Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Differences between public and private schools

Couldn't agree more with all of the above. This has been our experience. Spent 4 years in a large public school district on the east coast that was not wealthy but had many specialized programs to meet the differing student needs including magnet gifted schools, IB program, specialized academies, etc. Spent two years at a small, award winning, very wealthy school district (and what the school budget doesn't cover in extras, the nonprofit supporting the schools does!) and it was a year and half too long in a district that does nothing to try to meet gifted student needs, at least at the MS level. It was not my first choice, but my kids are at (different) private schools meeting their needs now. Yes,private school teachers may be paid less than the well compensated tenured teachers who show up and do nothing but rote teaching and are more babysitters than anything (this is NOT all teachers - some were amazing - but unfortunately it aptly describes half of my public student's teachers)...but across the board in my kids private schools, they are absolutely more engaging in the classroom. Who would have thought the extra bonus of putting the kids in private school is the significant decrease in peer emphasis on things like clothes, cars, electronics, ski vacations,etc. Just one parent's experience but it's real.