I guess the private school thing is worth it....

[HardDrive]

On career day, guess who shows up at my pre-schoolers class to talk about what they do for a living? Mike McCready, lead guitarist for Pearl Jam! The kids were rockin out.

[URY914]

Let me make a wild guess here and say that is not Mike in the picture, correct?

[911Rob]

my 5 kids all went to private school, but I'm not sure meeting a rock star was the reason?

other than marrying my wife, best decision I've EVER made imo.

[Tishabet]

Cool!

[jyl]

My kids go to private school, have done since K. Great education, matched by the expense. I'm ready to be done with it. Public high school for them.

[mikester]

dude that is so freakin awesome.

[mattdavis11]

I like the bumper sticker that reads "One day your honor student will work for my son" or daughter.

They won't if they follow Mike. Music makes it's own.

Private schools.... There is no sense of reality being taught. Everyone in the system has a cushion. Both of my parents graduated from Vandy in the 60's, as well as one of my brothers in the early 90's, and it's alarming how much escapes them.

Great schools (IVY) produce some of the biggest dumb asses. Look at our current and previous presidents.

[pwd72s]

Maybe next they could schedule a visit from Keith McCready?

[URY914]

Originally Posted by mattdavis11

Private schools.... There is no sense of reality being taught. Everyone in the system has a cushion. Both of my parents graduated from Vandy in the 60's, as well as one of my brothers in the early 90's, and it's alarming how much escapes them.

Great schools (IVY) produce some of the biggest dumb asses. Look at our current and previous presidents.

And public schools are doing such a fine job.....

[Aerkuld]

That's super cool.

My youngest was impressed that he had NHL player Trevor Gillies from the Carolina Hurricanes come to his class for career day. Saying that I think thats the most action Gillies has seen this season.

[Jims5543]

My 15 y/o got to meet one of the 4 Seasons. His music teacher is friends with him. I just showed him this thread and he said, no fair!!

I have both of mine in private school too, its pretty apparent my older one with not be Ivy league material, I will be happy if he gets a degree of some sort, more happy if he can get a marketable trade and find a good niche.

He is a good kid, but no road scholar. He has a tough time keeping up, and was wallowing in Public School. We had to slide him into private school so he could have a fighting chance at life.

It has made a huge difference in not only his academics but his self esteem. I can go on and on.

The 5 y/o will never step foot in a public school.

Anyone knocking private school, think of it this way, its a GOVERNMENT run agency. It runs about as efficiently as any other government agency, probably worse...

[jyl]

To clarify, I'm not anti public school.

Where I lived in the SF Bay Area, the local lower (K-5) public school was excellent. Some of the middle schools were very good, you had to live in the right place or get your kid into the right school. And a couple of the high schools were very good. Here in Portland, many of the public schools are said to be good to very good, and at least one of the high schools is excellent - gives up nothing to the private high schools. It really depends on the city, its demographics and economics, and how much the people are willing to fund the public schools and to demand results from them.

I sent my kids to private school for language reasons. They'll exit the 8th grade fluent in English and French and with a good start in written/spoken Chinese. They'll also know most of pre-calculus, but I hadn't planned for that.

Whether this is worth over $250,000 of tuition that I will have paid to get two kids through 8th grade - we'll see. I know its been a considerable financial burden.

[Rick Lee]

Huey Lewis went to my prep school. He came back for an alumni day, but that was about it. When my sister was there, the Spin Doctors played the prom.

[mattdavis11]

My problem with private school is that an element of common sense is lacking. The children are sheltered from the realities of life. The problem associated with public school is that the parents don't give a fuch, and the teachers aren't paid to baby sit.

I can't stand up for either. However, both produce idiots, and we are stuck with a democratic party, so I suppose private and public education are useful.

[Jims5543]

Originally Posted by mattdavis11

My problem with private school is that an element of common sense is lacking. The children are sheltered from the realities of life. The problem associated with public school is that the parents don't give a fuch, and the teachers aren't paid to baby sit.

I can't stand up for either. However, both produce idiots, and we are stuck with a democratic party, so I suppose private and public education are useful.

What do you base this on?

My son is in 9th grade, this is the last grade he can go to in this particular private school. Then we are forced to send him to public School, but we are trying to get him into a IT school that offers duel enrollment.

He uses his laptop (he must have one at the beginning of the school year) for all his classes, his assignments are either printed out and handed to the teacher, or e-mailed to her. Don't you think this sounds more like the real world than what most high schools do? You know pretty much the same thing they have been doing for the last 20 years?

Groups of 5 kids are in charge of running small businesses in the school that market to the parents products they would use in day to day life, the profits go towards field trips and rewards like pizza parties on Fridays.

I think my son is gaining a LOT more common sense in this school then he would ever in a public HS.

I am nervous about next year when he enters back into it because he has grown used to teachers that are nice and care and want to make a difference. while these type of teachers are in public schools they are an exception not the rule.

My son sucks at Math, I have tried to tried to work with him to no avail, I cannot seem to explain it in a way that he can understand. His Math teacher takes time out of her day to work with him some extra in school during study hall, and he goes to her house 2 nights a week for private tutoring. (yes we pay for that but its like $40 a week she is not concerned about the money, she is concerned about keeping him up to speed)

This is hard to find in the public school system. I know because my son was in it it up to 6th grade when we pulled him out after a teacher decided she did not like him and was attacking him in class. (some of the board members here know Mike, or the Iceman as we who know him well, call him, and they know he is a well mannered, quiet, and respectful young man) Why that teacher did not like him was beyond me, when she resorted to lying about what was going on, the the principle and guidance counselor piled on it was time for us to go.

BTW- 2 other kids in his private school had the same issue with the same teacher and pulled out for the same reason. This seems to be a pattern with this old tenured bat. The system protects her from discipline.

[sammyg2]

Originally Posted by mattdavis11

I like the bumper sticker that reads "One day your honor student will work for my son" or daughter.

Doesn't make any sense at all.
Chances are the honor students will be the ones running the companies, the rest will have their names on their shirt making an hourly wage.

Whenever I see a bumper sticker that says "my kid can beat up your honor student" I am tempted to ask them if they are proud of the future criminal they are raising.
Like judge Smails said, "the world needs ditch diggers too".

My kids are honor students. My son have never received a grade lower than an A. Plus he's a big kid for his age and tough, don't have to worry about anyone else his age picking on him.
I'm very proud of both of them and IMO parents who act like it's not cool to be an honor student are tards.

As for the rest of your drivel dissing private school, lets just say you missed big time.
What's the under-lying issue?

[Moses]

Public school, private school. Unless you are in an area that has bad public schools or have a child with special needs, it's much the same. PARENTING is what makes the difference.

[the]

Originally Posted by Moses

Public school, private school. Unless you are in an area that has bad public schools or have a child with special needs, it's much the same. PARENTING is what makes the difference.

yep.

in areas with good public schools (there are a lot of them), the private school teachers are generally public school teacher rejects. There are no standards for private school teachers, a lot of them don't even have any teaching credential or education at all. The public school teachers are all going to have 4 years degrees plus at least one more year at a university for a teaching credential.

the public school teachers get paid more, often much more, and also have much better benefits. In good areas, the public school job is the one that those going into K-12 teaching seek. This is from direct experience.

this does not apply to really bad or war-zone school districts. only to those with very good public schools.

private elementary school kids are in a way "sheltered from the realities of life" because they are not really subject to any standards, either. Unless they are disruptive to the business, private school elementary students are always going to be "doing super." Because if the parents believe the kid is not, that's a lost customer. it's like karate, or tennis, etc. lessons for kids. of course, the kid has great potential, doing great, the next bruce lee or andre agassi, etc.

but anyways, totally agree, unless the kid has some kind of special needs, or the public schools are horrible (and that IS the case with a lot of public schools, no doubt), a kid's success is a FUNCTION OF HIS/HER OWN PARENTS.

[sammyg2]

Moses is right, the difference is parenting. Parents who spend huge piles O'money to send their kids to private school usually don't ignore their kid's education. They get involved. They are typically higher up the mental and evolutionary food chain, and read to their kids and help them with their homework instead of getting drunk in the alley with their friends.

Another huge difference, at least at the schools where my kids go:
The schools are very selective. They don't let in trouble-makers or kids who can't keep up. If a student acts up and gets disruptive, he gets booted.
He is not allowed to drag the other students down. That way all students work and learn at an accelerated pace.
At Orange Lutheran high school, over 90% of all graduating students go on to college. That is an impressive number. And almost every single student graduates high school. Having a kid drop out from OLU is a very rare occurrence. As opposed to the 31% drop-out rate at Los Angeles Unified school district.
Here's another interesting tid-bit from their website:

Academics
Orange Lutheran's Class of 2008 was honored with a four-year total of approximately $4.75 million in scholarships for the schools they chose to attend. The total amount of scholarship offers received by the Class of 2008 was an astonishing $10.1 million for four years. Moreover, 33% of our four-year college bound students are attending schools from Princeton Review's 2008 edition of The Best 366 Colleges.

Those are not a bunch of low income scholarships, they are not primarily minority assistance scholarships, they are not reverse-discrimination government hand-outs. They are scholarships for excellent scholastic and athletic achievements. Rewards for years of hard work and dedication. BTW it's also a small school, about 1150 students total so that $4.5 million in scholarships was spread out over less than 300 students. One of them is now the starting quarterback at USC.

The teachers at out local Lutheran schools are not rejects, they are hand-picked cream of the crop. The best of the best.

In public schools they dummy-down the curriculum to the lowest common denominator.
in fact the public schools around here decided that they would teach everything in English and Spanish. The teachers all had to be bilingual and repeat everything twice. That's when it became obvious that my kids were going to private school.
Later the public schools finally realized how stupid they were with the "teach everything twice only teaches half as much" plan.

[the]

Yeah, in places like Santa Ana, or Orange, I'd send my kids to private school, too.

In Newport Beach, Irvine, etc., they'd go to public.