iRobot is incredibly good about replacing or repairing broken parts. I've had several roombas replaced and even a couple of batteries. Give their customer service number a call, but make sure your roomba is close at hand for serial numbers or examples of the problems you're experiencing.
I have a thing against a lot of canned foods particularly against canned meat. My mom didn't really cook and a special family dinner would be us sitting down to canned biscuits with Dinty Moore Beef Stew shoveled on top. When I got married, I actually thought that was how beef stew was made.
I am so glad I learned to cook- this stuff churns my stomach now. My mom and dad love coming to my house for dinner which is great because I can make them some really great beef stew now :)
I went to both public and private school. Private through 5th grade, and public thereafter. Private schools are better for self-motivated kids that already would excel in school anyways. I found I did better in public school due to diversity, and the fact that the competition was not as fierce for grades (less stress for me!). My brother, on the other hand, went private schools all the way. It was too stressful for him. He had to repeat the 10th grade... twice.
I am really struggling with this decision, but we are planning to send our son to public school. Don't look at public and private as an either/or option because sometimes there are other options out there. In our school district, we have magnet schools and that is the option we have chosen. Parents are required to volunteer three hours a year (which I would have done anyway) and you can get a "private school" education on a public school dollar.
So why not go there? I think that's probably the most FRUGAL option anyway. Get your kids into honors programs and it'll almost be like they're in a private school. I went to public school from K-12 and in college. Today, I'm a true blue rocket scientist. Tell ME that public education doesn't work. Go ahead.
As long as YOU value education and instill that value in your children, they will get the most out of school that they can. There is a lot there, if you look for it. The teachers aren't going to stuff knowledge into your head, but they'll present it so you can take what you want from it.
Great discussion, and I learned a lot. When my parents brought me from China to Hawaii we couldn't afford a private school, but from the sound of it I probably would not have survived in a private school since I did not know English at that time. In the public school I was able to be excused from English class and go to ESL class and quickly picked up English in about a year. Then in ninth grade I was accepted to a fairly fancy private school on full scholarship, but our family moved from Hawaii to California and I didn't want to be away from my parents. So they rented an apartment in a good school district so I could attend the school. That seemed to be the most economic choice. Later in my junior year of high school they purchased a home in a town that's seriously a block away from my high school, but happens to be over the county line and was valued a tens of thousands dollars cheaper than the house next door. My high school had a policy that said if you moved out of the district you can still be a continuing student as long as you maintain a B average. I really loved my high school and I don't think I would have fit in in that beautiful private school. So I do appreciate going to public schools and never really experienced the other choice. My husband said his parents let him choose his own schools and I think that is what we will let our kids do. If they like the public school they see then that's great.
I'm on a zero-based budgeting system as well, and while it trips me up here and there (overspent on Travel to see BF for example), it tends to work out pretty good because I want to see how low I can keep my other variable expenses...
I think it really depends. I've been to a mix-- public through 9th grade, private boarding school for the rest of high school, public college, private graduate school... and the only place where I really felt that I was *educated*, out of all of them, was the private boarding school. The rest were about the same quality regardless of price, probably at least partially because we lived in a good neighborhood.
That's a little odd as advice goes. If I had to research every single method of doing something before I post about it, I'll never be posting. I tried and tested it, it worked very well for me, and as someone who does this in my spare time, that's all I can offer.
And no-one has to do anything...this is a free blog with free advice, it's not an order or demand. If you don't like the advice, you certainly don't have to follow it at all. That's why we have comments, so people can give us feedback and readers know more about the article.
I'm no partisan but Jimmy Carter as an example? The man that literally wrecked the economy? For a supposed nuclear engineer, he was a true Nitwit.
To Quote from your article:
"Jimmy would have had you looking on the back of each appliance, reading how many amps it takes, estimating how many hours a day it'd be turned on, and then adding it all up."
That's Jimmy alright.
As far as zero-based budgeting, a good idea but no one's going to do it. A regular home budget isn't done by most households. What percentage of Americans even write out a budget, do you figure?
Public Schools are at a disadvantage not because of money - Private schools usually make due with less - but because of philosophy.
Public Schools emphasis on political correctness, diversity & making sure nothing 'damages' a child's self-esteem is misguided & leads to a de-emphasis on things academic. A simple example: whereas in most private schools (forget uniforms for a minute), if a student came in inappropriately dressed, say just wearing a baseball cap, in most cases in public school, teachers wouldn't even take note. They might even be afraid of a lawsuit. In private school, the student would be told to take it off & put it away.
When you think of all the money spent on public education (and I realize the mantra is give us more, more, more) and the poorly educated students they turn out, it's a bit mind-boggling!
Two problems: teachers' union and bloated administration. Teacher's unions understandably look out for their own interests, not the students. They wish for and really have no accountability. In most school districts, it's impossible to fire blatantly incompetent teachers. In NYC, for instance, the really bad ones they segregate to what is commonly referred to as 'rubber rooms'. There they don't teach, they don't do anything except maybe read the newspaper, and there they sit collecting salary, bene's and finally retirement!
I've often wondered why there isn't a Parent's Union looking out for theirs and their children's best interest. The PTA doesn't fulfill that role.
And, if you look at where public schools spend their dollars, too little goes to the classroom. Public schools have overdone bureaucracies with layers upon layers of un-needed personnel, paid very well thank you.
Private schools are far from perfect. I went to parochial schools through high school, and maybe it was my rebellious spirit, but I thought I had to go to college just to make up for what I missed.
For my daughter - 8 years old - we have her in a private school, a very good one. She's in second grade reading at a 6th grade or 7th grade level. No one bats an eyelash. With Math she's only a grade ahead. I pay dearly - 10K a year! And we live in a nice area where the public schools are good. I just figure that we're 'front-loading' the process, giving her a real head start and cultivating her love of learning. Maybe that will pay off, literally, when she gets to college age.
If you are going to write an article instructing your readers to do something, you should probably do enough research to understand why it works before you put it out there. As others have explained, this is not a worthwhile fix.
My wife and I will be getting 1200 from this it looks like, thanks for the info.
I have my wife to thank for all of it I think, I made ~100k in 2007 but she only made 20k.
I won't be spending it though. I think this is a really dumb move by the US government, I don't really understand how so many in congress thinks it IS a good idea and that it WILL work. I'll just be putting it my savings account or into an ETF.
I went to both public and private school and in my case I did much better in the private school but I lived in NY city where there are many many different types of private schools, there weren't choices for public schools other than specialized high schools when I was going to school.
I went to a progressive school, which was a great fit for me. It wouldn't be a great fit for every kid. I do agree that it does depend on the kid, some kids will do well where ever they go and others need a specific kind of environment to thrive. There isn't an easy answer as I don't think private school is always the answer especially if there isn't much variety, yes the academics might be better but the pace, culture etc may not be right for your child or your family.
I don't think there is a right or wrong answer. The only major drawback to public school for me is the standardized testing and not so good teachers and/or schools may focus on "passing" the test as opposed to actually teaching. For me that is a concern. However, magnet or charter schools may not have the same requirement to test every year.
To quote Vicki: "My experience is that kids who have learning disabilities, ADHD, Asperger's or other challenges do not do well in private schools. Most private schools look for kids who can do their work without extra motivation, basically, they look for the "good kids.""
I think this alone can reflect the so-called benefits on average as to why a private school is better- they only have kids without significant learning problems and families that are already "buying into" their education. Its only logical parents are more apt to be invested in the outcome of school when they are paying the greenback dollars.
Not that I could afford it anyways- I wouldn't choose private school for my kidlets if I had the money. My kids need to live in a real world- not a fabricated one of monied isolationists. They need to see other life situations- families not necessarily mirroring their own, how other kids with issues work through them, etc. I think my kids learn a great deal of empathy and support for their peers in the inclusive public school classrooms they are in. For example, my daughter (soon to be 9) takes great pride in helping a learning challenged friend catch up to the lesson when she gets back from speech therapy twice a week. I can see some here would say- its not her responsibility, she should be in an environment where she only has to deal with ehr own needs- but to what end? Complete self involvement? It seems we have enough of those types in the world already.
The only thing this does is set a script variable equal to the number that you put in (). It is just as effective to hold each side of your screen and chant, "please work faster, please work faster"
Reading this is by FAR the best thing that I've learned today. I'm a lifelong learner as well, and have already found three books I intend to read. Thanks!
I think this is highly dependent on the child. I attended public school from elementary through high school, but went to a private college. I hated school, but loved college. My son has attended both public and private schools. I don't necessarily believe that private schools offer a better education. The only difference is they push harder and move faster because the parents are paying for their kids to attend.
I put my son in a private school because the public school we were in was horrible. He wasn't learning anything. He was bored, unchallenged, plus he needed help fitting in socially and the school district was unwilling to offer him services based on his academics. I thought putting him in a private school would offer him a better education, with smaller class sizes, and I would see some positive benefits. It was the worst decision I ever made. My ten year old nearly had an emotional breakdown by the end of the year due to the massive amounts of work, the emphasis on written work, the fact that he didn't fit in, and by the end of the year he was so burned out, that I felt guilty for even trying this experiment.
We moved to a different school district, and he is back in public school. He is receiving the help he needed socially. The work is still unchallenging for him, most of it is a repeat of what he learned last year, but he does well. I don't think we need to worry about straight A's in fifth grade. The school has clubs, and he is in a science club that he really enjoys. It is a much better school than the private school I sent him to last year that cost several thousand dollars. It may not be the BEST public school in my area, in fact it is rated as a failing school, but it is a good fit for my son.
Before considering another private school, I'd have to see some reason why the public school system couldn't offer the same thing. My experience is that kids who have learning disabilities, ADHD, Asperger's or other challenges do not do well in private schools. Most private schools look for kids who can do their work without extra motivation, basically, they look for the "good kids." My son doesn't fit that profile. He's better off in a public school that offers him a certain amount of services for his learning disabilities and doesn't push loads of work on him. In private school we were doing at least two hours of homework a night, and often more like four or five. Now, we seldom do more than two. Usually homework is done in about an hour.
The only way I'd put a child like my son back in a private school is if it was a school specifically for kids with learning difficulties. Otherwise, he can continue to attend the local public school, even if it might not be the best school, until college. Then he can decide if he wants to go to a public or private college. I liked my private college experience, but I did end up paying back a lot of loans.
One thing to remember here is that the public vs. private debate is not an all or nothing proposal. You don't have to commit to either 13 years of one or 13 years of the other. I started kindergarten in a public school and stayed there until second grade, when we moved to a city that had bad public education. In fifth grade, we moved again, this time to a wealthy district, but one whose elementary education was only geared for the "lowest common denominator". By seventh grade, I'd reentered public education, and stayed there until the end of my undergrad studies.
Yes, it's expensive, but when the alternative just isn't feasible, it may be best to consider all the alternatives, one year at a time. From my experience in the schools I went to, "Are you coming back next year?" was a very common question.
Your husband makes some valid points -- and definitely items to consider, such as the cost of buying a home in a great school district vs. paying private school tuition, opportunity for specialized training, etc. Public charter schools and magnet schools can tilt the balance back toward public schools in some systems. There is a new magnet high school in my area offering specialized studies in biotechnology and computer engineering, for example.
You may have seen this report on the Nations (USA) Schools: basically, kids at private schools do perform better than those at public schools; but if you adjust for socio-economic factors, they perform about the same (depending on the grade and type of private school, public schools outperform private schools). The message being that you shouldn't make assumptions about what type of school is better but check out the schools, public and private in your area before making a decision.
In my area, parents are often surprised that, when they switch from private to public schools, their children lag in academic performance. So I should mention that I, too, attended public schools from elementary school through college.
I live in the Northeast, which should become relevant in a minute. I attended a Catholic grammar school and the local public high school.
I think it all depends on the child. In terms of higher education what you need is a big fish in a big pond (ultimately, if you can get it). Colleges and Universities are looking for diversity and those students who stood out among their peers. Now, this can be accomplished in a variety of ways, get them Irish Step Dancing and have them win Worlds, colleges will accept them. But, academically, it's harder to do.
My Catholic school was fine. I did have one amazing teacher in the 7th and 8th grade who made everything related to English a breeze from then on because, if you'll pardon my French, she kicked our arses and didn't take any BS and she was a nun. At the time we thought she was Satan in a habit but since I've learned to appreciate her and would call her one of my best teachers ever. After 8th grade 'graduation', many of my classmates went on to all female or all male Catholic high schools, a few to suburban public, and I went to the local, urban, not with the best reputation because I"m a rebel, public high school (Lawrence High in Lawrence, MA for any of you familiar). I came out 3rd in my class (I"m a total school slacker, I learn and retain easily therefore the effort necessary to make it to Valedictorian would have eaten into my social time, any tips on how to change this with my masters program are totally welcome.) with the actual highest SAT score in my class (loads of ESL students) and was accepted to all colleges applied, with the exception of Bowdoin and Tufts, classmates ranked lower than I but of a more ethnic persuasion were accepted at both. (Just for the record, that got me into UMass Amherst, Middlebury, Hamilton College, Tulane University, George Washington University and I think American University.)
Some would maybe make an argument that, yeah, I went to a subpar school and stood out, but how did I do in college?? Well, I went to Tulane, slacker mentality prevailed and I graduated with a 3.3 GPA, BA in Art History and plenty of time on my hands to party hardy at Mardi Gras. Since I've pretty much slacked around for a while without direction and now I'm going for my masters in education from UMass Boston and hope to teach in an urban high or middle school. See,the secret is these schools get LOADS of funding and loads of opportunities and my school, at least, was not plagued by the John Hughes syndrome (nerds, geeks, jocks, slackers), we knew we were all sort of underdogs in the eyes of the surrounding community and we bonded together. If you were in more advanced classes than someone else they didn't label you, they asked for help with their math homework. It was great.
Now, Lawrence High had a program were you could spend a semester at Phillips Andover and I took advantage of this. I will admit it was fun to live there, the food was free and plentiful and yummy, and the classes were interesting (we only took two I think, I took an acting class and Urban Studies which is why we were there, take the poor kids and see how they react, I'm not kidding) and we had to keep up with our work at LHS so our teachers came to visit once a week and we had no problems. My point is Andover has a place BUT the vast majority of people I met there and I think you can check this out, ended up at UMass. A large number of Andover grads do NOT end up at Harvard, Yale, Princeton, etc because those schools don't want them. They want big fish and you're basically competing with a bunch of people in the same boat as you, at best you're a fish in a fishpond. And I am not disparaging UMass at all, I almost went there, but who spends $20k + on high school for a kid hoping he'll get into the local, public, state University?
And, after all that, my point is, it's all dependent on the child. If you have a smart kid who will do well and needs a bit of a challenge, I'd send them public and not really worry about 'good' districts. (the 'good' district by me has lost all funding for sports, all art and all music, although parents might be able to pay a fee because the override or tax hike or whatever failed.) You can get an education anywhere and everywhere has good, dedicated teachers to help with this. There are also crap teachers everywhere. If your child needs extra attention or extra motivation, I'd go private because that's where they excel and the smaller class sizes would benefit. Students with a tougher time will not slip through the cracks as easily at smaller, private schools. That said, a student, if he or she wants to, can disappear in any setting.
Should I have children, I will struggle with this question myself. My main points right now is that I am adamant that they will pay for their own college education (most of it) and I will not reinvent their room at home in college by hiring a decorator, etc. I think that's stupid.
iRobot is incredibly good about replacing or repairing broken parts. I've had several roombas replaced and even a couple of batteries. Give their customer service number a call, but make sure your roomba is close at hand for serial numbers or examples of the problems you're experiencing.
I have a thing against a lot of canned foods particularly against canned meat. My mom didn't really cook and a special family dinner would be us sitting down to canned biscuits with Dinty Moore Beef Stew shoveled on top. When I got married, I actually thought that was how beef stew was made.
I am so glad I learned to cook- this stuff churns my stomach now. My mom and dad love coming to my house for dinner which is great because I can make them some really great beef stew now :)
I went to both public and private school. Private through 5th grade, and public thereafter. Private schools are better for self-motivated kids that already would excel in school anyways. I found I did better in public school due to diversity, and the fact that the competition was not as fierce for grades (less stress for me!). My brother, on the other hand, went private schools all the way. It was too stressful for him. He had to repeat the 10th grade... twice.
I am really struggling with this decision, but we are planning to send our son to public school. Don't look at public and private as an either/or option because sometimes there are other options out there. In our school district, we have magnet schools and that is the option we have chosen. Parents are required to volunteer three hours a year (which I would have done anyway) and you can get a "private school" education on a public school dollar.
Great discussion!
So why not go there? I think that's probably the most FRUGAL option anyway. Get your kids into honors programs and it'll almost be like they're in a private school. I went to public school from K-12 and in college. Today, I'm a true blue rocket scientist. Tell ME that public education doesn't work. Go ahead.
As long as YOU value education and instill that value in your children, they will get the most out of school that they can. There is a lot there, if you look for it. The teachers aren't going to stuff knowledge into your head, but they'll present it so you can take what you want from it.
Great discussion, and I learned a lot. When my parents brought me from China to Hawaii we couldn't afford a private school, but from the sound of it I probably would not have survived in a private school since I did not know English at that time. In the public school I was able to be excused from English class and go to ESL class and quickly picked up English in about a year. Then in ninth grade I was accepted to a fairly fancy private school on full scholarship, but our family moved from Hawaii to California and I didn't want to be away from my parents. So they rented an apartment in a good school district so I could attend the school. That seemed to be the most economic choice. Later in my junior year of high school they purchased a home in a town that's seriously a block away from my high school, but happens to be over the county line and was valued a tens of thousands dollars cheaper than the house next door.
My high school had a policy that said if you moved out of the district you can still be a continuing student as long as you maintain a B average.
I really loved my high school and I don't think I would have fit in in that beautiful private school. So I do appreciate going to public schools and never really experienced the other choice. My husband said his parents let him choose his own schools and I think that is what we will let our kids do. If they like the public school they see then that's great.
I'm on a zero-based budgeting system as well, and while it trips me up here and there (overspent on Travel to see BF for example), it tends to work out pretty good because I want to see how low I can keep my other variable expenses...
I think it really depends. I've been to a mix-- public through 9th grade, private boarding school for the rest of high school, public college, private graduate school... and the only place where I really felt that I was *educated*, out of all of them, was the private boarding school. The rest were about the same quality regardless of price, probably at least partially because we lived in a good neighborhood.
That's a little odd as advice goes. If I had to research every single method of doing something before I post about it, I'll never be posting. I tried and tested it, it worked very well for me, and as someone who does this in my spare time, that's all I can offer.
And no-one has to do anything...this is a free blog with free advice, it's not an order or demand. If you don't like the advice, you certainly don't have to follow it at all. That's why we have comments, so people can give us feedback and readers know more about the article.
I'm no partisan but Jimmy Carter as an example? The man that literally wrecked the economy? For a supposed nuclear engineer, he was a true Nitwit.
To Quote from your article:
"Jimmy would have had you looking on the back of each appliance, reading how many amps it takes, estimating how many hours a day it'd be turned on, and then adding it all up."
That's Jimmy alright.
As far as zero-based budgeting, a good idea but no one's going to do it. A regular home budget isn't done by most households. What percentage of Americans even write out a budget, do you figure?
Public Schools are at a disadvantage not because of money - Private schools usually make due with less - but because of philosophy.
Public Schools emphasis on political correctness, diversity & making sure nothing 'damages' a child's self-esteem is misguided & leads to a de-emphasis on things academic. A simple example: whereas in most private schools (forget uniforms for a minute), if a student came in inappropriately dressed, say just wearing a baseball cap, in most cases in public school, teachers wouldn't even take note. They might even be afraid of a lawsuit. In private school, the student would be told to take it off & put it away.
When you think of all the money spent on public education (and I realize the mantra is give us more, more, more) and the poorly educated students they turn out, it's a bit mind-boggling!
Two problems: teachers' union and bloated administration. Teacher's unions understandably look out for their own interests, not the students. They wish for and really have no accountability. In most school districts, it's impossible to fire blatantly incompetent teachers. In NYC, for instance, the really bad ones they segregate to what is commonly referred to as 'rubber rooms'. There they don't teach, they don't do anything except maybe read the newspaper, and there they sit collecting salary, bene's and finally retirement!
I've often wondered why there isn't a Parent's Union looking out for theirs and their children's best interest. The PTA doesn't fulfill that role.
And, if you look at where public schools spend their dollars, too little goes to the classroom. Public schools have overdone bureaucracies with layers upon layers of un-needed personnel, paid very well thank you.
Private schools are far from perfect. I went to parochial schools through high school, and maybe it was my rebellious spirit, but I thought I had to go to college just to make up for what I missed.
For my daughter - 8 years old - we have her in a private school, a very good one. She's in second grade reading at a 6th grade or 7th grade level. No one bats an eyelash. With Math she's only a grade ahead. I pay dearly - 10K a year! And we live in a nice area where the public schools are good. I just figure that we're 'front-loading' the process, giving her a real head start and cultivating her love of learning. Maybe that will pay off, literally, when she gets to college age.
Maybe?
If you are going to write an article instructing your readers to do something, you should probably do enough research to understand why it works before you put it out there. As others have explained, this is not a worthwhile fix.
I use the GRN membership. It allows me to be a semi jetsetter on a flashpackers budget.
Click my name to check it out.
Get out there and learn some new culture.
My wife and I will be getting 1200 from this it looks like, thanks for the info.
I have my wife to thank for all of it I think, I made ~100k in 2007 but she only made 20k.
I won't be spending it though. I think this is a really dumb move by the US government, I don't really understand how so many in congress thinks it IS a good idea and that it WILL work. I'll just be putting it my savings account or into an ETF.
I went to both public and private school and in my case I did much better in the private school but I lived in NY city where there are many many different types of private schools, there weren't choices for public schools other than specialized high schools when I was going to school.
I went to a progressive school, which was a great fit for me. It wouldn't be a great fit for every kid. I do agree that it does depend on the kid, some kids will do well where ever they go and others need a specific kind of environment to thrive. There isn't an easy answer as I don't think private school is always the answer especially if there isn't much variety, yes the academics might be better but the pace, culture etc may not be right for your child or your family.
I don't think there is a right or wrong answer. The only major drawback to public school for me is the standardized testing and not so good teachers and/or schools may focus on "passing" the test as opposed to actually teaching. For me that is a concern. However, magnet or charter schools may not have the same requirement to test every year.
To quote Vicki: "My experience is that kids who have learning disabilities, ADHD, Asperger's or other challenges do not do well in private schools. Most private schools look for kids who can do their work without extra motivation, basically, they look for the "good kids.""
I think this alone can reflect the so-called benefits on average as to why a private school is better- they only have kids without significant learning problems and families that are already "buying into" their education. Its only logical parents are more apt to be invested in the outcome of school when they are paying the greenback dollars.
Not that I could afford it anyways- I wouldn't choose private school for my kidlets if I had the money. My kids need to live in a real world- not a fabricated one of monied isolationists. They need to see other life situations- families not necessarily mirroring their own, how other kids with issues work through them, etc. I think my kids learn a great deal of empathy and support for their peers in the inclusive public school classrooms they are in. For example, my daughter (soon to be 9) takes great pride in helping a learning challenged friend catch up to the lesson when she gets back from speech therapy twice a week. I can see some here would say- its not her responsibility, she should be in an environment where she only has to deal with ehr own needs- but to what end? Complete self involvement? It seems we have enough of those types in the world already.
The only thing this does is set a script variable equal to the number that you put in (). It is just as effective to hold each side of your screen and chant, "please work faster, please work faster"
Reading this is by FAR the best thing that I've learned today. I'm a lifelong learner as well, and have already found three books I intend to read. Thanks!
Thanks! I'm glad you enjoyed the read. Its a great thing when you have a plan that works for you.
Kate
I think this is highly dependent on the child. I attended public school from elementary through high school, but went to a private college. I hated school, but loved college. My son has attended both public and private schools. I don't necessarily believe that private schools offer a better education. The only difference is they push harder and move faster because the parents are paying for their kids to attend.
I put my son in a private school because the public school we were in was horrible. He wasn't learning anything. He was bored, unchallenged, plus he needed help fitting in socially and the school district was unwilling to offer him services based on his academics. I thought putting him in a private school would offer him a better education, with smaller class sizes, and I would see some positive benefits. It was the worst decision I ever made. My ten year old nearly had an emotional breakdown by the end of the year due to the massive amounts of work, the emphasis on written work, the fact that he didn't fit in, and by the end of the year he was so burned out, that I felt guilty for even trying this experiment.
We moved to a different school district, and he is back in public school. He is receiving the help he needed socially. The work is still unchallenging for him, most of it is a repeat of what he learned last year, but he does well. I don't think we need to worry about straight A's in fifth grade. The school has clubs, and he is in a science club that he really enjoys. It is a much better school than the private school I sent him to last year that cost several thousand dollars. It may not be the BEST public school in my area, in fact it is rated as a failing school, but it is a good fit for my son.
Before considering another private school, I'd have to see some reason why the public school system couldn't offer the same thing. My experience is that kids who have learning disabilities, ADHD, Asperger's or other challenges do not do well in private schools. Most private schools look for kids who can do their work without extra motivation, basically, they look for the "good kids." My son doesn't fit that profile. He's better off in a public school that offers him a certain amount of services for his learning disabilities and doesn't push loads of work on him. In private school we were doing at least two hours of homework a night, and often more like four or five. Now, we seldom do more than two. Usually homework is done in about an hour.
The only way I'd put a child like my son back in a private school is if it was a school specifically for kids with learning difficulties. Otherwise, he can continue to attend the local public school, even if it might not be the best school, until college. Then he can decide if he wants to go to a public or private college. I liked my private college experience, but I did end up paying back a lot of loans.
Thanks for making that point. People are in this career to make a living, just like people in every other career. I don't understand the disconnect.
One thing to remember here is that the public vs. private debate is not an all or nothing proposal. You don't have to commit to either 13 years of one or 13 years of the other. I started kindergarten in a public school and stayed there until second grade, when we moved to a city that had bad public education. In fifth grade, we moved again, this time to a wealthy district, but one whose elementary education was only geared for the "lowest common denominator". By seventh grade, I'd reentered public education, and stayed there until the end of my undergrad studies.
Yes, it's expensive, but when the alternative just isn't feasible, it may be best to consider all the alternatives, one year at a time. From my experience in the schools I went to, "Are you coming back next year?" was a very common question.
This is profound. I will have to think about it.
Your husband makes some valid points -- and definitely items to consider, such as the cost of buying a home in a great school district vs. paying private school tuition, opportunity for specialized training, etc. Public charter schools and magnet schools can tilt the balance back toward public schools in some systems. There is a new magnet high school in my area offering specialized studies in biotechnology and computer engineering, for example.
You may have seen this report on the Nations (USA) Schools: basically, kids at private schools do perform better than those at public schools; but if you adjust for socio-economic factors, they perform about the same (depending on the grade and type of private school, public schools outperform private schools). The message being that you shouldn't make assumptions about what type of school is better but check out the schools, public and private in your area before making a decision.
In my area, parents are often surprised that, when they switch from private to public schools, their children lag in academic performance. So I should mention that I, too, attended public schools from elementary school through college.
I live in the Northeast, which should become relevant in a minute. I attended a Catholic grammar school and the local public high school.
I think it all depends on the child. In terms of higher education what you need is a big fish in a big pond (ultimately, if you can get it). Colleges and Universities are looking for diversity and those students who stood out among their peers. Now, this can be accomplished in a variety of ways, get them Irish Step Dancing and have them win Worlds, colleges will accept them. But, academically, it's harder to do.
My Catholic school was fine. I did have one amazing teacher in the 7th and 8th grade who made everything related to English a breeze from then on because, if you'll pardon my French, she kicked our arses and didn't take any BS and she was a nun. At the time we thought she was Satan in a habit but since I've learned to appreciate her and would call her one of my best teachers ever. After 8th grade 'graduation', many of my classmates went on to all female or all male Catholic high schools, a few to suburban public, and I went to the local, urban, not with the best reputation because I"m a rebel, public high school (Lawrence High in Lawrence, MA for any of you familiar). I came out 3rd in my class (I"m a total school slacker, I learn and retain easily therefore the effort necessary to make it to Valedictorian would have eaten into my social time, any tips on how to change this with my masters program are totally welcome.) with the actual highest SAT score in my class (loads of ESL students) and was accepted to all colleges applied, with the exception of Bowdoin and Tufts, classmates ranked lower than I but of a more ethnic persuasion were accepted at both. (Just for the record, that got me into UMass Amherst, Middlebury, Hamilton College, Tulane University, George Washington University and I think American University.)
Some would maybe make an argument that, yeah, I went to a subpar school and stood out, but how did I do in college?? Well, I went to Tulane, slacker mentality prevailed and I graduated with a 3.3 GPA, BA in Art History and plenty of time on my hands to party hardy at Mardi Gras. Since I've pretty much slacked around for a while without direction and now I'm going for my masters in education from UMass Boston and hope to teach in an urban high or middle school. See,the secret is these schools get LOADS of funding and loads of opportunities and my school, at least, was not plagued by the John Hughes syndrome (nerds, geeks, jocks, slackers), we knew we were all sort of underdogs in the eyes of the surrounding community and we bonded together. If you were in more advanced classes than someone else they didn't label you, they asked for help with their math homework. It was great.
Now, Lawrence High had a program were you could spend a semester at Phillips Andover and I took advantage of this. I will admit it was fun to live there, the food was free and plentiful and yummy, and the classes were interesting (we only took two I think, I took an acting class and Urban Studies which is why we were there, take the poor kids and see how they react, I'm not kidding) and we had to keep up with our work at LHS so our teachers came to visit once a week and we had no problems. My point is Andover has a place BUT the vast majority of people I met there and I think you can check this out, ended up at UMass. A large number of Andover grads do NOT end up at Harvard, Yale, Princeton, etc because those schools don't want them. They want big fish and you're basically competing with a bunch of people in the same boat as you, at best you're a fish in a fishpond. And I am not disparaging UMass at all, I almost went there, but who spends $20k + on high school for a kid hoping he'll get into the local, public, state University?
And, after all that, my point is, it's all dependent on the child. If you have a smart kid who will do well and needs a bit of a challenge, I'd send them public and not really worry about 'good' districts. (the 'good' district by me has lost all funding for sports, all art and all music, although parents might be able to pay a fee because the override or tax hike or whatever failed.) You can get an education anywhere and everywhere has good, dedicated teachers to help with this. There are also crap teachers everywhere. If your child needs extra attention or extra motivation, I'd go private because that's where they excel and the smaller class sizes would benefit. Students with a tougher time will not slip through the cracks as easily at smaller, private schools. That said, a student, if he or she wants to, can disappear in any setting.
Should I have children, I will struggle with this question myself. My main points right now is that I am adamant that they will pay for their own college education (most of it) and I will not reinvent their room at home in college by hiring a decorator, etc. I think that's stupid.