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

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.

This really makes me nervous. Private teacher does not recommend private schools, public educator does not recommend public school. I am the product of a combination of public, and homeschooling. I was miserable in public school, and lonely for the homeschooling.

Is there a better option? Are there any good options?

On this list people often share the quote "when you've seen one gifted kid... you've seen one gifted kid." Well when you've seen one school... you've seen one school -- public or private.

Private schools can have more options and services -- or not, as some wealthy districts have amazing public schools. Public schools have to take everyone... but that can be good or bad depending on the everyone's they take. Private schools have more flexibility... which they can take advantage of or not or use to create a different kind of conformity. Public schools are bound by bureaucracy, except when they aren't because teachers and principals want to make a difference. Public schools have poor apathetic kids who don't care about their education (sometimes). Private schools have rich apathetic kids who don't care about their education (sometimes). Private schools cost a zillion dollars, except for the ones that cost less. And public schools can cost a surprising amount if you includes outside enrichment, after schooling, fundraising for the school, or -- above all -- the million dollar home you had to buy to get into the good school. Compare that to private school tuition.

I'm normally down on public school because we had a hard time making it work for us in this district. But that doesn't mean every school in the district is bad (because it's not like we can just pick and choose from all of them). And I've spoken to the two top secular private schools in town and while they sound great and do great with the kids I know who go there, they would definitely not be OK for my kid.

Schools are different. Sure I wish less of them kind of sucked. And I wish there was less disparity between them. But they are still all individual, and made up of individuals.

In the end, it comes down to the people. Whether people "get" high levels of giftedness or not. Some people do. Some people don't but could with some education. And some people just won't. And that's a more fundamental issue than school choice.

From the viewpoint of parents of gifted children, I've not heard this to be true.

School statistics may give a rosy picture. Schools may enjoy high ratings/rankings. Some of this may be attributed to practices such as grade replacement, and other means of raising the grades (if not the performance) of kids at the bottom.

Meanwhile gifted students may be thriving in spite of the school/district/teachers/policies/practices, not because of them. For example, a child who is bored in school may then spend time after-schooling in an area of interest. The knowledge gained in this endeavor, utilizing personal time, may then result in a high standardized test score, or ACT/SAT score, or other academic award/accomplishment for which the school/district/teacher will be glad to usurp credit for the child's performance.

I didn't read the whole thing. But we are looking at long term options for specialized high schools, same as there were in NYC. Because of gifted testing and parent fundraising, the differences in public schools within the same district are significant. Some public schools are much better than the second tier private and you get the top slice of gifted together, so you get the interaction and peer group you want. And on the high school level, that is even moreso. Hunter and Styvescant are free high schools but you have to test to get into them. They send more kids to Harvard and MIT. Sty isn't even on the list of best high schools because you cannot go unless you score well. But Sty is a public high school, just not anyone can go. Same here in Toronto. They have these specialized math and science programs and the students get more scholarship money than the gifted high schools and get into top programs but you have to test in the top percentile for one of those 60 spots. But still public. And it seems that Canadian universities are weighting the programs now. it used to be strict grade average. Now if you take AP programs, and go to an elite public high school, you have an advantage for the better programs and schools.

I understand what you're saying here, but I should point out, my first eight years teaching were in public schools, and I presently spend five days a week as a volunteer classroom/library aide at DD's public school. I have a fair amount of experience behind that curtain as well...

In my experience private schools have all the same issues as public; compounded by inexperienced teachers, under-qualified profit-minded administrators (with little to no educational experience), micro-cultures and cliques of various sorts (the loosely organized groups of rich parents, religious parents, gifted parents, and so on), and more.

If you live in an area that can support a strong, well-reputed private school, chances are VERY good that there are strong, well-reputed public schools nearby. They may not be your local campus, but they're probably not far away.

I live adjacent to what is considered by many to be the single worst, most poorly administered, scandal ravaged, public school system in the country. It drives many in that community to enroll their students in private schools (a few of which I've taught at). But, in that system there are a number of schools that are BELOVED, some of which have Academic Performance Index scores of 1000. And in my small home district, which again is right next to this dysfunctional behemoth, EVERY school is highly rated.

I think the tendency for parents, not just parents of gifted kids, to assume that private schools can better meet the needs of their children, is largely driven by a mixture of fantasy and salesmanship. Having been in the classroom, I see little evidence to support those beliefs.

P.S. As an aside, a personal bugaboo of mine is the current trend at elite private schools to hire unemployed PhDs as teachers. Elite schools love to use the claim that x% of our faculty has a PhD as a marketing draw (I've actually worked at two schools where I was the ONLY faculty member without a PhD; including folks like the PhD theater teacher and PhD P.E. coach). There is nobody less qualified, nobody, to teach a 6th grade class, than the PhD who thought they'd be tenure tracked at an Ivy League university by now...

Did someone else already notice this? The school in the article is a university model school--essentially a school-homeschool hybrid, which is probably why the tuition is so low.

As for tiny private schools, my sons attended one for a few years. I found them to be more flexible in some ways (they let my younger son skip two grades, for example), and less flexible in others (if you're in 10th grade you must take all 10th grade courses because of how the schedule works). Also, while there are some teachers who were excellent, and obviously there because they love teaching and don't care about money (which was abysmal--half or less of what comparable public school teachers make), there were others who were horrific and obviously there because no one else would give them a job.

I think there's one type being missed here, which is the very small private school that really does manage to be different. If I may quote from Lori Pickert's Project-Based Homeschooling:

This more or less describes the school we recently left. The co-founders are nearing retirement age, and I believe the school is nearing the end of its 20 year run as a hidden gem in our community. Precisely because they are so small, I never heard of them by word-of-mouth.

MsFriz, your school sounds so similiar, you had me wondering which parent from our school you were! (Until I looked back at your old posts and found some details that prove it's not the same school.)

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.

I should clarify: what I meant by referencing seeing behind the curtain was that one is most aware of the flaws in a system with which one has intimate insider knowledge. Other systems might appear better, if only because we don't know about their issues. You are in the position of having seen behind multiple curtains.And this is not a fad restricted to private schools. I've seen a few PhD faculty members, too, some of whom were already teachers, but went back to grad school (that works out no worse than a non-PhD teacher, and sometimes can be good), and others of whom did have a bit of that couldn't-get-a-tenure-track-job odor clinging to them. At the least, at the secondary level, their content specializations have some value.