Private vs Public schools?

[UCLABelle]

I lived in an area of California with GREAT schools (my Mom grew up in a part of California (Atherton) that had even better). Despite the good schools in my area though, I went to private schools. Only my last year of high school could I convince them to send me to public (it was a "dream"). I went on to study education and have a masters degree in the study of public education in California haha no joke.

But my overall conclusion, is that there are too many factors that really enable only the parents, and eventually the child, to determine what is best for them.

For example, my parents (for me) looked at the following factors:

1) Student/Teacher ratio, Graduation Rates, ect. They spent a LOT of time looking at what colleges graduates went to.
2) Distance from our home
3) Religious Education (I am Catholic)options
4) Affordability
5) Physical campus (my private school was an international boarding one, and had horses, tennis, golf course, ect)
6) Background and experience of teachers
7)Guidance Counseling (for college, especially)

Being that I am not as affluent as my parents, nor as religious, my factors (and the weight I would assign to them) is different. If the school is in a good district, safe with a nice campus, then they are going to public schools. However, with the current cuts in CA education as a whole, I have a feeling it will be forced Catholic schooling for my bunch! With the grandparents helping with the bill.


REGARDING HAVEN'S COMMENT ABOUT PRIVATE SCHOOL TEACHER ED REQUIREMENTS; Most good private schools require some form of certification or qualification, so it does fully depend on the school. The majority of my teachers had PhDs and MA/MS degrees---so while they may not have had a certificate, they were well educated and seemed to have been screened for aptitude to teach.

In fact, a recent study (well, 3- year old one done when I went to UPenn) found that (I believe) 70% of private school teachers were considered more "highly" educated than those at private schools. Obviously this is debatable till the end of time...

I personally think teacher-ed for K-12 can sometimes be a joke at certain schools...

 

[zhuzhu]

Date: 8/5/2009 9:20:54 PM
Author: 4ever
I''m pro public school and anti private school.


Public school and private school teachers get trained in exactly the same place, so I don''t belive the quality of teaching as any better.


In a private school, it''s not just the fees you have to cough up, it all the extra trips and gear like laptops you would not be expected to provide in a public school. Schools here expect parents to fork out thousands so that their child can go on a geography trip to Hawaii or a french trip to France with all their other class mates.


And then you have to think about the kind of kids you want your child hanging out with. Do you want them in a private school where the only other kids they are in contact with are very privilaged and used to having all the best things in the world? I know of kids getting seriously bullied at private school because their school bag isn''t guchi or parada.


You can tell at uni who was a private school kid.


My parents could have afforded to put myself and my siblings in private school but didn''t, and I''m glad. I don''t know about where you live but in New Zealand private schools are full of rich white kids. My high school had a whole range of ethnic groups and socio-economic backrounds, and I liked that, I think it gives kids a more realistic veiw about the world and lets them interact with a variety of people.

I am not anti-private school, but I absolutely agree with you that having kids learn in a diverse socioeconomic background teaches them valuable traits/skills such as empathy, inter-personal and community skills. It will be my job to teach my kids how to select beneficial frinds,but I want there to be sufficient diversity so they can learn to identify the differences!

 

[y2kitty]

I attended a fancy private school from K -3, the public school 3-8, and a Catholic high school 9-12. My sister''s went to a fancy prep school in the northeast. Let me weigh in with: it depends on where you live. I am from a upper middle class part of NJ and the quality of the people I met at private, public, and Catholic was all the same. In terms of learning, the Catholic school was probably best. In college they tried to teach me stuff I already learned in high school.

Now, let me say a word or two about something else. My mother is from Saddle River, NJ which is a pretty wealthy town. Except my mom grew up poor and my grandma was a maid in mansions there. My mom always said she felt bad growing up, b/c her friends would take her to their beach houses, and give her their cast off clothes and it always made her feel bad. She said she would never move somewhere that her children''s lives would be so different from their schoolmates...

 

[CNOS128]

Date: 8/6/2009 2:56:27 AM
Author: zhuzhu

I am not anti-private school, but I absolutely agree with you that having kids learn in a diverse socioeconomic background teaches them valuable traits/skills such as empathy, inter-personal and community skills. It will be my job to teach my kids how to select beneficial frinds,but I want there to be sufficient diversity so they can learn to identify the differences!

Unfortunately, if your public school is in a place where property taxes are prohibitively expensive, there''s not much socioeconomic diversity there, either. I attended a public school in an affluent suburb, and one of the greatest sources of socioeconomic diversity was the (probably now-unconstitutional) desegregation program in place in the district.

 

[fatafelice]

I am a public school teacher who was raised by public school teachers, so I may be biased, but I truly believe in public schools. Unless you can afford the BEST private schools, I just don't think it is worth the extra expense, provided that your public options are satisfactory.

My suburban public high school was stellar, even though it was "drained" of some "top" students by a college-prep magnet school, and we consistently had better scores than any but the very most expensive school in our large district. I was challenged, had amazing teachers, received an excellent education, and went to a good college in another state where I was better prepared than most freshmen. Most of the college-bound kids from my HS did stay in-state, and no one went Ivy-league, but since Florida has great public universities that are practically free if you meet certain requirements, there wasn't much reason for people to look elsewhere. That being said, my schools growing up placed a lot of emphasis on gifted/talented education in elementary and middle school, and I was mostly in honors classes with the same 80-90ish people all through high school. All of those kids went to college, but I don't know the statistics for everyone else.

My sister (due to her own bad choices) was sent to a smallish day school for grades 6-8. I feel that her education there lacked a lot compared to mine, the school was very small and lacked any diversity, and her friends there, frankly, were snobs whose parents didn't want them mixing with public school kids. I also had several good friends who went to what was probably the second-best private high school in our city. They were all very intellectual, cultured, and attended excellent colleges. They also had no concept of why I couldn't always afford to participate in the same activities as them, and none of them had jobs in high school or college. I didn't really have friends at the *very* best private school in town, but that was because they mostly only socialized with each other. From what I understand, both snobbery and cocaine use were rampant there. But that school does send a lot of students to the Ivies (though I am sure many are legacies), and it has a much higher rate of students attending college at all.

Here's the way I see it:

Truly prestigious private schools DO give kids a leg up in the world. They go on to better colleges and are better "connected" in a higher social strata. But if you don't have the income level to easily afford such schools, your kids will have a tough time fitting in. Plus, I am not really a fan of people who have a sense of entitlement (but that is just me; maybe I'm just jealous).

Smaller private schools, to me, offer even less value, for (as others have mentioned) there are fewer requirements for both teacher certification and curriculum than public schools. Plus, I personally don't like the idea of really small schools, because I don't think it gives children a real-world experience and is too sheltering.

There are a lot of bad public schools out there, there is no doubt about it. But there are also a lot of truly excellent public schools. Personally, I would invest money in better real estate in a better school district and send my kids to public school, though I would also spend a lot of time researching the schools in terms of class size, teachers, school resources, etc. Even in a public school with mediocre scores, an active and involved parent can make all the difference in a child's education. I would only avoid schools where there is a strong record of drugs, violence, and/or very low scores and graduation rate.

Think about not just what kind of school you want your daughter to go to, but what kind of neighborhood you want her to grow up in. And do the math. 12 years of private school @ $15,000/year = $180,000. Would that amount of money get you into a better public school district?

 

[swimmer]

Fatafelice makes a lot of great points, I would just add that in New England, a 15k a year private school is at the bottom rung of iffy Catholic schools with 30 kids per class and teachers with bachelors degrees. Compare that with the max class size of 25 in my public school district (all teachers with masters in their subject area) with SPED classes maxed at 15. Think more like 30k-50k a year for an Exeter or Choate who won''t accept any students with severe to profound delays. If your child has any special needs, from dyslexia and beyond, I truly believe that the best place for him or her are the public schools that are required by state and federal law to provide resources for them. The wording in IDEA is so fuzzy that most private schools do not feel compelled to provide full time one on one aides or the other super spendy resources that these students require and deserve.

The kids that most concern me are those who transfer into our HS having been homeschooled, they tend to have 0 social skills. It can be done well, but really if you are going to do it, make sure that they learn how to communicate with someone other than their own family and other home schooled kids. Diversity of opinion, skill sets, perspective, income, external appearance, conscience, are all important for students so that they might be prepared for our increasingly interconnected world.

Hmmm, then again, there have been a couple of kids coming into our public school from mid level private schools (parents probably couldn''t afford the 20k anymore), these kids are NOT PREPARED to analyze sources or do a variety of analytic skills that we have agreed should have been developed in middle school. I will have a few of them in AP classes next year and it is just so sad, they will either have to work twice as hard at the same assignments, or drop down to honors level or college prep classes. I would wager that their schools focused on either rote memorization (the trend in Catholic schools) or more new age institutions focused on "finding their passion," since the kids know a great deal about random things, but are not the general specialists in investigation that we try to develop at the HS level -and have no interest in learning or doing something that doesn''t interest them. Good luck with that in life beyond school...

In the interest of full disclosure, I graduated from public high school in statistically one of the worst states in the nation to do so, but it was a great education that helped me get a full ride to a fancy private NE university. I also attended private school in Israel, it was more challenging, but not a great fit for kids who were not motivated or who didn''t want some challenging diversity. So again, my answer is, it depends. Statistics don''t apply to specific students but do check out class sizes and know that if you buy a house in a school district now, that school district could be wildly different in a decade.

 

[fatafelice]

Date: 8/6/2009 11:39:25 AM
Author: swimmer
Fatafelice makes a lot of great points, I would just add that in New England, a 15k a year private school is at the bottom rung of iffy Catholic schools with 30 kids per class and teachers with bachelors degrees. Compare that with the max class size of 25 in my public school district (all teachers with masters in their subject area) with SPED classes maxed at 15. Think more like 30k-50k a year for an Exeter or Choate who won''t accept any students with severe to profound delays.

Yeah, I fully admit that I have no real concept of how much private school costs! I was just looking for something mid-range, but I''m sure there are plenty of schools higher than that.

 

[janinegirly]

keep in mind choate and exeter are boarding schools. so if you look at that tuition look at day student tuition if comparing to other private schools which most likely are not boarding.

 

[ursulawrite]

We''re moving to an area in Manhattan specifically for the excellent primary school. While we can well afford private school, we want our child to experience mixing with children from an array of socioeconomic and ethnic backgrounds. Once the future child is older, they''ll ace the entrance exam to Stuyvesant High, go to an Ivy, and support us in in our old age

 

[swimmer]

Date: 8/6/2009 2:12:32 PM
Author: janinegirly
keep in mind choate and exeter are boarding schools. so if you look at that tuition look at day student tuition if comparing to other private schools which most likely are not boarding.

I did have that in mind and was not counting board, Choate is 33k next year for domestic day students. Exeter is a real bargain at 28k for day students. These are not even the most spendy. When my father went to Choate it was $600 a year for boarding. Are you also in New England?

 

[janinegirly]

no but very familar with those schools and went to boarding school (several years ago so I''m not really up on current tuition numbers..wow, wonder what it''ll be once my LO hits high school age in 14 years!).

 

[ksinger]

Date: 8/5/2009 11:54:00 AM
Author: swimmer
The situation depends on the family and on the kid.

Of course I''m biased towards public schools, I teach in one of the top 20 schools in the state ranked highest in 8/10 subjects and grade areas. But having also taught in a school that lost its accreditation for low graduation rates and just a scary environment, I have to say that those two extremes are only 8 miles apart. Then again, when we kick kids out of our public school for possession or violence, guess where they go?

Private schools vary so much, in my state a 10k a year Catholic education is probably not worth it unless you live in a seriously violent hood. Those schools have teachers who are paid less than half the salary of the teachers in the public school down the street and have much larger class sizes. Then there are the fancy boarding schools up here in New England that offer an amazing education and amazing access to the very best drugs. Those are great schools, and at 50k a year, they should be.

The National Center for Educational Statistics provides this overview of statistical differences b/w pub and private: link

But in all of this remember that an amazing education can be procured in a terrible school with just 5-7 great teachers. Also, a student can choose to not avail themselves of the opportunities in a school where 99.9% of the kids go to college. You are having a kid and not a statistic, so as I started out his post, it depends.

But as a public school teacher and part time admin, I will send my (future) kids to public school. I believe in the hope and promise of public education.

To my husband''s school. :-\

Recent event to illustrate: Two kids, one 14 (holding the gun) and one 16 (no gun), attempt to rob a local pharmacy. Pharmacist pulls gun, runs off the 14 year old, kills 16 year old. Made the news. Pharmacist is charged with murder. Yada yada ongoing at present. The point is, what school were they from? My husband''s middle school.

What the problem is, is primarily poverty, poverty, and...um...poverty, and Oklahoma''s relative poverty predates the current economic woes. My state is currently 46th (down the list) on state monies spent per child for education. It is disheartening to say the least. Our house is often grim and silent during the school year. Honest to God, it took him until just a few weeks ago, to lose the alarming nervous tic he''s developing. Only the very strong survive more than 5 years. Only those made of tempered steel make it to 15 or more. (My man is officially steel, albeit a bit ragged) Most burn hot, bright, and OUT by 3-5. The attrition rate is far worse for alternatively cert''ed teachers. (And you teachers here know these statements are rock solid.)

 

[redfaerythinker]

I went to private school from preschool through high school. While it was extremely expensive, it was important to my father that I go to Catholic school. In my opinion, a lot of the decision should depend on the child. WHile I feel that I got to have an education that was full of experiences that could only have come from the schools I went to, I feel very strongly that some children are not cut out for the rigors of a private education. Also, just like all public schools aren''t created equal, private schools are the same. They all vary in strictness, and methods. I think you need to pay attention to what kind of environment your child needs.

 

[Burk]

This is all so very interesting to me. Private schools really seem to vary depending on the area. I have taught in both. I currently teach in a public school and I believe our school district is very good. I will be sending my children to public school, no question. There really are no advantages (in my opinion) to go to private school in our area except for religion. In the private schools in our city class sizes are similar to the public schools (which I think are too big), teachers are paid less and aren''t required to have teaching certificates, kids get into the same kind of trouble as kids in the public schools, there aren''t as many elective options as the public schools, and there are not as many opportunities for after school activities. Good luck with your decision, Tgal!

 

[puffy]

Date: 8/6/2009 9:33:56 PM
Author: Burk
This is all so very interesting to me. Private schools really seem to vary depending on the area. I have taught in both. I currently teach in a public school and I believe our school district is very good. I will be sending my children to public school, no question. There really are no advantages (in my opinion) to go to private school in our area except for religion. In the private schools in our city class sizes are similar to the public schools (which I think are too big), teachers are paid less and aren''t required to have teaching certificates, kids get into the same kind of trouble as kids in the public schools, there aren''t as many elective options as the public schools, and there are not as many opportunities for after school activities. Good luck with your decision, Tgal!

WOW, really??? similar class sizes and no teaching certificates and less after school activities? in our present district, which i think is really good, class sizes are about 40 ish in public and private is no more than 30, usually about 25.

 

[Kaleigh]

It all depends where you live.. If the public schools are great, it''s a no brainer if you can afford a house in that district. If not maybe private school is the way to go. I see both sides, mine went to private school. But sometimes, I wish that for HS they had gone to public school...

 

[Burk]

Date: 8/6/2009 11:42:55 PM
Author: puffy

Date: 8/6/2009 9:33:56 PM

Author: Burk

This is all so very interesting to me. Private schools really seem to vary depending on the area. I have taught in both. I currently teach in a public school and I believe our school district is very good. I will be sending my children to public school, no question. There really are no advantages (in my opinion) to go to private school in our area except for religion. In the private schools in our city class sizes are similar to the public schools (which I think are too big), teachers are paid less and aren''t required to have teaching certificates, kids get into the same kind of trouble as kids in the public schools, there aren''t as many elective options as the public schools, and there are not as many opportunities for after school activities. Good luck with your decision, Tgal!

WOW, really??? similar class sizes and no teaching certificates and less after school activities? in our present district, which i think is really good, class sizes are about 40 ish in public and private is no more than 30, usually about 25.

Oh yea. Our class sizes are no more than 30 in the public school I teach at and we think THAT is too big! I have some classes under 20 even! Don''t get me wrong, I''m not trying to say the our private schools are bad schools, because they''re not. I liked the one I taught at a lot as a matter of fact. I just don''t see the advantage to paying all that tuition (in our city)ya know? I live in the midwest.

 

[packrat]

Interesting thread Tgal!

My corner of the Midwest is small-there''s a Catholic school 3 towns over, and maybe an hour away there might be a private school, not sure. The public school I graduated from was/is tiny. I had 30 kids in my graduating class. Some of my classes senior year had 5 students. I liked that it was small-my Kindergarten teacher still knew me, 25 years later. What I didn''t like, was we didn''t have the variety of non required classes. We had, say, Art. Bigger towns had jewelry making, pottery, etc. The school I went to is probably in the next couple few years going to have to merge with the "bigger" school here in town.

I can''t speak about the drug situation as it is now--there were not, when I was in school, drugs *in* the school, no drug deals during homeroom..drinking/drugs were outside. Mostly drinking, some pot. I do worry what it''s like now, compared to back then, b/c meth is such a massive problem in the Midwest.

But, being in a small area like we are, we don''t have a choice of where to send our kids. We could send them to a different district, if we wanted to drive at least 1/2 hour each way, twice a day during the school year..and really, the only district we could send them to has gotten so bad they have metal detectors, police dogs etc.

Sometimes I wonder how much a kids character and personality and upbringing affect how they turn out, regardless of what school they go to. Bad school, but great support at home and a stick with it personality, kid maybe ends up in Harvard. Good school, no support at home, lackadaisical personality, doesn''t prolly matter if the kid goes to the most expensive prestigious school on the planet, kid might be working at the local packing house.

Good Lord..it''s 12:30..why in the world am I still AWAKE?? See, I ramble when I''m tired. G''night!

 

[4ever]

Date: 8/5/2009 9:45:35 PM
Author: Haven

Date: 8/5/2009 9:20:54 PM
Author: 4ever
[ . . . ]
Public school and private school teachers get trained in exactly the same place, so I don''t belive the quality of teaching as any better.
[ . . . ]

This is not necessarily true. Public school teachers must become state certified to teach a specific age group and a specific content. This usually entails a BA or MA/MEd degree, and several state tests.

Private schools can (and often) hire individuals who do not have formal education to become teachers. Many private school teachers are certified, but many are not, as well. That''s not to say that being certified makes you a good teacher, it doesn''t, but it certainly means that you have at least a bare minimum of preparation.

Example: I am certified to teach: English, ESL, theatre, speech, journalism, creative writing, and reading for grades 6 - 12. I am also certified as a reading specialist to teach reading and title 1 remedial reading for grades K - 12.

I earned a master''s degree in reading and literacy to become a reading specialist, and it was an intense and enlightening experience. I have met several reading specialists from private schools who do not have any formal training in reading, yet they act as the sole reading teacher for their school. It''s a very different situation, in my opinion, and if I had a child with reading needs, I would definitely want him to be working with a certified specialist.

Schools vary so much that it is really difficult to say which is better. I''m very intrigued by the Montessori schools right now, and I just met a wonderful woman who teaches in a Quaker school out in NYC which sounded fascinating. The good news: there are a lot of options out there!

My mistake, I am not familiar with the American Schooling systems. In New Zealand to teach primary school or younger aged children you must have a teaching degree. You then teach for two years and pass all sorts of tests to become a registerd teacher. To teach high school you must have a degree in the subject you are teaching and a one year teaching certificate. To teach at University level most are requred to have a masters or doctorate in the subject or be studing for a masters or doctorate or have substantial relevant work experience, depending on the subject.

All the teacher have the same or very similar teaching qualification, they all get their qualification from the same places.

 

[pennquaker09]

Personally, I am torn on where my kids will attend school. We live in New Jersey, in Bergen County, and the property taxes are really high. However, Tenafly has I think he second best school system in the state, so it's obviously worth it.

I will tell you all why I'm torn. Sometimes, I wonder if my kids will feel uncomfortable in public schools and I don't want that for them. I know what it feels like. Let me say that I LOVED my elementary and middle schools and I have nothing but good things to say about them. But, there were no kids that had a family unit like mine. This is going to sound silly, but I didn't know how to identify myself. I knew my dad was white and that my mom was black. Physically, I look like my father. So, when you're a 1st grader and kids ask you why your mom is dark, and at that age you're not able to comprehend such things, you feel kind of odd. During the years I was in elementary and middle school, the suburb where we lived was pretty much void of diversity. It's practically the same today.

Middle school was hard. I had friends, but there were some kids whose parents did not want me in their homes and didn't want their kids at my house. It was so blatantly obvious. They were the same women that gave my mom weird looks.

Flash-forward 9 years and now I have kids and we happen to live in an overwhelmingly homogenous community. The difference is that Tenafly is practically a liberal haven compared to Mountain Brook, AL. Academically, I'm not worried. No matter where we end up, I know my kids are going to get a great education. But I don't want them to be hindered socially because they have 2 dads. We know other same-sex couples with kids, but they all live in NYC. And only a handful send their kids to public school.

I'm personally a public school advocate. I worked in public schools. I actually taught in a high school in Philadelphia. When I go back into the classroom, I plan to teach in public schools. I've never had any other intent. On the other hand, Nate had a combination of private and public schooling and he really wants the kids in a private elementary school. I suppose I could go along with that, but I would like for them to attend a public high school.

I was originally given the choice of attending boarding school (Exeter) or going to high school in Alabama. My dad went to the same school and I remember visiting the school with him for reunions and what not. In the end, I felt like public school was best for me.