The French schools are good choices because they follow the national curriculum of France. It's all very organized, and the kids really learn how to read, write, and think in the language. The ability of these schools to achieve this in a short period is just outstanding.
Val
Don't forget speaking skills.
The French intellectuals and business leaders I have met have very impressive extemporaneous speaking and verbal reasoning skills.
Yes, that's true. Both my kids have excellent French accents, and it's also true that the curriculum goes much deeper than the US one, in general. They read lots of books (no short passages followed by multiple choice questions in France), write more essays, and give more presentations. In short, the French system does a good job of teaching people how to form ideas and draw conclusions.
My husband has made the same observations (he worked with a lot of French people for a while). France seems to be quite open to grade skips compared to the US, too.
We discovered that the after-school program goes a long way toward providing these skills at a much lower cost. When combined with an ability-grouped school, the choice was easy.
Val
