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Old 06-10-2011, 08:48 PM   #1
MikeWaters
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Default Public vs. Private School

Had a conversation with a friend the other day. She and her husband are very well off. By profession, he's a radiologist and she is a shopper. They live in a very nice neighborhood with many houses in the multimillion dollar range.

Yes, it's insufferable crap mansions with no character or soul. But I digress.

The question is whether you send your kid to the best private school, or keep them in the public school. And in this scenario, the public school is considered one of the best.

Tuition at the top private schools costs more than 20k per year. But the cost is somewhat besides the point for them.

Anyway, in these circles, almost EVERYONE sends their kids to private school. And if you sent your kid to public school, your friends would blanch and privately wonder if you should be reported for child abuse.

One of the arguments is superior academics. "I want my child surrounded by the best and brightest, and I don't want him to be held back by other (dumb) kids." Another argument both for and against is elitism. She tells the pediatrician who is arguing for elite private schools, "I don't know if I want my kids to grow up being surrounded by just rich kids." The pediatrician replies, "Aren't all of your friends rich doctors and lawyers now anyways?" She replies in the affirmative. "Yes." I can vouch for this. Her friends are insufferable jackwagons who bore me to almost-violence with their talk of money, cars, and golf.

After hearing this, I told her "almost none of my friends are doctors and lawyers." "Well that's because of your church." Maybe.

But I can tell you that the people I consider friends are much different than the sort of people she likes to hang out with. They are not evil people. They are merely boring people.

Anyway, back to the point of public vs. private. I have a strain of anti-elitism. I was a lower-middle-class kid who want to all public schools and a low-cost university (BYU). I also believe that most differences between public and private school outcomes are due to the inputs. But at the same time I think the quality of one's peers is very important. I somewhat the question of the value of "speeding" through one's education. Yet at the same time, would not want my child to be bored and unchallenged.

I also look to our civic duty and the tragedy of the commons. If no bright kids from well-off families entered public schools, that would harm the other children.

"But Mike, I don't care about the other children. All I care about is my children. Maybe those words are too strong. I want all children to do well. But my primary duty is to my own children, and I am not willing to sacrifice any bit of my child's future for someone else's child."

Ok, I guess that's one way to look at things.

Look at Obama. He didn't put his kids in public school in DC. Elite private school. He doesn't care about the small PR bonus he might get by putting his daughters into public schools. They're his kids and he very well might tell me the exact paragraph I wrote above. "F*** the other kids."

Another belief I have is that much of one's education is a mostly solitary affair composed of one's interests and investment. I had a childhood spent outdoors riding my bike, combing the neighborhood, exploring the woods, fishing with my best friend, playing pickup sports, etc. I think about these poor (not financially) big-city kids with the helicopter parents shuffling their kids around to this or that activity, wringing their hands about things not being perfect, or their kid not being amazingly talented.

I get nauseated.

Yet, I'm not entirely free of the struggle. I have one kid in public school, and the other is going to be starting a private preschool program. There is no question I will keep the one in public school, but the other is up in the air, mainly centered around my concern of her being an older kindergartener who may be unchallenged and bored.

All the while, someone is reading this thinking, "Rich douchebag talking about private schools, rips on rich shallow friends, but he's really rich and shallow scum himself, who is a hyprocrite doing the same thing."

And I would respond to you, "I wish to be your friend, Commoner. Salt of the Earth. You keep me real. Let's talk Mavs."

You can't win!
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