<p>“Look at those rich people eating in that fancy restaurant!”
“Yeah…you know the food isn’t really any better there than at Applebee’s.”
“Right–they just eat there because it’s fancy-looking and makes them look like big shots.”
“Yeah–and because they don’t want to mix with the common folk.”
“Right–and that rich food they’re eating isn’t even as healthy as the food at Applebee’s–it’ll probably make them sick, as well as fat.”
“Yeah!”</p>
<p>“You don’t know why people send their kids to private school. It maybe as simple as better education in a better environment.”</p>
<p>In Manhattan, when I was there, it was pretty simple. for us.
- Better academic match for kids, so they could advance at the level that suited them and they would not be bored. Smaller classes with more homogeneous academic capabilities, ie tracking. Versus the alternative= being in large classes with majority of kids being those who will later drop out of Seward Park High school. What academic level is likely in those classes?</p>
<ul>
<li>Safer. My wife was actually mugged by neighborhood kids when she attended those same schools our kids were zoned for. There were several public housing projects that fed those same schools, that were not known for their safety level.<br></li>
<li>More likely to have friends there, and not be socially ostracized. I didn’t think of this at the time of course, but imagine our kids sitting in a room full of little cobrats? They’d probably steal our kids’ lunch everyday, and think they deserved it.</li>
</ul>
<p>It had nothing to do with private schools per se,or immigrants. If we could have gotten into the few public options that offered more appropropriate education environments we would have taken them. As would many others. Hunter elementary has no quota on wealth or immigrants, but it is nevertheless highly desired by upperclass Manhattan families as well as others, because it is thought to provide outstanding education. Our kids attended public schools after we left Manhattan. Unfortunately the public options available to us in Manhattan were unsuitable.</p>
<p>Other posters who have kids and intimate familiarity with the situation, from a parent’s perspective, have said the same thing on this thread. When I was there anyway, there were places one could live in Manhattan where the public option was feasible, and in those cases many people took it. And other places where anyone with the means to do so bailed out. Moreover, people with the means often reasonably chose to go private anyway, because they believed the schools they selected were just better schools, and they had the money to make that choice. Having experienced both environments, both myself and through my kids, I have to say that it is quite likely, given their particular choices, that those people were not mistaken. The NYC private schools my family attended were great schools. They were frankly much better schools than the public schools they, or I, attended. And all these schools were far better schools, by reputation, than the Manhattan public schools we avoided.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>And monydad…just proved my point about the actual commonplace motives of many private school parents like the Manhattanite type private school students/parents I’ve met IRL and similar to the mother cited in OP’s newsstory cited above. [sarcasm]Thank you.[/sarcasm]</p>
<p>Those Manhattanite private school kids/parents made similar apocryphal comments about possibly being mugged even at schools like Stuyvesant or Forest Hills high when that has never been the actual experience of the dozens of kids I knew from those public schools nor my own experiences. And meant it in all seriousness while assuming I was one of them because of my demeanor, speech patterns, and college attended. They were stunned into silence when I revealed I was <em>Horrors!!!</em> a public school graduate.</p>
<p>Who’s talking about Stuyvesant?</p>
<p>My comments were specifically evoked by the views you’'ve expressed on this thread.</p>
<p>There is not enough caulk in all of New York to patch the chip on the shoulder of someone who holds such views.</p>
<h1>361 about nailed it, and my guess is that is apparent to nearly everyone reading this thread, save one.</h1>
<p>
</p>
<p>His ad hominem about my being a schoolyard mugger/thief which came out of nowhere. Very similar to comments made by many Manhattanite private school parents and some students I met IRL. And he loves to cite how anyone who he perceives as doing the same to him are “violating the terms of CC” in past conversations. What a hypocrite. </p>
<p>Only difference was that they never thought to cast such negative aspersions upon me as they assumed I was one of them until I revealed myself as a public school graduate. Monydad just did…especially after knowing I am a Stuyvesant alum.</p>
<p>“my being a schoolyard mugger/thief …”
who was taking about you? You would not go to those schools either, if you had the choice. You proved that, once you had one, for high school.
.
Elitists who go to Stuyvesant instead of Seward Park High School obviously do so because they think they are better than the people who go to Seward Park High School, and don’t want to “lower” themselves to associate with those people.</p>
<p>In fact, I have literally 400,000 friends who all heard people from Stuyvesant say they were better than the people at Seward Park High School. And I had a relative in Albania who went to an elitist school that had an entrance test, just like Stuyvesant, and he said the people at the “regular” public school were less intelligent. So that proves my point. The people who go to Stuyvesant are all eltitists who would not lower themselves to associate with the “riff raff” who would go to Seward Park High School.</p>
<p>By the way they also would not associate with the inferiors who went to private school, because those people are all morally bankrupt as evidenced by their obvious discrimination against immigrants. So again, the Stuyvesant people think they are “better” than those people too. I have 600,000 people tell me that, they overheard it. In fact all my classmates told me.</p>
<p>Hunt and oldfort win the thread. Sorry, cobrat, major sour grapes on your part.</p>
<p>The only way this current conversation could make any sense is if there is some creative writing or past disputes between the posters. Reading it in a vacuum makes it difficult to understand. I suppose that is how many threads turn if they last long enough.</p>
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</p>
<p>I didn’t know the definition of sour grapes included questioning the motives of private school kids/parents based on their openly expressed disdain against those of lower-socio-economic status…even if they displayed the same/greater intelligence, behavior, and work ethic. The very disdain I’ve observed firsthand from hearing their comments and having been assumed to be part of their social milieu. </p>
<p>In fact, it is quite similar to accounts I heard from White classmates who recounted how their racist relatives and White friends would openly express racist sentiments around them that they’d never express in polite company…especially if other racial minorities were present. Or my own experiences having White and Asian classmates reveal the same racist sentiments and their shock when I called them on it as they assumed I’d go along with them.</p>
<p>I don’t think “poor” is the right word</p>
<p>But cobrat, you seem to take it for granted that (1) you know very well how accessible these public schools are, (2) that the pre-school in question was not all-day and thus, a much better deal for the price, and (3) that everyone who sends their child to the best school available, is a snob.</p>
<p>I am brown-skinned. My husband is an immigrant. We are poor. I drive my child 20 minutes each way to attend a German kindergarten and I do plan to pay when I return to the US. We do NOT have free kindergarten and it is NOT universal.</p>
<p>It’s your judgmental attitude and refusal to accept that public schools are failing in some areas that people object to. I am pro-public schools and I vote public schools, but if my district is full of people who can’t, or don’t want to, fund schools, what am I supposed to do? I can’t go in there and hire teachers myself. I can continue to vote for higher taxes and better programs, but when little Ahmed comes up for nursery, guess what.</p>
<p>I’m going to send him to the best darn nursery I can, principles be damned. Because I cannot save the rest of the kids by sending my child there.</p>
<p>I do appreciate that the price may be exorbitant. However, I also know very well as a working-class parent that we are ALL playing the same game and every single one of us would do the same for our own kids, if we could. To me the only thing in question are the facts of the case, not whether or not private pre-schools should exist.</p>
<p>To me, this whole thing is just a bunch of cognitive dissonance. You want something, can’t get it, so you rationalize to yourself that it probably wasn’t worth it anyway.</p>
<p>I live in NYC. My offspring went to a private nursery school for 2 years. It is not at all elite. It enrolls kids in the order in which their applications are received. No testing whatsoever. It now costs just about $19,000 a year. </p>
<p>After that, it was public school k-12. But, I was one of the lucky parents whose offspring are smart and do well on standardized tests, enabling entry into the gifted programs. </p>
<p>Some of my neighbors aren’t so lucky. And, for a while there, our neighborhood school wasn’t a viable option. (It’s on the upswing.) </p>
<p>So, plenty of folks who would much prefer having their kids attend public gifted programs enrolled them in private schools. It’s quite common for them to try for the public schools again for high school. So, we’ve had kids in the neighborhood switch from Spence to Stuy, Brearley to Hunter, Brearley to BxScience, Horace Mann to Stuy, etc. </p>
<p>I agree with cobrat that SOME parents send their kids to the top private schools so they can meet the “right” people. A lot do it though because they have no good alternative. </p>
<p>Remember that the attorney, not the mom, wrote the complaint. Remember too that 4 year old public preschool is NOT universal in Manhattan; for all we know, the little girl applied for one of the slots and didn’t make it. </p>
<p>And, seriously, cobrat, the considerations at age 2, 3 or 4 are very different than those at 13. You admit that your local high school wasn’t that great and that’s why you took the sci high exam. </p>
<p>Well, I assure you that some of the elementary schools aren’t great either and the selection process is equally nuts. (I have a younger friend whose child did not get into a single PUBLIC school for kindergareten. He applied to 8 public gifted programs–he had the scores–and didn’t get into one. His zoned school not only has no gifted program, virtually all of its students live in a housing project which is one of the most violent in the city. It is not possible to walk from his apartment building to the school without walking through the project. If he and his mom walked through that project at the same time every school day before and after school, it would only be a few days until someone decided they looked like a good target for a mugging.) </p>
<p>So, how about we all stop knocking the choices of a mom none of us knows. The day may come when one of you is the subject of a news story. If you are, you will learn how easy it is to distort what you say or take it out of context.</p>
<p>My wife went to Stuyvesant, and I want to a weak high school in the South. She certainly looks down on me.</p>
<p>'My wife went to Stuyvesant, and I want to a weak high school in the South. She certainly looks down on me."</p>
<p>I also went to a weak high school. But if it makes you feel any better, I look down on you too.
:)</p>
<p>Some people have too much time and money. A frivolous law suit if there ever was one.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Well, that’s different, Hunt. We all do. Sheesh. (just kidding)</p>
<p>Most entertaining thread, everyone. </p>
<p>FWIW, I turned down my acceptance to the NY private school I applied to in Riverdale (starts with an “F”) to stay in my… public HS. I survived.</p>
<p>Clearly, there are benefits to private schools over public schools – especially in Manhattan. The academics are better, the classes are smaller, the environment is generally safer, and the students are less likely to be the dropout types. I also speak as someone who grew up in public schools.</p>
<p>That’s part of the price of living in Manhattan. You have a ton of opportunity available to you, but it comes at a price. It’s a very high-mean, high-variance place to live. If you can’t handle the spread, nobody’s forcing you to live there. So I have absolutely nothing against parents who pay $20k+ for preschool. It’s simply part of the price of admission of raising a family in a NYC environment. Why fault parents for wanting to do the best they can for their kids?</p>
<p>Cobrat, you’re going to find plenty of kids at public schools who are smart, true. But you’ll find tons of them at private schools. Having money and going to a tougher school doesn’t mean you’re going to turn out to be a bad person. Similarly, lacking money doesn’t mean you’re going to build character, either. Plenty of people use their wealth and resources to do positive things in their lives, and plenty of less-fortunate people become damaged.</p>
<p>I came from a family that was well-off but very physically/emotionally abusive and neglectful (I was a mistake-birth). I had a stay-at-home mom that never stayed home and a father that thought it was better to dump everything he earned into the house and his boat. Adequate clothing, food, and transportation were not options for me. $10 fee for joining a speech/debate club? Engaging in a conversation about writing, math, science, language, technology, or culture? Not a chance.</p>
<p>So I could argue that I came from both a well-off <em>and</em> poor family at the same time – the double-whammy of not having access to resources/good parents but also getting canned pretty hard when it came to financial aid for college. Lacking access to financial graces makes life difficult, to be sure… but what makes things worse is having parents who don’t care for your wellbeing. </p>
<p>One day when I have kids, they’re going to private schools. If I choose to stay in Manhattan, I’ll pay the costs gladly. If I can’t afford it, then I’ll move elsewhere. But you accomplish nothing by berating people for wanting the best for their kids. Admittedly, we can cite plenty of elitist parents who look down on others and start infusing “Ivy Leagues! Investment banking!” into their kids from an early age, but this is simply not the majority and you’re misrepresenting things by appealing to confirmation bias. If you had the financial means to provide the best opportunities for your kids, wouldn’t you do this? And if you didn’t have the means, wouldn’t you make the decisions that would allow you to do the best that you could do?</p>