As a current private school teacher (at an elite private academy... my third in the last 12 years) with 20 years of classroom experience...
I'd never send my kids to private school. Ever.
I know that things look very different from outside the classroom, but having seen how the sausage gets made, my family is going the public school route all the way. I have noted in the past the only three good reasons I've ever heard to go to private school are:
1) ideology, generally religious ideology, because a school's "educational philosophy" is never shared by the majority of the teachers, regardless of what it is (and many won't even be clear on what it is),
2) networking with other families who have particular skills, interests, and connections that you want to cultivate, or
3) a genuine fear that your local public school would be a specific threat of some kind to your child.
That is interesting, because as a lifelong public school educator, in systems ranging from high-resource, upper SES suburban to low-resource, low SES urban, I view sending my children to public school as a last resort, after homeschooling and private school. Maybe this has something to do with having seen behind the curtain.
