So, I'm about to do something I swore I never would....
Look at private schools. As a young college student, I swore I would never send my kid to private schools because it just supports the gross disparity of education in this country.In college, I spent a lot of time in "at risk" elementary schools for course work and it is unbelievable the inequality in education. Well, add a child into my life some years later, and that changes quite a bit: my school district just redistricted and increased the class size to 26 for Kindergarten, which is only half day to begin with. Normally, I would be a little uncomfortable with this but try to make it work; however Ava requires a little extra attention. She is hyper-emotional and has a very hard time recovering from meltdowns, she is super sensitive to noise, and she has a tremendously difficult time focusing, if she is not totally engaged. And, to boot, the kid is super smart. She is only four and without much help from me and dh, has begun to read and knows basic addition. I, of course, am proud but in the depths of all this, I am a bit scared too. I worry she is going to be lost in a class of 28 kids, who are just starting letter recognition and basic phonetic structure. Now, I am not totally sold on the whole private school thing, but I feel the need to explore our options. I hate this. I hate that our money goes to absurd wars, ridiculous earmarks, and pointless programs in this country when one of the most important components of our future, education, is grossly disfunctional. I watched Obama last night on 60 minutes and damn, that guy fills me with hope. But, in the meantime, I am dragging my feet into this whole private school thing. Again, I'm not totally sold on the idea but I know after seeing a few of these schools, it will drive home the fact that our schools need real change and overhaul. So, maybe that is a good thing, maybe it will ignite something in me....I am a teacher after all and as we learned this year, change starts from the ground up.
Have a great week, mamas.
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This is such a complicated issue. It doesn't feel like a fair choice. For the record, I fully intend to send my kids to the local private semi-waldorf school - which is ridiculous because I will have to beg and borrow every cent to send them. But the local public school is worse than terrible. And my 2yo sounds a lot like Ava. And I was like that too and I barely made it through my alternative charter school with only 6 kids in my class!! Anyway, there's a ton to say about this and I look forward to hearing what other mamas think . . .
My dd is only 15 months, so I have a while to think about it, but she goes to daycare at a charter school that I used to work at, when it was a public "alternative" school. I always had beef with charter schools, but now it looks like I'll be sending dd to charter.
Also, my husband is really concerned with athletics and went to a really prestigious high school in Maryland with a soccer scholarship. He is adamant that we send dd to a school that offers the best programs to suit her interest, whether it's public or private. His point in that had he remained at his public school, his achievements in soccer would have never been as noticed because the public school didn't have the resources that the private school did.
It is an interesting dilemma. In the end we have to try and do what is best for our children at an particular moment. Maybe private would be good the first few years, and then she could switch to public?!
We are planning on homeschooling, and I am glad, because the school thing is crazy. Our schools are supposed to be good, but my son is supposedly disabled which means they want him in special ed at the public school even if he doesn't need it. SO if we wanted to send him to public school he would have to be in that class, not a regular class. The kid has some issues, yes, but he is not cognitively impaired and can do just about anything he needs or wants to physically. He has trouble using his left hand as a result of complications from premature birth, but really no one notices unless I tell them or they're trained to look for it. So we would have to do private school.
But what it comes down to is your kid, right? I have ideas and ideals, but what is best for my actual individual kid has to come before what I like to think and how I want the the world to be in my imagination.
i swore that come hell or high water, my kid wouldn't attend u.s. public schools because i was bored out of my friggin' mind in them and wanted more for my then-hypothetical child.
then, when i was a bit less younger, my disgust at the state of u.s. public schools took me down a different hypothetical path, and i felt that when i became a parent, i should put my energy into educational reform and volunteering with my still-hypothetical child's beleagured public school.
then, around the time i conceived dd, the hypothetics became reality, and i was still at a loss. i have been researching and visiting and freaking out in various ways about my fears of the toxic potential of elitist private schools and the potential tedium of underresourced public schools. i'm still uncertain. we are leaning rather heavily toward a small public charter school, but a friend of bd's has a daughter who attends a small, progressive private school that she's very pleased with, so we're going to check it out next week.
dd inherited her parents verbal enthusiasms and can recognize and sound the whole alphabet, write her name, write my name {mama}, et cetera, and despite her parents' lack of mathematical anything, can count endlessly and do basic addition and subtraction, so she's all set to be bored as hell in an overburdened and underresourced public kindergarten classroom.
still, i feel more equipped to compensate for that in some ways while being very afraid of the potential for the overt and implicit classism she's likely to experience if she's the scholarship kid at a private school {'cuz if she goes, she'll have to be as we so don't have that kinda money, and i don't see it as worthwhile to never see her, so i can take a second job to pay for such}.
i've been stressing on some level about this for going on five years now, and i am earnestly hoping that once she's actually started kindergarten somewhere next fall, that knot at the base of my neck will loosen, but that's probably just wishful thinking . . .
"if i pass for other than what i am, do you feel safer?" ~ lani ka'ahumanu
dragon knows dragon
"if i pass for other than what i am, do you feel safer?" ~ lani ka'ahumanu
dragon knows dragon
with regard to being the scholarship kid in private schools, i know folks who have been, and one said he was never sweated for it, and the other said she felt it was a constant source of marginalization by other students. i know the possible outcomes vary widely, but it still frets me. thank you for the good luck wishes - to you, too, and please post your ongoing thoughts on the topic 'cuz it helps me to read 'em.
"if i pass for other than what i am, do you feel safer?" ~ lani ka'ahumanu
dragon knows dragon
thinking about it, my kids have the opportunity to be marginalized at the private school for being scholarship kids and marginalized at the ghetto school for being different from the other kids in their classes. there are these sorts of issues across the board. issues to weigh, though i dont consider them deal breakers.
i know, right? this is the part about adulthood that kinda sucks, imho - there are no "right" answers or "perfect" solutions. it's all compromise, compromise, compromise. that whole fierce dogmatism of adolescence and early adulthood that seems almost biologically determined just doesn't prepare a person for complexity, or maybe i'm just missing how it does. i'm hoping to at least be able to impart more grey as a parent in hopes of sparing my kid that sense of having betrayed something by embracing compromises. now that i've written this much, i'm wondering if it's biological or if it's just american culture that instills that whole notion of uncompromising dogma - live free or die, et cetera. rambling, sorry. end tangent.
"if i pass for other than what i am, do you feel safer?" ~ lani ka'ahumanu
dragon knows dragon
Ugh. This is an extreme irrelevant example but I can't help sharing:
I was the scholarship kid freshman year at an elite private boarding prep school (outside of Boston). IT SUCKED. I totally didn't "get it". I didn't buy into the whole elite thing, and I didn't know how to fake it and (at the time) I really didn't appreciate that my stuffy, pretentious, useless, well-dressed classmates would one day rule my world.
But I think if I had started out in that culture earlier on (first grade? sixth grade?) it would have been a lot easier. . .
The SF Chronicle's parenting blog "the poop" ran had an an awesome discussion of this topic not that long ago. I'm too tired to figure out how to post the link, but if you go to www.sfgate.com and search "private school guilt" the article will come up. It ran in mid august of this year. Good luck with the decision.
and it's easy for me to be a public school advocate since we live in a wealthy area and as a result have great public schools. So I know I've got a biased point of view...but I did want to let you know just because the class would have 26 kids doesn't mean there is only one teacher, necessarily. Try to find out. Our kindergarten classes have a head teacher, assistant teacher and then a parent volunteer for an hour every day. Once again, I know we live in a wealthy area so we might be the exception, but just wanted to bring it up.
Also I'm reading from a lot of people "my kid is really smart and might get bored"...I remember having this discussion with someone once and we both concluded it kind of depends more on the kid than on how book smart they are. I knew my smart dd wouldn't get bored at school, I think she loves to listen to the teacher and be with her peers and would gladly do the same worksheet 5 times over. I was a little more worried about my smart son (reading chapter books before kindergarten)...but honestly, it hasn't been an issue yet. Last year in kindergarten sure, he was probably the best reader in that grade. But he had a lot to learn about how (not pre-) school works and going to specials and taking the bus, etc, etc, etc. Transitioning to 1st was a little rough at the beginning of this year but he's doing fine. Once again, I'm sure he's still one of the best readers but there's no time to be bored. They keep the kids BUSY these days...even their snack is a "working snack"...please send something dry to eat, parents, as we want no spills on the papers as they will be eating and working at the same time. The day is full, scheduled, fun. I think he doesn't have time to be bored. Plus so far the teachers have been very responsive to giving my kids different work when they've needed something harder.
I'll reiterate that I know my district might be better than others out there, but see if you can get in to your local public school and check out the kindergarten in action before you make up your mind.
And if you decide to go private, go for it. You know what is best for your kids!!
""Also I'm reading from a lot of people "my kid is really smart and might get bored"...I remember having this discussion with someone once and we both concluded it kind of depends more on the kid than on how book smart they are."""
reminds me of the blog on gifted children. I peed my pants reading this.
http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2008/01/22/17-gifted-children/
.
but the google ad at the bottom really got me:
"Ads by Google
Jesus is the only answer
Christian Boarding School for kids rebelling against parents authority
www. abundantlifeacademy .com"
i clicked on it, and it's for real. amazing.
"if i pass for other than what i am, do you feel safer?" ~ lani ka'ahumanu
dragon knows dragon
.
I WANT my kids to be bored in school. I don't care how smart and talented they are. I think I might be in a minority here, but I don't want my kids stuffed full of information. I want them to have half a day of recess - outside - every day and the other half can be painting and music.
They can learn all the factoids they need in high school. I think it's cool what Mercury wrote about promoting self-esteem and encouraging kids to pursue their dreams through real study and work, but that's not the same as work for the sake of work, or worse, test-taking.
But that's not what scares me about our local public school - What scares me is the crazy inappropriate forced maturation that public (and private) school culture promotes in so many ways. It's not just happening in the classrooms either . . . I was a kid in this town, I know exactly what happens in the bushes behind the swings . . .
Now I'll go look at your link!
http://heyquitpushing.com/index.html
I went to hear him lecture and decided he was right on. We are doing a developmental kindergarten class (M's teacher is friends and studied with him) and then repeating K.
It's an option more parents might want to look into. Just want to add M's in a public school and 50 % of the parents keep their K kids back for a second year based on the theory of not pushing academcs too hard too early. I completely agree with your above poston heeping it simple.
to read that website, and know that there's at least a small wave of concern out there about too much too soon. On the flip side, I can appreciate why so many people are sticking to the idea of Headstart and strong academics in the early years. For example, we take for granted that our children will learn to read eventually - I read to my girls everyday, we sing, we run, we clap we fill the bird feeder . . . They are already learning so much from me just by hanging out with me. I don't need an institution to fill in the gaps.
But for many kids the institution (public school) will end up providing most of the parenting they are going to get. So early academics are a necessary, (if not slightly misguided), attempt to get the "less-parented" kids up to speed.
The truth is that Headstart, rigorous test-preparation and the like, are currently the only way we have of insuring equal opportunity for all. Ugh.
i am not interested in "pushing" my kid in any direction - academic, athletic, or artistic. my concern about her level of boredom in a typical public school classroom has more to do with the pedagogical approach in said classroom than the academic rigor or lack thereof. i wasn't bored because i was "gifted", and when i think of dd being bored, that's not why either. instead, it's because per state regulation, the curriculum is narrow, and the teaching methods are linear, one size fits all, and geared to standardized test results. i don't think boredom is a desireable state 'cuz to me it indicates lost opportunities for engagement whether with a kickball or a book or a butterfly.
when we were seeking a new preschool earlier this year when her old, mostly play-based one relocated to a suburb, we pointedly didn't choose the one with the mini rows of desks and the director who raved about how the 3 year olds were doing second grade level homework. it's preschool, for fuck's sake. in our grammar school search, we have left off all those institutions peddling an implicit future ivy-league acceptance letter based on their "strong academic programs". what we're seeking is an environment in which dd can pursue her interests - be they running around the playground shrieking or learning how to use an abacus {still a mystery to me} or making up whole worlds in pretend play or whatever AND an environment in which bullying and accelerated maturation via pop cultural influences are not treated as de rigueur. based on my experience in public schools and my observation of my neices and nephews experiences, neither side of that "AND" is available in the average public school classroom. hence our investigation of public charter schools and progressive private schools.
edited to add: in the course of said investigation, i have encountered more than one progressive private school that actively discourages student engagement of literacy and basic math skills as "age inappropriate" and something "they'll grow into at around 6 or 8", and frankly, i think that's as whack as any other dogma. if a kid is interested in those things, why redirect them? that doesn't seem any more productive or balanced than insisting that they learn them if they're not interested at all yet.
"if i pass for other than what i am, do you feel safer?" ~ lani ka'ahumanu
dragon knows dragon
The kind of bored you describe is not desirable. The kind of bored I like is when kids are given enough free time and resources and support where they suddenly find themselves creating or doing something amazing. I don't know any public school model that allows enough time, let alone the resources and teacher support for this kind of boredom to happen.
As for the discouragement of reading and math - that seems silly too. I am very lucky that our Waldorf school (where I hope to send my girls and where I went all 8yrs of grade school) is NOT one of the fundamentalist ones. I happily learned to read when I was three, and was encouraged to continue to do so once I started school.
this has been a discussion in our house for years before we even had kids. since we moved to the ghetto a year ago, and our girls are getting closer to kindergarten, the issue is amplified.
you wont believe this:
the elementary school that my daughters are destined for is on the same property as the juvenile detention center. the playground shares a fence with the jail yard. no joke.
this is an underprivledged district.
kindergartners routinely still need to be potty trained, many dont finish the year of school because they have to move to a different family member's house... lowest test scores in the region. you get the idea.
we can "school choice" to the beautiful school a mile away.then concern ourselves with the usual issues of public school: standardized testing, out of date compulsory education, my daughter not fitting in to the teaching model.
just yesterday we were looking at the montessorri school. it is located in the woods that my husband grew up in, and it is an educational dream. the teaching method is so beautiful, i adore the teachers, the students are happy and smart... and it would cost exactly our NET INCOME each month.
that is a perfect illustration of this inequity.
lucked on on our neighborhood charter school. I'm blown away how great it is, but then again, I feel like I almost moved in at times i'm there so much on top of having a job..
Class size is an issue and your reasons seem prudent to explore other areas of learning. Is home-schooling an option? Some areas have large HS communities.
I'm all about being an advocate for our child's education. More than once the topic has come up here on the concept of 'let it (change) begin with me" or, the flip, do I want my child to be the lab rat with change in its infancy.
You have a right to educate your child in the best way you see fit. Personally I would hold off on the private school...from my experience they are most definitely worth the money BUT they still cannot shield your child from many things. Money can't buy protection from every single thing that could happen to your child at a school, any school.
For example when my daughter was in an inner city school (she was in a private school kindergarten & part of 1st grade, home schooled part of 1st grade, then public inner city school 2-4th grades) her homework in the 4th grade, the 4th grade! was stuff like 2+1 and 4+5. I talked to the teacher, the principal (who had 5 kids herself that went to another school district, humph), wrote letters to the school board, all that, to no avail. No one cared that the kids were not being educated to state standards. I had to teach her most of what she was supposed to learn at school so she wouldn't fall behind but there was a lot I wasn't able to cover. So we looked at private schools, and settled on an all-girls school that cost 12K a year. Yeah, ok.
To this day I am not sure how/why we got approved because at the time my husband was only making 20K a year and I was about 5K...In retrospect I think they thought my husband was independently wealthy, like had a trust fund or something. We get that a lot, even now, people assuming my husband has money. He doesn't, but apparently gives off that kind of vibe LOL. So anyway our big plan was that I'd get a full-time job and pay for her school that way. Did I mention that we also had a pre-schooler and baby at the time, the youngest getting sick a lot due to allergy/nasal issues? So I missed a lot of work, and we got way, way behind on the payments.
Still we would have stuck it out if our oldest son had been accepted at the all-boy private school. There was no way I was going to put him in the inner city school even 'just' for kindergarten because not only did they under-educate, they also treated black boys like criminals. But he got wait-listed for that school, then another...time was running out and we just didn't have time to go through the app process with yet another school. So we moved out the hood to the small suburb town my husband grew up in. The schools are very good; the teaching is excellent, the atmosphere in all the schools conducive to learning, the buildings are well-maintained. The education is just as good as at the 12K year private school.
On what you can't protect: the year after we left the private school, the new gym teacher they hired molested one of the students in what would have been my daughter's class. The girl got pregnant, it was a terrible thing. Plenty of parents pulled their kids out after that. Can you imagine? You're paying 12K a year and they hire some rapist. Then a few years later, at the boys' school in what would have been my son's class, they lost some kid at a field trip and he got hurt in an accident trying to cross a busy street. Not that either of these events make the schools bad schools, it's just for that kind of money...you have a higher expectation that your child will be protected. but money can't buy protection from every single thing that could happen to your child at a school, any school.
What I got from the year we were at that school was to raise my expectations of my kids by changing how I interacted with them. It's one thing to say to your child, Hey you can be president, it's another thing to actually treat them as if they are already president. At the private school my daughter was in, that was how they treated all the kids. I had never seen children treated with such deference and respect before in my life. The kids in turn became more respectful in their own way of speaking to people. My daughter has always been a kind person but that school helped her to express kindness and respect to any person she met.
They were also exposed to how to start a career, any career. My daughter expressed an interest in fashion even then so her teachers gave her in-depth info on the fashion industry. If she had been in the inner city school and said 'Hey I want to be a fashion designer' the teachers would have laughed at her or just said Oh that's nice. Whereas at the private school they were like, Of course you can have this career, you can do this, and here's how. They assumed all the kids at that school were going to be leaders in their field and treated them that way. They also got my daughter caught up academically and then some.
I don't regret the money we spent but in retrospect I do wish I hadn't been so stuck on staying in the hood. We could have moved the year before and she could have gone to a great school for free. Moving the way we did I felt 'forced' to move, and that deeply affected how I viewed where we live at now. I wasted years in resentment, but I digress. Anyway whatever you choose I think it's great you are thinking it through, considering all your options, before making a decision.
Family Footprint | Seed & Flame
Wherever there is a human being there is an opportunity for kindness. ~Seneca
You've done it all! That's a great story Mercury. And you address our exact issue - we are not willing to live where there are good public schools. Which in this state means the suburbs of our biggest city. I would rather live in the wilds and take my chances on getting into and being able to afford the one private school in the whole county. Our public school here (there's only one) is not inner city, but it is rural poor. And that comes with a whole different set of scary problems. Problems that we know intimately because my dh has worked with these kids for six years, and swears his girls will never set foot in those classrooms.
Of course, you can quote me on this in 6 years!
and drew the same conclusion as your dh. i'm heartened to hear that there actually is an alternative in your county. where i grew up, i don't know of any in the county or the surrounding counties, though there may have been some in the wee college town 60 miles southeast. i hope ya'll find a way that works well for your family.
"if i pass for other than what i am, do you feel safer?" ~ lani ka'ahumanu
dragon knows dragon
when it comes down to it, i am realizing that my quams with the public school system are not worth setting aside.
kids need more hands on learning.
these standardized tests are so contrary to actual learning.
schools in our area are considering eliminating recess.
i am outraged.
kids need time to move, time to direct themselves, thus the "working snack" at dynamoms school really is contrary to my intuition.
the school day (including time on the bus) seems inhumane to me. how can a kid be a kid when they are in school from 7 to 4, 5 days a week? then homework....homework! add an hour or three to the schedule, all because the school day is filled with useless busy work. its an inefficient use of our children's valuable time.
i have thought at times that the public school system is good at acclimating kids to our society, though i dont even believe in the value of that anymore.
one day we might homeschool, but until then i am going to figure out how i can bust my hump (even more) to give my girls a montessori education.
but i think the regimentation and bells and busywork of public schools were designed in part to prepare kids for industrial labor as adults. from my perspective, even the "good" schools in the suburbs are undesireable because they still lack the curricular options {a range of physical, creative, engaged activities decidedly not centered around standardized testing, etc.} and school-culture hallmarks {small, supportive, imaginative with good conflict resolution, etc.} i'd ideally like dd to have.
the charter school we're considering doesn't have all that, but it has some. the private school we're visiting next week looks like it might, but we'd have to have essentially full financial aid to manage it. perhaps the montessori school has some scholarship options that could help ya'll?
"if i pass for other than what i am, do you feel safer?" ~ lani ka'ahumanu
dragon knows dragon
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The school was effing amazing! I have a chicken to start roasting, but I'll post tomorrow about it...I'm interested in seeing other outlooks and perspectives, too. Thanks, WR, for commenting.
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