Thinking about putting my son into a private school...

[Whisper]

I went to a public high school (in GA no less, which would put me at odds with KK's assessment of that state's education system), and was no better- or worse-prepared academically than the thousands of other individuals I came across while attending Emory, UGA, or here at LSU.

Would I have preferred a private school? Based solely on the experiences recounted to me by friends and acquaintances who attended them, no.

 

[covert24]

Originally posted by: Edgewardb

Originally posted by: covert24

Originally posted by: Edgewardb
Well, I would ever dare let my child go to a public school. Why?
maybe because of all the hardcore teens here in the U.S causing trouble. With all their gangster and hardcore drug selling influences, why the hell would I want my child to go to a public school. Heck, he is easily influence if he is not taught right where a private school can teach him morals and sense. Have you seen a public school? I even heard there are certain " Gang" of people in public schools that sell drugs? They are refer to as gangster if I am not mistaken. Half the times, kids in public school that refuse to succeed or learn make it hard for people that actually tries... Have you seen the amount of bullying in Public school!!!

Are there any flaws?

just to let you know im 16 and go to a public school. junior in HS right now. Theres going to be bullying in any school in any city in any part of the world whether you like it or not. And i think a public school is a great way for your kids to learn about themselves and learn to interact with the majority of the population. Yes there are gangs (crips, bloods, ms13, etc) in our school but that doesn't mean i automatically am going to join one of them and sell drugs. I think you should let your kid go to a public school and if HE chooses to go to a private school then more power to him. But just to let you know ive heard some pretty crazy things hapen in private school in the past few days. the only difference in private school is that when something happens only a select group of ppl kno about it. but in public school everyone knows about it.

Just to let you know, I did some research on gangs. Gangs are obviously what concern parents are afraid there kids would join. I see flaws in Public schools already because of " Gang Influence". Gangs are poor slums that take it out of other people by persuading with threatening means to buy their drugs. They speak in a language that is consider heavily sinned in the Christian religion. Some even disobey teachers or just bully other kids because they are inferior to them.

However from a parents point of view, Private schools that offer religious tolerances must not have that many gang influences. Don't private schools teach morals more than public school.

I am not looking for a perfect school.. I am looking for a better school.

you have the general concept of what most websites portray gangs to be. unless you live in compton, or south bronx no one is just going to beat your kid up for no reason or just ask him to buy drugs. gangs like to lay low and not attract attention to themselves. Ive grown up with gangs all of my life and guess where i am at? gang free and drug free. if your kid has a strong willpower then he will say no to joining any gangs or buying any drugs. ive been asked to join a few gangs and buy/sell drugs and i said no because i know how to stand up for myself. Gangs are also in private schools too my friend. private schools just isolate the kids from outside influences. And yes for some kids thats great and some of the time they turn out "smarter" kids but thats a general statement. i would highly not recommend your kid going to any type of religious private school unless thats what your your family is in to and practice your religion frequently. all im saying is that your not going to get away from gangs or bullying. its just not going to happen. just going into iddle school i wouldn't worry too much about any type of drug or gang influences in either type of school. but when your kid gets into high school thats when i would start re evaluating it. but not until your kid gives the O.K to go to a different school. we all know what it feels like to be a kid and i know most of us didn't like when our parents got involved in our school matters.

 

[Jschmuck2]

I went through 12 years of public school and have yet to shoot anyone.

In my experience, parents send their kids to private schools to hide them from "ethnics" the perceive to be threats.

These kids, again, in my experience, end up so coked out of their minds at age 19, they can't walk straight.

 

[Jschmuck2]

Originally posted by: KK

Originally posted by: eits
honestly, i obviously think you should send your kid to public school... but make sure it's a great public school. find the best public school in the area and move to a neighborhood that would allow your kid to go there... it'd probably be cheaper than sending your kid to private school.

fyi, i went to a blue ribbon high school which turned out smarter kids and more graduates than various private schools in the area. i was the captain of my high school's quizbowl team and we crushed private school teams left and right. the point i'm trying to make is don't bank on private schools providing any better quality of education than a public school (unless it's an inner city public school).

Thats all fine and dandy if the public schools are good. Come down to GA and see what type of hell the public system is in. My wife is a public school teacher so I hear all about what kind of fvcked up parenting skills 90+% of the population here has. Wasn't always like that, but as the Atlanta riff raff started moving toward us, the schools went to sh1t. I wouldn't want my kids dealing or associating with any of that crap, hence the reason we got ours in a private school.

As I said before, if we lived somewhere where the public schools were good, I wouldn't have a problem with sending them to a public school.

You make it sound as though those kids want to associate with your kid. Believe me, they don't. Just so long as s/he doesn't go looking for trouble, s/he won't find any.

End of story.

 

[Whisper]

Originally posted by: Jschmuck2

Originally posted by: KK

Originally posted by: eits
honestly, i obviously think you should send your kid to public school... but make sure it's a great public school. find the best public school in the area and move to a neighborhood that would allow your kid to go there... it'd probably be cheaper than sending your kid to private school.

fyi, i went to a blue ribbon high school which turned out smarter kids and more graduates than various private schools in the area. i was the captain of my high school's quizbowl team and we crushed private school teams left and right. the point i'm trying to make is don't bank on private schools providing any better quality of education than a public school (unless it's an inner city public school).

Thats all fine and dandy if the public schools are good. Come down to GA and see what type of hell the public system is in. My wife is a public school teacher so I hear all about what kind of fvcked up parenting skills 90+% of the population here has. Wasn't always like that, but as the Atlanta riff raff started moving toward us, the schools went to sh1t. I wouldn't want my kids dealing or associating with any of that crap, hence the reason we got ours in a private school.

As I said before, if we lived somewhere where the public schools were good, I wouldn't have a problem with sending them to a public school.

You make it sound as though those kids want to associate with your kid. Believe me, they don't. Just so long as s/he doesn't go looking for trouble, s/he won't find any.

End of story.

Agreed. As I said in an earlier post, I went to a public school in GA--one that had a decent amount of gang activity at the time--and I'm still alive. Knowing and/or seeing the gang members and attracting their ire are two completely different things.

Were the parenting skills of many of the individuals in that school lacking? I wouldn't doubt it. Did we sometimes deal with issues that wouldn't have come up at a private school? More than likely. But I was also exposed to a very diverse group of individuals, many of whom it benefited me greatly to know, while simultaneously learning to problem-solve in a variety of less-than-ideal situations.

 

[nageov3t]

depends on the private school.

I went to jesuit schools pre-college and I think I'm better for it... I got to study a ton of things that my public school friends never did (latin, religion, and a ton of advanced electives during junior/senior years), our extra-ciriculars were pretty well funded thanks to alumni donations, and the schools as a whole seemed to have a better atmosphere than the impression I got from public school (in high school especially, being smart was a good thing and we were all pretty competitive over who got accepted to the best colleges).

on the downside, at 26, I still have no idea where to go to buy drugs

 

[fierydemise]

Originally posted by: Edgewardb
3. I know gangs, drugs exist everywhere however private schools have less of them.

As others have stated I think you are making far to much of gang influences generally unless you live in a few specific areas and on drugs you are dead wrong, in my experience it is the heavily sheltered kids (who generally go to private schools) are the ones who are most likely to revolt against their parents and when they do they push back in a really big way resulting in relatively high drug usage and other assorted "immorality."

As others have said the most important thing is not what school your son attends but how much effort you put in to making sure your son learns good morals, practices them, does his work, etc. The school cannot be a substitute for the parents and it shouldn't have to be, the private vs. public school question is secondary to question of how much am I willing to put in to make sure my son ends up as the best person he can be.

 

[KK]

Originally posted by: Whisper
I went to a public high school (in GA no less, which would put me at odds with KK's assessment of that state's education system), and was no better- or worse-prepared academically than the thousands of other individuals I came across while attending Emory, UGA, or here at LSU.

Would I have preferred a private school? Based solely on the experiences recounted to me by friends and acquaintances who attended them, no.

Would I have stuck my kids in the public school around my area ten years ago, yes and I wouldn't have thought twice about it. Now, hell no. Sure there are some good public schools in the state, and recently we even pondered moving to below athens where there still are some good public schools. What we would save in tuition we could put that amount toward housing and still come out ahead. The only downfall would be a further commute. We haven't ruled that out yet, but the kids like where they are at, and that's what counts.

 

[KK]

Originally posted by: Jschmuck2

Originally posted by: KK

Originally posted by: eits
honestly, i obviously think you should send your kid to public school... but make sure it's a great public school. find the best public school in the area and move to a neighborhood that would allow your kid to go there... it'd probably be cheaper than sending your kid to private school.

fyi, i went to a blue ribbon high school which turned out smarter kids and more graduates than various private schools in the area. i was the captain of my high school's quizbowl team and we crushed private school teams left and right. the point i'm trying to make is don't bank on private schools providing any better quality of education than a public school (unless it's an inner city public school).

Thats all fine and dandy if the public schools are good. Come down to GA and see what type of hell the public system is in. My wife is a public school teacher so I hear all about what kind of fvcked up parenting skills 90+% of the population here has. Wasn't always like that, but as the Atlanta riff raff started moving toward us, the schools went to sh1t. I wouldn't want my kids dealing or associating with any of that crap, hence the reason we got ours in a private school.

As I said before, if we lived somewhere where the public schools were good, I wouldn't have a problem with sending them to a public school.

You make it sound as though those kids want to associate with your kid. Believe me, they don't. Just so long as s/he doesn't go looking for trouble, s/he won't find any.

End of story.

It's not all about associating with other kids. They are there for mostly one reason, to learn. When you got problem kids being disruptive and the teacher has no backing of the administration to get the disruptive juvenile delinquents out of the classroom, then all the other decent kids in the class are going to be at a disadvantage.

 

[jandrews]

I think it is a wise choice, I had a buddy whose dad was a cop and mom was some other middle class job and they busted their ass to send him and his brother to private school. Now my buddy is an insurance actuary and his brother is in private business making a boatload. Anyway, it was an all male military academy (uniform etc) and it did them well.

 

[Excelsior]

I agree with the "Move to different/better area so your kid can go to better schools instead of paying the $$$$ for the private."

Also, have you looked at charter schools?

 

[krunchykrome]

After seeing differences between private school children and public school children, and if I was financially capable to put my children into private schools when I have kids, I definetly would.

 

[BrownTown]

It depends really on how good the school are in your area, I know where I grew up it was a necessity to send your kid to private school if you wanted them to get anywhere in life. In the paper each year they would have the list of Valedictorians from the local school and they were almost all going to state school and community colleges, and those are the cream of the crop public school kids, many of the rest weren't going to any college at all. Meanwhile every single person who graduated my year from our private school went to college (~150 people). Of those probably 50 were accepted to top 25 schools (although maybe 30 went and 20 got free rides at other schools). Almost all the rest still went to very good state school and such, very few went to community college (like 5 of the 150). Just looking at the SAT scores would show you that going to the private school would give you 250 more points (out of 1600 back in the day). Again, the valedictorians from the local high schools were getting ~1100-1300 SATs, and I got a 1530 and wasn't even in the top third of my class GPA wise (SAT-wise we had at least 15/150 or 10% get over 1500, 3 1590s, no 1600s, but several people easily have done so if they had retaken. The all girls private school had 2 1600s in a graduating class of 100 my year)

 

[Kirby]

My public school didn't have gangs, but then again I only graduated with 75 other people.

 

[ElFenix]

harrr, a pirate school be a mighty fine idea, methinks

 

[K1052]

It really does depend on where you live. Some public school systems are actually very good and on par (or better in some cases) than the available private schools. I will say that you usually have to actively seek these districts out and make a conscious decision to move there.

In my old city the public school system was dogshit past the elementary level. The public high schools were a joke. After 8th grade I was given the option by my parents of attending one of the three private schools in the city as they refused to allow me to attend the publics ones. I elected for the Catholic (Dominicans) one where my brother had gone before me. I had quite a few friends in the public and other private schools and have never regretted my decision.

 

[krunchykrome]

Originally posted by: ElFenix
harrr, a pirate school be a mighty fine idea, methinks

Is today the "talk like a pirate" day?

 

[Mxylplyx]

The whole point of private school is to get your kids away from the scum, and you can usually only accomplish this with the more expensive private schools. Private schools that are more affordable are the dumping grounds for kids that have been kicked out of public school. It's a shame that public schools cant accomplish this by isolating the scum, perhaps into a heavy dicipline, military oriented program.

 

[Xavier434]

Originally posted by: eits
i see no flaws in your plan. if you want your son to completely reject God or be addicted to drugs and hiding it from you by the time he's in high school, you're definitely making the right choice.

the WRONG choice would be to send your kid to an american socialized educational system where the kids are exposed to lots of things and get to see the bad that comes out of it and quickly learn to stay away from them.

keeping them sheltered is the best way to go.

This is wrong on so many levels.

Sheltered = no exposure to real world problems = no experience on how to deal with them

I don't see anything wrong with private schools nor public schools but sheltering is a terrible idea. Plus, private schools does not always equal less drugs and violence. It all boils down to who your kid chooses to associate with and what they decide to do when faced with choices.

The bottom line is that there is no way to protect a child completely from drugs, violence, or any of those other things that we all wish did not exist. The right thing to do is to teach your children that this stuff is out there and how to handle it properly. You also need to enforce and reinforce the idea to them that they can approach you and tell you ANYTHING. Allow them to trust you without fearing you. It's a fine balance and hard to accomplish but it is worth it.

From there, allow them to be exposed to the real world step by step. Too many parents shelter their kids until they go to college. Guess what happens to those unprepared and unexperienced kids there? It goes back to the old saying, "You need to learn how to crawl before you learn how to walk." Kids going to college without enough of these experiences is a text book example reflecting why this saying is the truth about life.

 

[bonkers325]

just because people can afford private school doesnt make them any less scummy than those in public school

i went to an inner-city public high school with 4000 other kids and everyone i know turned out fine. college degree, first jobs, etc.

 

[Xavier434]

Originally posted by: Mxylplyx
The whole point of private school is to get your kids away from the scum, and you can usually only accomplish this with the more expensive private schools. Private schools that are more affordable are the dumping grounds for kids that have been kicked out of public school. It's a shame that public schools cant accomplish this by isolating the scum, perhaps into a heavy dicipline, military oriented program.

This is true, but people also need to consider that the real world is full of a variety of people and learning how to deal with all kinds of people is just as important as academics. A child spending their life from age 12-18 in good private schools where the people are "above average" will force them to adapt to the idea that most people out there are like those who he is around at his school. This is not a good thing. The real world is not like that. The purpose of school and everything that a parent does to raise their children is to prepare them for the real world as much as humanly possible before they leave the house. Denying them the opportunity to be exposed to such experiences, choices, and to learn in general is never a good parenting technique.

 

[KK]

Originally posted by: Xavier434

Originally posted by: Mxylplyx
The whole point of private school is to get your kids away from the scum, and you can usually only accomplish this with the more expensive private schools. Private schools that are more affordable are the dumping grounds for kids that have been kicked out of public school. It's a shame that public schools cant accomplish this by isolating the scum, perhaps into a heavy dicipline, military oriented program.

This is true, but people also need to consider that the real world is full of a variety of people and learning how to deal with all kinds of people is just as important as academics. A child spending their life from age 12-18 in good private schools where the people are "above average" will force them to adapt to the idea that most people out there are like those who he is around at his school. This is not a good thing. The real world is not like that. The purpose of school and everything that a parent does to raise their children is to prepare them for the real world as much as humanly possible before they leave the house. Denying them the opportunity to be exposed to such experiences, choices, and to learn in general is never a good parenting technique.

To an extent, but you wouldn't throw your kids out into a sh1tty school system and slap them on the back and say to them that its a good character builder..

 

[Xavier434]

Originally posted by: KK
To an extent, but you wouldn't throw your kids out into a sh1tty school system and slap them on the back and say to them that its a good character builder..

No I wouldn't. The line needs to be drawn somewhere. Like all parents, I want the best for my kids. If moving to a location where my kid will be zoned for a good public school where they can safely learn their academics as well as get exposure to the real world at a good pace then that is what I will do.

 

[Jschmuck2]

Originally posted by: eits
i see no flaws in your plan. if you want your son to completely reject God or be addicted to drugs and hiding it from you by the time he's in high school, you're definitely making the right choice.

the WRONG choice would be to send your kid to an american socialized educational system where the kids are exposed to lots of things and get to see the bad that comes out of it and quickly learn to stay away from them.

keeping them sheltered is the best way to go.

Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrr - clearly, ye be a huge dumbass, matey. This be one of the worst suggestions ever purrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrposed in regarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrds to education.