In this thread, “public school” and “private school” are to be understood as they are in the U.S. If the parents have to pay a tuition (or the student has to earn scholarships, etc.), it’s a “private” school. If the education is state-funded, it’s a “public” school.
Also, let’s limit this to kids who are of mandatory school age in your country (Kindergarten through high school); let’s not discuss pre-school, college/university/etc.
ETA: Please don’t respond if you don’t have kids (unless you want to talk about where they would go to school if you had them), your kids are grown (unless you want to talk about where they went to school), etc.
Full disclosure: my wife is a former public school teacher (11th grade).
We have a lot of acquaintances who home-school, or send their kids to evangelical Christian schools, but my wife and I feel pretty strongly that our kids will get the best education in public school – not just because of the curriculum, but also because of the diversity of the students and staff. One of our son’s best friends right now is an African-American girl in his class who came over to our house to play the other day. He’d probably not get to know kids much different then himself through homeschooling or private school.
I do kind of wish there was an affordable Catholic school around – I’d gladly send the kids there. But so far we’re happy with the public school.
My son goes to a Montessori, but he’ll probably go to public school next year. The amount I pay for private school is ridiculous and I’d rather use it for his college fund; same for our daughter. Once she’s in kindergarten, she’s also going to public school. We live in one of the best school districts in our area; no reason not to take advantage of it.
Our younger son is in fifth grade in a private Montessori elementary; our older son has just started high school at a great public school. We’re very happy with both schools.
Homie, you Cretin! You left out X
Well, you’re (probably) not a cretin. And it’s not really that you left something out. It’s just that here, in Ontario, Catholic schools are fully funded by the provincial government too. So, my kids go to a publicly funded religious school. Pretty incredible, eh?
My son is in fifth grade at a local Montessori school. He went to Montessori for preschool, then our neighborhood public school for Kindergarten through 3rd grade. His grade 3 teacher sucked, and the principal wasn’t much better, so we switched back to private school until he finishes Elementary.
He’ll go back to public school for grades 7-12. There are several magnet schools in our area, and lots of traditional options as well.
We also have an almost-three-year-old who we want to send to Montessori for preschool at some point, and possibly through her Elementary years too.
My kid spent two years in public Catholic schools (In Ontario they’re publicly funded) after my ex had them baptised so they could be enrolled. That went about as well as you would expect having generally athiest kids in a religious school. Other than that they spent the rest of their school days in public schools.
Meh. It’s working pretty well for this atheist. I like the fact that they’re getting some formal religious education. It’ll help them answer some Jeopardy questions that I can’t.
My 2 little twins go to a bilingual (English/Japanese) Montessori.
The older one goes to private Catholic school, which the twins will be attending next year.
My son goes to a charter school within the Chicago Public School system which is run by DeVry University. In June, he’ll graduate high school at the regular age with a regular high school diploma and an Associate’s Degree in Network Systems Administration. (Yay!) He applied there specifically to get out of our neighborhood CPS high school (Sullivan).
My daughter goes to a magnet school (wait, wait! you still left out x!) but we didn’t apply there. My ex moved into the neighborhood, so she gets to go there without an admissions or lottery process. It’s just her “plain old public school”. As it happens, the “magnet” (fine arts) is right up her alley. Sweet!
We have homeschooled all the way through so far, though I don’t know how long we’ll go. We enjoy it so much that I’d hate to give it up, though.
This is a common misconception, I think. I have no wish to tell anyone to homeschool, but I do like accurate information. The great thing about homeschooling is that you can do what you want and hang out with who you want. Many homeschoolers feel strongly that they get to live in a more diverse environment than the local public school can offer. Certainly our park group is far more diverse than our neighborhood school (which is entirely middle/upper-middle class white folks), both philosophically and racially. Of course, so is our church congregation and our extended family–it’s not hard to get more diverse than our local school, fine as it is.
Private schools k through 12. My local public schools are ranked really high, but there were just too many kids. I’m talking a graduating class of 900.
The Girl and I are in the process of talking about having kids…If she carries the kid it’s highly likely they will be hearing and not special needs. In which case we may unschool. The Girl was unschooled until college. Then again if the school system is decent, we may send them to school. Whereas if I have the kid there’s a 50% chance that they will be deaf or hard of hearing. In which case they will attend a formal Dhh program or even school… actually we may do a combo of unschooling AND Deaf School. I want my dhh kids to experiance the advantages of a Deaf School/program, since I don’t believe that mainstreaming is enough, and I have NO experiance with Deaf Schools/programs since I was mainstreamed. :(
I have one kid on each end of the special ed spectrum, and both kids attend public school in a very good school district. I have been hugely pleased and impressed with the education and assistance each kid gets.
I don’t think either kid would have received near as good and education in a home school or private school setting as they are getting through our public school district.
