Nothing against single sex education, but this particular argument for it puzzles me. I thought adolescent girls were quite capable of putting pressure on each other to conform without any help from boys, no?</p>
<p>Anyway, we sent our son to his school because it’s the best school in the district, and one of the best in the state; there was no decision to make once he got in. In retrospect, I think he might have been better off at a smaller, more nurturing private school, but by the time this became apparent, it was too late to make a change, and we really aren’t in a financial position to go that route unless we absolutely had to anyway. And to be fair, he’s had a lot of good experiences and made some good friends at his HS, even if its old-school sink-or-swim philosophy has given us all some grey hairs along the way.</p>
<p>Nightchef - gosh, sorry you are puzzled. I was making a bullet point, and not an fully qualified argument in favor of single sex education. I think coeducation can reinforce stereotypes, and that girls are more likely to engage in math, science, and technology classes/clubs than they might otherwise. Girls and boys learn differently and a single sex school can cater to those styles. I am pretty sure there are some studies that support the benefits as well.</p>
<p>Yes, I am sure anyone, be it a girl or a boy, can influence another to conform. However,I definitely think boys add a dimension of competition/pressure that is relieved when they are absent - that was my experience. I didn’t feel comfortable taking metal and wood shop or drafting, or doing any other traditionally male things - though I did them as the only female in my school, it was hard. I was mocked. Competing for their attention doesn’t do a whole lot for academics either.</p>
<p>We chose a private HS over the public (even though we live in an area in Canada that has great public schools). We live very close by, the tuition is reasonable for us, and we very much liked that the school is very selective/highly regarded/has great college placement. Also it’s a small school, where teachers know students very well, the classes are small (10-14 students) and the facilities and campus are amazing.</p>
<p>My kids have attended a private and a public school in Texas. The two schools were VERY diffrerent. The private school was kind of the “Who’s Who” of the city. The social events were phenomenal and for the most part, the kids were very nice and well-behaved. There were a handful of kids that were always getting in trouble, but they only got rid of one kid in the 4 years we were there. Everyone figured the other “bad” kids just had parents that donated more money. The private school held chapel every morning and overall, the environment was very nuturing. There was a lot of emphasis on art and music and they never missed a recess. The library was outstanding. The quality of education wasn’t the best, but it didn’t need to be, as most of these kids seemed to pick things up so easily. This is when I started realizing that genetics account for so much more that environment. The public school was a zoo. The facilities were terrible (portable buildings, libraries that hadn’t had a new book in years). It was large and they separated the kids into two groups. God help the kids and the teachers that were in the lower group. The lower half had to deal with behavioral issues all day. Even if you were in the top half, you had run-ins with some of the other kids in the hallways or on the playgrounds. If you were a good student and knew how to keep out of trouble, you could get a better education at the public. And the public’s biggest selling point…You had a chance at being top 10% : )</p>
<p>My older S is a senior at one of the top academic high schools in the state and the AP magnet school for our county. We have open transfer here so kids can pretty much go where they want as long as the home school and transfer school principals sign off and the parents provide transportation. It has a modular class schedule which rotates over three days and allows for “free periods” during the day. Not all the kids, my S included, handle this freedom very well, and seniors and second semester juniors are allowed to leave campus during free periods with parents’ permission (once they’re 18 though, parents don’t have to sign off.) It’s been this way since the school opened in 1965 and they swear it prepares them for college. We’ll see. Anyway, another reason we sent him to this school is that he went to Catholic school for K-8 (primarily for religious reasons) and most of his friends were going there and we knew he could do the work. We do have a Catholic high school in our city but for a variety of reasons it wasn’t for us.
My younger S is in the eighth grade at the public middle school in our district. He was in Catholic school through sixth grade, until it did away with the middle school grades.
The school he is in now has had a bad rep in the past but has a new principal that has completely turned the place around. The school also has single-sex education for academic subjects (they are mixed for related arts) and I love it … although S points out that his classes are full of horseplay, fart jokes and other boy-type stuff. He wants to go to his brother’s school but we are leaning toward sending him in district. He’s not the student my older S is (although he’s in pre-AP English and doing well) and would definitely not handle the freedom at the other school well. Again, we’ll see.</p>
<p>We live in a rural area where up until recently, the local high school was rated as “underperforming.” There were also some safety issues (gang related), so Son #1 went to a new charter school in a neighboring town. He received a great education (free) but it required a lot of driving on my part. I think some people thought we were snobs (i.e. that the local high school wasn’t good enough). College counseling was OK (not spectacular). Son #1 is now a senior at UC Berkeley.</p>
<p>Son #2 refused to follow his brother to the charter school. He didn’t want to be considered a “nerd” and wanted a more typical high school experience. Meanwhile, the district had worked hard to increase academics and decrease the safety issues. Still, it was just a little rural school where most of the students matriculated at the junior college or went straight to work. Son decided he wanted to go to the local high school. </p>
<p>Academically, it was just so-so the first few years. Son #2 did well in his classes and on the AP tests. College counseling was minimal by CC’s standards. Son #2 is now a sophomore at Stanford. First kid to go to Stanford from this school in fifteen years.</p>
<p>Private school was never considered because of cost.</p>
<p>Addenda- when we chose where to live in our area we chose to build where we would end up at the better public schools as well as work travel time and it worked well.</p>
<p>Eons ago I was the top HS math/science student and did extremely well as a girl in a coed HS. Then honors chemistry degree at large public, coed U and medical school when women were definitely a minority. I am assertive (being female I suppose aggressive is the word to use), never intimidated by males. Was able to compete with the guys. Doubt I could have found the challenges if none of the guys were present. Women like me paved the way for future generations regarding discriminatory practices. Some girls are better off not competing with boys, girls like me benefited from coed schooling. Never was a girly girl, I probably would have felt more out of place in an all girl situation.</p>
<p>We chose to move to a different state in great part because of the HS choice. Our school district wasn’t the greatest, and we couldn’t afford housing in the places where it was good (MA during the housing bubble), let alone affording a private school. DS would have been a bit of a freak if we’d stayed. Moved to WI and bought a home in the school district of the two top-producing NMF schools in the state. Also had a need for disability services, and the school district was known to have programs specifically for our son’s disability.</p>
<p>So to answer your question, we took an initially inconvenient route to get both the college prep and specific programs we wanted at a cost we could afford.</p>
<p>Being a girl never stopped me from excelling in math or liking science, but I attribute that somewhat to having been homeschooled and an interesting math curriculum (very, very new math-y) at a time when it really benefited me. I also went to a girl’s school for high school - it was a great place to not be a girly girl. There was no pressure to dress up for boys or to dumb down for them. I don’t think I was likely to do either, but I know there are quite a few who do. I’ve experience both co-ed and single sex education and see the advantages of both.</p>
<p>S did both public for 3 years and the rest private all boys. The all boy experience provided things that the co-ed didn’t and visa versa. I enjoyed being the parent a lot more in the private.</p>
<p>We live in a great school district. There are good private schools in the general area, but any ofthem would be about a 45 minute commute. The private schools in our immediate area tend to be of the evanglical Christian variety and people send their kids to those schools for religious rather than academic reasons.</p>
<p>missypie and I both live in the same area of Texas. OP asked about convenience as a factor. Privates in our area of Texas that are top flight in academics can be literally across town. Since mass transit (for old enough students) is not available in many, many areas, inconvenience does become a factor for many parents.</p>
<p>It interested me to find out how many Jewish girls attended a top quality academic all girl Catholic private in Dallas.</p>
<p>Kids were happy in the school system in our average town, and that’s where they stayed, K-12. they sat next to kids whose parents were in every walk of life, from lawyers to pipefitters to teachers to nurses to childcare workers to doctors. They sat next to kids from varied races, religions, ethnicities, incomes. They sat next to, and believe or not, became friendswith, kids who had no intention of going to college.</p>
<p>And somehow they survived it. And thrived. </p>
<p>How did we pick it? We ended up living here by accident (only apartment we could afford when H started med school–and the pizzeria downstairs gave us a discount), we stayed when H was in residency and bought the (literally) cheapest house in town, and when we finally could afford to move, we didn’t. So when HS time came, they went to HS with their friends and neighbors.</p>
<p>Which (by the way) is how we could afford college.:)</p>
<p>You don’t have to go public to get diversity in some places.</p>
<p>For the 2008-2009 class, 48% were NM Scholars or commended. 34% of the student body was “of color.” And, 17% of the students received financial aid.</p>
<p>BTW–my S’s college merit scholarships exceed what I paid (full cost) for 9 years of private.</p>
<p>Handpicked diversity is not the same thing. Not nearly. i’m glad that private schools strive for that, but it’s not what I (or gadad I believe) were talking about.</p>
<p>Congrats on the merit scholarships. Mine turned down some great ones, fwiw.</p>
<p>In which case, everything that follows in your post is logical. Not very far from you are districts and locales with schools which are quite the opposite. </p>
<p>Beyond that, there are suburban schools not far from you that are not “outstanding,” but whose mediocrity fits the last sentence of your post. (They are teaching very little, despite being suburban.)</p>
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<p>Because most people don’t have the money to live in areas of high property values with additional parent funding of various programs in some of those schools. That’s why.</p>
<p>(Yes, most people who live in areas like yours do indeed choose publics. Some of those who don’t are children of people with public profiles whose parents would rather have them less “exposed” in the sense of publicity.)</p>
<p>Here are the choices in my region:
(1) The equivalent of “prison” schools, surrounded by gates, security guards, and all the trimmings. Really a fun place to spend 4 years. But hey, they’re “diverse.” (Actually not; they’re pretty homogeneously segmented)
(2) Semi-diversity, which equals diversely ORM populations with middle class $ and which provide mediocre education. Virtually no URM’s there.
(3) Not-at-all-diverse upper middle class publics with good reputations. Not outstanding opportunities to become a curious, creative student, but lots of AP’s, lots of pressure & competition, and about 2 ethnic groups (ORM’s, + a few whites)</p>
<p>The fourth choice are privates (some midling, some outstanding, some exceptional) with their hand-picked diversity. But they actually provide an education. My vote goes there.</p>
<p>my older d attended a private middle/high school.
She also had attended a private elementary after the neighborhood K teacher recommended it. By middle school the city schools hadn’t improved, but we liked our neighborhood otherwise, and the(private) high school was very well regarded( as opposed to the neighborhood-
She * was * the diversity at her school, and she received financial aid to attend.
Yes I realize that handpicked diversity ( which also exists in publics which test for admittance), isn’t optimum, but it met our needs, which was academic challenge with social support for herself and our family.</p>
<p>Younger D attended inner city public because that was where her best friends were attending and because they had strong science programs ( her area of interest).
She picked the school to apply to- we had several choices of schools- her first choice was more than twice as large than her K-12 school, the intersection where the school is located is very high crime , ( violent assaults inc w/weapons as well as drug buys etc), but the school has an excellent reputation, has historical background with our family and I wanted to give her the opportunity to see that I trusted her judgement.</p>
<p>If it has been up to me, I would have probably bought my childhood home from my mother, as it was in walking distance to elementary/jr high and high schools, in a very good district, albeit a suburban community I was not excited to live in- However, at the time it came available- it would have meant too much distruption & we needed continuity more than money - I suppose.</p>
<p>I am happy that both of them attended the schools they did- but still it was very hard dealing with the school district as they don’t respect parent choice or student needs.</p>
<p>Our high school is diverse in every sense of the world. URM make up over half the population, about 20% eligible for free lunch but plenty of upper middle class kids as well, 60 foreign countries. I will admit that it gets less diverse when you get to AP classes, but my younger son has friends from every race and every economic class.</p>