top-rated public elementary school. Most of our neighbors send their kids there. We send our kids to a private school nearby (though not nearly as close as the public school) for a few reasons --

1 - We toured the private school and the public school a few different times, and each time found the teacher engagement, classroom materials, and principals to be far superior at the private school.

2 - Wanted to avoid the frequent standardized testing and homework in our public school. (We know about this from our neighbors who have kids there.)

3 - We can afford it (and we realize we are lucky to be able to do so) and this seems like a good investment of our money.

I think it's highly unlikely that, on the whole, public school kids are better-prepared at "elite" colleges than private school kids, or vice versa.

That said, to the extent I'm inclined to generalize at all, my sense is that the public school kids may initially adapt better than private school kids to the intro-level classes with hundreds of students, while private school kids may initially adapt better with the smaller, seminar-style classes. But the key word is initially, because if you're at a top college then the skill set to adapt quickly likely exists already and by the end of four years it's all a wash IMO.

I went to an Ivy (but apparently, one that DCUM would call a "bottom Ivy" as it is hardly ever mentioned here?). By far, the private school kids were the ones better prepared for that kind of environment. They had read more and been better taught to think analytically in a challenging situation. Across the board, the private school grads had had more AP class offerings, better sports teams, better music programs, etc. I worked my ass off in public high school to get where I was, and I thought I had a decent amount of preparation, but I had a LOT of catching up to do during my freshman year.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I went to a top Ivy. The kids who really excelled there tended to be public school graduates. The private school graduates were more sophisticated as entering freshmen, but had less drive and a weaker work ethic.

I went to Harvard & totally disagree with this generalization.

I also went to Harvard. I found the private school kids to be well read, well organized, and a year older. Many were very hard workers. They had had, however, a lot of handholding to get where they were.

The scary smart kids( junior Phi Beta Kappa, summa grads, Putnam winners etc.), were disproportionately public school kids. They had gotten to Harvard with much less handholding, a testament to their superbrains.

This is just revealing your own bias -- I knew 'scary smart' kids from both private and public at Harvard. Come on.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I went to a top Ivy. The kids who really excelled there tended to be public school graduates. The private school graduates were more sophisticated as entering freshmen, but had less drive and a weaker work ethic.

So many "top ivy" graduates on this anonymous forum. Very impressive!

And so wildly successful, living such a decadent life, that they troll private school message boards during the workday.

You're actually making yourself look bad here ... what do YOU do all day?

^^I work, but I also get a lunch break. It keeps me in touch with John Q. Public.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I went to a top Ivy. The kids who really excelled there tended to be public school graduates. The private school graduates were more sophisticated as entering freshmen, but had less drive and a weaker work ethic.

I went to Harvard & totally disagree with this generalization.

I also went to Harvard. I found the private school kids to be well read, well organized, and a year older. Many were very hard workers. They had had, however, a lot of handholding to get where they were.

The scary smart kids( junior Phi Beta Kappa, summa grads, Putnam winners etc.), were disproportionately public school kids. They had gotten to Harvard with much less handholding, a testament to their superbrains.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I went to a top Ivy. The kids who really excelled there tended to be public school graduates. The private school graduates were more sophisticated as entering freshmen, but had less drive and a weaker work ethic.

So many "top ivy" graduates on this anonymous forum. Very impressive!

And so wildly successful, living such a decadent life, that they troll private school message boards during the workday.

Because they are wealthy enough so they don't need to work

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I went to a top Ivy. The kids who really excelled there tended to be public school graduates. The private school graduates were more sophisticated as entering freshmen, but had less drive and a weaker work ethic.

So many "top ivy" graduates on this anonymous forum. Very impressive!

And so wildly successful, living such a decadent life, that they troll private school message boards during the workday.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is good or bad teacher in private or public. But I heard for kids in average range, private is better for them. That's our case and that's why we have very excellent public school, we choose private for our Kindergartener. We might re-evaluate our situation and go back to public later, but happy that we have a choice and going back to public is always available.

But is it worth spending over 500k to send your kid to private school??

Yes.

I'm the pp and yes, it worth the extra money to get the extra attention. To a top student, it doesn't matter so much, but for the middle layer that gets lost or ignored, it matters a lot. Think about this, it is not very easy to push a 99% kid to 99.5%, but it is much easier to push a 50% kid to 75% if not higher.

Anonymous wrote:I went to a top Ivy. The kids who really excelled there tended to be public school graduates. The private school graduates were more sophisticated as entering freshmen, but had less drive and a weaker work ethic.

So many "top ivy" graduates on this anonymous forum. Very impressive!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is good or bad teacher in private or public. But I heard for kids in average range, private is better for them. That's our case and that's why we have very excellent public school, we choose private for our Kindergartener. We might re-evaluate our situation and go back to public later, but happy that we have a choice and going back to public is always available.

But is it worth spending over 500k to send your kid to private school??

Yes.