private vs. public schools

[fun8stuff]

what's better... public or private schools (K - grade 12)?

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[Gut Shot]

what's better... public or private schools (K - grade 12)?

Whichever one lets me in, baby!

 

[Rockhouse]

Define better.

 

[fun8stuff]

Regarding elementary, junior high, high schools... where do you want your kids to go? Private, public, don't care? I got into an argument today with a friend on what provides a better education. What do you think?

 

[afr0dite01]

Depends where you are. Where I grew up, private schools were small and were unable to provide the opportunities that the larger public schools had. In Philadelphia, the public schools arent very good (although getting better) so that the private schools took over the market.

 

[windzilla]

Depends where you are. Where I grew up, private schools were small and were unable to provide the opportunities that the larger public schools had. In Philadelphia, the public schools arent very good (although getting better) so that the private schools took over the market.

I agree, public schools vary to much in what they have to offer/quality of education to make this a generalizable question.

 

[gostudy]

This is a horrible inquiry. This thread will unquestionably degenerate into a flame war arguing the merit of public vs. private.

 

[Wizard of Oz]

This is a horrible inquiry. This thread will unquestionably degenerate into a flame war arguing the merit of public vs. private.

My thoughts exactly.

The truth is that nobody can make any kind of generalization without bringing up some political issue such as vouchers or assessment. Some private schools are used to reform bad apples, some are great for college prep, some are extensions of a particular religious group. "Private" is too broad of a term to rationally discuss, and public schools are probably even more variable depending on where you live since local neighborhood property taxes comprise a big chunk of the school's funding (richer neighborhood equals more money for neighborhood school).

If you and your friend got into an actual argument over this, then your time was unfortunately wasted. It would be like saying that all Japanese cars are better than all European cars or something as if there is only one Japanese brand and one European brand.

In fact I just wasted about five minutes myself.

 

[anon-y-mouse]

what's better... public or private schools (K - grade 12)?

K-8, meh?

but 9-12, private definitely. My prep school has a strong track record of putting tons of their students into top ivies... for my undergrad admission, it definitely paid off and if I were at pubic school, I don't think I'd have the same level of admissions counseling or that edge to get me to my undergrad.

Of course, there are exceptions- schools like TJHSST and Stuy which are free magnet schools which have similar great track records... they'd be great alternatives.

 

[bjackrian]

Definitely varies regionally. One thing I noticed moving from the mountain west to the east coast ist he difference in prestige attached to attending a private school. In Reno, NV, where I grew up, there was only one private (Catholic) high school. The school was certainly no better than the public schools, and arguably, some of the public schools were actually better than the private (my public, non-charter, non-magnet high school had about one-fourth of the entire state's national merit scholars while the Catholic school had one student get that honor). Therefore, most parents who had the choice chose to keep their kids in public school. The major exception was for those parents who wanted their kids in reliigous school.

Now that I've moved to Washington, DC it's a completely different story. Even in the suburbs like Fairfax County (which is supposed to have some of the best public high schools in the country), there is a prestige to sending your get to private school (religious or otherwise). Therefore, most parents here who have the choice seem to send their kids to private school, religious or otherwise. It's a very different culture out here...

Incidentally, as far as college options go, definitely check into the public schools. My public school sent far more students to ivies/west coast ivies/elite liberal arts colleges than did the private school. Check into the individual schools that you're considering before you make a decision because like politics, all education is local.

 

[Doctor Bagel]

Public, with lots of caveats! I went to the one public high school in a university town with around 40,000 residents. The only other high school was a fringe-type Christian school that sent pretty much no one to college aside from some no-name bible schools. You didn't have an admissions counselor holding your hand through the application process, but if you were self-motivated and smart enough, you could indeed get accepted to top colleges. Also, the really nice thing was that basicallly all the kids in town attended that one school, so it was reallly culturally and economically diverse.

 

[fun8stuff]

My thoughts exactly.

The truth is that nobody can make any kind of generalization without bringing up some political issue such as vouchers or assessment. Some private schools are used to reform bad apples, some are great for college prep, some are extensions of a particular religious group. "Private" is too broad of a term to rationally discuss, and public schools are probably even more variable depending on where you live since local neighborhood property taxes comprise a big chunk of the school's funding (richer neighborhood equals more money for neighborhood school).

If you and your friend got into an actual argument over this, then your time was unfortunately wasted. It would be like saying that all Japanese cars are better than all European cars or something as if there is only one Japanese brand and one European brand.


In fact I just wasted about five minutes myself.

We were referring to private schools for college prep. Granted, it will definately depend on the quality of public schools in your area. The argument here was did you do well because you went to the private school or because you were smart and had a lot of encouragment from your parents? Would you have done the same having gone to a public school? This is the argument I made.

Obviously, you can't compare something like Detroit Public Schools to a top regarded private school, but this was not the argument. The argument was regarding the average public school and average private school (regarded for sending its students to good colleges).

 

[SoCuteMD]

I will probably send my kids to a private school with a low student:teacher ratio until middle school and then give them the choice. I think my K-4 years at one of those schools gave me a huge edge in "learning to learn" and also "learning to love learning."

As an aside, my Catholic high school gave out 5 scholarships/year to the top entering students (class of 200). 2 people from my Catholic K-8 school (which I only attended for 7th and 8th grades) received the scholarships. Both of us had begun our educations at the same snobby private school. Coincidence? Maybe, but I don't really think so.

 

[jocg27]

but 9-12, private definitely. My prep school has a strong track record of putting tons of their students into top ivies... for my undergrad admission, it definitely paid off and if I were at pubic school, I don't think I'd have the same level of admissions counseling or that edge to get me to my undergrad.

.

Is this a better education, really, or an old-money elite pipeline from expensive private prep schools to expensive private universities?

I don't know the answer, so I'm not picking on you, or anything. I'm just wondering...

Does it even matter? I dunno, I guess there's an element of ends justify the means kind of thing... maybe that's the point of a high school, to get you into a great college, where real learning starts...if that's the case, then I suppose they are the best schools.

But still, on the whole, I'm not impressed that prep schools are more likely to send their kids to ivies. That seems like it'd be obvious to me, and I'm not convinced it's always because they're better schools.

If you bump it up a level to where we're at, I think you can get lots of people to agree that schools with the best match lists might not actually be the best med schools, at least not for everything. Lots of elite med schools send their students to competitive fields because people who gravitate towards those fields tend to go to those schools.

I went to public high school and turned out all right. And no, I didn't get into an ivy...but I also didn't apply, having no interest whatsoever in attending an ivy...

The point is, for med school and high school alike, you can't rank places in terms of how many kids go to yale/how many grads go to derm...Those things just don't appeal to everyone.

 

[indo]

who cares? I say go to the school that requires minimal work.

By the way, high school is 80 percent social developement and 10% math and 10% grammar.

In the rich suburbs private schools and public schools are the same. In urban districts public schools and private schools are on different planets.

 

[siinew]

what's better... public or private schools (K - grade 12)?

That seems like a really ambiguous question. So many factors make this about as answerable as something like "which is better, books or movies?"

However, in general... and this is very general, I think a good public school with a good academic record is a better life-preparation experience than a comparable private school.

I know there are a ton of negative things one can say about kids coming from either culture, as well as the "home-skooled" kids; but a lot of it has to do with the family environment and how they integrate into being involved in what their kids are doing.

I do think, however, that leaving religion out of the mix of a kid's life, is paramount to raising a relatively "normal," socially unscarred child. This is a statement made from a lot of personal experience, btw, and is not just an off-the-cuff remark to piss off holy rollers. So, my apologies if it does.

 

[Wizard of Oz]

We were referring to private schools for college prep. Granted, it will definately depend on the quality of public schools in your area. The argument here was did you do well because you went to the private school or because you were smart and had a lot of encouragment from your parents? Would you have done the same having gone to a public school? This is the argument I made.

Obviously, you can't compare something like Detroit Public Schools to a top regarded private school, but this was not the argument. The argument was regarding the average public school and average private school (regarded for sending its students to good colleges).

Well I wouldn't amend what I said too much, just that when you say average, you have to include a wide standard deviation.

Success in school is more about social surroundings and intrinisic motivation than good teaching or parental involvement. College prep or magnet schools might give a student an advantage because they place the student in an academically-challenging environment, and the kid responds to that pressure because he or she is intrinsically motivated. You are talking about society in general--rich parents who want their kids to be rich and successful can accomplish this either by living in a rich neighborhood and paying more in property taxes for the public school or by shelling out the extra cheese to go private. Either track will put the student in the right pond if the student truly wants to excel.

In my medical school, the associated undergrad campus feeds in half of all of our entrants (note this is true for most non-Texas schools in the Big 12 region). I am not one of them, but it is clear that these kids didn't get a better education than me, nor were they more prepared academically, nor did they have better teachers. They were merely relatively more motivated because their undergrad school had a more competative student body in general even though almost all of them came from the same set of public high schools. Go to a less presigious undergrad campus, and the competition between students is not so tight, so nationally based indicators of preparedness such as the MCAT show that the school performs relatively poorly.

Also make sure that the student knows how to socialize. I've seen kids come into college from uppity high schools with stellar test scores and perfect GPA's only to crumble like sand when you give them access to alcohol and/or sex. When you cast little Johnny out into a new pond, he's gotta sink or swim. College prep ends when college begins, and everybody begins with a clean slate. It is thus dependent on the student's intrinsic ability to compete that will allow him to do well. You can teach your kid to be a winner regardless of what school you send him to.

 

[siinew]

Well I wouldn't amend what I said too much, just that when you say average, you have to include a wide standard deviation.

Success in school is more about social surroundings and intrinisic motivation than good teaching or parental involvement. College prep or magnet schools might give a student an advantage because they place the student in an academically-challenging environment, and the kid responds to that pressure because he or she is intrinsically motivated. You are talking about society in general--rich parents who want their kids to be rich and successful can accomplish this either by living in a rich neighborhood and paying more in property taxes for the public school or by shelling out the extra cheese to go private. Either track will put the student in the right pond if the student truly wants to excel.

In my medical school, the associated undergrad campus feeds in half of all of our entrants (note this is true for most non-Texas schools in the Big 12 region). I am not one of them, but it is clear that these kids didn't get a better education than me, nor were they more prepared academically, nor did they have better teachers. They were merely relatively more motivated because their undergrad school had a more competative student body in general even though almost all of them came from the same set of public high schools. Go to a less presigious undergrad campus, and the competition between students is not so tight, so nationally based indicators of preparedness such as the MCAT show that the school performs relatively poorly.

Also make sure that the student knows how to socialize. I've seen kids come into college from uppity high schools with stellar test scores and perfect GPA's only to crumble like sand when you give them access to alcohol and/or sex. When you cast little Johnny out into a new pond, he's gotta sink or swim. College prep ends when college begins, and everybody begins with a clean slate. It is thus dependent on the student's intrinsic ability to compete that will allow him to do well. You can teach your kid to be a winner regardless of what school you send him to.

Yeah, I agree wholeheartedly to most of these points, especially those regarding social adaptation.

As one (of my many) personal examples... My oldest brother's 2 kids went to the most expensive private (religious) schools in both of the two places they grew up. One dropped out and ran away from home at the age of 16, the other made it into a few colleges, but has yet, at the age of about 28, to apply herself to anything consistently - including getting even just an undergrad degree. She's a mess.

My oldest boy graduates from a pretty typical, public HS next spring. He is carrying about a 3.9, great SAT scores, has lots of AP credits in both science and liberal arts classes, will be going to CC during his spring semester, wants to study environmental law, and is working feverishly toward obtaining scholarship money for any of his top target schools.

My daughter is not quite in junior high yet, but again, is a leader and successful all the way across the board, both academically and socially. I don't mean to be tooting my own horn here, or bashing private schools, but I definitely do think that the social train wrecks my nieces hit during and after HS were largely due to their highly sheltered and confined school environment for so many years. Less religious and more involved parenting would have probably made a big difference in their case... it wasn't all the schools' fault, but I think being a small fish in a big, diverse pond is a lot better prep for any kid when it comes time to spread their own wings. My $.02.