Do you send your kid to private school?

[TalkinBoutMyGirl]

I forgot to mention that DD already goes to a Christian preschool that we love. They do more teaching and fun then just wrangling the kids and keeping them til the parents get there. I realize there are always bad apples even in private schools but I think the number of bad apples is significantly less.

[jc12551]

My kid goes to a private church school. We do it because of religion. I taught public school for years and years. There was no way I would send my kid to public school anyway!

As a side note-private schools often have higher tests scores due to low numbers of students and their selective admissions policies. Public school have lower test scores because they are required by law to take and tests EVERYBODY. An analogy: In TN all students are required to take the ACT before they graduate. Therefore TN's scores are low. NC has few students that take the ACT. Therefore their numbers are higher due to the selective number of students.

Test scores are not really a reliable indicator of school, teacher, or student success. I just finished an 8 page paper on the statistical analysis of test scores as an indicator of success.

[yatts10]

Just want to thank everyone for sharing with me. When I talk to people about schooling it seems everyone has an opinion and it can overwhelming. I just want give my child the best education possible! I dont want to make the wrong choice.

[yatts10]

Originally Posted by ARogers We send DS to private Catholic School. He did two years at another (christian) private Preschool (3 year old class, then PreK). I am so glad we did it. The envirnoment was so nuturing and he loved it. He already knows how to read! We were so forunate to find such an awesome program. PreK is not a requirement in GA but we felt it was the best decision for us. He just started K this week and we are also happy with our decision to continue the private school route. I got my BS from a private university and loved it. They were nice small classes and great interaction with my professors.

I live on Georgia too and as you know Pre-k is free, but my hubby and I agree that private pre-k is less like daycare and more like school.

[5PrincessMommy]

My girls went to a private Christian school through last year. They went there b/c I worked there. I LOVED that it was Christian, but it was not a great education (but all schools are different). My girls are now in public school, because I am teaching at public school. I'm glad they got the Biblical foundation they did, and would put them in a Christian school again in a second, if circumstances permitted it, but not the one I used to work at LOL.

[emilyinmichigan]

DS will start K next fall so we will be applying to schools this fall/winter. I am the product of private schooling (Catholic) all the way through high school and my experience was that a private education set me far above my public school peers. In college I was regularly amazed at the things my public school friends had never learned. My roommates struggled with things I considered basic. It was a real eye-opener.

I want my kids to have the same kind of academic advantages that I experienced and my DH, who attended public school, completely agrees. Catholic school had been our intention but there is a local charter school that seems very promising. We've been in contact with them over the summer and will be visiting this fall. In the end, it's not the cost that concerns us, it's the academics.

[momtojande]

I went to private school through 8th grade, and then public high school. There were good & bad points to each.

For me as a parent, it's a matter of the specific public school in question versus a specific private school under consideration. Where we live, the public schools are good so private school is not a major need to justify the cost. If we lived in a poorly performing school district, or if we run into problems where we're at, we'll reconsider.

Originally Posted by jc12551 As a side note-private schools often have higher tests scores due to low numbers of students and their selective admissions policies. Public school have lower test scores because they are required by law to take and tests EVERYBODY. An analogy: In TN all students are required to take the ACT before they graduate. Therefore TN's scores are low. NC has few students that take the ACT. Therefore their numbers are higher due to the selective number of students.

Very good point, and also one to keep in mind comparing the U.S. to other countries. China has admissions tests just to get into high school, so comparing their high school students to ours is going to be unfair.

Originally Posted by jc12551 Test scores are not really a reliable indicator of school, teacher, or student success. I just finished an 8 page paper on the statistical analysis of test scores as an indicator of success.

That would be an interesting paper to read.

[Mara'sMommy]

I went to catholic school up until 8th grade, and then public for highschool. The transition for me was very hard, so because of that i think consistency is really key.
We moved from nj to fl, so that might have played a role in things but I was repeating some stuff I had already done (like math, history, and science) and I was much more advanced in English/grammar then my peers in public highschool. I preferred catholic school, not for the catholic part, but for social reasons. I liked the fact that I had a small, very close group of friends (not saying you can't have this with public school), and the teachers were definitely more attentive/caring in catholic school- but that could have just been the public school i ended up in.
In public school there were alot of people and I found it hard to make friends, also nobody (administration wise) cared if you were failing or not doing well. I also had some real idiot teachers, including one who never taught us one lesson; instead he spent the whole time "hanging out" and informing us of how rich he was and didn't need to be there, then left everyone to do as they pleased. I was like what? Needless to say I never attended that class, got to sleep an extra 2 hours, and somehow never got marked absent and passed with an A. Oh, and the class was world history. Yup, learned that on my own.

[coquelicot]

Glad I found this thread. DD is only 3, so we haven't had to decide this yet, but DH really wants her in a private school come kindergarten. I have a friend who lives nearby who sends her oldest to a local Christian school (her youngest is DD's age), and she loves it. She brought up test scores as a contributing factor into her decision. Thanks to the PP on here who mentioned that test scores don't paint the whole picture. That's what I figured, anyway. Our local public elementary school isn't the best in the county, but the parents I've talked to say that they like the school, and their kids are doing well there. I'm not as certain about the middle and high schools we're districted for. We're out in the county, and the schools that the kids living within the local city limits attend have better reputations. I guess we could just move a few miles, lol...

And not all private schools are great. I went to one for K and 1st grade, and my teacher actually recommended that I switch to the Advance Program at a public school because of how far ahead I was. That private school ended up closing 7 years later due to declining enrollment. So I don't think I was gifted or anything; I just think they weren't quite up to par. I was blessed to be accepted into a magnet public high school with an excellent rating (usually mentioned in magazines as top 5 in my old state and among top 200 in the country). But I came from a ghetto public middle school where I felt lucky to make it out alive (thanks, public-school bussing, for shipping me from my middle-class neighborhood to the slums every day). So either choice could have good results or bad ones.

[luvsviola]

DD is going to preschool at a private school this year that goes from age 2 to 12th grade. We selected it because she can attend school there from now on, if we choose. We are unsure what the best place for her is, as she is extremely hyperactive, so by going to the 4s class, she is automatically accepted into kindy there if we leave her. The referendum did not go through in my town, so kindy classes have about 25 kids in them, but have special ed services. The Christian school has about 15 in a class, but no specific special ed, though they teach to the child, so this shouldn't really be an issue. We will see closer to next year which school will be the better fit.