Evaluating private school

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keith6014
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Evaluating private school

Post by keith6014 »

Thinking of sending 2 kids to STEM focused private school (1st to 12th) and we like a particular school because of outcomes. This is according to Greatschools and Niche.

My only concern is the school is relatively new, EST 2013. I spoke to few parents who are sending their kids there and they like it a lot. I sent my kids for 2 days as evaluation they too liked it and it seems their syllabus is what we are looking for.

Besides parents, Greatschools and Niche are there any other sites to validate the (new) school's reputation?
livesoft
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Re: Evaluating private school

Post by livesoft »

When we evaluated a private school we asked to see where graduating seniors went to college. It turned out they went to the exact same places as the nearby public school seniors. Really no difference at all. That speaks to the demographics of all the parents more than anything else.

It is also very likely that the schools in the area recruit from the same group of qualified instructors.
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chassis
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Re: Evaluating private school

Post by chassis »

keith6014 wrote: Tue May 17, 2022 2:43 pm Thinking of sending 2 kids to STEM focused private school (1st to 12th) and we like a particular school because of outcomes. This is according to Greatschools and Niche.

My only concern is the school is relatively new, EST 2013. I spoke to few parents who are sending their kids there and they like it a lot. I sent my kids for 2 days as evaluation they too liked it and it seems their syllabus is what we are looking for.

Besides parents, Greatschools and Niche are there any other sites to validate the (new) school's reputation?
Agree that the choice has some relation to demographics. The decision to voluntarily pay more than required (tuition + property tax vs property tax alone) means the pupil will be surrounded by peers whose families also made the discretionary choice to pay more for education than required.

While the college destinations may be the same as public school pupils, the social culture and experience in the private school will be different than the cheaper, public, school.
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MikeWillRetire
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Re: Evaluating private school

Post by MikeWillRetire »

The best way to assess the school is to assess the parents who send their children there. Are they actively engaged in the development of their children, or do they leave it up to the school? And I don't know how to really assess that until you begin meeting the parents.
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Re: Evaluating private school

Post by keith6014 »

livesoft wrote: Tue May 17, 2022 2:49 pm When we evaluated a private school we asked to see where graduating seniors went to college. It turned out they went to the exact same places as the nearby public school seniors. Really no difference at all. That speaks to the demographics of all the parents more than anything else.

It is also very likely that the schools in the area recruit from the same group of qualified instructors.
Thanks for the response. The colleges according to Niche are stellar. Out of ~25 kids, 22 went to stellar schools but the other kids went to dodgy schools. I don't know how accurate Niche is. When I as getting the school tour our concierge told me most goto top 10 schools.
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keith6014
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Re: Evaluating private school

Post by keith6014 »

MikeWillRetire wrote: Tue May 17, 2022 3:08 pm The best way to assess the school is to assess the parents who send their children there. Are they actively engaged in the development of their children, or do they leave it up to the school? And I don't know how to really assess that until you begin meeting the parents.
I know 2 families who send their kids there. Both from our private pre-k and k school.

Yeah, they are very engaged in their kids education. I don't know any older parents to ask about their children. I will ask around.
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Re: Evaluating private school

Post by 123 »

livesoft wrote: Tue May 17, 2022 2:49 pm ...Really no difference at all. That speaks to the demographics of all the parents more than anything else...
+1 Demographics of the parent student populations will determine the "success" of the students. The same situation exists whether the school is public or private. Consider the population the school draws students from and you will know the result. The peers of the student will greatly influence student results, if peers are competitive and industrious your child will likely follow their lead, if peers don't care your child might not either.

There are some school districts that include public schools with distinct admissions criteria. For example, San Francisco includes two distinct public high schools that are specialized in the arts and strenuous academics, it is more difficult to get into those than any private school in the city.
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Re: Evaluating private school

Post by nyclon »

keith6014 wrote: Tue May 17, 2022 2:43 pm Thinking of sending 2 kids to STEM focused private school (1st to 12th) and we like a particular school because of outcomes. This is according to Greatschools and Niche.

My only concern is the school is relatively new, EST 2013. I spoke to few parents who are sending their kids there and they like it a lot. I sent my kids for 2 days as evaluation they too liked it and it seems their syllabus is what we are looking for.

Besides parents, Greatschools and Niche are there any other sites to validate the (new) school's reputation?
Check Glassdoor to see what teachers say about the school. Also check where the students get placed (eg if it goes to 5th grade, which schools do the students place into for 6th and how good are those schools)
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Re: Evaluating private school

Post by phinanciallyfit »

I would not rely much on greatschools or niche... they generally rely on test scores which are highly correlated with family income. Test scores amount those with higher income are likely much higher in the public schools too, but the reports for those websites come from the larger, more diverse pool. In terms of what schools they go to, the real question is where they would have gone had they not gone to the private school. Kids with parents of higher income, who value STEM, and prioritize education are statistically much more likely to go on to great colleges later on.

While talking to parents who's kids attend the school is valuable, I would expect those that had issues left. It is hard to expect someone to pay for private school and not like the school. Perhaps ask the school about retention? If a sizeable proportion of families leave over time, that would be a red flag.

Private schools sometimes can offer more opportunities to students, but this isn't always the case. Sometimes they actually offer less, and sometimes what they offer is just different. If there is something you value highly that the school is able to offer that other schools do not, than that may be worth considering. For example, one may want a school that is project-based rather than rote memorization of facts, or maybe that want more outside time for kids, or development of a foreign language. Some folks value diversity (economic, racial, political, whatever), some may not. No school (public or private) will be able to provide everything, but if you give thought to what you think is most important in education than you can consider whether the private school exceeds the public schools in this domain or not.

The one pro for the private school (based on what you posted) is that it is a 1st - 12th grade school. Changing schools during the pre-teen and early adolescent years is awful for kids psychologically (on average). Kids are far better in k-8 schools (psychologically) than switching for middle school, but having separate middle schools allows more specialized teachers and thus can be better academically. Consequently, most US kids do it.
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Re: Evaluating private school

Post by livesoft »

keith6014 wrote: Tue May 17, 2022 3:09 pmThanks for the response. The colleges according to Niche are stellar. Out of ~25 kids, 22 went to stellar schools but the other kids went to dodgy schools. I don't know how accurate Niche is. When I as getting the school tour our concierge told me most goto top 10 schools.
So last senior class was 25 students and at least 13 went to top 10 schools?! Very impressive if true!

Nevertheless, I would be skeptical. For instance, here in Texas, the top 10 universities in Texas probably matriculate 90% of the high school graduates going to college. The other 10% of seniors going to college go to Stanford. :twisted:
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Re: Evaluating private school

Post by keith6014 »

livesoft wrote: Tue May 17, 2022 3:20 pm
keith6014 wrote: Tue May 17, 2022 3:09 pmThanks for the response. The colleges according to Niche are stellar. Out of ~25 kids, 22 went to stellar schools but the other kids went to dodgy schools. I don't know how accurate Niche is. When I as getting the school tour our concierge told me most goto top 10 schools.
So last senior class was 25 students and at least 13 went to top 10 schools?! Very impressive if true!

Nevertheless, I would be skeptical. For instance, here in Texas, the top 10 universities in Texas probably matriculate 90% of the high school graduates going to college. The other 10% of seniors going to college go to Stanford. :twisted:
Not sure if these are top 10 or not...but I think they are pretty good.

Brown University 3 Students
Carnegie Mellon University 3 Students
Harvard University 3 Students
New York University 3 Students
Barnard College 2 Students
University of California - Berkeley 2 Students
Yale University 2 Students
Amherst College 1 Student
(didn't include lesser known schools but there are 2 more kids)

(Ofcourse in 12 years things will change quite a lot).
6:1 student ratio.
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keith6014
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Re: Evaluating private school

Post by keith6014 »

phinanciallyfit wrote: Tue May 17, 2022 3:17 pm I would not rely much on greatschools or niche... they generally rely on test scores which are highly correlated with family income. Test scores amount those with higher income are likely much higher in the public schools too, but the reports for those websites come from the larger, more diverse pool. In terms of what schools they go to, the real question is where they would have gone had they not gone to the private school. Kids with parents of higher income, who value STEM, and prioritize education are statistically much more likely to go on to great colleges later on.

While talking to parents who's kids attend the school is valuable, I would expect those that had issues left. It is hard to expect someone to pay for private school and not like the school. Perhaps ask the school about retention? If a sizeable proportion of families leave over time, that would be a red flag.

Private schools sometimes can offer more opportunities to students, but this isn't always the case. Sometimes they actually offer less, and sometimes what they offer is just different. If there is something you value highly that the school is able to offer that other schools do not, than that may be worth considering. For example, one may want a school that is project-based rather than rote memorization of facts, or maybe that want more outside time for kids, or development of a foreign language. Some folks value diversity (economic, racial, political, whatever), some may not. No school (public or private) will be able to provide everything, but if you give thought to what you think is most important in education than you can consider whether the private school exceeds the public schools in this domain or not.

The one pro for the private school (based on what you posted) is that it is a 1st - 12th grade school. Changing schools during the pre-teen and early adolescent years is awful for kids psychologically (on average). Kids are far better in k-8 schools (psychologically) than switching for middle school, but having separate middle schools allows more specialized teachers and thus can be better academically. Consequently, most US kids do it.
Yeah, want to avoid moving. I moved to goto a new middleschool when I was young. Till this day I remember.
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Re: Evaluating private school

Post by livesoft »

A nice list. I will guess the private school is located in the New England area. Next question is: How many years of classes does this represent? just this year's? Or several years?
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Re: Evaluating private school

Post by keith6014 »

livesoft wrote: Tue May 17, 2022 3:33 pm A nice list. I will guess the private school is located in the New England area. Next question is: How many years of classes does this represent? just this year's? Or several years?
Jersey. Represents 2 years (from what I gather from Niche).
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Re: Evaluating private school

Post by livesoft »

keith6014 wrote: Tue May 17, 2022 3:38 pm
livesoft wrote: Tue May 17, 2022 3:33 pm A nice list. I will guess the private school is located in the New England area. Next question is: How many years of classes does this represent? just this year's? Or several years?
Jersey. Represents 2 years (from what I gather from Niche).
So the control is how many of "similar" graduates of the public school went to similar universities? By "similar", I do not mean the average graduate, but the subset that took quite a few AP classes. Right now, I conclude that the parents of these students are wealthy enough to send their kids to expensive universities.
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phinanciallyfit
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Re: Evaluating private school

Post by phinanciallyfit »

I don't mean moving for a new school, I mean the typical change of schools in middle school. Most elementary schools are k-5 and that forces kids to change schools when they are at a time when they are particularly sensitive to social changes, super insecure, and where relationships can be contentious. Not changing schools (i.e. a k-8) allows kids to have the stability of knowing the teachers and being known by the teachers, while also being the "top dogs" which lets them feel more like leaders. It helps minimize the stresses of this age period.

I generally don't believe that private schools are worth the money, but ultimately, we all have to make our own decisions. I believe strongly that family influence and involvement in education are far more important. My daughter (2nd grade) goes to a public school in a state with some of the worst schools in the country and per her tests, she is reading at a 10th grade level (lexile 1150) and her math is generally at a 4th grade level (some skills are beyond 4th grade). I'm sure I'd attribute her performance to the $$ spent on private school if we had sent her to one, but the reality is she is naturally bright and we (as a household) encourage and support learning. The story is anecdotal, of course, but most on the internet are :-)
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Re: Evaluating private school

Post by keith6014 »

livesoft wrote: Tue May 17, 2022 3:42 pm
keith6014 wrote: Tue May 17, 2022 3:38 pm
livesoft wrote: Tue May 17, 2022 3:33 pm A nice list. I will guess the private school is located in the New England area. Next question is: How many years of classes does this represent? just this year's? Or several years?
Jersey. Represents 2 years (from what I gather from Niche).
So the control is how many of "similar" graduates of the public school went to similar universities? By "similar", I do not mean the average graduate, but the subset that took quite a few AP classes. Right now, I conclude that the parents of these students are wealthy enough to send their kids to expensive universities.
During the tour I asked about standardized tests. I was skepctical about SAT scores (low 1500s avg). They don't do any state mandated tests. They start taking practicing SATs at 7th grade. The wife was elated. :D
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Re: Evaluating private school

Post by TomatoTomahto »

We lived in an affluent and education focused public school district in NJ, rated among the highest in the country. Some of their stellar appearing results were because they restricted access to opportunities; for example, if you wanted to take an AP class, they would make sure that you would get a 5 on the test. That’s all well and good, but our son had gotten placed on a low math ability track. He was depressed.

Our requests for reevaluation were denied, so we had him take the ISEE on which he scored well. He began HS at the private and excelled, especially in math, and ultimately went to Yale where he received an MS/BS in CS (math heavy machine learning niche) in his 4 years.

When we were researching the private, I walked down the hall and heard what I thought was a professional jazz band; it was the school band. I looked through their poetry magazine: first rate. The school was obviously more diverse than our monocultural local school; their generous scholarship program allowed kids to be accepted regardless of family financial situation. Teachers were often on their second career; my son’s chemistry teacher was out of Bell Labs and his physics teacher had a successful career on Wall Street (when he left his previous employer, they gave him an Audi R8 as a present). Those teachers were there because they wanted motivated and engaged students. His English teacher was a recent Harvard grad who didn’t need the money.

One caveat is that our experience was with private middle and high school. There’s a danger that younger kids will go through the system before they can be well evaluated. By the time someone is in middle school, and for sure HS, you can have an informative interview with them; not so in earlier years. It happened rarely, but behavioral issues were dealt with carefully but decisively (I don’t recall anyone getting thrown out, but I think it was suggested that some kids find a better fit elsewhere for the following year).

The local public school sent kids to Ivies and similar. The private also did, at roughly double the percentage. A real benefit was that our kids had friends from many different backgrounds. That’s often a shock for students entering college.

I’d suggest a school that offers an International Baccalaureate.
Last edited by TomatoTomahto on Tue May 17, 2022 3:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Evaluating private school

Post by keith6014 »

TomatoTomahto wrote: Tue May 17, 2022 3:48 pm We lived in an affluent and education focused public school district in NJ, rated among the highest in the country. Some of their stellar appearing results were because they restricted access to opportunities; for example, if you wanted to take an AP class, they would make sure that you would get a 5 on the test. That’s all well and good, but our son had gotten placed on a low math ability track. He was depressed.

Our requests for reevaluation were denied, so we had him take the ISEE on which he scored well. He began HS at the private and excelled, especially in math, and ultimately went to Yale where he received an MS/BS in CS (math heavy machine learning niche) in his 4 years.

When we were researching the private, I walked down the hall and heard what I thought was a professional jazz band; it was the school band. I looked through their poetry magazine: first rate. The school was obviously more diverse than our monocultural local school; their generous scholarship program allowed kids to be accepted regardless of family financial situation. Teachers were often on their second career; my son’s chemistry teacher was out of Bell Labs and his physics teacher had a successful career on Wall Street (when he left his previous employer, they gave him an Audi R8 as a present). Those teachers were there because they wanted motivated and engaged students. His English teacher was a recent Harvard grad who didn’t need the money.

One caveat is that our experience was with private middle and high school. There’s a danger that younger kids will go through the system before they can be well evaluated. By the time someone is in middle school and, for sure HS, you can have an informative interview with them; not so in earlier years. It happened rarely, but behavioral issues were dealt with carefully but decisively (I don’t recall anyone getting thrown out, but I think it was suggested that some kids find a better fit elsewhere for the following year).

The local public school sent kids to Ivies and similar. The private also did, at roughly double the percentage. A real benefit was that our kids had friends from many different backgrounds. That’s often a shock for students entering college.

I’d suggest a schoo, that offers an International Baccalaureate.
You, personally, are one of the reasons why we are considering private school! :-)

We don't want to move to an affluent area. We like where we live. Just the schools aren't great but worse the peer influences.

During the tour I visted their computer science class and heard the lecturer. I was impressed (and shocked). She was teaching binary search on a white board -- recusively and iteratively. They were in 6th - 8th grade.
It is not an IB school according to https://www.ibo.org/
Last edited by keith6014 on Tue May 17, 2022 3:57 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Evaluating private school

Post by TomatoTomahto »

keith6014 wrote: Tue May 17, 2022 3:50 pm You, personally, are one of the reasons why we are considering private school! We don't want to move to an affluent area. We like where we live. Just the schools aren't great but worse the peer influences.
Good choice. We got to pay the higher property taxes, higher housing prices, AND the private school tuition :oops:
I get the FI part but not the RE part of FIRE.
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Re: Evaluating private school

Post by keith6014 »

TomatoTomahto wrote: Tue May 17, 2022 3:54 pm
keith6014 wrote: Tue May 17, 2022 3:50 pm You, personally, are one of the reasons why we are considering private school! We don't want to move to an affluent area. We like where we live. Just the schools aren't great but worse the peer influences.
Good choice. We got to pay the higher property taxes, higher housing prices, AND the private school tuition :oops:
Yep. My taxes are high -- which is fine. IWill be spending 3x of property taxes to fund the schooling. :sharebeer
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Re: Evaluating private school

Post by TomatoTomahto »

keith6014 wrote: Tue May 17, 2022 4:08 pm
TomatoTomahto wrote: Tue May 17, 2022 3:54 pm
keith6014 wrote: Tue May 17, 2022 3:50 pm You, personally, are one of the reasons why we are considering private school! We don't want to move to an affluent area. We like where we live. Just the schools aren't great but worse the peer influences.
Good choice. We got to pay the higher property taxes, higher housing prices, AND the private school tuition :oops:
Yep. My taxes are high -- which is fine. IWill be spending 3x of property taxes to fund the schooling. :sharebeer
I say this only somewhat sarcastically, but college tuition didn’t seem like such a shock :D

People in town always asked why we would send our kids to a private when we had such a great school “for free.” I think they thought we were snobs or crazy or something. For our kids, the private school was transformational. One of our kids, the Yale one, is living a life of effective altruism; he probably won’t donate to a school, but has said that if he did it would be to the high school rather than his college. His reasoning is that if he hadn’t gone to Yale, he would have attended MIT, or Princeton, or CalTech; his life arc would be similar to what it has been. But, the private HS lifted him out of a situation where he had been tagged as mediocre and let him grow and thrive.
I get the FI part but not the RE part of FIRE.
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Re: Evaluating private school

Post by dred pirate »

as researcher - I have to use the term "selection bias" when comparing private school student outcomes vs if that same student went to a public school.
Obviously there are always outliers here, but in most places it is more of a status symbol vs actually providing the child with better outcomes.
This comes from someone who did 8 years private college - the first four were only marginally more expensive than state school- the other four were a mistake - I should have gone to the flagship state school for graduate school - that decision cost me probably an extra 10 years of student loan payments.
Last edited by dred pirate on Tue May 17, 2022 6:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Evaluating private school

Post by tryingtogetahead »

TomatoTomahto wrote: Tue May 17, 2022 3:48 pm We lived in an affluent and education focused public school district in NJ, rated among the highest in the country. Some of their stellar appearing results were because they restricted access to opportunities; for example, if you wanted to take an AP class, they would make sure that you would get a 5 on the test. That’s all well and good, but our son had gotten placed on a low math ability track. He was depressed.

Our requests for reevaluation were denied, so we had him take the ISEE on which he scored well. He began HS at the private and excelled, especially in math, and ultimately went to Yale where he received an MS/BS in CS (math heavy machine learning niche) in his 4 years.

When we were researching the private, I walked down the hall and heard what I thought was a professional jazz band; it was the school band. I looked through their poetry magazine: first rate. The school was obviously more diverse than our monocultural local school; their generous scholarship program allowed kids to be accepted regardless of family financial situation. Teachers were often on their second career; my son’s chemistry teacher was out of Bell Labs and his physics teacher had a successful career on Wall Street (when he left his previous employer, they gave him an Audi R8 as a present). Those teachers were there because they wanted motivated and engaged students. His English teacher was a recent Harvard grad who didn’t need the money.

One caveat is that our experience was with private middle and high school. There’s a danger that younger kids will go through the system before they can be well evaluated. By the time someone is in middle school, and for sure HS, you can have an informative interview with them; not so in earlier years. It happened rarely, but behavioral issues were dealt with carefully but decisively (I don’t recall anyone getting thrown out, but I think it was suggested that some kids find a better fit elsewhere for the following year).

The local public school sent kids to Ivies and similar. The private also did, at roughly double the percentage. A real benefit was that our kids had friends from many different backgrounds. That’s often a shock for students entering college.

I’d suggest a school that offers an International Baccalaureate.
Can you send me a DM with the school name? I live in NJ and I’m interested. Thanks.
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Re: Evaluating private school

Post by tryingtogetahead »

keith6014 wrote: Tue May 17, 2022 3:38 pm
livesoft wrote: Tue May 17, 2022 3:33 pm A nice list. I will guess the private school is located in the New England area. Next question is: How many years of classes does this represent? just this year's? Or several years?
Jersey. Represents 2 years (from what I gather from Niche).
Can you send me a DM with the school name? I live in NJ and I’m interested. Thanks.
sweetness9
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Re: Evaluating private school

Post by sweetness9 »

I send my kids to private school but not because of any assumed benefit in college admissions. If anything, attending mediocre public schools with less competition may be an advantage in college admissions (this is what I did) so long as you have a student who is motivated and has a family that lays the groundwork for academic achievement.

Private schools, however, can provide a valuable benefit for some students because of their smaller class sizes, peer groups, and resources. I think my kids are benefiting from more individualized attention, a relative absence of bad influences among peers, and more resources for arts/music/environmental learning. We're fortunate enough to be able to afford private schools, and it's certainly an individual decision informed by who your children are and what the public schools where you live offer in comparison. Too many of these discussions, IMO, view school choice as one about ROI and college admissions--just as college selection discussions do with job opportunities--when more consideration should be given to the student's experience in school and less tangible benefits to the student's growth as a person.
Firemenot
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Re: Evaluating private school

Post by Firemenot »

In my experience with private school versus public, the class sizes in private are smaller, the private school is more academically rigorous, and there’s a higher focus on student behavior/academic accountability. The public schools we’re comparing to are “9/10” in affluent area. The private school is Catholic Affiliated (we’re not Catholic) and relatively affordable, drawing from diverse socioeconomic area.
Last edited by Firemenot on Tue May 17, 2022 7:15 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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keith6014
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Re: Evaluating private school

Post by keith6014 »

tryingtogetahead wrote: Tue May 17, 2022 5:43 pm
keith6014 wrote: Tue May 17, 2022 3:38 pm
livesoft wrote: Tue May 17, 2022 3:33 pm A nice list. I will guess the private school is located in the New England area. Next question is: How many years of classes does this represent? just this year's? Or several years?
Jersey. Represents 2 years (from what I gather from Niche).
Can you send me a DM with the school name? I live in NJ and I’m interested. Thanks.
done
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keith6014
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Re: Evaluating private school

Post by keith6014 »

sweetness9 wrote: Tue May 17, 2022 6:41 pm I send my kids to private school but not because of any assumed benefit in college admissions. If anything, attending mediocre public schools with less competition may be an advantage in college admissions (this is what I did) so long as you have a student who is motivated and has a family that lays the groundwork for academic achievement.

Private schools, however, can provide a valuable benefit for some students because of their smaller class sizes, peer groups, and resources. I think my kids are benefiting from more individualized attention, a relative absence of bad influences among peers, and more resources for arts/music/environmental learning. We're fortunate enough to be able to afford private schools, and it's certainly an individual decision informed by who your children are and what the public schools where you live offer in comparison. Too many of these discussions, IMO, view school choice as one about ROI and college admissions--just as college selection discussions do with job opportunities--when more consideration should be given to the student's experience in school and less tangible benefits to the student's growth as a person.
Thankyou. I believe they can benefit my kids quite a lot.
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Re: Evaluating private school

Post by keith6014 »

dred pirate wrote: Tue May 17, 2022 5:15 pm as researcher - I have to use the term "selection bias" when comparing private school student outcomes vs if that same student went to a public school.
Obviously there are always outliers here, but in most places it is more of a status symbol vs actually providing the child with better outcomes.
This comes from someone who did 8 years private college - the first four were only marginally more expensive than state school- the other four were a mistake - I should have gone to the flagship state school for graduate school - that decision cost me probably an extra 10 years of student loan payments.
I am asking about K-12. And I have no qualms going to a good state school flagship campus.
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keith6014
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Re: Evaluating private school

Post by keith6014 »

phinanciallyfit wrote: Tue May 17, 2022 3:43 pm I don't mean moving for a new school, I mean the typical change of schools in middle school. Most elementary schools are k-5 and that forces kids to change schools when they are at a time when they are particularly sensitive to social changes, super insecure, and where relationships can be contentious. Not changing schools (i.e. a k-8) allows kids to have the stability of knowing the teachers and being known by the teachers, while also being the "top dogs" which lets them feel more like leaders. It helps minimize the stresses of this age period.

I generally don't believe that private schools are worth the money, but ultimately, we all have to make our own decisions. I believe strongly that family influence and involvement in education are far more important. My daughter (2nd grade) goes to a public school in a state with some of the worst schools in the country and per her tests, she is reading at a 10th grade level (lexile 1150) and her math is generally at a 4th grade level (some skills are beyond 4th grade). I'm sure I'd attribute her performance to the $$ spent on private school if we had sent her to one, but the reality is she is naturally bright and we (as a household) encourage and support learning. The story is anecdotal, of course, but most on the internet are :-)
Understood. Thanks for the explanation.
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keith6014
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Re: Evaluating private school

Post by keith6014 »

livesoft wrote: Tue May 17, 2022 3:42 pm
keith6014 wrote: Tue May 17, 2022 3:38 pm
livesoft wrote: Tue May 17, 2022 3:33 pm A nice list. I will guess the private school is located in the New England area. Next question is: How many years of classes does this represent? just this year's? Or several years?
Jersey. Represents 2 years (from what I gather from Niche).
So the control is how many of "similar" graduates of the public school went to similar universities? By "similar", I do not mean the average graduate, but the subset that took quite a few AP classes. Right now, I conclude that the parents of these students are wealthy enough to send their kids to expensive universities.
Our current public highschool sends kids to mostly regional colleges and Rutgers. Some out of state good schools like Penn State and SUNY Binghamton. The sample size is much larger though. Thats the motivation of my question: new private school, little data, but from what I heard and experienced it looks great.
ZMonet
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Re: Evaluating private school

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sweetness9 wrote: Tue May 17, 2022 6:41 pm I send my kids to private school but not because of any assumed benefit in college admissions. If anything, attending mediocre public schools with less competition may be an advantage in college admissions (this is what I did) so long as you have a student who is motivated and has a family that lays the groundwork for academic achievement.

Private schools, however, can provide a valuable benefit for some students because of their smaller class sizes, peer groups, and resources. I think my kids are benefiting from more individualized attention, a relative absence of bad influences among peers, and more resources for arts/music/environmental learning. We're fortunate enough to be able to afford private schools, and it's certainly an individual decision informed by who your children are and what the public schools where you live offer in comparison. Too many of these discussions, IMO, view school choice as one about ROI and college admissions--just as college selection discussions do with job opportunities--when more consideration should be given to the student's experience in school and less tangible benefits to the student's growth as a person.
Totally agree. I get that this is Bogleheads so there is an extreme focus on ROI, but that ROI can be measured in a number of different ways. Private school has allowed my child to bloom and though I would guess that she will never go to a Top 10 school (many at my child's school do), my child will be much better off for having gone to a private school that focuses on diversity, growth, experience, and compassion.
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Re: Evaluating private school

Post by a2_alice »

I went to a private day school in NJ for two years in high school (freshman/sophomore). It was really obvious who’d been admitted at middle school/high school grades and who’d gone there since elementary. The kids who’d been there since elementary were driving the BMWs and went on to high-priced small New England private schools (basically repeating what their parents did for them in elementary). The kids who were admitted during middle school/high school went to the Ivies.

I wound up doing Junior and senior year in a public school in CA because my parents moved. I was tracked with all the kids with multiple APs and can honestly say all of us went to very good schools—not as prestigious as Ivies but Berkeley/UCLA/Stanford for the kids who would have had the academic chops to get into the private school.
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Watty
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Re: Evaluating private school

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Even if you find a great private school you also need to make sure that the school is also a good fit for your kid.

I know someone that has two kids that are just a few years apart and they ended up sending one kid to a public high school and the other to a private high school just because they were the best fit for their kids.
keith6014 wrote: Tue May 17, 2022 2:43 pm Thinking of sending 2 kids to STEM focused private school (1st to 12th) and we like a particular school because of outcomes.
Retired software developer here.

Exposure to STEM is great but be careful about putting too much pressure on them to go into STEM. Over the years I saw lots of software developers that had gotten into computers at the urging of people like their parents. If they were not naturally drawn to computers they often were mediocre programmers even though they could usually learn the principals OK. Often they did not thrive in their jobs so they were frustrated with their careers and by the time they were in their 30's some of them ended up changing careers either voluntarily or involuntarily after being laid off.

Anyway it would be good to consider finding a school for your kids where they could be exposed to a lot of different things and not just be overly focused on STEM so that they find what they are good at.
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Re: Evaluating private school

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Watty wrote: Tue May 17, 2022 8:01 pm Even if you find a great private school you also need to make sure that the school is also a good fit for your kid.

I know someone that has two kids that are just a few years apart and they ended up sending one kid to a public high school and the other to a private high school just because they were the best fit for their kids.
keith6014 wrote: Tue May 17, 2022 2:43 pm Thinking of sending 2 kids to STEM focused private school (1st to 12th) and we like a particular school because of outcomes.
Retired software developer here.

Exposure to STEM is great but be careful about putting too much pressure on them to go into STEM. Over the years I saw lots of software developers that had gotten into computers at the urging of people like their parents. If they were not naturally drawn to computers they often were mediocre programmers even though they could usually learn the principals OK. Often they did not thrive in their jobs so they were frustrated with their careers and by the time they were in their 30's some of them ended up changing careers either voluntarily or involuntarily after being laid off.

Anyway it would be good to consider finding a school for your kids where they could be exposed to a lot of different things and not just be overly focused on STEM so that they find what they are good at.
Very good point. I too am a fellow software dev in finance (more like CRUD janitor). I or my wife (finance person) don't want our kids to be pressured into a field. I like tech because I am wired to it. Don't want to push tech to kids.
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Re: Evaluating private school

Post by Cherrypink »

Good choice. We got to pay the higher property taxes, higher housing prices, AND the private school tuition :oops:
[/quote]

Us too..I know the feeling.. we live in a really good school district and still sending my kids to private school since preschool but now in ms and hs.
We picked it due to smaller class size .. I never had a bad or okay teacher.. it is worth it for us
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Re: Evaluating private school

Post by nydoc »

You can use the great public school at school and provide a private school environment at home. A lot of education and growth happen at home.
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Re: Evaluating private school

Post by Dregob »

chassis wrote: Tue May 17, 2022 2:56 pm
keith6014 wrote: Tue May 17, 2022 2:43 pm Thinking of sending 2 kids to STEM focused private school (1st to 12th) and we like a particular school because of outcomes. This is according to Greatschools and Niche.

My only concern is the school is relatively new, EST 2013. I spoke to few parents who are sending their kids there and they like it a lot. I sent my kids for 2 days as evaluation they too liked it and it seems their syllabus is what we are looking for.

Besides parents, Greatschools and Niche are there any other sites to validate the (new) school's reputation?
Agree that the choice has some relation to demographics. The decision to voluntarily pay more than required (tuition + property tax vs property tax alone) means the pupil will be surrounded by peers whose families also made the discretionary choice to pay more for education than required.

While the college destinations may be the same as public school pupils, the social culture and experience in the private school will be different than the cheaper, public, school.
Agreed, and that is why we sent our two kids to public schools K-12!
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Re: Evaluating private school

Post by MMiroir »

TomatoTomahto wrote: Tue May 17, 2022 4:40 pm
keith6014 wrote: Tue May 17, 2022 4:08 pm
TomatoTomahto wrote: Tue May 17, 2022 3:54 pm
keith6014 wrote: Tue May 17, 2022 3:50 pm You, personally, are one of the reasons why we are considering private school! We don't want to move to an affluent area. We like where we live. Just the schools aren't great but worse the peer influences.
Good choice. We got to pay the higher property taxes, higher housing prices, AND the private school tuition :oops:
Yep. My taxes are high -- which is fine. IWill be spending 3x of property taxes to fund the schooling. :sharebeer
I say this only somewhat sarcastically, but college tuition didn’t seem like such a shock :D

People in town always asked why we would send our kids to a private when we had such a great school “for free.” I think they thought we were snobs or crazy or something. For our kids, the private school was transformational. One of our kids, the Yale one, is living a life of effective altruism; he probably won’t donate to a school, but has said that if he did it would be to the high school rather than his college. His reasoning is that if he hadn’t gone to Yale, he would have attended MIT, or Princeton, or CalTech; his life arc would be similar to what it has been. But, the private HS lifted him out of a situation where he had been tagged as mediocre and let him grow and thrive.
My parents sent me to a private prep school. I was not pleased with the experience and thought I would have had a similar college outcome if I had gone to the local mediocre public high school. The one thing it did was expose me to the upper middle class, and instill a drive to get to the upper middle class later in life.

The choice of public vs private will be a very individual one, driven by factors unique to the parents, children and the schools involved. When it was time to raise our kids, we spent more to live in a K-12 strong school public district and focus their upbringing on education. Our three kids were successful and all ended up at Yale equivalent schools.

At the same time, we know some parents in our district that choose to send their oldest kids to a local private high school. After having less success at the private in college admissions, they sent their younger kids to the public school. That trend changed during the pandemic when the public school went virtual and the private did not, and you saw a shift as a significant number of parent switched their kids to the private. Now that the pandemic is hopefully over, we will see if that trend continues.

The final anecdote is of a friend of ours who lives in a rural area. They did not have great success with their oldest two kids attending the local public school, and next kid up lobbied hard to go to the local Catholic high school instead. The father did not want to spend the money, but eventually acquiesced, and he spent four years complaining about it. The kid ended up earning a named scholarship to a T-10 private university that covered tuition, full room and board and a summer at Oxford. The private high school tuition was likely the best investment he ever made.
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Re: Evaluating private school

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MMiroir wrote: Wed May 18, 2022 7:55 am
TomatoTomahto wrote: Tue May 17, 2022 4:40 pm
keith6014 wrote: Tue May 17, 2022 4:08 pm
TomatoTomahto wrote: Tue May 17, 2022 3:54 pm
keith6014 wrote: Tue May 17, 2022 3:50 pm You, personally, are one of the reasons why we are considering private school! We don't want to move to an affluent area. We like where we live. Just the schools aren't great but worse the peer influences.
Good choice. We got to pay the higher property taxes, higher housing prices, AND the private school tuition :oops:
Yep. My taxes are high -- which is fine. IWill be spending 3x of property taxes to fund the schooling. :sharebeer
I say this only somewhat sarcastically, but college tuition didn’t seem like such a shock :D

People in town always asked why we would send our kids to a private when we had such a great school “for free.” I think they thought we were snobs or crazy or something. For our kids, the private school was transformational. One of our kids, the Yale one, is living a life of effective altruism; he probably won’t donate to a school, but has said that if he did it would be to the high school rather than his college. His reasoning is that if he hadn’t gone to Yale, he would have attended MIT, or Princeton, or CalTech; his life arc would be similar to what it has been. But, the private HS lifted him out of a situation where he had been tagged as mediocre and let him grow and thrive.
My parents sent me to a private prep school. I was not pleased with the experience and thought I would have had a similar college outcome if I had gone to the local mediocre public high school. The one thing it did was expose me to the upper middle class, and instill a drive to get to the upper middle class later in life.

The choice of public vs private will be a very individual one, driven by factors unique to the parents, children and the schools involved. When it was time to raise our kids, we spent more to live in a K-12 strong school public district and focus their upbringing on education. Our three kids were successful and all ended up at Yale equivalent schools.

At the same time, we know some parents in our district that choose to send their oldest kids to a local private high school. After having less success at the private in college admissions, they sent their younger kids to the public school. That trend changed during the pandemic when the public school went virtual and the private did not, and you saw a shift as a significant number of parent switched their kids to the private. Now that the pandemic is hopefully over, we will see if that trend continues.

The final anecdote is of a friend of ours who lives in a rural area. They did not have great success with their oldest two kids attending the local public school, and next kid up lobbied hard to go to the local Catholic high school instead. The father did not want to spend the money, but eventually acquiesced, and he spent four years complaining about it. The kid ended up earning a named scholarship to a T-10 private university that covered tuition, full room and board and a summer at Oxford. The private high school tuition was likely the best investment he ever made.
Impressive what you and your friend did. Glad it worked out for the rural kid!
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Re: Evaluating private school

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I don't have school age kids, but I'd be leery of making decisions based on web rankings. It's well known that the popular statistics-based college rankings are gamed by the schools and not really helpful in decision making. My parents made their decisions by talking to other parents (say, in the playground in Central Park) who had had a child in the schools in question.) It's interesting that my tiny private elementary school gave such good individual attention that it eventually became known for accepting children with (this is a a generation ago, when diagnosis was much less rigorous than it is today) learning disabilities. That quickly drove non-disability children's parents away, of course.

Because I went to a specialized public high school (Bronx Science) that took 35 minutes to get to on the subway, it affected my social life opportunities. Not complaining, just mentioning. I know the parents in my suburban town today are super-chauffeurs.
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Re: Evaluating private school

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crefwatch wrote: Wed May 18, 2022 8:39 am I don't have school age kids, but I'd be leery of making decisions based on web rankings. It's well known that the popular statistics-based college rankings are gamed by the schools and not really helpful in decision making. My parents made their decisions by talking to other parents (say, in the playground in Central Park) who had had a child in the schools in question.) It's interesting that my tiny private elementary school gave such good individual attention that it eventually became known for accepting children with (this is a a generation ago, when diagnosis was much less rigorous than it is today) learning disabilities. That quickly drove non-disability children's parents away, of course.

Because I went to a specialized public high school (Bronx Science) that took 35 minutes to get to on the subway, it affected my social life opportunities. Not complaining, just mentioning. I know the parents in my suburban town today are super-chauffeurs.
Bronx Sci and its peers are like private schools on steroids. If my kids get into our magnet schools I will open another thread. Not holding my breath :twisted:
And I wouldn't mind 35 mins on the subway for that calibre of experience and quality. Worth every second IMO!
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Re: Evaluating private school

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1) I'd be pretty cautious about drawing strong conclusions on a school based on output metrics (matriculations to premium schools, high average ACT scores, etc.) Outputs mostly correlate to inputs (smart kids of affluent, well-educated parents). Very hard to distinguish the particular value-add of a school this way.

2) That said, I think it's important, if possible, for a kid to have a peer group similar to themselves. If all the kids at a school are kinda mediocre, there's less to spur on a very bright kid.

3) Most big publics have honors & AP classes, starting from around 7th grade. If your kid is bright, they'll likely spend most of their time with the other honors kids. Private schools, IIUC, mostly don't do this (but often have a high-ish entrance bar). Anyways, your kid may be around mostly other bright kids, whether at public or private.

4) Different privates have different "aura"s, including rich/old money, religious, service-oriented, academically rigorous, etc. Obviously, you have to spend a little time checking them out and think about whether that aura is one you want for your kid. I went to a prospective parents night at one fancy private, and while perusing the signs, etc. on the wall, saw a list of rules that included something like "No overly worn clothes". As I was reading this, I was in an old pair of blue jeans with the bottoms deeply worn and kinda ragged. Oops. (I plead laziness/aversion to clothes shopping, not poverty).

Later, I heard current parents of kids at the school talking about the fact that, in addition to the (high) tuition, parents are basically strong-armed to make further, significant donations, too. Neither of these were deal-breakers, but, my kid did not end up going there...

5) Privates probably have better internal college counseling than privates. I think that would likely have benefitted one of my kids and led to better college admissions results for him.

6) Small privates will have less breadth of offerings (classes and extra-curriculars) than a medium/large public. Last night went to my youngest's HS band performance. Two different wind ensembles (same HS, one the "good" and one "not as good, but still surprisingly good") with maybe 50 members across the two. A private with graduating class size of 25 would not offer the depth/breadth along all the same axes as her public...

7) I feel our public is not very good at communicating, in detail, with parents. Sure, I/we get endless e-mails about this and that. But actual communication with teachers is limited, moreso since COVID. Probably at least partly a function of class sizes. A teacher with 5 classes @25 kids per has 125 kids and ~250 parents to, potentially, interact with.
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Re: Evaluating private school

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psteinx wrote: Wed May 18, 2022 10:42 am.
[snip…]
5) Privates probably have better internal college counseling than privates. I think that would likely have benefitted one of my kids and led to better college admissions results for him.
When we were moving our son out of the public school, we needed a recommendation for his new private. So, we booked a meeting with his counselor. She said that she had many students, so please remind her who our son was.

This is of course the same counselor who told us that we were biased as parents in asking for our son to be reevaluated after his being tracked with an almost remedial math group. I guess the DMV wasn’t hiring that week when she applied for the counselor position.
I get the FI part but not the RE part of FIRE.
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Re: Evaluating private school

Post by MMiroir »

psteinx wrote: Wed May 18, 2022 10:42 am4) Different privates have different "aura"s, including rich/old money, religious, service-oriented, academically rigorous, etc. Obviously, you have to spend a little time checking them out and think about whether that aura is one you want for your kid. I went to a prospective parents night at one fancy private, and while perusing the signs, etc. on the wall, saw a list of rules that included something like "No overly worn clothes". As I was reading this, I was in an old pair of blue jeans with the bottoms deeply worn and kinda ragged. Oops. (I plead laziness/aversion to clothes shopping, not poverty).

Later, I heard current parents of kids at the school talking about the fact that, in addition to the (high) tuition, parents are basically strong-armed to make further, significant donations, too. Neither of these were deal-breakers, but, my kid did not end up going there...
The jeans rule is probably more to prohibit the overly "ripped" jeans look popular amount teenage girls. Before we moved to the suburbs, we interviewed several high end urban private schools. If you were a full tuition parent, they wanted copies of your tax returns, and if your income was high enough, they expected 1 or 2 percent of the gross income in additional "donations". We invested in a moving truck instead.
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Re: Evaluating private school

Post by psteinx »

MMiroir wrote: Wed May 18, 2022 11:08 am
psteinx wrote: Wed May 18, 2022 10:42 am4) Different privates have different "aura"s, including rich/old money, religious, service-oriented, academically rigorous, etc. Obviously, you have to spend a little time checking them out and think about whether that aura is one you want for your kid. I went to a prospective parents night at one fancy private, and while perusing the signs, etc. on the wall, saw a list of rules that included something like "No overly worn clothes". As I was reading this, I was in an old pair of blue jeans with the bottoms deeply worn and kinda ragged. Oops. (I plead laziness/aversion to clothes shopping, not poverty).

Later, I heard current parents of kids at the school talking about the fact that, in addition to the (high) tuition, parents are basically strong-armed to make further, significant donations, too. Neither of these were deal-breakers, but, my kid did not end up going there...
The jeans rule is probably more to prohibit the overly "ripped" jeans look popular amount teenage girls. Before we moved to the suburbs, we interviewed several high end urban private schools. If you were a full tuition parent, they wanted copies of your tax returns, and if your income was high enough, they expected 1 or 2 percent of the gross income in additional "donations". We invested in a moving truck instead.
Probably so. But overall, there was a pronounced, somewhat snooty vibe to the place that didn't endear it to me. The (apparently) strong-arm donation appeals were part of that, too.
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Re: Evaluating private school

Post by Journeyman510 »

I live in an area where our local elementary school is considered the best in the city. It was a horrible experience for my child. They pegged him as a behavioral problem and mediocre student. Fortunately, via my network, I know a trustee at the most prestigious private school in the area (k-12).

He is in middle school now and is thriving. The school picked up that he wasn't a "bad kid" or "slow" but had a learning difference (think mild dyslexia) and was depressed. They were very supportive of our child as he learned techniques to help him adapt. And by thriving I mean he isn't depressed anymore and is a straight A student. I shudder to think what would have happened to him if we left him in that supposedly great public school.

Not everything can be a simple ROI calculation.
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Re: Evaluating private school

Post by mgensler »

OP,

Listen to livesoft. You are not going to get the return from this expense that you think you are. Success in school is directly correlated to how much money the parents have.

I am on our school based decision making council for our public high school with 1300+ students. We track this data very closely. All of our reports show kids on free/reduced lunch as a group. This group is always behind in every metric. The averages don't mean anything in this regard. Public schools have to take everyone no matter what. One of our homeless students has a job at a fast food restaurant. His teacher talks to his boss so he can have Wednesday afternoon off to come get his course work. Hard to imagine any kid in this situation but there it is. The school also offer AP classes and has graduated scientists, doctors, pop musicians, top military leaders, and state level politicians.

Keep your money and invest it in showing your kids the rest of the world when they are on summer break.
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Re: Evaluating private school

Post by TomatoTomahto »

Journeyman510 wrote: Wed May 18, 2022 11:42 am I live in an area where our local elementary school is considered the best in the city. It was a horrible experience for my child. They pegged him as a behavioral problem and mediocre student. Fortunately, via my network, I know a trustee at the most prestigious private school in the area (k-12).

He is in middle school now and is thriving. The school picked up that he wasn't a "bad kid" or "slow" but had a learning difference (think mild dyslexia) and was depressed. They were very supportive of our child as he learned techniques to help him adapt. And by thriving I mean he isn't depressed anymore and is a straight A student. I shudder to think what would have happened to him if we left him in that supposedly great public school.

Not everything can be a simple ROI calculation.
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that your public school was willing to renege on its obligations to your child. The administrations seem to believe their press clippings, which the realtors push. They can’t be wrong. The parent is biased. The parents don’t want to believe that their precious snowflake is average. And so on. A more moderately evaluated school is more open to recognizing that they’re fallible.

The day will come when your child will thank you.
I get the FI part but not the RE part of FIRE.
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