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

Parents Forum
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<p>That certainly wasn’t our experience, or that of the majority of private school grads we know. Some say “coddled”, some say “nurtured” or “mentored”.</p>

<p>My nephew was a 3.8 top suburban public school grad. He had a ton of credits from a CC from senior year in high school which let him graduate from college in 3 years. He can barely write. Just one example.</p>

<p>As we keep saying- every school district is different and the range of private schools is great. We all have our stories.</p>

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<p>This thread reminds me of the mom has an outside job/mom stays home debate. There is no right answer.</p>

<p>Public schools vary widely. Private schools vary widely. There are GREAT public schools. There are GREAT private schools. Some kids will do well anywhere. Some kids will do poorly anywhere. </p>

<p>My kids have been in both public and private schools. I would love to have had them go through public school, but with our local changes, it just wasn’t worth being in the experimental group.</p>

<p>One observation I have had with private school parents (this is only two schools over five years) is that they usually say that their kid LOVES the school. I could not say that about either of my kids. The private schools were/are not perfect. But they beat our alternative. I have often thought that parents paying feel as though their children must love it because it costs more.</p>

<p>We do what we can for our children because we love them. We make choices based on what we think is right–and what we can afford if we are paying the bill. I think that parents on both sides stereotype the other side. I know that I think that people who are happy with our public schools are just not paying attention or their kids can teach themselves. When I was a public school parent, I thought that the private school parents thought they were pretty hot stuff (this stereotype has been confirmed BTW).</p>

<p>I will be happy when the private school days are over. I imagine that my second child will attend a public university as child number one did.</p>

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<p>Personally, it just depends upon the area. I live in what you may call a “high maintenance” part of Florida, so the private schools and public schools are almost identical. Essentially, the only difference is that the private schools cost money… My public high school offers more AP courses than any private school/public school in the county, but of course, that’s probably because of its substantial size.
Sure, the kids will be better prepared in some areas, but in others it’s just the same. Regardless of preparedness, public school children are able to get into selective universities all the time because these schools look at the opportunities offered to the child in that school and identify the limitations on the child’s education.</p>

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<p>You are engaging in the same generalizations you accuse others of: so now it’s not only that school types are generalized; parents of those children are stereotyped as well.</p>

<p>Well you don’t know me, and you don’t know plenty of parents like me. My opinion of public school parents is only one thing: They got lucky in terms of local options; I got unlucky. That’s not a value-judgment. I would have made the same choice as they did had there been an option between a State prison environment (gang accessories included) and a private school. In our case, and in the cases of millions of other families, there isn’t. </p>

<p>Is everybody on this board from the East Coast or the mid-West? Apparently none of you have actually lived in the deep South, or recently on the Left Coast. Everyone’s from a tony 'burb. I guess the world revolves around NY, MA, and VA. Who knew?</p>

<p>Actually, I should amend my statement: in a way, I got “lucky,” too, in that had I not given birth to talented daughters, they would not have earned scholarships (which were merit as well as need) to their fine privates. The families less lucky, who don’t want to send their children to the local State prison for the under-aged, homeschool. Some charter, if they have that option, but that option is also not available to all, only to certain pockets, and depends on enrollment, especially in those areas where the demand for charters is huge due to failing and violent schools.</p>

<p>The public school system in this country is not “in this country” but in the particular region. They vary by night and day. Privates also vary, as I said in one of my first posts here. Some Catholic schools are mediocre, but those might be the only non-prison environments in certain residential areas. Other Catholics are terrific, teaching independent thought, offering special classes beyond AP’s, and teaching their students not to stereotype. Hmmm. Some private secular schools are just like the latter Catholics; others, i.m.o., are political indoctrination factories (extreme left, not right): I had the option of sending my children to one of those; the academics were excellent, but I thought better.</p>

<p>There really are no common points of comparison here. The only thing I’ve discovered here is the amazingly ignorant stereotyping being done about parents of various school attendees. (Yeah, what a jerk I am for sending my kids to a safe environment.)</p>

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<p>One thing I don’t get (as one of those nose-in-the-air private school parents) is the big focus on how many APs are offered. While APs were a nice part of the private and boarding schools my kids attended, they were not the ultimate prize, and, in fact, at my son’s boarding school most of the students didn’t take APs across the board, because the regular curriculum was plenty challenging and the work load was intense, so they took APs in their areas of interest. Amazingly, they still got into college! Same with Interlochen. Challenging academics, but not all that many APs. The kids could still take the AP exams, though. I was never driven to count the number of AP classes when evaluating a school. Who knew? To me there were so many more important things- like the involvement of the faculty with the students, the closeness of the school community and the development of critical thinking and love of reading.</p>

<p>Agree with epiphany. See how many of the public school parents would have been comfortable with the Dallas public school that was our public (which, by the way, was not as close to our house as about 4 privates). No, we were not in a position to move.</p>

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<p>We moved our kids to a very rigorous private because they were getting very arrogant in their public school. The work was just a joke. They were never challenged and they were starting to be pretty okay with that. It worked. Private school humbled them, challenged them and we would make the same decision again.</p>

<p>The big irony, for me, is that so many assume private school kids are conceited. Not our experience. They have a healthy respect for just how competitive the intellectual world really is.</p>

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<p>I am going to be a senior and I attend the top Catholic high school in my area. There is really only one better school in my city, but its tuition is double ours and it is a very elite prep school with boarding. That said, even though my school is said to be academically rigorous and has a great reputation in my city, It is similar to a good public school in which the top students and recruited athletes get into ivy leagues and top colleges, but where the majority go to decent state schools, and the lower part of the class goes to lower state schools. I’m not the greatest student, ranked 65 among 200, but I can tell you that although the academics are better at our school (not by that much though) than the local public schools, that the academic part is not the upper hand we receive that produces many successful graduates. I believe the social environment (class mates, teachers, etc.) of going to an all boys private school generates this type of savvy within one’s self. In my time attending high school, I have learned to get what I want and really operate (as bad as that sounds), as many of my classmates have too and somehow it prepares us for success in college. I think overall, the advantage of private schooling is something much deeper than the strength of academics and could probably be studied by sociologists.</p>

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<p>As a private school parent, I completely agree. My kids’ private HS has chosen to have only three APs. The administrators and the teachers see the AP curriculum as too limiting and not enriching. Approximately 15% of the class matriculates to Ivies/Stanford/MIT/Caltech, and more than half of the graduating class matriculates to those schools or other top 25 universities/LACs. So, I guess the kids do just fine without APs!</p>

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<p>To epiphany, I am from the “left” coast and attend college in the deep south, so I’m familiar with the school systems of each region.</p>

<p>In a perfect world, public schools would be excellent and meet the academic and social needs of every student. Unfortunately, that is not the case and people have to make a decision about sending their children to a public school or paying for a private school.</p>

<p>In my home state, schools vary a lot in quality, but state law allows children to attend any public school (and even most public colleges and universities during their last two years of high school) tuition free and has done so since at least 1993. While my assigned high school was not very good (50% free and reduced lunch, many ELL students, gang activity, etc.) and recently won a grant to separate the school into 5 “academies” that effectively stifled course selection and opportunities to take many AP courses, I was able to attend the district’s other high school. While it was slightly larger and has a reputation for being a druggie school, it is by far the top school in the county, part of the reason being that the school is located in a very popular suburb only a mile away from a Fortune 50 company. Academics, arts, athletics, you name it, the school is at the top in the state and opportunities are open to all interested students. I feel privileged to have attended there. </p>

<p>As for the privates in my area, the general consensus is that parents place their students there primarily for religious or athletic reasons, though many do believe it will give their more “average” students a better education. That said, one has to realize that this region of the country does have a very cooperative mindset inherited from its Scandinavian heritage.</p>

<p>In the deep south however, the attitude seems to be that if you don’t live in a posh suburb or a small town with no private options, you will attend a private, often single-sex, school. When I first heard about this, I was very surprised. The thought of the public school system being so bad was a foreign concept to me. I couldn’t fathom my parents paying $10k a year for me to attend a religious, single-sex high school like many of my friends attended. In fact, I famously told my parents that they couldn’t send my brother to a private school because there wouldn’t be any money left for me to go to college. </p>

<p>I ended up spending a week in a public middle school near my university doing a volunteer project and will readily admit that I would have dropped out of school had I attended the school system near my university. I couldn’t stand seeing the children being treated much like criminals and being forced to do things that were not unlike activities that were banned by the Supreme Court decades ago. Upon further discussion with a long time resident and educator, I found out that while there were some better public schools, they aren’t much better and the local private schools are somewhat worse.</p>

<p>There was a discussion about calling non-students ma’am, sir, or Miss Firstname. To me, that is a cultural thing and does not reflect respectfulness or class. To me, it actually feels somewhat insulting to address a person in that manner, especially one that you know well. I tend to address adults a generation or more older than me by their first name, a nickname, or by their title and last name, if I have a reason to use their name at all. It may have something to do with a my home region having less of a class structure than other parts of the country, but that is how I was taught to address people.</p>

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<p>Independent School Management is a consulting group/consortium to which many independent private schools belong. I have read ISM’s publications, and they are pretty much opposed the the whole AP program - they feel it is too limiting and leads to teaching-to-the-test instead of deeper study or stimulating intellectual curiosity.</p>

<p>I think if you live in an area with decent public schools, the strongest arguments for private school aren’t academic - they’re the other pieces, the “extras” that private schools offer. Whether that is a religious component, a focus on character or service, individualized advising, language immersion, specialized focus on the arts or a sport, etc - I believe those are the reasons people really chose private schools (unless their public schools are truly weak academically - but most suburban public schools can provide a solid academic education for kids who are motivated, at least here in New England). </p>

<p>Those extras may or may not provide an edge in college - but that’s not the point. The point is what they provide your child NOW, at this phase in their life, and what the child will carry forward with them for the rest of their lives, long into adulthood, in terms of values, or whatever the private school’s special calling card is.</p>

<p>That, in my opinion, is the legitimate reason for paying for a private school. Otherwise, spend your money to buy a house in a better public school district rather than paying private school tuition, and let your tax dollars provide your kid with strong academics.</p>

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<p>But that is no longer true in my state. It used to be. No longer. The reason is the demand: people got wise to this loophole, exploited it, and the good publics became understandably protective. It was even true until recently that if you had a “special reason” to attend said (more distant) public – say, to access LD services for an LD diagnosis, and there was no LD support at your local public; say additionally, to continue a foreign language no longer offered in your local public; say thirdly, because you had tested out as GATE and your own school had no functioning GATE resources – you could gain a special admit to that school. This is no longer an option. It is an option for the unscrupulous to fraudulently claim residence, and there are some who do that and get away with that (I was encouraged by others to do that), but personally I like to sleep at night.</p>

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<p>My (previous) point exactly.</p>

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<p>Well, sorry, but as a parent, I am more concerned with the undeniable fact that the children are doing criminal activities. My first moral and legal responsibility is not to the criminals (or their treatment), but to my children’s safety.</p>

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<p>We are actually in agreement. The well-known loophole that allowed me to attend my chosen high school is closed to many because the high school is classified as overcrowded. I’m familiar with the suggestion to switch ones address to gain admission to a better public school and am also familiar with the struggle to get out of a failing school in order to get the academic needs of students on near-opposite ends of the spectrum met, not to mention the difficulties faced when transferring between school systems.</p>

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<p>I was referring to students being treated like criminals without just cause and for things that are not illegal ie having an “unnatural” hair color on a school spirit day or wearing black jeans instead of blue. I’m all for stopping criminal activity, but I don’t support restrictive social measures designed to curb individuality that is not related to illegal activity. I understand prohibiting gang attire and having gun, drug, and alcohol free schools,etc.</p>

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<p>This debate is really quite silly as there are so many variables that impact the quality of both public and private schools. Stepping back for a second to the original questions posed “how are private schools better preparing kids over public schools,” if we assume all things are equal (curriculum, number of APs offered, EC opportunities, quality of student body, etc.) between two schools, a top private and top public in a specific region, the only differences in college prep that are generally (there are sometimes exceptions) better at private schools are: </p>

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<li>College Counseling: Top public schools still don’t have the resources / connections / etc. to compete with top private schools that have former HYPSM adcoms running their counseling programs and focus on a smaller number of students.</li>
<li>Faculty: The faculty at top private schools generally all have PhDs and advanced degrees from top schools while most top public school faculty don’t as those professors will migrate to top private schools because of compensation (again this doesn’t mean that there aren’t top publics that don’t fit this but personally I have never seen a public h.s. where 90%+ of the faculty has an advanced degree). One could argue that having more academically prepared faculty doesn’t necessarily mean they are better teachers…that is another debate entirely. </li>
<li>Student / Faculty Ratio: Top publics again cannot compete with top private schools in this due to resource constraints, etc. Theoretically, this implies that students are getting more individualized attention from their professors which obviously can only help in preparing students.</li>
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<p>Again these are generalizations and you could say that some of the above are better when you compare a top public school to a crappy private school but in the above we are trying to compere the top of the top for each category and I would argue that all of these hold true in most regions of the country when you compare the top public school in any city to the top private school in any city.</p>

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<p>I’m relieved. :wink:
However, I’m going further than that. Mine have been the more salient concerns that the guns are being loaded, aimed, and fired, that documented stabbings and rapes have occurred, etc. (Even more important to me than carrying or wearing concerns.)</p>

<p>I agree that policies that have not been stated have no legal enforceability. However, virtually all charter schools which have replaced these gang annexes require uniforms and conforming attire/grooming as an element of respect/discipline/consciousness of focus.</p>

<p>No, people do not deserve to be arbitrarily harrassed for unknown infractions.</p>

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<p>I think that when choosing a private or public school, it ultimately falls down to the student. There’s never really going to be a uniform answer for everyone.
In my own personal case however, I feel like attending a private school has placed me in a position to easily succeed in life. Like other posters have mentioned, alumni of my H.S. say that their college course loads are easy after what they’ve been through at my school.</p>

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<p>As someone who attended a Public NYC specialized HS, nearly everyone in my graduating class along with myself had the exact same experiences in college…even those at the Ivies. What you experienced is not the sole preserve of private schools. :)</p>

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<p>I am currently a rising junior at a decent public high school. The math and science teachers are great though the others are crap for the most part. There are academic clubs and the student population is ok. But i absolutely hate the environment.</p>

<p>Why? Well, i’ll be honest, i’m a very driven person when it comes to academics. Sadly, not one single person in the school (regardless of class) is as driven as i am. I have always tried to get others involved, so that i wouldn’t be alone, but it just never works. As a Sophomore, i was at the top of my class, and i had a better grasp on math and physics/che than did most seniors. I am by no means bragging - i do not consider myself in anyway a genius, or even close. But i lack a stimulating environment in which to learn - at school at least. I supplement this with a lot of independent study, and math and science competitions. This provides me with the competitive atmosphere i crave, and i find myself surrounded by peers who are much more impressive than myself - it doesn’t phase me, it just pushes me to be better.</p>

<p>Anyway, that’s just my case. Personally, if i were a parent, i would do something along the lines of:</p>

<p>Start sending child to programs like Kumon at age of 2 or so: [Kumon</a> Learning Centers | Help Your Children Reach Their True Potential](<a href=“http://www.kumon.com/]Kumon”>http://www.kumon.com/)
When it’s time for elementary school, homeschool instead. From ages 5-10, guide the child but don’t push. Accelerate the curriculum to 2,3, or 5 times the rate at which schools do it (trust me, it’s not pressure on the child, public schools waste SO much time). Look for a competitive middle school, private or magnet. For High School, i would suggest having your child apply to top notch college prep academies like Phillips Exeter Academy. There are few places in the world like Phillips Exeter academy, and the other schools on it’s tier. </p>

<p>All the while, throughout your child’s growth, make sure they study hard, but also play hard. Let them try out a few sports, if they find something they like, focus them in on that. Same goes for other extracurriculars.</p>

<p>It may seem like this is a very controlling plan. But understand this: children are curious and wish to learn new things, and it is your job to guide them. By accelerating their learning, your doing them a great justice - you are giving them the opportunity to be far ahead their peers, and to discover something they love in life.</p>

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<p>I suggest reading llazar’s post (298) and sewhappy’s post (286). One of the issues I think gets overlooked is the plight of the child who is ahead of the other children of his or her age by magnitudes. That child really can suffer and possibly go “off the path” if left to an educational environment that is not challenging to that student.</p>

<p>One local public school district has a talented and gifted program starting in grade school. They have a specific teacher at each grade school just for the classes for those kids. But, the kids only attend approximately one hour a day in the TAG environment. </p>

<p>One such teacher told me that for a kid at the highest end of the TAG selection criteria, that one hour did not come close to providing an experience that benefited the student. She pointed out that bored kids often became problem kids in the non-TAG portion of their day even in grade school. </p>

<p>She identified the additional problems of that child being viewed negatively as different by the other students and ultimetely “hated” for being the brain and “always knowing the answer.” </p>

<p>She said that from her conversations over the years with the TAG teacher at the middle school level, being in a public school with only a TAG program a few hours a day in grades 5-8 had disasterous effect on the truly gifted student. These kids were negatively branded for being gifted. The school was not vey willing to give acknowlegement, much less accolades, if the student say “knocked it out of the park” on the SAT taken as part of the Duke TIP program for fear of offending the parents of the other students.</p>

<p>An academically focused private school that has lower and middle school can make the difference for such a student.</p>

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<p>It is a funny system…Colleges will look at the level of class rigor a student chooses. However, ‘rigor’ is based on WHAT THE HS OFFERS. In other words, if an elite prep offers 15+ AP’s but a student chooses to take ‘only’ 3 this is seen as a negative. If on the other hand, a HS offers only 3 AP’s and a student takes 3 this is then the most rigorous course load available and seen as a positive by adcoms.</p>

<p>My sons’ private is currently debating offering fewer AP’s for this very reason.</p>