Just saw the thread and wanted to share my experience in WA state.

I have a 3rd grader who went to public school for K&1(very good school district) and now participates to full time gifted program in public school.

My younger one is a Kindergartener and we chose to send him to a private school. One particular reason to choose a different path was class sizes. Public school general education classes are about 27 kids per teacher. Class size at the school my son attending is 12 kids per teacher. In addition to the education about 1/2 grades ahead of public school, he gets to have twice as many art, music, PE, technology and Spanish class. One more difference is that teachers at private schools are much nicer ;-) Even though it's a great private school etc., I don't think it can beat the full time gifted program in public school though. Full time gifted program starts in 2nd grade in our state, so we will get my son tested next year when he is 1st grade and pull him out to public school starting 2nd grade.

Summary is that there are so many factors to decide which one is best fit for your child/family. I don't think there is any right answer about which one is better? public or private?

Hope that helps...