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

Cross out Lexington and insert Cupertino, Saratoga, or Palo Alto (etc.), and you've described the Bay Area perfectly. Your housing points are spot-on, too, though the term bidding wars really doesn't describe this place properly these days. It's more of a crazed culture of mass insanity focused on a single goal: winning the competition to get the house at all costs.

Some years ago, during a down period in the real estate craze, my mom was visiting and we looked at an open house in an upscale part of an upscale town here. The place was on the kind of lot that causes you to imagine your children tumbling down it to their deaths. The house itself was in woeful condition and a balcony was blocked off because it wasn't structurally sound and was located high off the land below.

My mom said to the agent, "The house is not in great shape," and he replied, "Well, what do you expect for 1.2 million?"

I am not making this up. And it's WORSE now. Way worse.

Taking this idea back to the public-vs-private and status-seeking thing, status hysteria is thriving in many of the public high schools around here. Status comes from getting lots of A++++s with garlands, which leads to incredible pressure. My eldest used to go to a gaming day thing in Cupertino on Sundays last summer. I would go to the local library to self-teach mathematics. The place was always, always crammed full of high school kids doing their summer AP work. Most of them looked pretty miserable, and their whispered conversations revealed that they were certainly not there for the joy of learning.

Seriously, the pressure is so intense, there have been a number of teenage suicides on the train tracks near the Palo Alto schools in recent years (I don't know how many, but there have been 2 so far in 2015).

So IMO, public or private, we have a cultural problem in our high-achieving schools: get all As wherever you go to school! Win competitions, even if you have to spend a significant chunk of your childhood memorizing the dictionary for the spelling bee! Don't take risks! There are two kinds of people in the world: winners and losers! Etc.

Is the child within their normal developmental arc? Is the child suffering psychological distress from parental over-involvement? Etc.

Indeed, most people answer this question using the standard "I, you, they" exercise:

- I am providing my DCs with the enrichment they need to thrive.
- YOU are pushing your children.
- THEY are hothousing.

Jon said it very succinctly.

A school system like Lexington/Cupertino/Palo Alto can be a great school for a child. A gifted child in those schools can find many intellectual peers, activities that interest them, and quite often teachers that are highly engaged. It can also be crushing for students that are told they must be at the top of the class. Obviously only a few students can make it to the top, and the rest of the children with tiger parents suffer.

In my opinion, this does not make the school a "hot-house". It makes it a great school where some fraction of the children are hot-housed. My guess is it is the children in the top 20%, but below the top 5% that face the most pressure. The really bright kids will do well anyway without all that much effort. And the ones not in contention for the elite college admissions find these schools just like any other, with the focus being on sports, attracting the opposite sex, etc.

Top 5% by what measure?

My personal observation is that, the higher one looks up the ladder towards valedictorian, the more one sees cases of hothousing, and increasing in severity. High ability will carry the right students into the top 5% of class ranking easily (unless it's a very, very deep pool), but that still gives you a large pool of candidates for valedictorian, and there can be only one.

Well, honestly --- I'm not convinced that you're aware of just how toxic the environments at some of these schools are.

Even your estimate of the top 5-20% of kids facing the most pressure isn't as straightforward as it sounds (assuming it's correct). Remember that thanks to grade inflation and tiger parenting, high schools these days can have multiple valedictorians, with as many as 30 at some. So if, say, 20 kids are number 1, how many are in "the top 20%"?

When he finished 8th grade, my son graduated with high honors and had a 3.7something average, yet was about 1/3 of the way down in his class.

When dozens of kids are in one library studying for AP whatever on random Sunday afternoons in July and complaining to each other about it, it's undeniable that a large number of them are complying rather than studying because of internal drive. When two 15-year-olds in as many months kill themselves in front of commuter trains, how many others are suffering damaging stress levels that are far beyond what they should be subjected to at such young ages? And, honestly, I'm suspicious of the term "intellectual peers," because the meaning of that phrase is so subjective. Like-minded about Magic or Minecraft? Yeah, sure. Like-minded about the philosophical questions that bounce around inside many PG minds as a matter of course? Unlikely, even in a big high-achieving high school. Most of those kids are too busy just treading water.

My high school had 5 valedictorians when I graduated and they all co-shared the valedictorian duties at graduation.

I chickened out on this topic. But Val mentioned "just how toxic the environments at some of these schools are." I'm just chiming in to totally agree and to add that the toxicity is also contagious.

There may be only a smallish subset of parents applying an unwholesome level of pressure/expectation. But the competitiveness it breeds rips through the school system like the worst kind of virus. I don't know if loving, unconditional support is adequate vaccination against it for my son. If not, we'll have to leave for saner pastures. Who knows, though, how you can truly spot where those are.

And for reference on the real estate thing, a modest 4/2 on a larger lot in our neighborhood just sold, in less than a week, for a touch over $6,000,000. You cannot overstate the madness.

Our local high school, which some would probably call a hot-house, does not do class ranks or have a valedictorian. I knew about the class ranks, but it didn't click with me that there would be no valedictorian until it was explicitly mentioned.

Way to ruin a good Highlander joke, y'all. Some of the kids must not be earning enough garlands.

My school has multiple salutatorians, but one valedictorian.