How are private high schools better preparing kids over public schools?

soozievt · June 8, 2011, 9:40am

performersmom (post 197), since you quoted me, I never implied or meant that drinking and drugs happens MORE at boarding schools than elsewhere. I was saying that it happens regularly and kids do get kicked out. Does it happen regularly in public schools and their communities? Yes, of course. Also, where I live, if caught doing these things outside of school, there are public school consequences as well (though you don’t get kicked out of school permanently).

PS…you mention local public school kids having parties with alcohol in their homes. The student I was advising at boarding school went to a party IN A HOME (a student at their school lived in the region), and many students were in attendance (my student, along with others lied as to their whereabouts), and the parents were not there and drinking was going on and a student died. So, even private school kids have parties in parent homes.

shoe66 · June 8, 2011, 10:11am

This thread has veered off into so many tangents, it’s hard to remember the original question.
Our family has experience with both public and private elementary and high schools. My wife teaches at a public school. She fully supported our decision to send the kids to private HS.
Not all privates, of course, are created equal. Some are little more than church-run cocoons so that their kids don’t have to mingle with the “big, bad” publics. (I’m being facetious, of course). The best private schools, though, have selective admissions and students are under steady scrutiny to keep up. Parental involvement is expected, and not just to make signs and cheer at the football games.
The privates create a more conducive atmosphere for students to attend the best colleges. They encourage all of their students to reach high. A lot of private school counselors have relationships with college recruiters. The private HS understand the admissions and scholarship game.
The HS I attended (senior class around 250) annually has 30-40 kids who become National Merit Finalists. Our local public HS, meanwhile, (senior class of around 900) had one NMF this year. It just wasn’t deemed important at the local public HS. They were too busy preparing for the state mandatory test.
But therein is the difference. The private high schools seem to never lose sight of their mission of preparing students for the next level – college. The public schools here, on the other hand, are only concerned with meeting the state requirements and getting their kids to the graduation stage.
Please don’t misconstrue this as being anti-public. There are many outstanding publics. My wife teaches at one. But there are differences. And we were willing to sacrifice and save in order for our kids to benefit from those private school “differences.”

07DAD · June 8, 2011, 10:25am

That gets back to OP’s original question of the level of preparation. I question whether in the general case being in the top 10% or 5% of a class at a poor public HS represents a student equally prepared (which to me means includes an educated intellect, good organizational skills training and a developed level of emotional maturity) with a student with the same rank in class at a private school with over half of their students in a class scoring commended or higher in the NM standardized SAT’s.

But I also think a student’s own drive is very important to whether he or she is a strong candidate for success at college. At least at the private school my son attended, there were highly self-motivated students of all SES. And, because of the liberal availability of scholarship money for able students of families at the lowest end of the economic scale, that pool included students who knew to their core that getting a great education that included college was their “way out.”

Since I believe that the SAT is now geared to test for well educated intellect, rather than innate intelligence, I might give the nod to the public school student using SAT’s since that student may have had to supplement the school’s efforts with self-education.

MiamiDAP · June 8, 2011, 10:42am

I agree that strong kids will succeed no matter what background. However, many of them will need remedial type of activity (maybe even paid tutors) especially if they are going to engineering/pre-med…other math/science based majors. Math/science are not taught properly at American HS’s, none of them. However, at private school, level of teachers is higher, as bad ones get dismissed quickly as well as student/teacher ration is much lower. D. mentioned that her regular classes at private prep. were definitely at higher level than other kids AP classes, which resulted in her getting job position (hand picked by prof.) as an SI for Gen Chem. prof (D. never took AP Chem, AP Chem was not even offerred at her school). Chem prof. thanked her many times for raising average grade in class. Sometime she was running sessions of 40 kids in class, getting more popular over time . Some kids suggested to her that maybe she should have taught in class, kids just understand their peers better. But the point is that her Regular HS Chemistry class gave her much stronger background than others got out of AP class. The same going for all her classes, including very strong writing skills. She never had single “B” in HS and continued with straight A’s at college.
However, drug/alcohol /wild parties problems are everywhere, nobody is immune.

ProxyGC · June 8, 2011, 11:18am

Didn’t read the whole thread (pardon repetition as a result) but–re those tutors–my kids who are now at their first choice, top LACs mde it through a top-ranked public HS in our area very successfully, with major external awards. The HS’s stats and college acceptances class all look as one would expect. The one stat you won’t see is how much well-heeled families spend on tutors (SAT and school subject), college counselors, external enrichment, lessons, etc., to work around or compensate for tenured but sub-par public school staff (we call it the tutoring tax)…I did not realize that private school families often resort to the same. The only way you could find this out would be to network with parents and tutors in the community. I went through the private vs public debate, but with a dearth of good private options, chose public, and stayed involved, making alternative plans to work around the poorest, otherwise unavoidable teachers. The biggest difference IMO is that private HSs can better manage their faculty. Teachers might flame me for saying this (and there are many in my family, so I am not unsympathetic to the challenges of the profession), but a tenure system can bring down quality. One other item to look at is, how are public schools funded, and what will happen to that funding over the years your kids will remain in school? Will programs be cut, class sizes increase, classroom assistants be cut, etc.?

MiamiDAP · June 8, 2011, 12:50pm

" did not realize that private school families often resort to the same"

-Actually, I have opposite experince with my D. being hired by college to tutor other kids, because it was apparent to prof. that her preparation was superior.
We have never hired any tutors/private conselors. Was not needed. She could spend as much time as she needed with any teacher at her private HS. I definitely agree that because of tenure system, quality of teachers at private HS’s is superior with some of them having previous experiences of teaching at college level. The bad ones are out right away, who can argue with that? The good ones are staying for much lower compensation, receiving more satisfaction from their job and huge support of families who pay tutions. However, D’s private HS and k - 8 private (religious) were very expensive even after Merit Scholsrship at HS. On the other hand, her private HS was one of the reasons she was on full tuition Merit at UG. All along we have been funding and still continue funding publics in our area, specifically HS’s with one of the highest real estate tax in nation. Of course, our income tax is funding public colleges.

Longhaul · June 8, 2011, 1:09pm

At our private and the numerous boarding schools we looked into a few years back:

<ol>
<li>Academically, the privates are able to offer various levels for each subject. Our public (and several surrounding publics) force the kids to choose a “track” and stick to it. This means if you are so-so at English and excellant in math, at our publics you must choose to be bored in math at the lower track or struggle in english at the all honors track. The privates seemed better equipped to choose the level by subject.</li>
<li>Many privates do not have gym. This serves two purposes - 1. permits more academics in the schedule. 2. satifies PE through a sport participation which compared to publics automatically gives students and EC even if they are not “varsity” athlete material.</li>
<li>Not true of all privates, but many that we looked into had an “Advisor” which is separate from the “counselor” and provides an adult to oversee the general well-being of the student. </li>
</ol>

And our private runs much the same as MiamiDAP’s - The only need for tutors is in the summer for kids who want to get ahead. During the year, our teachers are available at various times in person and some by e-mail/Facebook til late at night. This is not “required” by the school. It is just something the teachers do.

MomofWildChild · June 8, 2011, 2:12pm

At my son’s final boarding school, at the middle and end of every year the entire faculty met and discussed every single student in the school (about 400) to determine if there were any issues or any need for extra help/guidance and if the student should return the following year. Each student had an Advisor who they got to choose (within reason) and that teacher/coach spent a lot of time with his advisees both in the context of school and during free time. It was pretty amazing. I am still close family friends with my son’s advisor (AP History teacher and coach- been at the school 32 years and has a PhD) and got an email from him today. I consider him and the entire experience at that school a tremendous gift to my son and our whole family. None of the path our kids took was the way we expected, but at the end of the day it couldn’t have worked out better for both of them. We (parents) sacrificed a lot- not just financially but in giving up involvement in the day to day lives of our kids. It wasn’t always easy for them or us, but it was worth it.

ProxyGC · June 8, 2011, 2:29pm

Of all the generalizations made in the private vs. public school debate, I’ve never heard anyone claim that public schools have better counseling/advisement. It was the weakest link in our public HS experience.

MiamiDAP · June 8, 2011, 2:54pm

^We did not rely on conseling at all. Conselor did not even know most UG programs that I discovered for my D. She ended up going to one of them. After an awesome UG spreadsheet that I have created for her and her success at UG, D. has asked me to create the same for her Med. Schools. OK, she is starting at one of Med. Schools on my list in one month. The second one was very easy, D’s criteria was clear, very rigid and very simple. She ended up applying only to 8 schools (most pre-meds apply to about 25 - 30) and got accepted to 4 of them. Her list matched her stats very well which resulted in saving in application fees, travel, application time and much higher rate of acceptance. 
Do not rely on any conselors, good or bad, they have many kids, you have only one who you know much better than the best conselor in a world.

pwoods · June 8, 2011, 3:30pm

The problem with talking about “public” and “private” schools is that there are many different kinds of public and private schools, and a lot of it depends on where you live, as well as your socio-economic status. So allow me to put on my “David Brooks” hat, ignore the implications of class privilege, and present reductive stereotypes of the different kinds of private and public schools available. My hope is that people responding to the thread don’t just say “my child went to a public/private school,” but specify what kind of public/private school they went to.

Rural and lower-class suburban:

typical local public school (where most kids go to state schools and the top go to privates)

<ul>
<li>typical local public school that just happens to provide a great eduction (and is on the radar of top privates that like to pluck valedictorians for geographic diversity)</li>
<li>local private/parochial school that isn’t much better than the private and isn’t too diverse</li>
</ul>

Middle-class/Upper-class suburban:

typical “good” public school that gets top students into good private colleges and provides a decent education for everyone else

<ul>
<li>private/parochial schools that provide a nice alternative to public school and aren’t very well-known or diverse, usually have better ECs and sports than the public</li>
<li>rigorous, selective, and expensive private prep school that gives students a great education, where top students go to the Ivies and everyone else goes to lesser privates</li>
<li>good boarding school, which is similar to the rigorous private but with a different atmosphere</li>
<li>elite boarding school, similar to the boarding school but with name recognition on the level of an elite private, think St. Paul’s and Andover </li>
</ul>

Urban

bad “inner city” public school with metal detectors, TFA teachers, and a good portion of the student body that won’t go to college; constantly in danger of being shut down/replaced by a charter school

<ul>
<li>typical public school, generally in a nicer area than the “inner city,” with more middle-class students, lots of ethnic diversity, and students who will mostly go to good public schools</li>
<li>elite public school, often with selective admissions, which provides a better education than all but most elite private schools; top students win national science contests and go to Ivies, others end up at great privates (often on scholarship) and elite publics; think the NYC specialized high schools</li>
<li>good private school, largely upper-middle-class with some middle-class and lower-class students on scholarship, where parents worried about the urban public school system will send their kids if they can afford it; not a ton of name recognition, but almost all students will go to privates or elite publics</li>
<li>elite private prep school with very selective admissions and absurd tuition, a bastion of upper-class privilege and status, with great name recognition, where top students get into Ivies and elite privates, everyone else goes to a good private college; actually pretty ethically and economically diverse, since admissions is managed like an Ivy; basically an elite boarding school without the boarding; think Dalton, Collegiate, Spence, Sidwell Friends, etc.</li>
</ul>

ucbalumnus · June 8, 2011, 4:16pm

In areas with decent to good public schools, there may be a few academically elite private schools. But there are often many other private schools that may not be very special academically, but have some other aspect that attracts students (e.g. religious schools).

Whether a private school is worth it compared to a public school depends a lot on which schools are being compared, and the student.

MomofWildChild · June 8, 2011, 4:23pm

At even the “elite” private day schools in most cities, there are still a large number of students who go to state universities or even non-flagships that are close to home. Not everyone- even at the top prep schools- is cut out for a highly-selective university OR even WANTS to go to one! In Texas, for example, there were plenty of kids from the top private schools who didn’t really care about anything but UT (even non Plan II). Others chose SMU, TCU or A&M. Same with the good or even “elite” boarding schools. I assure you that there are plenty of kids who wind up at (gasp) state universities or lesser privates.

MiamiDAP- I don’t think you can generalize and say “don’t rely on a counselor”. Many counselors (especially at the private schools) are excellent and have contacts with many colleges and also have a good understanding of what a particular student’s chance of admission might be. Most parents can use the help. I agree that this forum is a tremendous resource, but a good counselor can be a great help in presenting the student in the best light.

marysidney · June 8, 2011, 4:30pm

I know a couple of kids who went to a private school, not an “elite” school, who were up until 1 or 2 in the morning most nights, just to get their work done (and it wasn’t because they were procrastinating, it was because their work load was so intense). They did well, but I know they were extremely stressed by it. I can’t help but think that the idea that more work, more preparation, more pushing, will result in maximal results is flawed. Kids have much developmental work to do in puberty and adolescence, not to mention, they need some sleep. They need time to relax and be themselves. While I would like to send my kid to private school, because I think he would benefit from smarter classmates and better teaching, I do not want to enter him into a pressure cooker worse than the one my daughter is enduring in public high school. I want better teaching, not just more teaching; more effective homework, not just more work.

performersmom · June 8, 2011, 4:38pm

pwoods- you nailed it on the classifications very well!
EXCEPT that I agree with MOWC about the colleges now attended by the elite BS and elite prep day schools- they are not getting the kids into as many tippy tops these days: the range of schools has changed, i.e. fewer Ivies, more below that, and more State U’s, and more under 50 schools.
They are far from feeder schools, and the top colleges limit how many they take from any given school. Also, the colleges tend to cherry-pick (all qualified but not necessarily the top students) URM’s, legacies, recruited athletes from the elite privates. Lots of kids are looking at different options from these school these days. The education is excellent (rigorous in both quality and quantity, breadth of offering, small classes, engaged students) no question, and the competition among the kids is high, so it is no cake walk. These places end up being pressure-cookers for some kids, so they burn out and look at the lesser colleges.
At these elite schools, the GC’s generally know the AdComms and the AdComms know a good amount about the schools (might have a negative take, too!), so that is a potential advantage. BUT the GC’s also spend a lot of time lowering each student’s expectations of where they can get in, rightfully at times, and also in a way that serves them and the school, not the student: they want to get everyone in somewhere, and avoid clumps of applicants to the same colleges, and want to advertise that a high number got into their 1st choices.

nemom · June 8, 2011, 4:42pm

Private vs. public is just too broad to make any reasonable statements about. The best school for your kid could be either depending on : your kid, your finances, your logistics and , of course, the particular schools you have to choose from.
Some, but not all , private schools offer much more guidance and support. A college counselor may be dealing with as few as 20 seniors (and equal numbers of underclassmen), and may be very knowledgeable about colleges, admissions, tests, scholarships, etc. Classes may be very small, and the level of expectation very high from both school and parents. Teachers have a smaller number of students to deal with and hence more time.
But, this isn’t true of all private schools. Most also have strong ‘personalities’ which may not work at all well with any given child. Here in the NE, for example, most private schools expect a high level of interest and involvement in a small set of sports.
Private schools are generally smaller than public schools and may have a smaller set of choices (although they will often have a lot of high level courses).

soozievt · June 8, 2011, 5:33pm

Someone mentioned above that independent college counselors are used more by families of public school students. I am an independent college counselor and I’d say about half of my families are from public schools and half are from private schools, including private schools with well regarded college counseling services.

On another topic:

This is the problem with so many of the broad generalizations on this thread. i think we each speak of the public and private schools we KNOW. For example, given the above statement, I can tell you that our public school has various levels of classes in each subject area and a student can take the hardest track class in one subject and an easier level in other subjects. I work with many students who attend private and public schools and those who go to these various public schools from ACROSS the country, all seem to be able to choose a more rigorous level of courses in some subjects and not in others. This is definitely not something only true of private schools. Choosing levels by subject, in my experience with many students over the years at public and privates in many different regions of the country is very common. And it certainly is the case at what some of you likely would consider our crummy rural public high school.

07DAD · June 8, 2011, 5:36pm

Well, once again the OP was asking about levels of preparation, private versus public.

It is somewhat self-evident that any given student may or may not be a good candidate for the style of any particular school. At my son’s private day school, there was turnover that was not all related to parental relocation. Candidly, some boys were miserable in the environment. Each year there would be some who chose not to return.

It could be (and was) made worse for some boys who did not leave when their parents did not understand that someone had to be getting C’s since the class was taught at a level to stimulate and challenge even the most gifted in that subject.

IMO–if a student has to regularly study till one in the morning to keep up in a private HS, he isn’t cut out for that particular school. I recall that over the 9 years my son was there, at least 3 or 4 boys had emotional/mental(?) breakdowns that resulted in the student withdrawing.

My son’s school did withhold an invitation to return the following year to some boys who it viewed as not being able to thrive academically at the school. And, my son reported that on more than one occassion, someone would cross-over the line on some ground for being expelled to get out.

But for those who thrived on the stimulation and challenge, the preparation was beyond compare for them.

JHS · June 8, 2011, 5:53pm

Yup. It’s clear that when people talk about “public schools” or “private schools” in this thread, the schools they are talking about in each category may be completely different kinds of schools, and the comparison between the two categories may be completely different as a result. There’s no one-size-fits-all analysis that’s worth anything.

soozievt · June 8, 2011, 6:41pm

07Dad, I don’t think one can conclude that if a student stays up until 1 AM with schoolwork, that he/she isn’t cut out for that particular school. My own kid often was up to 12:30 AM on schoolwork (sometimes slightly later, sometimes slightly earlier depending on the night) but not because she could not handle the work (and this was in a rural public high school). Most days, she had extracurriculars after school and in the evenings, often getting home at 8:30 PM or 9 PM most nights. So, she had at least three hours of homework to do after that each night. She also has high standards and doesn’t cut corners. She was also in sports on weekends, but when she wasn’t at that, she was also doing many hours of schoolwork every weekend. I don’t see that as not cut out to do the work but more that she was a hard worker with high standards who was heavily involved in ECs every afternoon, every evening, every weekend, and even some mornings before school began.

How are private high schools better preparing kids over public schools?

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