<p>Uroogla, right…prep school cost your parents SOMETHING after the scholarships. So, they didn’t have to pay full fare, but it wasn’t free. I was trying to explain that some on this thread assume that a family has a choice to send their kids to private high schools and many, like us, do not, as they do not have the money to do so (even with partial scholarships), on top of sending them to college.</p>
<p>taxguy: I’m not going to claim that my paired set of schools in Philadelphia is representative of every public-private comparison in every community, or even that it is representative of ANY other pairing in any other community. </p>
<p>I suspect that comparing Wootton to Sidwell Friends or Georgetown Day involves two important differences from the situation I described: (1) Sidwell Friends and Georgetown Day have a heck of a lot of celebrity kids. Granted, her dad will no longer be President, but I bet if Malia Obama wants to go to Brown, it won’t matter if her SATs are under 1500. The Naviance data won’t screen for the children of high government officials . . . but Brown sure does. (2) Wootton has lots of competition from other Montgomery County high schools, not to mention other similar general high schools in NoVa as well as TJ. I am sure every Ivy has a large contingent of public school kids from the Washington burbs, but they don’t need to accept kids from any one school to do that. In this city, 90% of all kids accepted from a public school to any Ivy League college come from one of two schools, one of which has a class of only 125. Suburban public schools as a group send far more kids to Ivy-type schools, but no one of them sends as many as the two city public magnets, in large part I think because the city schools have more students with unique, moving stories – more kids who have been homeless, or were war refugees, or have non-English-speaking parents.</p>
<p>In my case, neither school sent oodles of kids to HYPS every year. The private school probably averages five kids/year to those schools, collectively. The public school averages two or three (from a class five times larger). They each send a bunch of kids to Penn, the local Ivy. The private school sends 2-3 kids/year to each of the remaining Ivies; the public school sends about that many to all of the remaining Ivies put together.</p>
<p>I see - I don’t see our points as being at odds. I wasn’t trying to make any claim concerning affordability, just make sure that it’s not assumed by anyone that loans will always be necessarily. In your case, and presumably the case of many others, the aid package I received would have necessitated outside loans, and would thus be infeasible. I do think that the aid packages that some of the private schools give are underestimated, though. Someone in a lower income range than my family would have likely paid nothing to attend. Compared to my aid package, the ones most colleges presented, Brown included, were atrocious, so I suspect that my school is an exception rather than the rule. There do, however, exist schools that are very generous with money.</p>
<p>I apologize if my posts have upset you in any way - my goal was to make it clear that there do exist some privates that actually can be affordable (and even free) to the middle class. And there are most certainly privates that are far from affordable, so YMMV.</p>
<p>Well, I haven’t had any private school experiences, but I can surely say that the quality of schools is going to differ from every district you go to. My high school, for instance, has over 2600 kids. The families living in this high school district are mostly average upper to lower middle class families. Major budget cuts are occurring because of finance issues with the state and the district. Currently we have over 40 students in each of our classes, even higher level AP courses, and classes are expected to become higher for the next year. Almost all electives are going to be cut, with the exception of Spanish (other foreign languages are experiencing cuts). Hundreds of teachers have been cut from the district, as well. In these circumstances, I have no idea how my high school will be preparing me or anyone coming here with a college readiness. With all of the cuts, I don’t know what this public school has to offer us that will set us apart from other more lucky high schoolers that have much better opportunities. </p>
<p>However, in general regards to public schools, I have seen a tremendous amount of good schools, as well that really prepare students for testing and college. It all depends on the district you live in.</p>
<p>Well, I homeschooled, sent my kids to a number of different public school, sen them to Catholic schools, sent them to selective independent days schools, one to boarding schools. The kids were accepted to top 25 universities and selective LACs and state school and chose without any prejudice in terms of rankings. Given the ultimate choice, the selective private days would be my choice for the best academic preparation if money were no object. I would sacrifice to send my kids to such schools and feel that since that is during their most impressionable years, that is where the tuition money should go. That is my personal preference. But it is not a one size fits all situation. </p>
<p>I would not do this to enhance their chances to a top college and would be well aware that it might do exactly the opposite, but would do so for the academics offered which I have not seen the peer at any public school system. Not saying a kid couldn’t get the quality from a public school, but this is the regular fare at these schools. But, yes, there is a cost, just as there is to send a child to a private college. For the very top kids, there are merit and financial aid awards, but far less than what is available for college. Also for K-12 schools because many do not want to send their kids away for the school year, families tend to move to the best fit schools rather than sending their kids to board. When we bought in any area, the first thing we examined was not just the public school but other options should that not work out. When you have a bunch of boys, it’s wise to do, though I’ve seen many situations where that consideration would have given families alternatives when things did not work with the public school. </p>
<p>But again, when we are talking public vs private, the spectrum is a very wide one, and it truly depends on too many factors, including personal opinion as to which is better.</p>
<p>Benefits of a good private school:</p>
<ol>
<li>Quality of education</li>
<li>small class size - upto a max of 16. </li>
<li>Individualized Instruction.</li>
<li><p>Excellent Faculty</p></li>
<li><p>Diversity with homogenous crowd</p></li>
<li><p>Generally the schools are more ethincally diverse than the neighboring public schools.</p></li>
<li><p>But homogenous in the urge or passion to succeed or academic interests</p></li>
<li><p>Tremendous Resources</p></li>
<li><p>Whether it’s a science lab, club, sports, the schools have it all.</p></li>
<li><p>Availability of mentors, research guide</p></li>
<li><p>College Counselling</p></li>
<li><p>30/40 students to 1 CC can provide much better feedback than 100/200 to 1 CC.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Fringe Benefit - DD school had FB founder’s GF (Harvard grad) as elementary grade teacher and was very popular with students(For obvious non-academic reasons).</p>
<p>Keep in mind that not all publics are the same. Our elementary school did not go over 16 kids per classroom. I think our HS class sizes tend to be under 20 for the most part or not much over that.</p>
<p>In terms of those who share your academic passion…clearly this is more concentrated at the private prep schools. HOWEVER, in a public school, there are typically tracked classes so that those in the Honors or AP level are of the same sort of kids who are strong students and have a passion for academics and are motivated, etc. The whole school may not be like that but those students in the more rigorous classes are like their private prep school counterparts.</p>
<p>I attended a private, college prep school from 9-12 grade. The level of homework, the quality of teachers (all were required to have Master’s, most had their PhDs), etc, really prepared me for college. The standards in writing for our history and English courses were really high, students wrote in-class essays in different languages, and we had some of the best math teachers one could ask for. </p>
<p>And, most importantly, we were taught how to study!</p>
<p>After going to a private “prep” school, let me tell ya. It did absolutely nothing for me. Zero kids accepted to HYPSMCB… That is out of 230 kids I believe.</p>
<p>I just graduated this year from a private, Catholic high school. I’ve been in private, Catholic schools since pre-school classes. Plus, I will be attending a private college this fall. In our area, the private school system does prepare students better for college than the public schools, in terms of AP and honors classes offered, rigor of the classes in general and homework load, and small class sizes. Other than a larger band and one other class, I’ve never had a high school class over 25 people, and those were freshman year because everybody takes the same thing. This year, as a senior, I had a class 2nd semester that was 24 and one that was 22, but also had 3 others this semester at about 15, and one even with just 3, whereas the public schools in our area have class sizes of a general minimum of 25, and often 25-35.</p>
<p>So, where I live, private schools do prepare students better for college, but I know there are some public schools that do just as well or better than some private schools. Private schools are going to have smaller classes, but there are some public schools that give a lot of homework to prepare students for a college workload and offer many AP classes too.</p>
<p>When we moved here, we looked around for a very long time trying to find the right schools for our kids. With all boys as I have, I knew we needed back up options, private and public. We looked at dozens of schools since this area a mecca for schools, very good schools according to the ratings. </p>
<p>I should have looked up in Vermont, as Soozievt’s public school looks absolutely perfect on all fronts. Didn’t find a one like that one. So we’ve hit 4 private schools with the public as a back up, and though none met all needs nor were perfect, we managed to get the kids pretty well educated, as well as they could be for k-12, I think.</p>
<p>I feel the pubic option is the best if you can make it work for your kids, but when moving anywhere, finding some good private back ups can be important, because things can just not work out.</p>
<p>cptofthehouse, let me just say that in no way do I mean to tout our public high school. I don’t think it is any great shakes but we made it work. And I do believe it is the kid who gets into college and not the HS from where she/he came. But our HS is nothing to write home about. There were some positives and then some not so positive things about it. </p>
<p>We really did not pick the high school. We moved to this community before we ever had children. I actually taught at the local elementary school before I ever had kids. It is honestly a fabulous elementary school and the best part of our K-12 system with the middle school being the worst part and the high school somewhat in between. </p>
<p>We just didn’t look into schools much upon moving to this area. In any case, private schools are not common in this rural area and one would have to travel a long distance to attend one, but that was never a consideration due to cost anyway. </p>
<p>I will say that we ultimately did pick our elementary school somewhat. We lived in the rural town next to the one we live in now (though both rural towns attend the same middle and high school). We had that house pre-kids. Our oldest went to K at that town’s elementary school, a fine elementary school actually. But we needed a bigger house. We were gonna put an addition onto our house. However, as older D made the K cut off for entrance by five days, younger D missed it by five weeks. She was in nursery school with the class that was going to enter at age five but she was not going to be able to enter when the time came (she was still three at the time). We decided to build a new home in the adjoining town because that elementary school (which happens to be the one I taught at before the kids were born), would consider on an individual basis kids who missed the K cut off and had a fall birthday and while there was no guarantee that our D would get into K, we decided to build the home there because we knew it was really important for her to enter K early as her nursery school also agreed, but the elementary school in our first town will not make any exceptions. So, in essence, we did move our home to go to this elementary school (and after we moved, they did end up evaluating D2 and granted her an early K entrance). This same D also ended up graduating HS after junior year as well.</p>
<p>Our HS really did a lot of individualizing for our kids. The middle school was a real problem and took extensive advocating on our part…the GC’s part, and even our elem school teachers and principal went to the middle school to advocate for our girls’ needs to be met there. We also had a lot of accommodations made in HS. So, when some things were not ideal for our kids, we effected change to make it work. I also believe we forged a path for some kids who came later. Our kids did not just progress through the middle and high school but had some unusual paths during their tenure there. We did not have to advocate on the elem level as our elem school was very into individualized accommodations. But in middle and high school, if something didn’t work well for our kids, we went in (as well as the kids advocating for themselves) to create accommodations…through supervised independent studies, acceleration, and the like. So, we didn’t simply sit by and accept what didn’t work for our kids’ learning needs. We forged new pathways. I’m sure in some private schools, we would not have had this issue. But we made things happen for our kids at our public school. The two girls, nor we, accepted situations that didn’t work for them.</p>
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<p>My kids went to our very well regarded public schools through 8th grade, and then transferred into a local private school known for academic preparation. I think I was able to see first hand how they were different.
Broadly speaking, the teachers at the private took the time to help the very good students become excellent students. My Dd, who never received a grade lower than an A in English through middle school, met up with a teacher who counted points off for a missing hyphen in a two-page essay. I remember at one point he handed back a paper which he graded an A-, and told her that she could keep this grade, or she could take the paper home and make some suggested (rather sophisticated) changes and go for the A. In history, the teachers would type up and return two-page comments for every paper that the students turned in- positive and negative. My husband said that he had never received this kind of feedback until he was a graduate student in history at Princeton.</p>
<p>When my daughter first came to the private high school in ninth grade, she struggled in the honors Algebra II class first semester. I suggested at the teacher’s conference in November that my Dd drop down to regular Algebra II, as she was really a " language kid" and really didn’t need the stress. Well, the teacher didn’t like that answer- told me that if she came in twice a week and again before every test during <em>his free period</em> he would work with her and catch her up, because she really had the ability but had managed to rely on her memory up to this point and had missed some conceptual material. She came in twice a week, and he managed to not only catch her up, but to make her actually like the subject. She ended up with an A the very last semester. It should be noted that the average class size at this private is 15 students.</p>
<pre><code>You can find teachers like this in the public schools, but they are few and far between. Many of those who would like to be so dedicated just don’t have the time. There are too many students per class, too many classes per teacher, and the school cannot weed out those students who don’t want to be there, as the privates can. (Nor is it easy to get rid of poor teachers.) Many teachers find it most important to work with the students who “need the help” and let the ones who are doing very well keep doing as they are doing, so they never get the kind of stretching that I feel mine received in their four years of private high school.
</code></pre>
<p>moonchild, I can appreciate your anecdotes. But I really think a lot of what you write about comes down to the teachers themselves. I was once a public school teacher and devoted countless hours to my job which is a main reason I discontinued it when I had my own kids because I wasn’t willing to cut down on the hours of devotion that I felt a teaching job required. But some of your anecdotes happened to my kids in public school as well. Some teachers were willing to work one on one with kids. Some teachers gave extensive feedback on papers. And some teachers are not as dedicated. </p>
<p>Your story about the hyphen brings back memories to me but actually a painful memory. I recall a paper and project in freshmen Honors English (this was the teacher who also required a five page paper every single night). My D spent 50 hours on this assignment (not kidding). She was a top student (eventually was val). It had to do with a novel called The Wizard of Earthsea (I hope I have that right as this was about ten years ago). This book has like hundreds of characters in it. The kids had to document every single time every character was mentioned in the book and where (this document alone was pages upon pages long) and then some project that demonstrated how each of these hundreds of characters related back to the main character. My daughter drew some elaborate diagram that was huge and was painstaking in plotting every character in certain categories and in their relationship to the main character, Gad. These characters had very very weird fanciful names. So, after this lengthy written document and then the project, which the teacher found exemplary and wanted to hang up in the school, she marked the entire assignment down one full letter grade because ONE of the character’s names (this is among at least two hundred weirdly named characters) was spelled wrong on her diagram project. This was overly punitive and my D felt defeated. This apparently happened to numerous top students who I heard left the class in tears. I’m all for high standards but this mistake on an unusual name in the scheme of this 50 hours of work was not worth one full letter grade. Ironically, I recall an assignment by this same teacher on another book for younger D and on the typed up “directions” for the assignment, the teacher herself (who I admit is very intellectual) had misspelled two names in that book…she was human after all. This teacher’s standards were too high if there is such a thing (and I admit to having very high standards myself for students). I recall if anyone in the class yawned, she made the entire class run a mile on the track in the middle of class (I don’t believe in punishing the whole class for a yawn) and I recall my D, an athlete, who was most concerned to have to run in Birkenstocks and might get injured. Well, as you can see, I have some bad memories. LOL. But in any case, my D’s writing portfolio for that 9th grade class was over 500 pages of writing!!!</p>
<p>My kid was in the G&T program in the city public schools until the highly politicized superintendant of schools starting monkeying with the program. That’s only gotten worse and the statewide budget cuts are really doing damage to G&T programs in my state because they aren’t legally required to offer special accomodations to gifted kids the way they are to special needs kids. </p>
<p>I’m glad we jumped to private at the first sign of trouble, even though it’s been a burden. At least we can count on this institution staying the same through his graduation. </p>
<p>Big advantages to the private school:
–preselected student body (these kids would do well in any setting and don’t make trouble for each other)
–great resources (art, athletics, music and theater are all fabulously well supported and appointed)
–lack of racial polarization (the public school had an issue with tension between the gifted kids and poor city kids who didn’t know or like each other – there is more genuinie interaction between the races at the private school, which is trying to raise them to fit the multicultural transnational elite)</p>
<p>Disadvantages for the private school:
–general sense of entitlement, every student is a special snowflake doing cool projects, although this makes for a good peer group
–some rich kids whose parents don’t have the sense to keep them from flaunting it
–it’s bloody expensive if you don’t qualify for financial aid; college is going to hurt.</p>
<p>
I am uncertain of all but #4, as most public high schools have staff that devote little if any time to college counselling (1 to 200? More like 1 FTE to 1000.) In my experience college prep sequences in many public schools match those at privates in the other respects. In particular I know of few privates that can match the diversity (of all sorts) of many urban and inner-ring suburban schools.</li>
</ol>
<p>I think the most undeniable and attractive feature private schools offer is evidence of willingness to pay for education. If you are a student at one it is highly likely your family is already paying much for your attendance and in all likelihood would be willing to do so for you to continue. By concentrating its admissions on the private school pool, as many private colleges do, a school implicitly skews its filter towards ability-to-pay even if it is need-blind.</p>
<p>I’m not sure private schools do prepare the kids better.</p>
<p>I am sure that they get a selected group of kids – those whose families are able and willing to pay for private education. These families tend to either be affluent, place a high value on education, or both.</p>
<p>Of course, there are some areas where the public schools are appallingly bad, and the only way a kid is going to get a decent education is in a private or parochial school. But there are also places where some families put their kids in private school even though the public schools are quite good – and I don’t really understand this. But then, I come from a public school background myself, and my husband and I never seriously considered sending our kids to anything but public schools. On the other hand, we also never seriously considered living in a community where we would be reluctant to send our kids to the public schools. We checked out the schools before buying a house.</p>
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</p>
<p>I could have written the above quote and it would have been true up to the year before we sent DD off to private school. We had, until this year, an appointed school board (now it is blended elected and appointed) that made some bonehead decisions that we viewed as detritmental. The private school choice was not perfect, but it beat the alternative, and lucky for us, we did have choices. Before our elected school board, I used to say that we voted with our checkbook.</p>
<p>Our public had everything in PIH’s list except the intimate college counseling. We also had Latin for 4 years and all the normal sports and ECs including sailing, skiing, tennis and golf teams, robotics, debate, etc…and we have kids that get into the lottery schools and go because of the heavy duty financial aid. We’re not very diverse, but our region isn’t very diverse but the school mirrors the district. I hear the class size might increase next year closer to 18-19 per class but it’s the economic times I guess coupled with declining enrollment. Nope, you can’t make unilateral claims about which is better…there are exceptions to both. Descartesz has a point about the ability to pay factor.</p>
<p>At our public school, it was easy for a kid to fall between the cracks. It was essentially impossible at the private school.</p>
<p>The private school basically did individualized curricula for all students, which let the students shine at what they were best at, and figure out what their long-term strategy was for presenting themselves to colleges. The public school’s first reaction to everything was one-size-fits-all bureaucracy. On second reaction, it was remarkably responsive to individuals provided they were aggressive in pursuing what they wanted and were aligned in one way or another with administrators or powerful teachers who would champion them. (That’s basically how the school worked – kids would form little tribes around individual administrators or faculty members, and these in turn took a lot of personal responsibility for making certain “their” kids were OK.) But unless you were one of the top 40-50 kids in the school academically, or a star in some other respect, it was a real struggle to get any rules bent.</p>
<p>In terms of writing instruction, the private school did much more than the public school, although I was only intermittently impressed by the actual comments my kids got on their papers. My daughter was always very advanced as a writer, and there was only one teacher at either school who ever made a serious attempt to challenge her to get better by her own standards. (And, believe me, she wasn’t perfect. She was just always enough above grade level so that she clearly deserved the highest grade available, so it was hard for teachers to spend time making her improve.)</p>
<p>Of course the private school did better with college counseling. At the public school, there were six counselors for about 2,300 students; they did guidance counseling as well as college. Their job was primarily to process paperwork, not to give advice. They were happy to give advice if asked nicely, but they didn’t force it on anyone except for students who looked like they might not apply to any realistic college at all. Where the public school did much better was in handling scholarships. It had a whole, well-oiled machine to connect kids and scholarship opportunities, and a culture that supported open discussion of financial barriers to college and how to deal with them. At the private school, that was shameful stuff only to be whispered about behind closed doors, and the counselors were there to get kids into college, not to help them figure out what they could afford, and how to pay for it.)</p>