Photos and text by Gabrielle.
I get emails about choosing a school all the time, and I’ve had a draft of this post written up for a full year! But I’ve hesitated to publish this because it’s such a stressful topic for so many people, and I don’t want to inadvertently add to anyone’s stress. Please, if you start reading this and you’re not into it, just skip it and move on. I promise, this is not a directive on how to pick a school, and I don’t claim to know where your particular child should go to school. This is just my thoughts on the topic for my own family.
For me, realizing that I wasn’t willing to stress about choosing a school, started when we lived in New York. People that live in New York are crazy when it comes to schools. I’m not sure that statement is even up for argument. And I don’t blame them. It’s intense. Our oldest turned 4 the month we moved there and school started a few weeks afterward. As we settled in, every time we met someone new the big question was: Where is Ralph going to preschool? And the stress wasn’t because we lived in Manhattan. We were in a little town just north of the Bronx, called Tuckahoe.
Since Ben Blair was starting his graduate work at Columbia, and I had baby number 3 a few weeks after we moved in, money was tight, and our only considerations for pre-school were essentially that it be cheap or free. You can imagine my shock when I found out that it wasn’t uncommon in our area for people to pay $20,000 or more per year for pre-school tuition. And these weren’t imaginary people with private jets. These were my friends and neighbors who didn’t drive fancy cars or take exotic vacations.
Well, paying that kind of preschool tuition simply wasn’t an option for us. So we kept asking around until we heard about other solutions. There was a co-op preschool some mothers at my church had put together — it would switch from house to house each month, with parents doing the teaching. The price was right (free!), but with 3 kids, aged 4 and under, I knew I couldn’t manage it. (We did end up participating in a similar co-op a couple years later for Maude). We also found a Methodist church nearby that offered a preschool with more reasonable prices. It wasn’t a bargain, but it was manageable. It also wasn’t a feeder into the ivy-league-track schools, but we visited it and could see that Ralph would be safe and happy there. We signed him up.
A few short months later, it was time to think about registering for Kindergarten. We knew Ralph would go to the public school in Tuckahoe, though it wasn’t rated nearly as high as the public schools in the nearby wealthier towns of Bronxville and Scarsdale. But even with that decision made, there was so much stress about which teacher he would get. My friends encouraged me to write letters to the school to make sure Ralph was put in the class taught by the Kindergarten teacher with the best reputation. The letters weren’t a guarantee, but they might help.
I found the whole thing just completely overwhelming. I was crushed with worry about who Ralph’s Kindergarten teacher would be. And I felt like an awful parent, knowing there were better-rated public schools available to us if we could afford more expensive rent in neighboring towns. At the park, in the grocery store, anywhere I went, it seemed like the topic of schools was all anybody could talk about.
Well, Ralph didn’t get assigned to that sought after Kindergarten teacher, and my heart was broken. I could barely sleep, wondering if I was sending my first child off to a horrible situation. But it turned out that the teacher he was assigned to was fantastic! Like really awesome! She was a terrific fit for Ralph in so many ways. Plus, she had a communication style with parents that was ideal for me and Ben Blair. Ralph had an amazing Kindergarten year! He loved school and we remained friends with his teacher for the 8 years we lived there. (As a side-note, the following year we didn’t make a teacher request for Maude, but she was assigned the sought-after Kindergarten teacher, and that teacher was excellent as well.)
After our experiences with Kindergarten for Ralph and Maude, I had a mental shift. I realized that I had been so stressed out about Kindergarten when I hadn’t even met any of the Kindergarten teachers. I also realized that the stress didn’t leave after Kindergarten. That these worries would continue till college — I knew my fellow parents were writing teacher-request-letters for every year of school.
At that point, we basically refused to buy in to the choosing a school stress any longer. And it’s not that we didn’t care about school. We definitely care that our kids get a good education! We care that our kids thrive and succeed! But spending time worrying about what school to attend, or paying exorbitant tuition, just isn’t okay with us.
If I find myself getting stressed out about choosing a school, I do my best to return to thoughts like these:
1) Don’t stress out about choosing a school.
I get it. It’s tempting to think about where our kids will go to college before we pick their pre-school, but I think that’s a mistake. Will my child really thrive at Harvard? Maybe. (Malcolm Gladwell’s David & Goliath makes me think otherwise.) At age 5, we don’t know what our kids will be like during middle school or high school or college. And a school that’s working one year may drastically change if you get a teacher that’s not a good fit for your child, or if your son’s best friend moves and he falls into a depression. You can’t control for stuff like that. At different times you’ll need different things.
If you’re an involved parent at all, your child will be able to go to college. And whatever college they get into, can be a building block to the next thing. How many people do you know that went to average public schools, then a decent university, then did medical school or graduate work at a top school? I literally know dozens of these people! And they earn the same salaries as the people that attended high stakes private schools starting in Kindergarten.
Ben Blair and I simply don’t stress about getting into certain schools, and we don’t pick our houses based on school district borders. It’s not worth the worry to me. Instead, I like the idea of using that energy to improve the school we’re assigned to. Or using that energy to improve our home environment. We do not need to get obsessed with choosing a school. It’s unnecessary. We’ll know what to do for our kids. We’ll be able to figure it out, to ask for advice from the right people, to find another option if the first idea isn’t working. Stressing out will not help.
2) You can’t buy happiness.
Paying high tuition, or attending the highest rated school doesn’t guarantee my child will have a happy, successful, fulfilled life. It doesn’t guarantee that my child will be a good citizen or kind person. It doesn’t guarantee that my child will make lots of money as an adult. It doesn’t even guarantee the school will be a good fit for my child. She might hate it. She might be a little fish in a big pond. She might feel pressure to go ivy league, when really, she’d be a better fit at a state school, or even jumping right into a career.
Paying the most tuition in the area won’t guarantee the best or brightest kid. You can’t buy happiness.
So does that mean a quality education doesn’t matter? It for sure matters! We want our kids to have as much quality education as they can. But I think there are many ways to define “quality education”.
3) There are options for choosing a school.
The town I grew up in has since grown, but when we first got there, every kid in town went to the nearest public elementary school. There were no other options. The same thing is true in many towns across America. One public school option. And happily, it mostly meets the needs of the kids. But what if it doesn’t? Until about 10 or 15 years ago, if it didn’t meet your child’s needs, tough luck for you. But that has changed!
If we didn’t like our public schools, we would look around. What are the other public schools like? Is there a charter school? Do we need to do a co-op with other parents? Our kids crave social stuff, but could we do online school and have them get social interaction via extra curricular activities? I know I have options.
In the schools where we live now, there isn’t a ton of funding, so every school can’t provide every program. One high school has a marching band. Another high school has an orchestra. Straightforward options like that can help you choose the right fit for your child. So think about what your child needs. A small class size? Indiviualized attention? A chance to be a leader? Special programs for special needs? A campus garden? A school music program? A Latin and Classics program? A wood-shop on campus? Would he thrive with a diverse group of friends? Don’t assume the best rated school is automatically the best choice for your child.
Can’t find a school that fits your child’s needs? You can make your own education options as well! Maybe you can attend half a day at public school and have a tutor in the afternoons — it would be way less expensive than the typical private school and could be ideal for some kids or families. Does your child crave lots of music education? You could have him attend a decent public school and save your money for piano lessons.
4) I believe in public schools and free education.
My default is public school. I start there. I assume we’ll like whatever school we’re assigned to, and if we don’t, we’ll look at other options. But there are parents that don’t feel they have options at all. Maybe because they don’t speak English well, or are working two jobs and don’t have time to explore the schools in the area. Or maybe they feel like money is too tight and assume that the nearby public school is the only free or affordable option. But their kids deserve a great education just as much as my kids do.
Is public school a fit for everyone? Nope. But for most kids, public schools work, and it’s worth investing our time in them. Because most children in our communities attend public schools, and it’s only in our best interest to give those kids the best educational experience we can.
I know from experience the instinct is to look out for our own kids above all else. And that feeds into our worries about finding the best possible school for our child. The school with the best ratings, or the best reputation. We want to give our kids every chance at success. And we assume the better the school, the more opportunities. It seems like the best school we can find is the ultimate gift to our kids, right?
Well, I actually disagree. If we are so concerned with our own kids that we put them on an elite track, and make sure they’re only rubbing shoulders with the most successful families in our city, while ignoring the needs of other children in the community, that’s not a gift at all. Giving your kids special status while the rest of the world struggles and crumbles is no gift. You’re giving them a worse world instead of a better one.
If we want to give our kids a better world, the most effective way of doing that is making sure every kid in our community has the best possible chance at success. We need to make sure every child in our community has access to an excellent school. And supporting your local public schools is a great way to do that.
Here’s a way to look at it money wise: Our public elementary school raises approx $75,000 per year and that money pays for a choir program, school band, an art event, a campus garden, and more. These programs benefit 300 kids. In comparison, if Ben Blair and I put Oscar, Betty & June, our elementary school aged kids, into the nearest private school, we would be paying $90,000 per year in tuition ($30,000 per student). And that money would benefit only our 3 kids. Of course, we don’t have that much money to put toward tuition, but if we did, I would much rather see those funds go toward a public school, where it could improve circumstances for a hundred times as many kids.
It’s the same with donating time and volunteering in the schools. I think the parents and community members who get involved with public schools are doing amazing work, because they’re not just providing a good educational experience for their own child, they’re also building the entire community.
I believe in public schools and free education.
(That said, I also completely understand there are reasons parents choose private schools as well. Olive will be in public school for 8th grade this fall, but she was enrolled in a private school for the last two years. So I get it, I promise. And in another post, maybe I can talk about how we made that decision. My intention isn’t to shame anyone for not using public schools, I’m just trying to express why I think public schools are so important.)
5) YOU can change things.
When I first wrote about our Oakland public elementary school, I received an email from the woman responsible for transforming it. Not a school employee, she’s a parent in the community. And yes, it really did start with ONE person. In her email she said, “My work at [elementary school] over the past nine years is one of the things in my life that I am most proud of. I don’t think you would believe the changes that have taken place in a relatively short time.”
Be confident you can change or fix things. You like your school but it doesn’t have a strong STEM program? You (yes you!) can make it happen. You are empowered! You can improve your school. You can provide what the school can’t provide until the school improves. You can do it. Parents do it all the time. Sometimes they have no choice but to dive in and improve the situation.
You can volunteer in the classroom. You can organize a group of supportive parents. You can organize a schoolyard clean-up day. You can do it!
6) Worrying about choosing a school is a privilege.
Realize that if you have time to think about these things, and have time to explore options, then you, like me, are very privileged, and that many parents don’t have the luxury of worrying about which school will be best for their kids. But even if they can’t worry about it, their kids deserve a good education every bit as much as your kids do.
I think anytime we find ourselves saying that a certain school is fine for other people’s children, but our kids deserve better, that there is a problem. Providing great education for everyone in the community, helps EVERYONE in the community — even those that can afford to opt out.
——-
When we announced we were moving to Oakland, the main message of emails in response to the news concerned schools. Be careful of the schools! You can’t use the middle or high schools! The schools are awful! It’s hard to find a good school! It’s too late in the summer to get a spot in the good schools!
Ugh.
It was New York all over again. But I was determined not to worry about it.
So I did my best to ignore the passionate school-related conversations and knew we’d figure it out when we got here. And that’s what we did. A few days after our move, we visited the district office and registered the 5 oldest. They were all put into the geographically assigned school for our address — no surprises.
Did we know we would like the schools? No. We had no idea. But we chose to assume that we would like the schools. And if it turned out we were wrong, we knew we could try another option. We’ve been here for two years, and still have people raising their eyebrows at us that our kids are enrolled in Oakland public schools. But we continue to love our public schools. They’re not perfect, but they’re doing a great job for our community and they continue to improve.
Now it’s your turn.
What’s your take? Do people stress out about choosing a school where you live? What have your experiences choosing a school been like? Do you have a preference for public or private schools? Or maybe you favor homeschool? Do you live in a place that has lots of choices, or do you live in a town where 90% of the kids go to the same school? Do you think we’re crazy that we didn’t give a single thought to the school district when we bought this house? Can’t wait to hear your thoughts!
P.S. — Want more education related posts? Here’s a link to all the posts about schooling in France. Here’s a link to all the posts about schooling in Oakland.
I love these types of posts. Thanks for the kind attitude with which it was written and for being willing to step into uncertain territory with how it’d be received.
I teach at a private school, but was educated in public schools from K-12. The options available in our area at the time were public or religious schools, and our district was great! My parents were thrilled with public school and all it offered.
When I look at my students, I wonder all the time if the private school education (and tuition costs!) will affect their trajectory in learning. I wish I could track them- they move on from our school to public, private, religious, and even private homeschool options. There are SO MANY FACTORS that affect how their educational experience unfolds, and parental involvement consistently allows your child, no matter what kind of school they’re in, to feel that YOU VALUE THEIR EDUCATION. Isn’t that the more important message after all?
I find this topic so interesting and I love that Sara mentioned the importance of how a parent VALUES their child’s education. I am a teacher in rural West Virginia. It is ranked as one of the worst counties in our state and a state that ranks very low in the country. My husband and I moved here because of the outdoor sports but now that we have two children in preschool we are questioning our location. We are both teachers and we can see that people here don’t value education. The school I teach at was just condemned for structural issues. We are now split into three other schools. A bond was rushed with the hope to pass it and make necessary changes to the safety of our schools. But the bond failed. It failed because people didn’t vote or they didn’t want their taxes to go up. I was involved in community meetings, I talked with my neighbors, I was really hopeful that we could start to make changes. I am sending my kids to a catholic preschool because I worry about my children’s health. Heck, I worry about my health in these moldy schools. and it is sad because many of these kids don’t have that option. I love my house, love the beauty around me but hate my job and the schools. I was hoping we could make it just a few more years and then we could teach overseas so as not to have to give our dog away. We are looking at other states but I honestly think we are so burned from our experience here that I have to check out the schools.
I was blessed to go to really good public schools as a kid and then I have also taught in that same school district. I want the same for my children, but can I find that in a rural setting? Or by some mountains (we are climbers)? I am hoping for Colorado. All I know is that this will be my last year on West Virginia.
Thanks for sharing this! We live in the next town over from you with our toddler. We just bought our first home and moved from (SF, high pressure school culture). Now our local school that is literally at the end of our block is rated at 3. My husband and I debate this topic all the time! You give me great hope that everything will be ok! Thank you for your food for thought!
Great post. Thank you! Way back when our first daughter was 4, in this, the second largest school district in the country, looking at schools was overwhelming. While we were accepted into a highly regarded charter, we decided to make the commitment to our neighborhood, and attend our local public school. It was the best decision we have ever made. At the time, very few in our community were there. Over the last 10 years we have seen the community return to this school, willing to make the investment to make it the best it can be. I carry this quote with me: ““What the best and wisest parent wants for his child, that must we want for all the children of the community. Anything less is unlovely, and left unchecked, destroys our democracy.”
John Dewey, 1907
An added bonus: walking to school! So much better than a conversation through the rearview mirror and it has afforded us the opportunity to know our neighbors even better.
Excited our daughters are now at our neighborhood middle and high schools.
Love that quote. And I agree….neighborhood schools are the best! I personally think it should be every parent’s default to send their kids to their neighborhood school…and then go from there if they just can’t make it work.
What a thought-provoking post! I love reading all the comments here. I must say, however, that there’s no way I could buy a home without carefully researching the school district. We’ve had both negative and positive experiences and the difference that a single teacher makes on my child is dramatic–both wonderful and terrifying. Next year two of our children will be at one school in our district and another at a different school, simply because that’s the only way to avoid a teacher who was truly horrible (many parents in the class ended up pulling their child out for next year).
And while I applaud the reasoning behind sticking with sub-par schools and working to improve them for the benefit of all, the fact is that my children will always be my top priority, and I will put them first, even if it means we jump ship from a failing school. I realize this is not going to be a popular opinion on this comment thread, but it’s the truth!
+1 to the second paragraph. As a mom, my first responsibility is to my own children. I’m not leaving them in a not-so-great public school when a better option exists. I think the opinions about how important it is that we all support public education by enrolling our kids in it is quite silly. I DO support public education: I pay my taxes and I have actually campaigned to support tax increases to improve our community schools. We need good public schools! But I will not sacrifice my own children’s chance at a much better education if it exists.
THANK YOU! I needed this post today. Where we just moved to everyone sends their same three year old to the same preschool and if you send your three year old to a different preschool than it’s an abominable sin. While we can afford the $200/mo to send our son there, I think it’s an unnecessary expense, especially when we have a lot of cheaper options in our area. But then there is the shunning that I might experience at church on Sundays for going with a different option. Yes- we’re still talking about three year olds! When we moved to the area we didn’t care where we moved because our kids aren’t in school yet, and when people at church found out they said, “oh but you’re going to move out of that school district before your kids start school right…?!” While we are planning on it simply because we have a handicap daughter who needs special needs services, and unfortunately the better district has a lot more of what she will be needed, it’s unfortunate that people in our area forcibly move to another area and shun neighborhoods based on schools. I didn’t realize how crazy and competitive it was about schools until we moved here and it’s a shame. Because had we not needed those services for our daughter, we would love to stay here and help build the community that we’re in, and a lot of people fail to see the potential of what our neighborhood has.
Paige
http://thehappyflammily.com
Such a great discussion and balanced perspective.
We homeschool in Canada – not because the schools are terrible, but because we want to homeschool. Most of my friends’ children are in the public system and it is educating them sufficiently. It is generally understood that a student with good grades in our public system should have no trouble reaching university.
My perspective on ‘elite is not always better’ was very greatly influenced by my brother’s high school experience. The five children in our family were homeschooled from kindergarten on, but my brother was the only boy and desperately wanted to go to school. He tested into a grade level ahead in the ‘gifted’ program at a certain school.
In retrospect, the ‘gifted’ thing was not a benefit. The program was full of smart kids who had never been very challenged by school and instead used their mind to come up with more trouble (with the law and otherwise) than most of the ‘regular’ students in the school.
I hope to homeschool our children until graduation (because that route was very successful for me, academically and otherwise), but the sky will not fall if they end up in public school instead. I believe that a stable home life has vastly more to do with a child’s success in life than which school they attend.
I LOVE EVERY WORD OF THIS POST. My son lives in NYC and will sometime have to make a similar choice. School can and SHOULD be supplemented at home. This was such a breath of fresh air.
Not all children have parents who *can* supplement their education at home.
I love this. My kids go to public school in San Jose and we get the same raised eyebrows. And I’d like to think that my involvement, especially in the elementary school, is making a difference. Our public schools won’t get better until involved parents send their kids there and make them better.
This is so timely for me! We are stressing about moving to London next month because I’ve heard it will be extremely difficult to get our kids into a good public school there this late in the game. It really has consumed me! But every now and again I remember that there are kids from all over the world in that city and it will be a great opportunity for my young kids just to meet friends from all over the world. This post made me feel so relieved to hear an alternative perspective. Thanks.
Thank you so much for this post! It was so refreshing and encouraging to read this, because your perspective is pretty much mine exactly. And it feels like such a rare perspective where I live (the suburbs of DC).
My oldest is only 3 now, so we have yet to experience the public school system. But I too am a big proponent of at least attempting to use your local public school except in extenuating circumstances (for instance, I have a neighbor whose daughter is blind and who attended a special school for the blind, a decision I fully support…although obviously I would also fully support her mainstreaming her daughter in a public school, had she chosen to go that route). And I loved what you said about pouring your gifts and energy into improving your public school instead of fleeing it to seek other options. If every dedicated parent kept their kid in their assigned public school and worked to improve it, imagine how great American public school could be.
Good read and great points. We have changed schools many times over the years with our kids, each has their own needs when it comes to education and environment. Each has changing needs as they grow. If parents have time to stress over teachers and schools, maybe they have the time to redirect that to being involved in their child’s actual learning. That to me is far more important that the “best teacher”& the most elite school
I loved reading this! We move around so much because of the Air Force and that brings a lot of anxiety with it… especially lately, when my youngest will be in her fourth elementary school in as many years. We are strong believers in public school as well though we had an absolutely horrid, awful experience in Louisiana—with the school that was supposedly the best public school option around. It looked great on paper but the culture was disastrous for our girls and for us as moderately involved parents. But like you said: had we been there more than a year, we would have chosen a different option. Luckily, we weren’t. I know it will probably benefit them in the long run to have so many different school experiences, it is just exhausting sometimes to have to build up our reserves of faith that they’ll be OK wherever!
I will also add that we spent two years in South Arlington, VA just outside of D.C. and people gave us all sorts of side-eye about sending our oldest to public school there… but hands down, one of the top school experiences we have ever had.
this is super refreshing and also how we (our family) views schooling (in Australia)
Some other things to consider. Community! – there are kids on the next 5 blocks or so where we live but they are faceless to us. Chauffered off to other schools much further afield. I live in an inner city suburb where houses cost 600 000 to a million. think the local school would be full of wonderful successful families? (which it is but not those families) those kids all go elsewhere leaving the government housing kids, migrant families squeezed into cheaper tiny tiny apartments and a few families like ours who got in years ago with cheaper rent and have had rent jumps but manageable ones. How great would community be if they all came and we got to know them.
Traffic. School issues made me laugh at a party. Family A lived in area 1 but sent their kids to area 2 because that school is better. Family B live in area 2 but heard that school was no good, so send their kid to area 3. Family C live in Area 3 but send their school to the next suburb because…… Yet all families thought their school was pretty good (this is discussions about all public schools). It cemented my philosophy that MOST areas where I live have great schools and we don’t need to buy into hype that we have to shop around for a school. Now I know why the morning traffic is crazy. All these parents driving around in circles to each others areas.
I had looked at a small local private school when I only had 2 kids but went on to have a bunch more. Lucky I didn’t enrol them or I would have felt bad pulling them out (or not sending the younger ones). Also I feel glad that my husband had to take our car for work back when my first child started school so I really had no option but to enrol in the local walkable distance school.
Thank you so much for this – it really spoke to confluence in my heart of parenting, education, and privilege. I work at a non-profit in Oakland that does work in many of the schools there, and I have one child who was at the elementary school in SF that keeps ending up in the Chronicle for being so desired, but we hated it and it was not a match for our family or our child. The overwhelming preferencing of privilege and exclusion of families with less access (fees for field trips, school events) left me uncomfortable at best and sick at my worst. And yet we stayed, because who would leave. But in doing my middle school search for this upcoming fall I went with my intuition about what would work for our family and child, and gave up our feeder spot at the top middle school, and instead looked at several “less” desired schools. I’m pretty excited about the school we got, even when no one has heard of it. The staff and student body seem warm and joyful, and best of all, during orientation week our child was happy every day. And let me tell you, 6 years of elementary school with a misarable child are not worth any tests scores or the prestige you get from peers when you get asked where your child goes to school. I will be holding your words like a litany when I do my kindergarten search next year for my youngest- to avoid the pressure of choosing the school that glitters and instead chose the one the fits.
“…to avoid the pressure of choosing the school that glitters and instead chose the one the fits.”
Brilliant. I loved everything about your comment, Amy, thanks.
I love the idea of being flexible with education. My oldest started school in Colorado at a charter school that we adored. We moved to Utah at the end of her 1st grade year and put her into the neighborhood elementary. While I loved the community feel of her attending the neighborhood school, she made great friends, and had a great teacher – we have decided it is not the best fit right now for her. So we are trying a new charter school in the area for next year for my oldest while my next child will stay at the neighborhood school. People are very passionate about this neighborhood school and don’t understand my decision but the charter school just lines up better with my daughter and her academic learning style. If she hates it or we have a bad experience, we will go back to the neighborhood school. I love having the option!
I love this thoughtful post. I just want to add that one of our top priorities is being able to WALK (or bike, scooter, etc.) to school. We live in Los Angeles where everybody commutes but my daughter will be walking to school this year (and my husband bikes to work). It just makes life easier.
I loved this post…and it made me love you even more! Such a smart, and refreshing read!
This article was So wonderful! Thank you for taking the time to write such a thoughtful and kind article- I completely agree with you, and have had many of these same thoughts recently… but since we are at the young kid spectrum (and I feel like I am just starting down this path) It’s hard to know if what we are doing is right! Thanks for this beautiful post. I loved it.
As a teacher in a private Montessori School this was a really great article to read. I have three sons and they all attend the Montessori school that I work at. Our neighborhood public school is rated one of the lowest in the city so I honestly never even considered sending my sons there. I now have a different perspective on it after reading this, so I thank you for that. I truly love the Montessori way of teaching and learning so if there was a public school nearby that offered a Montessori program I would absolutely send my children (and I would love to teach at one-as private school teachers make less and have fewer benefits than public school teachers). It has been a financial sacrifice to send our sons to private school (I just went back to teaching full time this past year) and each year we reevaluate to make sure it is a good fit. My oldest is going into 6th grade and has been at the school since age 3, it is a fabulous fit for him for everything but the PE program which is lacking. So I am going to get him tested this fall to see if he would qualify for an advanced placement program in a local public school at least to have options. I appreciate your laid back approach, I will have my husband read this as well.
I live in Germany and can’t wrap my head around the school system here. My daughter attended public school from Grade 1-4 (and we were really happy with it) but in Grade 5 everything changes. Here is an explanation:
“After primary school, German kids are separated into three different (main) types of secondary school. There is the Hauptschule for weak students, Realschule for average students and Gymnasium for good students. Additionally there is Sonderschule for students with mental disabilities and Gesamtschule, a comprehensive school that aims to combine all three types into one but falls noticeably short of Gymnasium standards in practice. Parents can choose which type of school their child will attend, though the primary school teacher will make a recommendation.” http://understandinggermany.de/society/education-in-germany/
She is a good student but we are opting out and sending her to a Waldorf school (which – in this case – is a Gesamtschule). She could walk to the local Gymnasium but there seems to be so much academic pressure placed on kids there. She is only 10 and I want her to enjoy what is left of her childhood!
My absolutely favourite blog post of yours ever. Well done . Very inspiring. Un materialistic . Motivating. Down to earth. In our rat race world we live in , so rare. Thank you for sharing.
A terrific post Gabrielle. I really enjoy these conversations. I am Australian and our education system is a little different. We have a fairly robust public school system that is funded by government (State government) and a strong private school options.
My daughter attends the local public school, it is a great school. Small (around 300 students), diverse, and with a real sense of community. Your comments that resonated most with me relate to the contribution of parents to the schools attended by their children.
Next year my daughter turns 11 and she will move on to a new school. We have decided to send her to a private girls school that is known for its academic rigour and also for its ‘girl power’ values. Three years ago I would not have thought we would make such a choice but last year it became apparent to us that she was reflecting back to us some unpalatable (to our way of thinking) prevailing societal norms relating to gender.
This was quite a shock to us as gender is not an issue in our family. I am a mother who works outside the home (I run my own communication consultancy, I chair a number of organisations tackling social issues (ageing, homelessness, youth arts, and children’s health). I am no shrinking violet and she has lots of strong role models both female and male, yet still she felt she needed to defer to boys because they were boys. Needless to say I was astonished and I recognised how pervasive all the inputs are that she encounters every day that help shape her view of the world.
Besides being immersed in female positivity, we chose her school because it follows the International Baccalaureate through all grades K-12 and that learning environment will suit her well.
Just curious, Gabby, how have you been involved with your kids’ schools over the years? Do you find it best to get involved at the school level (PTO) or more at the classroom level (field trip chaperone, room parent, etc)? I decided early on to focus on my kids’ classrooms so that I could get to know their teachers and friends. After volunteering for so many years I feel like I know just about every student in my kids’ grades at their smallish school. I have friends who love volunteering for bigger school-wide projects, but those seem too much for me and too removed from my kids’ classrooms. I’d love to hear how you have managed this.
I really appreciated your comments. We homeschooled and then our girls went to high school. The first two went to different private catholic girls’ high schools and the second two went to local public high school. Each had real advantages. What was nice about the public school was that their friends attended the same church in our town. And also they could easily visit their friends. The private schools pulled from a much larger area and made for a more fragmented life. One private school in particular was also predominately filled with privileged people. This can lead to a warped idea of what is normal and also put additional financial pressure on the family. The switch was mostly for financial reasons, but we saw that the stress of private tuition was not good for the family health. I agree that freeing money for appropriate pursuits or family travel is a real value.
Thank you for this. My only child is starting kindergarten in the fall and I wish you could know how much I needed these words of wisdom. Thank you.
This!! Yes!! A thousand times… THIS:
“If we are so concerned with our own kids that we put them on an elite track, and make sure they’re only rubbing shoulders with the most successful families in our city, while ignoring the needs of other children in the community, that’s not a gift at all. Giving your kids special status while the rest of the world struggles and crumbles is no gift. You’re giving them a worse world instead of a better one.”
Thank you!!
Thank you, Thank you, Thank you for writing about public schools. I believe in public education. I know first hand parents can change schools for the better. For the past twenty years I have been involved in promoting dance education for elementary students. I have directed dance festivals where every student (over 400) in the school has participated. I have seen self esteem, confidence and a deeper appreciation of the arts improve tremendously. Your comments are spot on!
Thanks for this Gaby! We took our daughter out of “the best” school because it wasn’t a fit for her. The looks of shock and questions still make me laugh. We are at a “lesser” school now and she’s doing great!
In my country (Germany) public school is the norm. I would guess that only 10% of pupils attend private schools (by the way: university is also mostly free, there are only low administrative charges, about 500 dollars per term).
Of course people try to get their kid into a school within a good neighborhood or with a good reputation. But I learned that a good reputation is not always a thing you can rely on.
When comparing school systems we made experiences ourselves: My daughter spent six months in Colorado for a school exchange as a 16 year old (she is now 22), she went to a private school at the time. There were loads of great courses (art, theatre, much, sports) that are not on offer in the same way in Germany. But academically the curriculum was way behind her German school. She felt that what the sixteen year olds were learning in maths, biology or chemistry was something she had learned two years earlier. But the art and theatre courses: She LOVED them and grew so much as a person in that half year.
I can not say which school (her German one or the one in Colarado) was better. How to measure the quality of a school? I do not know. Therefore I would always stick to sending my kid to the closest public school and encourage the school to offer a wide range of courses.
Happy greetings from Cologne,
Angelika
I love reading your posts about your opinion on schools. My children attend public school in the south Louisiana. We have fairly good public schools, charter schools, and private schools. However, in my opinion the public schools here offer the best education and advanced placement classes. Now that being said, my children do not attend the elementary school designated for our house. My husband and I chose to get them tested for another local public school that offered a French immersion program. This was only an option because this program was not offered at our neighborhood school. I know options like this are not common in most public schools in America. I think we are truly blessed to be able to take advantage of it, and that our kids are able to keep up with the curriculum. The local French immersion and Spanish immersion programs are offered through high school if you are able to maintain the grades. Thankfully with all education budget cuts, this program has been maintained at our schools. This is primarily due to parental involvement to keep the programs alive. As of now, my soon to be fifth grader could translate for us on a trip through France!!
This is really interesting. I’ve read some great books lately that touch on a lot of these topics: “Our Kids”, “Excellent Sheep”, “How to Raise an Adult”. I wish everyone would read “Our Kids” by famous social scientist Robert Putnam. It will break your heart. Our society has trouble with racial segregation, but more than anything, it’s class-based segregation. People like me are a part of the problem. My husband works for the Navy, and in a few years we will most likely end up in the DC area. The schools in that region are either fantastic or deplorable. Since we can afford to live in the fantastic districts, that’s where we will live. I have mixed feelings about that. Like any parent, I want my kids to have the best. But I know that in my own small way I would be contributing to economic segregation. I hope to do some mentoring of low-income students in DC when we live there, though. Just to contribute in some small way.
I want to hug you so hard right now! As a teacher and a mom, thank you!
Way to go! I love this post.
My husband and I bought our house with absolutely no thought whatsoever to the schools it’s situated near. This of course was because at the time we were young newlyweds with no thought of children happening any time soon. Fast forward to where we are now, six years later, having just completed our licensing to become foster parents, and now suddenly we’re taking an extra look at the little elementary school a few blocks from our home thinking, “This fall, we could be spending an awful lot of time there!”
It gets an average rating, and it boasts a humble little website. But it’s going to be our school, the one we walk our little ones to with their backpacks, and so it has endeared itself to us, interiors unseen, teachers not yet met. My mom and sister are both educators at public schools that are average-rated, with humble little websites, and those schools are WONDERFUL places to be. No, their schools aren’t the ‘buzzy’ schools in their cities. But they are great, because families and teachers (Like my hardworking family members!) make them great! So I’m excited to soon be “all in” to help add our own puzzle piece to our public school too.
PS. This in one of the best written posts I have read on a blog since ages.
I have become tired of blogs in general as I find them all a little “blah”, often superficial or self-centered. This post and the great discussion really are very interesting and really worth following. Thank you so much, Gabrielle and every one else!
Thank you so much for your refreshing, positive, and encouraging voice on this topic. This might be my favorite thing I’ve ever read on Design Mom & I’ve read your blog for 8+ years so that’s saying a lot! I’d love a part II which talks about the skills you teach and encourage your kids to have in order for them to thrive in whatever setting they are in.
“If we are so concerned with our own kids that we put them on an elite track, and make sure they’re only rubbing shoulders with the most successful families in our city, while ignoring the needs of other children in the community, that’s not a gift at all. Giving your kids special status while the rest of the world struggles and crumbles is no gift. You’re giving them a worse world instead of a better one.” Yes, yes, yes, to this, a million times over. Thank you for saying this.
I made sure that we lived in areas with the highest rated schools. We currently are at the #3 school in the state. Do you know what I’ve found? That they really aren’t that great. My kids have had a few good teachers, but more who weren’t. I haven’t been impressed with the principals or other office staff either. I almost feel like the school staff has an elitist attitude. Like they don’t have to work very hard because they are a top school. What makes them have great test scores are the kids attending the schools, not the staff. My daughter suffered tremendous anxiety and they were no help at all. I ended up having to pull her out and homeschool her the rest of the year. I really have changed my attitude about wanting to make sure my kids are in the “best public elementary school” as determined by test scores.
Here, here! I agree with you wholeheartedly! We can’t shelter our children forever and they need to learn at an early age to be adaptable to different (good and bad) situations in order learn how to make the most of their situation. My 9 year old daughter’s best friend since kindergarten ended up in foster care this year and it opened up a lot of conversations for our family about why her friend’s parents couldn’t look after her. Situations and conversations like this will make my daughter an open-minded adult who doesn’t expect to have everything handed to her.
Thank you for starting this conversation!
My parents paid ( a lot!) for me to go to a private, all-girls school until I completed grade 10. The academics were simply too stressful for me and the all-girl environment became too difficult. Once I moved to public school, my marks went up 20%, I enjoyed and excelled in a multitude of extracurricular activities and I instantly had tons of friends (some were even boys!), that lived in my own neighbourhood.
My daughter now goes to the public school up the street and is a well rounded kid with tons of friends (girls and boys) in the neighbourhood. She attends and loves all of her after school classes in music, athletics and even learning another language. While I don’t think the academics at her public school are as stringent as at the private school I went to, her Dad and I supplement her classroom work and teach her so many other, more worthwhile/ worldly things that we believe she will be much more ready for her future, than I ever was. If she decides to go to university like her dad and me, great, but I don’t think that is the only route to a being a happy, productive adult.
I am very involved at her school on the parent council and I help with sports days, concerts, etc. She loves that I help at her school and I love that I can be there. If we had to pay for private school, I would be working full-time, she would not have extracurricular activities and I would be too tired to ‘teach’ her in the evenings. I would be a grumpy mom!
This works for us and I feel like my child is getting the personalized learning that suits her best and we are creating an environment that is happy and healthy. I believe there is much more to life than what is within the four walls of a school and more than one way to successfully navigate childhood education.
This is a great article and discussion. Where we live, on Long Island, the middle and high school is considered to need major improvement. There are also student safety issues. My kids are happy and safe in the elementary school and the facilities are very nice. What will we do as they grow? I’m not sure. Move? Seek out private education that we can’t afford? It’s a wait and see situation. If my kids are happy where they are then we may stay put. And of course bring involved with ears and eyes open is key to the welfare of all the students.
I started writing a lengthy response but just didn’t have the heart or energy to finish it. My husband has been a public school teacher for 20 years, both of his parents taught in public schools for their entire careers, my mother was a reading aid in public schools, and my father was a public school teacher and principal for 30+ years. Both my husband and I went to public schools. We love our neighborhood school–the community of families and teachers are fantastic–but unfortunately our district’s priorities, as well as funding, do not provide adequate resources for outliers. Our only public school options are to keep him where he is and ask more and more of his already stretched thin teachers or keep playing the lottery to gain a spot in the one public alternative program where his needs could really be met. This is where our public schools are failing. And for the families who have no other choice than public school this is heartbreaking. I truly believe that all kids have a place in our public schools but until we can or choose to adequately and equitably fund public education there will be kids who have little chance of thriving in public school settings.
“I like the idea of using that energy to improve the school we’re assigned to”
Love that. I moved to Upstate NY last year from Latin America and I have been definitely feeling the pressure, we ended up choosing a parochial school that gave us financial aid for my preschool and kindergarten aged boys. We love it, but it was a struggle to decide what to do last year. I am in a similar situation than you were, I’m working on my PhD and my husband stays with the boys.
Thanks for the post, I really needed to read this.
My boy is only 2, but we’re house-hunting, so this feels relevant. I’ve had this same conversation with several family members, who were buying houses in Boone Co KY, the second richest county in the state. The amount of stress they were putting themselves through over schools felt idiotic. I’m sure the worst Boone Co school is better than half of Nashville schools, where I live. After teaching for 6 years in MNPS, I realize how many privileges I’ll be passing on to my child, and that perspective has really helped me to chill out. He’s a little white boy with two college-educated parents. Even if he ends up in a below-average school, he’s going to be just fine. Having involved parents with resources makes a bigger difference in educational outcomes than schools. It shouldn’t necessarily be this way though–I wish every kid had the privileges and resources my boy does.
RIGHT ON! I’m a public school administrator in a district where parents move their kids from school to school a lot. I grew up in a district where you went to the school near your house. As a deeply progressive educator, I wholeheartedly agree that working with your school helps your school but also models for your children that you just make it work – which is a lost lesson for this generation. So many families pick up and leave a school community behind in what feels like a fickle way. I believe children learn so much more from working through situations and scenarios that aren’t ideal, even if for a while it feels like you’re just “getting through it” – that’s a life lesson that will come in handy plenty. Of course I want my school to be a safe and happy environment for all my students, but this is hard, messy, draining and amazing work, and I love when families roll up their sleeves and join us in that effort. I applaud you and think many parents would do well to take a page out of your book.
This post has come at the perfect time for me. I’m from the UK but can resonate so much with what you are saying. I consider myself quite a relaxed person but have been surprised how much decisions about my daughters schooling have affected me.
From my experience public schooling is the norm in the UK. Other than perhaps wealthier areas of London where the majority of children will go to fee paying independent schools.
We live in a fairly affluent area in the south east and although all schools locally are considered good there are some which are considered better than others. To give you some context the “best” local school has 60 children per school year with others having up to 150.
We moved house around 2 years ago and saw 2 houses we liked – one in the catchment for the “best” school and another in the catchment for a good school. I loved the second house and it was £100,000 cheaper than the other despite being bigger. The difference in price is mainly driven by the school. I persuaded my husband to go for the cheaper house reasoning the extra money we would have would enable us to have nice holidays etc. However I have been racked with guilt about the decision ever since. Our local secondary schools have a grammar system which both my husband and I attended. I hadn’t realised the discrepancy in the number of children who made it to grammar school from the two. The local grammar schools are full of children from the “best” school and the few local private schools. This seems to be mainly because both offer coaching to pupils in how to pass the exam so rather than being on natural ability it is because of the extra tuition they have received. I feel that if my daughter doesn’t get in to the grammar school I will always question if she could have done if we had purchased the other house.
You would not believe how much I needed to read this. We’ve considered home schooling, looked longingly at language immersion private schools (so pricey here), and had all kinds of anxiety about the local schools (which are actually quite good). This is the attitude I’m trying to take, and telling myself that an education is about so much more than what happens in the classroom, anyway. I consider myself an important part of my kids’ education and if there are gaps at school, like you said, there are options.
Love this article-when I informed my husband that preschool can cost up to 800 a month even more my husband flipped! You can get FREE college in Germany but here you have to pay thousands for prescho? Since he grew up in Europe, he has a hard time understanding why you have to move to an expensive suburb just to get good education? Where he grew up any part of the country makes no difference and all kids get equal education. We live in Chicago and many young couples and parents flee when their kids get to school age because they start to panic. We have a public school nearby that’s apparently good but we don’t live in within the borders and would have to do a lottery application. The CPS system is really disorganized and it depends what neighborhood you live in. We have a Catholic school walking distance that mang neighborhood parents raves about so we’ll see-tution is around 6,000 a year-equivalent to what we’d be paying in a suburb for taxes anyways plus more. Catholic schools in Europe are free and not so commericalized.
Education in the US is a business unfortunately and they use scare tactics if parents don’t pay thousands of dollars on their kid’s education. Pretty sad if you ask me.
I think, in reading the post and all the comments, there are 2 very different conversations happening here. Conversation 1: eschewing public schools in favour of private options because of reputation/status/being on track for ivy league education and Conversation 2: leaving specific public schools for alternative options because, after trying them, they are not up to snuff/a good fit.
If not satisfied with your child’s school the two options as outlined in the post are be prepared to take on the school and make it better or come up with creative alternatives (charters, private school, part-time school with tutor, online school, homeschooling, etc). We felt “called” upon to do the former, but failed miserably (and made ourselves incredibly unpopular in the process!) and now, at our wits’ end, we are considering the latter.
Reading this post and some of the comments has made me feel a bit guilty for pulling our daughter out of the local public school, even after our unpleasant experience sending her there. I wonder if sticking it out longer than 6 months and being (more) persistent and (more) annoying in trying to persuade disinterested fellow parents and the staff to make changes would have paid off? All I know is the 6 months our child attended the subpar local public school have been the worst of our parenting career so far. It was as if we were watching our child regress and wither and, within a couple days of pulling her out, we had our friendly, sunny, curious child back. The school lost one committed, concerned family, sure. But I no longer feel sick to my stomach each morning from knowingly sending my child to a place that isn’t good for her. Does this make us selfish? Or elitists? I sure hope not, but now I wonder.
I really hadn’t thought I was doing the school (or community! or disadvantaged kids!) a disservice by leaving it and suddenly feel quite guilty as I consider this new perspective.
You mentioned in one of the comments, Gabby, about perhaps posting some inspirational stories of parents who single-handedly changed an entire school culture or turned around a school with failing grades. I would be incredibly interested in reading some of those stories as it seems such a daunting, monumental task; especially if lacking support from other parents and the principal/staff (which has been our experience). If other parents have done what I seemed unable to do in a similarly apathic community, perhaps I could find a way to improve our local public school afterall.
Don’t feel guilty! I’ve worked in and volunteered with public education for over 2o years and here is my advice:
1. do what works for your family
2. don’t listen to other people
You are doing what is best for your family, and that is wonderful. Ideally, we would all get involved and work to improve our communities and the communities of others, but sending your kids to public school isn’t the only way to do that.
I wouldn’t feel bad about this. As someone who works for Fortune 100 companies where I need to work/compete with male counterparts who don’t have the same domestic responsibilities, I found it very challenging to find time to volunteer at the school as much as I’d have liked, let alone finding bandwidth to help them improve outside of my corporate hours. Every family is truly different. I appreciated the comment above in the same vein – hearing different perspective is useful but at the end of the day, find what works for your family and situation.