If money is no object: public school or private?

boomerang said:

Enthusiastic teachers are a gift, I just don't think enthusiasm is limited to young teachers.

Very true- and having experience is a good thing too. I think a team of younger and older teachers is a good thing. They can enrich each other.
I personally would like more male teachers in elementary school.

I can understand that you are looking for the right school for your child- and I think you will find it.

I think, private schools offer a higher salary and therefore
can choose among a variety of teachers more careful and take experience along with academic background in consideration.

I'm paying around $ 6000/year for tuition at the catholic
school.

ul - I pay a little over $3,000 a year for my daughter's school. Her school is affiliated with a church so they try to keep costs as affordable for parents as possible. It is odd that there is another Christian school not far from my daughter's and the cost is about double - more in the $6,000 range. Not sure why the difference in cost. One thing that I liked about the more expensive school was that Christian school was more diverse - they are non-denominational and are not associated with a particular church - that could be the cost difference.

However, although my daughter's school is associated with the Baptist church, it is surprisingly not strict and more open minded than similar schools. Their philosophy is not to shelter children from other religions or other beliefs, but to give them the tools to handle "the real world." My daughter's school is very diverse when it comes to financial situations and ethnic backgrounds. There are children from all different ethnic backgrounds, but that could be in part to the area we live in - very diverse.

Actually CJ, on average, public schools pay higher than private schools. I checked this out when I was considering a change in career to teaching.

We have children of different faith in our school, and we do not try to convert them to Catholic Faith.

Austrian law requires religion as a subject in the curriculum. This is taught by specially trained teachers. So children who are not Catholic will attend their own lectures.

I am working at a private school, but I am paid by the State. The salary is the same as in a public school.
We teach the official curriculum, but we try to help the children to become what is in them- independant, critical, curious, having fun to explore and study, to be able to respect other cultures, beliefs. There are persons, not "kids", not just pupils.

I guess it depends where the schools are located Linkat,
but I admit that public schools offer a better package like
tenure, full coverage of health insurance, retirement benefits
etc.

However, with tenure comes a problem: how to get rid
of a teachers if they don't perform well?

That's interesting about the Baptist school, Linkat, perhaps I've been too quick to judge. Tell me though, do most of the kids in the school attend the church?

I know people from all different backgrounds that send their kids to the schools run by the Franciscans and the Jesuits here. They're really excellent schools.

Maybe I need to look around a bit more.....

I was just thinking: I want Mo to have music and language classes. If these aren't offered in his school I'd pay for tutors or classes or whatever.

Accoding to my piano lesson thread, I would expect to pay $30 for a thirty minute piano lesson, once a week. This would be about $1,300 a year.

Language lessons? I have no idea what that would cost. Many of the private schools offer immersion programs in a variety of languages. I know you can't get that in public school and I don't think many elementary schools offer language programs. An immersion program has to be more beneficial than a 40 minute class.

When you start calculating in costs like that, private school starts seeming a bit less expensive.

Good thinking boomerang.
I know, Spanish is not taught in public schools in CA,
but our school started teaching Spanish in Kindergarten.
Dto. for music.

ul - most religious schools in the United States are open to children of other faith as well, they might have to pay a
higher tuition though.

Just checked -- this elementary school (public) offers foreign language classes + music. (See my most recent post on the other thread about my M.Ed/ teacher hat, sorry. I'm gonna keep rah-rahing about public schools if I see an opening. :-))

Boomerang - I know some that attend the church and some that do not. My guess is it is about 50/50. Some of the families travel several towns over to go to this school so I doubt these attend the church.

I think you really need to check each school out separately. Some really emphasize their beliefs more strictly than others. Also, some Christian churches are more liberal than others even within the same denomination you can get different variations. My daughter's school is very conservative compared to non-church type schools, but for the type of denomination they are more open minded. One Baptist school I looked at was so strict that dancing wasn't allowed and they spanked children. So where ever you look you can get extremes.

Grrrr.

Just lost my long post.

I think again public or private either could be best for the child. It depends on the child and it depends on the school. Some of the overall negative things for public schools do not apply to all public schools and the same for private. If you consider that the only negative thing of private is elitism - then look for a private school that does not reflect that - there are some. If you consider a big negative for public schools is lack of parental participation, then look for a public school that has a high amount of parental participation.

Also, it depends on the child. I attended a huge public high school. It would be very easy to get lost, just get by and with the huge selection of classes, I could have resorted to signing up for all the easier classes just to make my life easier. Being the type of child I was, this school was an advantage to me. I took advantage of the huge selections. I was able to get an excellent well-rounded education as a result. Two of my other brothers had different results. My older is very smart, but not at all self-motivated. He took the minimum, slept through any classes he could. He ended up not graduating and basically wasted his time. Another brother ended up going to a different school - vocational; which was significantly smaller and was probably the best for his personality. Quite honestly this brother is not the smartest. He also is more a fun go with the crowd type - so although a good person, he could easily be lead into trouble. This school work quite nicely for him.

The biggest issue I see is the difficulty in finding a school that is suitable. Also, depending where you live, you may not have the choice of the public school or be limited in your choices. If you are lucky like sozobe, she was able to find and move to an area with a public school system that was suitable for her family. However, not all of us have that advantage. For me I would be renting as I couldn't afford a home in those towns/areas. The advantage of private school is you do have the control of choosing, but cost could leave you no choose. There is also the possibility of limited choice if there are not many private schools in your area.

Linkat, if I remember right, you make WAY more than we do! :-) This place is a little more expensive than Columbus proper, which has a sucky school system, but is still WAAAAAY cheaper than Chicago (where we moved from) or Boston.

I have a built-in advantage in that my husband is a professor, and neighborhoods that have a lot of professors (as ours does) probably have a tendency to have better educational options. As in, wherever we go for his job, there probably will be better schools than in some random place.

Totally agree with the rest of what you were saying about no one answer for every kid. This has been a cool discussion, though, lots of good info.

Sozobe - I didn't mean anything negative at all. I was just pointing out that there are many very good public schools and since you mentioned that you researched and found an area to move to that had such a situation that it was possible to find these depending where you live.

There was no underlying meaning or comparison about my situation - other than I really didn't have a choice simply because of the location of where I live. Sorry if it came across as a dig or anything negative. It wasn't meant that way at all - just pointing out the possibility of finding good public schools.

I may be over exaggerating about having to rent in a good school district. My friend did buy a very cute small house in a extremely nice area. The problem - she will probably have at least an hour and half commute. I love the area, but I hate the idea of commuting such a long distance. What if your child is sick? It would take so long to get to her. Also the time in commuting could be spent with family. It really is a matter of preference.

I have attended both private schools (until the age of 11) and state grammar schools (11-18), so I'm fair game to comment here!

My first private school was brilliant, I had a great time there, was very happy and had many friends. However, I was very very sheltered. In my second private school, because of a different accent, strange name and being able to speak many languages, I was picked on badly and it totally altered my personality from that time onwards.

My first secondary grammar school was very highly ranked and therefore very pressurised, with no pastoral care at all and again, I was badly bullied.

My current secondary grammar school is brilliant, again highly ranked and I am having the time of my life there.

I personally believe that it doesn't matter whether you go into private or grammar equivalent secondary - they are pretty much the same standard of teaching. I personally think that it is important to experience beyond the private sector education and have a bit of both types. Pluses and minuses below;

Private:

- Excellent education normally offered, however do check! They can vary.
- Many extra-curricular activities offered, but very high cost.
- Often a snobby attitude - my car is bigger than yours types. Horrible.
- Often "new money" and some pretty rough, superficial types.
- Can encourage some children to become spoilt.
- Bullying often focused around wealth/cultural upbringing. Problems with the size of Christmas presents etc. In both sectors, of course, but predominant here.

Public:

- Depends on quality of school - I have found grammar schools to be much much better at educating than private - selective public is best, otherwise consider private.
- Rough, tough and more bullying normally present. Life skills learnt the hard way, in my opinion better.
- You have to be much more proactive in getting involved - extracurriculars are not handed to you on a plate, you have to find them.
- Perhaps fewer wide ranging activities, again you have to go out and suppliment in things like rare musical instruments, dancing, horse riding etc.
- Creates all rounded people.



In my personal opinion, the best thing is to send a young child to the local village primary school and if you have the money, suppliment the child with extra tuition from a teacher outside of school. They will have their friends all living in the same area and it will be much more pleasant and easier for all. Also, the extra tuition is more than comparable to the difference between schools and would be MUCH cheaper. (About £20 an hour, £30 max.)

Then, at secondary age, send them to a private school for 5 years, until the start of year 12. It will give them a massive boost in the GCSE teaching and give them the opportunities a private school offers.

Then, at the age of 16, move them to a very good state public school for ALevels. University entrance is slightly easier coming from a state school than from a private school in the UK to fill quotas. However, if they want to stay at a private school, let them do so because the extras could outweigh the quotas, esp. for Oxbridge entry. However, if they stay at a private school, make sure they get involved in the community with people from rougher areas and state school children through something like VSU to give them a taste of real life - too sheltered is awful, trust me!

Hope that helps