If we’d had even “very good” public schools, we wouldn’t have sent our son to a private school. If you have top-notch public schools, consider yourselves blessed and enjoy them. Your student can be just as successful from a public school as from a private.
You have to figure in the factor of wealth in the private schools-and not just wealth, but really freaking wealthy trustfundians who don’t operate on the same level (in any sense) that you or your kids will.
We were in a private school for a while where older DD’s best friend’s parents had donated a wing to the school. Their house was crazy gorgeous. Playdates were absurd. They still had a teacher that had no grasp of grammar or syntax, and a 5th grade that saw a 30% repeat rate so they could garner better scores on aptitude tests for the next year (and 13 years of exorbitant tuition versus 12 for many kids).
We transferred to an excellent public school for a better socially stratified fit and more accountability with teacher training and student testing. DD had to play catch up in first grade because she was behind the other kids academically. I’m glad we pulled her and her younger sister when we did-it was just a weird, weird experience at the private.
Of course, not all schools, public or private, are like this. But the social aspect is something to consider-and those kids are all aware of where they are in the pecking order in a preternaturally early age.
My kids went to a public school in Westchester that would be “upper middle class” compared to the “wealthy” districts that get all the love. Kind of a bi-modal school-- with lots of AP opportunities for the talented kids, but plenty of kids for whom AP is a distant thought, if thought at all. After freshman year, the school was more or less stratified, so that they were taking almost all AP classes with good (generally) teachers and talented peers. They did very well in the “college sweepstakes”. Paying 30k a year for private would have been a huge hit to our retirement planning. We are “happy” to pay 60k a year now for their colleges, as that was part of the planning. Given that you are in one of those “special” districts, I can’t imagine paying for private unless you have money that you don’t know what to do with.
I loved the campuses of the the 3 private HS in our area, but not the tuition. I also didn’t like all the fancy $$$$ weekend trips. Son could bike to the public. Since I had friends at the privates, I could compare AP grades. Our public had far more 5’s than the privates. I don’t think my son would have gotten a better education at OUR privates. Some of his peers are on great trajectories.
We have nothing like Horace Mann, but then, we have no Scarsdale. I saved my $ so son could have a wider choice of colleges.
This is an interesting discussion. I agree with several of the above views that if finances are a factor, especially if you have a well-rated public school just down the road, it is a no brainer. Your D seems like a bright student, so even if she is in a large public school, I was told that they place the bright kids in a special program of sorts so they still have the benefit of good company (like a private school typically offers) and good rigor and depth (that a public school with lots of resources offers).
For those who are fortunate to afford private school or boarding schools, then I think it is a matter of fit. There are some generalizable (but not absolute) differences: public schools are typically larger, more diverse socioeconomically, allow unlimited AP courses each year, but are also more competitive in athletics, have a more heterogeneous teach skill set and class difficulty, less guidance counselor 1:1 assistance; whereas private schools are smaller, more personal, less diverse (which can be good or bad), smaller class sizes, have a more holistic curriculum and may care more about “other factors” that make their students well-rounded, confident, creative, and liberal-arts educated, they allow fewer APs to be taken per year, but have generally harder classes, lower GPAs (e.g. hardly anyone in my D’s class have a WEIGHTED GPA of 4 or greater), lesser heterogeneity in teacher skills (i.e. more of the teachers are generally good to great, but nothing is absolute of course), more “sheltered” environment, perhaps more “rich kid programs”–language immersion and trips to various countries; esoteric summer camps, ski trips, etc.
Fortunately for us, we could afford a private school, so our D (also straight As like your D in all her middle school) genuinely looked at our public school (also one of the best in the area, not sure about “the country”) and her current private school (which she loved). Ultimately, she chose to stay in her private school. I think she chose well and chose the system/school that fit her personality. She is very smart, but did not have a lot of confidence; she places a lot of importance to interpersonal relationships which she got a lot from her teachers and classmates; while not a slacker by any means, she is generally not competitive, so she would have drowned in the zoo environment of our public schools; I personally am the complete opposite of her–I am/was (when I was in high school) pretty competitive, confident, willing to take anything and all the risks, easy to make friends with any gender/race/religion/background and would have chosen a large public school, or perhaps a competitive/cut throat private school. But I am not my daughter and she chose the school that fits her perfectly. Just like we advice kids to visit the schools before they select their college, I think the same thing should apply when selecting their high school.
If anyone wants to get some sense of what Horace Mann is like, check this out.
http://www.horacemann.org/
Thoughts, OP?
OP,
I am very familiar with your area as well as Horace Mann. I assume from your description that you are in the school district which is widely considered to be one of the best in the country. If sending your child to HM is not financially feasible, then you can’t do it. Your child will get a terrific education among her peers in her public school.
The difference HM offers from public schools is smaller class sizes, incredible course offerings, college counseling from counselors who have no guidance counseling commitments and have maybe 60 students each, probably 20 different AP offerings, incredible facilities,etc. Not everyone is wealthy, although a good number are and there are a number of “celebrity” kids. Kids who are not in the top 25% at HM can still get into very competitive colleges.
The colleges know that virtually all HM students are prepared to handle advanced college work. But, I bet that if you live in the public school district I think you do, that the colleges have the utmost respect for that school’s students, too.
I do not even have the courage to open the nursery school application to see what it entails @jonri
I believe that the question is not what is the difference between schools, but where your kid belongs. We live in OK public school district. However, my D. was in private k-8 for the simple reason that no public would take her as her birthday was 5 days earlier the deadline. We sent D… early to the kindergarten to one of only 2 privates that accepted her despite of her “low” readiness score. Anyway, her 8th grade class in the tiny private middle school had only 4 kids total. Our public HSs have about 500 kids in their class. We thought that sending our kid from the class of 4 to the class of 500 would result in great social shock and may be affecting our D’s future negatively.
Instead, we sent her to the private HS that happened to be #2 among privates in our state. Sending our D. to the school with 33 kids in class was much better fit or our D based on her background.
Question of which school is better than another has to be in connection to which school is better for a specific child.
In regard to the low readiness test - good that we ignored any advies from “professionals”. Kid never had a single “B” in her entire academic career and is graduating from the Med. School in May. This test proven to be bogus assessment of “readiness”
All it takes to be successful is doing ALL of your homework, all the time 
Suggest you download the high school profile off the web for the public school your child would be attending. Take a critical look at average test scores and matriculation. You can tell by looking quickly just how strong a public high school is. We’ve gone the public high school route and it’s worked out well. As noted above by others, a good private high school is probably going to cost $30K - $40K per year or $120K - $160K over the course of four years. The biggest difference between a good public and a private high school is going to be the quality and face-time available for college counseling. The average public high school counselor has a 480 student case load today. This would mean your child might have 1-2 hours / year of your counselor’s time. I don’t know the ratio of students to counselors in a good private high school but it’s considerably lower. You could easily afford the very best Test Prep and Independent Admissions consulting. We used Study Point for ACT and I think it cost $3500. Someone like Michelle Rodriquez or Kat Cohen is going to cost $20K - $30K if you buy the full range of their services starting very early. Now if your child would not succeed in the public high school setting due to needing small class sizes or individual attention beyond what they woudl get in a public school’s AP or IB program, then maybe private high school has some merit. It is true that some of the more selective private high schools have good success matriculating to Ivy League and top LAC’s. There is something to be said for a student who climbs to the top of a HS class of 1,000 or more students
You can’t tell much from average test scores. Our high school’s average test scores were about 500 for each SAT section, but the kids they actually took classes with (in honors and AP) had much higher test scores.
Average SATs are hard to judge because you don’t know what fraction of the kids are taking them. But if you can see average AP scores that gives you some idea how the honor students are doing. Looking at how many National Merit semifinalists/commended the school has also gives a rough idea of whether the school has a peer group of top students. You can also look at ECs your child may be interested in. Are they available?
The other thing to consider is how well A students in AP courses do on AP tests. If the most common AP test score for A students is 1, then that is not a good sign.
However, few high schools or districts give information of that detail. The Houston Independent School District does; see figure 5 of http://www.houstonisd.org/site/handlers/filedownload.ashx?moduleinstanceid=73138&dataid=123661&FileName=Advanced%20Placement_AP_2014.pdf .
No direct experience with Scarsdale’s lack of AP’s or New Rochelle’s not getting the love, but think this discussion is a bit unfortunate. Where is your child going to get an education that is most tailored to that child’s needs and where is your child going to be happiest. The 8 years of middle and high school are not just prep for college. They are your child’s childhood. Why teach a child that life is all about assessing future competition and gaining an edge? What that mentality will do is kill any academic spark your child has. By the time college applications roll around your child will be all about getting points and nabbing grades instead of all about being enthused by learning. Why not encourage interest in the world and academics and gaining knowledge instead of gaining an advantage and clawing points. Why not model a different mentality?
If you choose what I believe to be the better mentality, you will pick a school for your child that is most apt to keep your child engaged and enthused about learning. Forget the Jones’ s. How nice and convenient it would be for you if your student is learning and engaged in the community public school. Attending that school is also more likely to keep your child engaged in and committed to the community you live in. Where will your child be happiest?
In my area, amongst my acquaintance, families who can afford it tend to live in towns with excellent public schools and keep their children in public school. If they have a less successful child who they fear is being overlooked or simply not getting the attention or structure they need, they may send them to private/parochial. The kids in need of attention are generally sent to private, the kids in need of discipline/structure are generally sent to Catholic. There are other people who went to private school as children, who have family money, and who simply assume that kids go to private school if their families can afford it and never even try public schools. Those families may choose to live in the same comparatively upscale towns or in more urban areas where the public schools aren’t great. It doesn’t matter to them. There are Catholic families who simply assume that the kids will go to Catholic school if at all possible. There are Jewish families that assume the same regarding Jewish schools. There are Christian families who either home school or send their children to Christian private schools. There are some people who have money and are into the Waldorf school way of thinking.
In my experience, most people in the US with kids try, if they can, to live in the best public school district they can. Usually that means they spend more money on housing. If the OP’s family is spending as much as they can to live in Scarsdale or a similar school district, they are already investing heavily in their kids’ education. IMHO, if you are planning to send your kids to schools like HM–assuming that they can get in, which is a big assumption, no matter how bright they are–there is no reason to spend extra $$ to live in an expensive school district. Of course, there is always the matter of keeping your options open.
When we moved here, we deliberately moved to a town where we felt we could send our kid to public school, even though at that time he was in private.
In my area, no privates really compete academically with public IB programs, the stats from one public school with 69% free and subsidised lunches for NM is outstanding. The IB programs don’t restrict via boundary either. The parents who choose privates are often not especially savvy, and might have fees paid by corporate in their relocation package. I think the catholic schools here really only exist in the numbers they do as a perceived inoculation against the predominant religion, certainly not for academics.
The only people that I know who send their kids to private school in my westchester town, with one of the highest ranked high schools in New York, have money to burn or their kids have learning issues and need the smaller class size. Why would you want to pay our crazy taxes and send them to private school if money is not growing on your backyard trees. Our high school does VERY well year after year. The admissions counselors know the rigor of our school and the level of competition that exists. Just the stress alone of going to a school that is not in close proximity can be difficult for an overworked, and very tired teenager. The fact that she can’t be number one is a little disheartening to me in that you are actually focusing on that as a sixth grader. Kids who are not number one get into top tier schools, too. Just my humble opinion…
The 2 school profiles (Horace Mann and Scarsdale) are available to the public:
http://www.horacemann.org/uploaded/HoraceMann/PDFs/College_Counseling/HM_School_Profile_2014-15.pdf
http://www.scarsdaleschools.k12.ny.us/cms/lib5/NY01001205/Centricity/Domain/89/2014-2015ScarsdaleHSProfile.pdf