Because they can.
Because they can.
The northern counties in my state have really good public school and really good private schools. The southern counties (where I live) have below average public schools and good private schools. We are by no means rich, but the clear choice for us is private schools whenever we can afford them. I did not think the difference would be big until I started looking into the test scores. We compared two middle schools -- one public where the kid was zoned and one private that had a good reputation. I'm going to oversimplify the statistics for you since there are so many categories, but basically the public school kids scored in the 35th percentile and the private school kids scored in the 85th percentile. This scoring was based on their preparedness for college and careers, as in where the state believed they should be to be on pace for college and having a job. At that public school less than half were on pace, while at the private school basically everyone was on pace. I don't know why a parent would choose to put their kid into that public school if they could at all swing the tuition for that private school. Indeed, the public high school has a statistic where after 1 year of graduating only 50% of the graduates are in college (and for many it's the local community college). The nearby private high school again outperforms, but is quite expensive. We're not even an inner city or problem area, but sending your kid to that seemingly normal public school means that if your kid is average they aren't likely to get a bachelor's degree and will struggle to find a job. Don't be that parent if you can avoid it.
Public schools also tend to offer far more services and sports, although that depends. Public schools have been shown to do as well or better with students from similar backgrounds.
What you are mistaking is the results with the quality of the school. The results are heavily, heavily dependent on parental factors. Richer, more educated parents mean better test results for the school. I compared the test scores for every school in my county to the percentage of kids eligible for free or reduced school lunches, and they correlate inversely. There was only one exception of all the schools I saw, and that school seems to have a lot of children of foreign graduate students, who are making very little money and so qualify for reduced school lunches but they are well educated and their children do well. Public schools do very well with the kinds of students they have.
Shoebacca wrote:
The northern counties in my state have really good public school and really good private schools. The southern counties (where I live) have below average public schools and good private schools. We are by no means rich, but the clear choice for us is private schools whenever we can afford them. I did not think the difference would be big until I started looking into the test scores. We compared two middle schools -- one public where the kid was zoned and one private that had a good reputation. I'm going to oversimplify the statistics for you since there are so many categories, but basically the public school kids scored in the 35th percentile and the private school kids scored in the 85th percentile. This scoring was based on their preparedness for college and careers, as in where the state believed they should be to be on pace for college and having a job. At that public school less than half were on pace, while at the private school basically everyone was on pace. I don't know why a parent would choose to put their kid into that public school if they could at all swing the tuition for that private school. Indeed, the public high school has a statistic where after 1 year of graduating only 50% of the graduates are in college (and for many it's the local community college). The nearby private high school again outperforms, but is quite expensive. We're not even an inner city or problem area, but sending your kid to that seemingly normal public school means that if your kid is average they aren't likely to get a bachelor's degree and will struggle to find a job. Don't be that parent if you can avoid it.
The reason often given by parents in my social circle is the "connections" response that many have given here.
I'm happy to forego the private school sheltering for my kids. Thankfully the public school they go into is exceptional.
Our kids go to a private school, but it is not for prestigious reasons. Public schools don't inspire a love of learning. There is no room for kids to explore things they are interested in because the curriculum has to be rigid for the state tests. Kindergarten is not longer play based, but rigorous. The kindergarten curriculum at our local public schools mirrors the 5th grade curriculum just at a lower level. All research shows that any benefits of an academic kindergarten disappear after a few years. In fact, not only do the advantages disappear, but kids from academic kindergartens have more social problems than kids who go to play based kindergartens.
I don't want my kids to sit in a desk all day. My kids are constantly moving around the classroom, which research shows to increase learning. They have a rich curriculum at low grade levels, not just reading, writing, and math. None of that happens in any meaningful way at public schools that are beholden to state tests. We struggle sometimes with the tuition, especially since my wife quit her job to go back to school, but the quality of education our children are getting makes it totally worth it.
It's pretty simple.
If you are a B or C student in public school, you'll likely go to State school or a "backup" school. If you are a B or C student in Private School, you'll likely go to a "sub-ivy" league school. If you're an A student in either, the word is your oyster.
I went to a top-tier private school and my wife went to a sub-par public school (both in CT). We ended up at the same college (a pretty decent school), but I was a B student in Private school and she was an A student in terrible Public school.
If our positions were flipped, she'd probably be at an Ivy, and I'd be at a State school. We both tried pretty hard....private-school just gave me a leg up.
It's not that complicated. Private School opens up a lot of doors for people who aren't geniuses but try hard (like me).
The choice of school issue is so specific to each kid I don't think any stereotypes work. Even with an excellent public school in an area, some kids have different needs than others and may work better in a non-public environment. Kids with special needs really require a lot of investigation into school choice.
I went to a public school. It was in the North Shore of Illinois and was one of the best in the state. Zero diversity, but academics were excellent and I was as prepared as anyone else at the top 10 USNWR school I attended. My spouse had a similar background, with the same results at the same school. We had good athletics at my high school - a circumstance now changed as the town is now way too upper middle class to be successful in many sports. But there remain few private school options in the area because the public schools are very good.
My two kids went to what is arguably the best public high school in the nation in Northern Virginia (test scores are unreal). Both were National Merit Finalists from this school, and private school would have been a complete waste of money.
However, if I lived thirty miles farther away from the city than I do, then private school may have been an option, even though the schools in the outer exurbs can handle excellent students.
My brother, who is well off enough to pay for multiple private educations and then some, sent his kids to public school because he wanted them to be well grounded, especially given their lifestyle. By typical standards, the public school did not measure up to the private school options. I think he made the right decision.
Really Bro wrote:
caller outer of double standards wrote:
What a double standard. You can freely bash rich people, but no one would think it was okay to go around saying that poor people “be crazy.”
Doofus. Poor people be crazy is a LRC staple. I hate it because it is true of my background (ex poor people go to Disney world, poor people leave there TV on when they aren't watching it.)
Poor people also can't choose correctly between there, their and they're.
Why do people buy luxury cars and clothes when lesser cost models and brands are equally effective?
I spent almost 40 years teaching in a suburban public school. It was a fine school with a diverse student population. In the latter years the distract reached out to minorities to teach as well. Students were well prepared for college and the work world. There was a fine industrial program as well until recent years when a new administrator convinced the board of education that it was duplicate of services as students could attend the county voc-tech schools. He was wrong of course, but his will won. Our top students went to the best colleges and universities in the country. For the past decade I have been coaching in two high schools, both private. One is a Catholic school while the other is more in line of a prep school with a small student body. Both schools do an excellent job. The prep school is very expensive but they give out much financial aid and as a result there is diversity among the student body. The Catholic school also had Chinese and South Korean students who are boarded in the local community. There parents are affluent and want their kids to go to an American high school in preparation for an American college. In both private schools there are smaller classes and riff raff is not tolerated. The prep school offers advanced classes in subjects in few public schools. I believe that the advanced education and small classes are the draw to the prep school. The Catholic school is small with excellent athletic teams which attract student athletes from the large schools in which playing time would be difficult to come by for many. In the past decade I have watched kids move on to strong academic colleges and do well. The answer of which school to go to resides with the families.
I currently have my kids in public school. I went to private school from middle school through high school. I almost sent my kids to private school. After a few years in public school, I can say that in general the quality of the education kids get in public school is inferior to private school. The main reason is standardized testing. Since the No Child Left Behind Act, public schools have been obsessed with test scores. The curriculum is designed to make sure that all the kids score well on the standardized tests. The people that write the standardized tests are a bunch of egghead education Phds who have spent very little time in the trenches of public education. What happens is that the standardized test writers think that it is important for kids to know a bunch of relatively obscure concepts and be able to sort out awkwardly worded questions to show good reading comprehension. For example, my 1st grader had all this stuff in his homework about identifying the "addends" and writing the "addends" out as a word equation. Over the course of about 4 weeks of homework, he probably only had to do about a dozen actual addition problems. The rest was just fluff that the standardized testing companies think is important. So, what happens is that kids learn a lot of junk that education phds think is important at the expense of becoming competent at the really important stuff. We supplemented his math work with flash cards, apps and handwritten problems to be done in exchange for screen time. He ended up way ahead of his class at the end of the year, mastering long addition and subtraction and starting multiplication and fractions. But on the standardized test, he was just above average because he didn't remember all the goofy concepts like "addends" and missed a few awkwardly worded problems. Now in 2nd grade, his teacher is all stressed out because she is having to do tons of review on addition and subtraction because the kids did not master it in 1st grade. This goes on all the way through high school. Kids taking AP classes have terrible rates of having to take remedial courses in college because the instruction in public school sacrifices depth of understanding for the breadth of trivia valued by testing companies. Private schools do not have the burden of teaching to the test. Private school students do much better in college when it comes to having to take remedial courses. I will still keep my kids in public school because it is possible to get a good education with a lot of parental intervention. And I do not want to have my kids grow up in a private school environment where there is so much privilege and so little diversity.
NJ?
Getting away from the riff-raff. We were public school parents up through 5th grade. When our oldest daughter started 6th grade at the public middle school, it was clear there was something very wrong and we investigated. We made the decision to pull the plug immediately on public school and look for private options. She finished her first semester at the public school, but after Christmas break, she was at a K-12 private school. She wound up graduating from that school, and her two younger sisters never set foot in public school. It’s been very expensive but very well worth it. The public school situation only got worse after we left. No regrets whatsoever.
Alexi Pappas went to private schools for both high school and undergrad, show me where it disadvantaged her!
yeuuep wrote:
Not a legal expert wrote:
Private schools are allowed to discriminate based on race?
Yes - just look at Harvard, Yale, etc.
They have been proven to discriminate against Asians in favor of blacks, hispanics, jews.
Jews were "Asians" before there were Asians in those schools. I guess your school didn't teach any history.
We need to protect our kids from the Darwinian propaganda in their "science" classes. Only private schools teach faith-based science rooted in truth.
Yeah, I don't understand why anyone that has the means wouldn't send their kids to a private school. I understand enjoying the abstract idea of diversity, but honestly why sacrifice your children and their future at the alter of diversity for diversities sake?
KawauchiFTW wrote:
Daddy's money wrote:
You and your kids become friends with other rich people who help keep both of you rich throughout your long lives. It's who, not what, you know.
As simple as this ^^^
Yea, I'd agree with this one.
rich people be crazy wrote:
I often see rich people send their kids to private schools. Often, the private schools aren’t as good academically as the local public school, which the parents are paying for anyway. Is it for some misplaced “prestige” factor?
So they can come on this forum and complain about how they're barely getting by on their $400k income.