<p>I would recommend that you ask to observe classes at the local elementary, middle and high school. Think carefully about what you are looking for: are the students engaged? Participating? Thinking at a high level? Are teachers welcoming ideas, inspiring creative projects, conducting discussions, managing classroom behavior? Is the administration receptive to your visit? Is it “cool” to achieve?
If you do not like what you see, you have ruled out your local school, at least for now.
Observe the highly-ranked public school and the prep school also.
We faced this dilemma many years ago, and solved it in an unusual way although we are in a lower-priced area than you, we are within city limits and wanted to stay there, and we have 4 kids:
We took 10,000 of our savings when our kids were little and invested it in a duplex rental property in the area with the higher ranked school. This was our “insurance” - we rented it out and the rent covered all of our payments, insurance and maintenance, and we knew that we could move there eventually if we had to.
We observed at the private school (blew us away) and the higher-ranked urban public high school (found it perfectly fine), as well as another magnet high school (not quite as impressed).
We could not get them into the public magnet we liked (it was purely a lottery) and ended up sending them to a religious school through 8th grade, then bought a total fixer-upper in the area with the higher-ranked public high school, after we knew that our older kids qualified for the gifted program, which involves separate academic classes. (We were lucky because all 4 eventually qualified for this. I think that severely limiting TV and refusing to buy any video game equipment had a lot to do with getting them to the point where they could qualify; the activities that we did instead stimulated their brains more along academic lines!) We also bought another quadriplex rental property along the way, in our first neighborhood. We sold the rental properties eventually and used the money for college tuition. We are lucky because the rental properties appreciated.
I would have been OK about moving to the rental property, though, if we had to.
And, I do not regret our decision to send them to an urban public school. They learned many real-life lessons that they would not have at a private prep school. Right now, this school is doing “better” with the early decision college admissions than the prep school. However, it IS “cool to achieve” at their school, which makes all the difference, and they had intellectual and social peers.
Good luck - I know what it is like to have this dilemma!</p>
<p>Breathe. My girls started school in a very blue collar, small town in Central NJ. Very diverse, especially for D2’s grade (about 50% ESL.) My kids got a great education in the elementary school because: a) I was a very involved parent & the teachers/administration knew me/I knew them; 2) they were at the very top of their classes & the teachers took the time to do extra work with them. Oldest D started middle school there but we relo’d at the end of her 1st middle school year. </p>
<p>When it came time for us to do the relo, I knew that the whole story of a district wasn’t just in the numbers: free lunch %, scores on standardized tests, etc. I don’t think my oldest was shortchanged by her ES experience. We ended up moving to a top district, one with 5 high schools in the Newsweek Top 1000 list. Much different socioeconomic makeup (elementary school has < 1% free lunch.) The difference at the high school level is amazing. Not just because of teachers, but because of community expectations for those students both during and after high school. </p>
<p>D1 keeps in touch with some of her old school buddies & we went back for their HS graduation. So different from our experience in a top district. Behavior, norms, expectations. AP/honors class participation was abysmal, extracurricular activities in the arts didn’t have the same expectations. </p>
<p>All of this to say, I don’t think you have to worry through elementary school. But do your homework about middle & high school. It’s not just about what goes on in the classroom, but what the peer norms are during those years.</p>
<p>Before my son started school we looked at private and public schools. We weighed the costs versus what we were getting. Our local schools are considered pretty good, but we knew our son was going to need a lot to keep him challenged. We settled on the pubic school, when we saw them using the same curriculum that the private school was using. We also figured that the public school had a GATE program that none of the privates schools had.</p>
<p>He had a great kindergarten year, we struggled with first grade - we ended up giving him lots of challenging assignments at home. (His K teacher said 1st grade would be a challenge but if we could hang in there, he should then transfer to the GATE magnet school.) He transferred to the other school and we were so disappointed. He was floundering/ignored, etc. He was not challenged, nor did they make any effort to do so.</p>
<p>I had friends that homeschooled and they were encouraging me to do the same. We had resisted for 2 years, but we realized we were losing our son - the love of learning was getting beat out of him. We had always thought leaving the education to the “experts” was best for our son. But those teachers had their hands tied by school board regulations, etc. We ended up pulling him out of traditional school and homeschooling through a public school program. It was scary at first, but he did so well. The next year we pulled my daughter out as well.</p>
<p>We homeschooled until 8th grade. At that point we put them into our local public high school (easier to compete for state flagship), where they were able to take advanced courses. That worked for us, but it wasn’t the journey I had anticipated, or thought I wanted at first. Even though the program lent us textbooks, I bought my own curriculum for science and history, as I thought those were lacking. They transferred to the local school without a problem since they were “technically” public school students.</p>
<p>My daughter still thanks us for homeschooling her through jr high. She says the other kids learned a lot of PC stuff in history and it took away from major historical events. (and she heard the boys were terrible…)</p>
<p>All that to say that whatever you discuss and research now, may change and it’s OK.</p>
<p>My brother could have written your post. You might even be in the same town. His kids went to the local elementary school, but Prop 2 (?) has resulted in school closings and they felt that they needed to go private for middle school and high school. The original plan had been for them to go public for middle school. </p>
<p>We moved to a town where supposedly the schools were pretty good and the high school had gotten a Blue Ribbon award a couple of years earlier. Interestingly though by every metric since (local mags, state report cards) our schools are pretty middling. That’s partly because there is a huge range of income in our town, and with it a huge range in student needs and scores. It turned out that because the town has just one high school there really is a critical mass of bright high achieving students at the school and a critical mass of great teachers throughout the system (not all of them reserved for the brightest students either.) Kids who end up in the top quarter of the class do very well. We regularly have a Science Olympiad team that beats out supposedly better schools from our county.</p>
<p>BTW my older son was very precocious and elementary school was never a good fit. I considered homeschooling often. I don’t think he would have done better at a different school (at least looking at my similar nephew who attended a very well regarded private school.) My son’s school did much more to try to meet his needs than my nephew’s school did. </p>
<p>At any rate my inclination would be to keep the house, take a good look at the public schools as they may be better than you think and keep your options open. I think my kids learned a lot from their large diverse high school. I have no regrets that we didn’t move to one of the fancier adjacent towns with supposedly much better high schools. With the taxes we saved we had a lot more disposable income for extras.</p>
<p>I just read that Massachusetts schools may be better than any in the country (by the results of math tests comparing US students to students abroad). Not because they have small class sizes, or spend more per pupil, but through simple measures such as testing teachers in ENGLISH proficiency (1/3 of all new teachers failed to pass the first time). There were other things they did, which I do not recall from the article I read some time ago.</p>
<p>So…I wouldn’t automatically discount your “blue-collar” school system.</p>
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<p>I think that a good part of that performance was their MCAS tests. The Governor is moving to scrap them to go to a national standard that will probably degrade performance. MA does have some very good private schools too.</p>
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<p>That’s contrary to what several friends who teach in Massachusetts public schools have recounted. Even the few who taught at Boston Latin School and Latin Academy have admitted most of their students cannot compare with those at the NYC based urban public specialized high schools like the one I attended. </p>
<p>The one I attended had students who were mostly working-class immigrant families and where over 60% were eligible for free/half-pay lunches. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, this didn’t impair the quality of the students nor the rigor of the curriculum considering about 25% of my graduating class were admitted to at least one Ivy and more were admitted to peer elite schools. Also, more kids who weren’t initially admitted to such schools because of C-level grades ended up graduating from the same elite colleges with stellar undergrad GPAs. </p>
<p>Incidentally, my high school classmates and I also encountered many graduates from the fine private schools in Massachusetts at our respective colleges and weren’t awed by their supposed “greatness”. The very “greatness” we kept hearing ad nauseum from backbiting suburban parents of such kids and even some of our college profs who looked down upon us “urban public school graduates”. Most were comparable academically along with a few remarkably sub-par examples. This included one who bragged about the greatness of his well-known Massachusetts-based boarding school…and yet admitted he did so poorly at an elite LAC that he ended up at a third-tier law school notorious in our local area for high student debt and horrifically poor job prospects even before the 2008 recession.</p>
<p>I think if you can afford to send the kids to the very top private middle and HS then do it. Otherwise, sending kids to the middle range or lower range private schools may not give the result you want. My friends and my extended families sent kids to private catholic schools ($10,000-$15,000 per year) and the kids were not able to get to the top colleges. Some people I met always think public schools are bad and think catholic schools can save the kids from bad behavior trouble. There is some point in this but it’s not always true.</p>
<p>A rich neighborhood does not mean it can have good public schools. I have seen rich neighborhoods that have lower performance public schools. I think good public schools need parental involvement. Parents are valuable resources to public schools.</p>
<p>The Catholic Church in the Boston area has been hammered financially. I do recall when Parochial Schools were affordable for the middle-class but they’ve had to close a lot of schools due to funding. I guess that those that are open have raised their prices to stay afloat.</p>
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<p>How would college professors know where you came from?</p>
<p>MA has state aid which redistributes educational money towards poorer districts so wealthy districts can choose to not make up the difference.</p>
<p>The website below lists MCAS performance for 2010. A sort by CPI (Composite Performance Index) is interesting as the top is so dominated by charter schools.</p>
<p>[MCAS</a> Report (DISTRICT) - Massachusetts Directory Profiles](<a href=“404 - Page Not Found”>http://profiles.doe.mass.edu/state_report/mcas.aspx)</p>
<p>Where I live, the public schools have a better track record than the religious schools in terms of test scores, selective college admissions, number of AP classes and languages available, and technology investment. The downside to the public education is the larger classes and the possibility of getting lost in the middle. The super stars get great classes, attention, etc. The kids who need special services are very well served (better than any private according to my friends with special needs children). Granted, the super elite privates do the best in terms of college admissions and test scores.<br>
All that being said, I agree with those who say to wait and see. Your kids are young. You have some financial constraints. Life is not about where they go to college in X years. And, I feel the need to add that plenty of blue collar kids are bright and have loving parents that care very deeply about thier educations. I love that my kids have friends across the wealth spectrum, the color spectrum, the language spectrum etc. I know privates have spectrums too, but all the privates I looked into were skewed. </p>
<p>We chose to live more modestly in a good school district. Because we have been able to save, our kids will be able to go to the best colleges they get into with no loans. Both are well challenged academically, socially, athletically, artistically, etc. Best of luck to you.</p>
<p>Our town is full of Mercedes and Lexus with a bumper sticker proclaiming their student is a superstar at local mediocre school.</p>
<p>I dont think one has to do with the other.
I don’t have a problem with parents being proud of their kids & their schooil, if it isn’t the school another family would choose.
I also don’t care what kind of car they have to drive as long as they don’t park it in front of my house.</p>
<p>I think it is always good to have room in your budget for emergencies.
In case of injury or illness or job loss, not to mention the economy shifting, you need a lot of wiggle room.</p>
<p>I grew up in “fancy suburbs with " very good schools”. We lived down the road ( relatively- we didn’t have waterfront 
) from Bill Gates after we got married and had our first child.
However- I seriously did not want to raise a child in the suburbs- it was beautiful, but I really liked density better because I loved to be able to do things without getting into the car.
We thought about having a house built, but because my husbands job was dependent on large contracts, we opted to buy a modest home in the city- assuming the schools were OK.
My sister opted to have a house built in the suburb where we originally lived- but away from the lake. They also have good schools, ( at least if you ascribe to Newsweek rankings- which I do not- however they do have parents who are involved & who have money to pay for levies). Her older kids attended the public schools ( but not their neighborhood schools), she is now homeschooling the youngest.</p>
<p>We used a mixture of public & private-and while ultimately the daughter who attended public high school had a good experience - the really wonderful things, were offset IMO, by the really f^^$ed-up things, ( which was the fault of the district not the school), so that it was a toss up, in my mind, if not in hers. ( she loved her school).</p>
<p>The schools may have been better/more responsive, in the suburb where I grew up ( & where I had the opportunity to buy my childhood home), but it would have been offset by other things that I thought were important.</p>
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<p>So it sounds like you love the area- but perhaps like me- didn’t really realize that the school district was less than optimal, until after you moved in.</p>
<p>I would argue that " blue collar" has nothing to do with it- but maybe you mean to say that the area doesn’t have work for, or value education past K-12?</p>
<p>Oftentimes, if you had three or four years to pay for private schooling in hindsight many people would pick middle school.
That is where you can lose a kid & if they don’t have a strong middle school foundation, high school will be much more difficult, even if it is a good one.</p>
<p>I had a look at average SAT scores in MA public schools and the one that came out at the top was MA Academy for Math and Science. Their average math SAT score was 702! The second place went to Acton (very good school district with home prices less than some of the pricey suburbs east and west of Route 128) with an average score about 60 points lower. I had a look at the charter school and it’s held at the Worcester Polytech Institute (good engineering school), and that seniors take WPI university courses. They essentially take college courses in their junior and senior years. Sounds like a great place to go if you live near Worcester.</p>
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<p>Some of those Profs were involved in the undergraduate admissions process and others communicated such disdain in general…without singling out any students. </p>
<p>Still, the disdainful attitude was communicated quite clearly to my high school classmates…which goaded them on to prove such Profs wrong. </p>
<p>Granted, this was 15+ years ago…so hopefully openly communicating such attitudes would be considered quite gauche today. </p>
<p>I encountered similar attitudes at my LAC…except it was an extremely tiny number of private school educated classmates, not Profs so I knew it was gaudy ego-stroking and thus…easier to ignore. This was made much easier when first semester/year grades came back and their performance was, to put it mildly, quite mediocre by any standard.</p>
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<p>This is just my observation but going to a top private school doesn’t ensure your child will get into a top college. A lot depends on the child. A so-so student at a ‘top private’ school isn’t going to get into a top college. For that matter, neither will a B to B+ student. In fact, because top private schools usually have entrance exams and are very academically rigorous, a lot of the students who would have been in the top 5% of their local public school end up in the top 30% at the private school. I’m sure there are a handful of nationally recognized prep school that colleges are willing to dig deeper into the class ranks but in general, the top colleges are looking for the very high achieving, high grades, high test scores and outstanding EC students - no matter where they went to school.</p>
<p>As a parent of a student who just spent 11 years at an expensive college prep school (probably ranked #1 in our state) I can assure you that you will be greatly disappointed if your reason for sending your child to a college-prep school is to get them in a more selective college. Those at son’s school who got into Ivies last year were truly one-of-a kind, over-the-top students. Even the next level down - top 20 colleges -were all outstanding students who would have done well anywhere they went for HS.</p>
<p>You go to a college prep school because of the educational experience, period. Smaller classes, usually the curriculum runs about a year ahead of the publics, is more challenging for all students but is especially good for those who need the challenge, small school community where you know all the parents and teachers, more personalized atmosphere, etc. And there are disadvantages to this type of school also. It’s not all a bed of roses. But we had a great experience at son’s school and feel he got a top notch education and was appropriately challenged. He has a large group of life-long friends and we felt (and still feel) like we were part of a special community. No regrets but it’s not for everyone nor does everyone need that kind of experience. </p>
<p>The best way to gauge what is right for your child and family is to visit a lot of schools and talk to a lot of people. Decide what is important to you and don’t just take people’s word for it.</p>
<p>Mommyto3 and LoriFLA we need to start our own thread “High School Graduates of the 2020’s!” My kids are 6 and 5 (twins) I found this website because I am helping my nieces look at colleges, but now I’m hooked!<br>
I too started worrying very early about where to send my kids to school (like before they were born) but it didn’t matter, my husband was offered a very good job in a small town in OK (public school or homeschool only options) so we moved from CA where I had done all my research… What I’m trying to say, we can try and plan all we want but life interferes!</p>
<p>*mom2collegekids,
I just checked two of the outstanding Catholic high schools in our area; one is $16,900/year before books, and the other is $26,500. $300k by the time the OP’s kids are in HS may not be that far off the mark, scary as that is.
*</p>
<p>???</p>
<p>Is that pricey one a boarding school?</p>
<p>These must not be diocesan schools.</p>
<p>^^^Nope. That was the day school rate! Boarding students were $40k.</p>
<p>OP,
There’s a lot of food for thought in all of these posts. I would caution you never to believe the hype or the negativity about any given school until you’ve investigated for yourself. The first elementary school my kids attended was very diverse-socio-economically, racially, etc. There were a fair number of students eligible for free and reduced price lunch. The area was somewhat rural. We loved the school. Great gifted program. Great teachers. Kids were challenged. When we moved to a different part of the state, we moved into what is supposed to be one of the best districts in the state. Huge disappointment. Kids bored to death. Curriculum was way behind the other district. We ended up pulling our kids out to go to private school. So, you never know until you try. You can’t always go by reputation. You can’t always go by the rankings such as Newsweek. I’m familiar with some of the schools that make the Newsweek list, and I would not send my kids to them.</p>
<p>You still have plenty of time to investigate. Find out things such as average SAT/ACT scores and percentage tested, percentage of National Merit Scholars, etc. For us, sending our kid to a prep school was the best thing we ever did.</p>
<p>MomLive - It’s true that a top private HS does not ensure entrance to top 20 colleges. For the kids I mentioned earlier, top colleges means the top 4 UC colleges in California. My neighbors sent their kid to catholic schools from elementary to HS and the kid end up in a Cal State University. My friends in San Diego sent their D to catholic schools from elementary to HS and the kid was not able to get into UCSD close to home as they desire (to continue their protection). The kid has to go to a lower UC away from home.</p>
<p>Catholic schools may limit kids’ options for college.</p>
<p>^^I’d amend prefect’s advice above to find out the average scores in any special programs in the high schools you may be considering. It could paint a very different picture than the school’s overall average. </p>
<p>In our area, the NMSFs are not in the private schools – they are in the selective admit (non-lottery) public magnet programs. </p>
<p>Our local HS hasn’t had a NMSF in four years – but I know a dozen kids from this catchment area over the same time period who made NMSF. They all went to the magnets. This can be a brain drain on the local school, but heaven for kids who need the acceleration and the critical social mass. OTOH, one can make the opposite argument: there are top kids who are “in the middle” at a magnet program who would have been big fish at the local HS. Having more high-achieving kids can also boost enrollment for AP courses at the local HS, giving more kids access to opportunities. Some kids find the magnets too stressful. </p>
<p>Which road one chooses ultimately depends on the kiddo involved and his/her personality. I agree with other posters that it’s the middle and high school that need closer scrutiny. We found that we could always deal with any remediation/acceleration at home during elem school, and I almost home schooled one of my kids. That level of parental involvement in the actual teaching process gets more difficult as they get older and peer groups become more important.</p>