Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:is private school really better than top public plus 1:1 tutoring?
Im pretty sure the latter gives better outcomes, unless your looking for your kids to start networking in school for life...

Private schools give 15-16 kids in a classroom vs 30-40 in public. Overall a very different learning environment. And wouldn't it be nice if your kid didn't have to spend 6-7 hours in school and another hour or two in tutoring daily?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:is private school really better than top public plus 1:1 tutoring?
Im pretty sure the latter gives better outcomes, unless your looking for your kids to start networking in school for life...

Private schools give 15-16 kids in a classroom vs 30-40 in public. Overall a very different learning environment. And wouldn't it be nice if your kid didn't have to spend 6-7 hours in school and another hour or two in tutoring daily?

Where are public classes 40 kids? Arlington's max ES class size is around 24. We're at one of the option schools so the classes are always at that max. I don't know that the environment would be hugely different if were were 9 fewer kids (class of 15) like the private's apparently have, certainly not worth the $$$. Some are more than college will cost!

My kids were in a Top public in our area (not DCUM). Their HS was built for 1800, but had 2600 students. majority of their classes were 30+ students, some were closer to 40 (think AP Calc BC, we have 37 students and that's not enough to justify 2 sections so we will just cram them all into a single class)
Our ES are using 28-30 kids.

However, locally to you, it's happening in Howard county and has been for 15+ years. My now in college kid had 30 in their 1st grade class, because there were not enough kids to justify another section until end of October. Then, after getting the extra 5 kids registered, they added a teacher and broke up 1st graders 2 months into the year and put some into the new class. But HoCo has been increasing class sizes for years, every year with budget cuts. So it does happen and its not the best for most kids. Sure my kids did okay, but I'm 100% certain they would have done better with only 20 kids in their classes.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I love how so many threads about private school on DCUM have everyone saying that it's not worth it and good publics are better, then if you ask people what they do with extra money half of them immediately say private school.

First, when some of these $600K HHI purchased their homes, they might have only been at $250/300K. So they may have bought in a good area, but not spectacular schools. Now that they have the $$ for better schools they like their neighborhood and it may not make financial sense to sell, ditch a 3% mortgage for a 7% mortgage. So the solution is to do private schools.

I don't know, more than half of my neighbors in the Whitman district send their kids to private schools. It's not that the publics here aren't the best in the state.

If they have the money, don't see why they wouldn't. Advantages of private schools: class size of only 15 vs our "excellent public schools"----my kids had 30-35 kids crammed into classrooms designed only for 25-30 kids (10 year old building). The school was built for 1800 students, and we had 2600 students. My kid's AP Calc BC course had 40 students---becuase that was cheaper than having the teacher teach 2 courses (needed another 3-4 kids to require a 2nd section)---great teacher and my kid learned, but I have to believe my kid would learn better in a class with only 15-20 kids consistently.

That alone can make it worthwhile if you can afford it without scrimping on retirement and college savings.

We did K in private for our oldest, simply because public was only 2.5 hours and my kid was already in preschool MWF from 9-3, so backtracking to 9-11:30 was not beneficial. They had 16 in a classroom and the experience was amazing. My youngest went to public (it was then all day). They had 28 in the K classroom with 1 teacher and an "aide" shared across 3 K classrooms. Teacher was amazing, but my older kid got the better actual learning experience with only 16 kids and 1 teacher.

Anonymous wrote:I stopped working when DH hit 800k. He now earns over $2m. I would probably still be working if he earned only 500k.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:is private school really better than top public plus 1:1 tutoring?
Im pretty sure the latter gives better outcomes, unless your looking for your kids to start networking in school for life...

Private schools give 15-16 kids in a classroom vs 30-40 in public. Overall a very different learning environment. And wouldn't it be nice if your kid didn't have to spend 6-7 hours in school and another hour or two in tutoring daily?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:is private school really better than top public plus 1:1 tutoring?
Im pretty sure the latter gives better outcomes, unless your looking for your kids to start networking in school for life...

Private schools give 15-16 kids in a classroom vs 30-40 in public. Overall a very different learning environment. And wouldn't it be nice if your kid didn't have to spend 6-7 hours in school and another hour or two in tutoring daily?

Where are public classes 40 kids? Arlington's max ES class size is around 24. We're at one of the option schools so the classes are always at that max. I don't know that the environment would be hugely different if were were 9 fewer kids (class of 15) like the private's apparently have, certainly not worth the $$$. Some are more than college will cost!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How does your life change going from half a mil to a mil a year?

That works out to about 21-23k each month in cash, depending on your state tax rate.

Take your current life and imagine spending over 20k extra every month! Unless you go crazy on real estate, or want to just save it all to retire early, I couldn’t even imagine spending that.

Your vacations could be super luxury, front row tickets to anything you are into, always drive new luxury cars etc. You could do all of that and still have lots left over.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:is private school really better than top public plus 1:1 tutoring?
Im pretty sure the latter gives better outcomes, unless your looking for your kids to start networking in school for life...

Private schools give 15-16 kids in a classroom vs 30-40 in public. Overall a very different learning environment. And wouldn't it be nice if your kid didn't have to spend 6-7 hours in school and another hour or two in tutoring daily?

Anonymous wrote:is private school really better than top public plus 1:1 tutoring?
Im pretty sure the latter gives better outcomes, unless your looking for your kids to start networking in school for life...

Anonymous wrote:We were at 900HHI for a two years and through some career blowup with spouse, we're right now at 500. At 900, I didn't flinch to take United's upgrade offers. We ate out readily. We didn't flinch at the kid's private school tuition. We saved a lot of $ for a renovation. We were about to buy a second car to replace an older model. We were about to pay a lot of $ for business class to NZealand. Dropping to 500HHI means we stretch the travel dollars, I cook and don't order takeout just because I'm busy, the margin for cushion on the renovation is much tighter (we accumulated the funds but of course we'll go over the budget/savings), etc. etc. I flinch a lot more when I pay things. But 500HHI ain't poor, I'm under no illusions. But it's a lot less than 900 in ways that I feel everyday.