patrick.net

So what's the reasoning behind people who send their kids to private schools in the stellar school districts, like Mill Valley or Palo Alto, etc.? I always got the impression that the kids in these private schools were often the lower academic performing children of wealthy people who'll be damned if their kid doesn't get into an elite east coast name or Stanford (as a fall back, lol). The real competition is in the public schools in these communities, no? (I'm excepting the obvious religious or foreign national reasons for using private schools from this observation.)

"So what’s the reasoning behind people who send their kids to private schools in the stellar school districts, like Mill Valley or Palo Alto, etc.?"

You got me. Why the hell does anyone do $400,000 weddings? Maybe they just have too much money :P

Hey HITMAN MarinaPrime,

You're posts go straight to the spam bucket now, so just give it up. Perhaps if you'd tried half as hard at your IB job you wouldn't have to pedal real estate for a living.

School of The Arts is a magnet school and a very successful one. Raoul Wallenberg is another example of a kind of magnet school. You could probably even call Lowell a magnet school, a very early example of one. We also have some charter schools that I don't know too much about. They are very unpopular with the teachers unions but supposedly they do more with less funding. I guess their track record is mixed.

I know San Diego opens its best magnet schools in its roughest neighborhoods, which causes whites to sort of reverse de-segregate the schools in the neighborhood, while allowing poor people access to good neighborhood schools. I don't know why we don't do that here, it probably costs a lot of money though.

Randy,

On a more serious note, the Ivy League schools and their lib arts college equivalents don't like stellar suburban schools much. My HS class had 17 people apply to Harvard and nobody got in. The year before, one girl got in, and she was perfect perfect and a great athlete.

Okay, so a few of my classmates got into Yale, Princeton, Stanford and so forth, but Harvard HATED my school.

SFWoman,

I've been out of HS for 8 years so I'll defer to you on recent experience. However, one of my friends went to Yale and she told me she was looking at a college friend's picture. She noticed that everyone (no numbers, but must be at least 6 or 7) there was at Yale so she said, "wow, when did you guys take that." The friend replied, "oh, that was at Exeter."

Personally, I think prep school --> elite school feeder systems still exist, they're probably just more covert about it.

Many who post on here are not Californians. They are "immigrants" from other states as well as from other countries. Like that guy from Tennesse, and the person from China and the Yankee who calls herself an SF woman.

Please leave, so rightful Californians like that surfer X can afford to live in their home state.

Please leave.

sybrib,

LOL! Surfer-X better put up a fence all around California before I move there.

Well, what the elite private schools all have is a system where about 50% of their students are the children of alumni. And these alumni all send their kids to the same private schools.

So that is probably what you are seeing.

Eliminate the alumni preferences and there would be a lot more slots at the Ivy's to go around.

"Well, Yale. What do you expect? That’s why they make fun of it on the Simpsons so much."

Sadly, my friend would agree with you. She makes a great to-do about the Yale CORPORATION. But then, she is a un-reconstituted Trotskyite. (Maybe I should introduce her to Different Sean, drive him crazy with her notions, and turn him into a Libertarian... :twisted: )

Correction:
- Exeter
+ Phillip's academy

I always get Exeter and Andover mixed up.

I heard top ten undergrad schools are bit overrated, at least as far as the teaching is concerned. The professors are so famous that they rarely deign to teach at all (there are some notable exceptions of professors with 600 student classes and whatnot)

They're much better for grad school anyways.

But then, I'm a bitter jealous liberal arts college grad :P

SFWoman,

Thanks. I just can't remember. That's why I replaced Exeter with Phillips Academy, I've just doubled my chance of being right.

P.S. - Bush went to Andover

SFWoman,

I agree on Yale. Their ilk would never survive 10 minutes in the big city.

Then there's always Brown. I'd send my son to Michigan first (which means a lot given my undergrad Alma Mater).

"I agree on Yale. Their ilk would never survive 10 minutes in the big city."

Really, I thought they spent half their college years in NYC and then move down for good once they graduate.

I meant academically. Anyone go to NYC and drink if you can afford it.

Wel, my major source of info on Yale is biased strongly against it too, so maybe it's just the Yale CORPORATION.

I'm not going to make a contribution to my college until I have money and they make some necessary changes at the top. I'm kind of hoping if I ever have kids, they'll be smart enough to get into my boyfriend's alma mater.

SFWoman,

Every time I think of Exeter/Andover, I recall Fitzgerald's short story "The Diamond As Big As The Ritz". Something about having some students with mysteriously rich parents, I guess.

Randy,

I'm kind of surprised that you would consider Michigan ahead of Berkeley or UCLA for your son. Michigan is good, but the out of state tuition must be almost as bad as Stanford.

Le Rosey is also home to an IB program :) The Masonic IB conspiracy grows!

astrid,

My son will hopefully go to Cal or UCLA for undergrad. I was just being sarcastic (I went to Ohio State for undergrad, which at the time was one of only 2 possibilities for me that were part of the NSCS).

I mean NCSC, jeez.

Phil says:
The standard of education in middle and high school level in the US is poor compared to other developed or developing countries. Students are faced with a major workload when they move from high school to college which i think is the reason why there are lot of dropouts. I think kids should be well prepped before they graduate from high schools. Its hard to compare equal age kids from US with other countries.

That's right.

My estimate is that in 10th grade, the best U.S. high school students today are about one to two years behind the top tier (the one that qualifies you for college) of other school systems, and have never been taught some subjects at all (like Physics, Chemistry, World History, some not even Arts and Music).

Moving a 16 year old from today's U.S. high schools to a school system in another country is destined for failure. Unless they're really smart (and go back one or two years), they won't be able to keep up.
I know several families who tried, all with the same result: the kids failed (even though they had been good students here), and the family had to return to the U.S. in order to not ruin the kids' future.

You may not believe that (or may not want to), but it's the harsh reality. You can denounce people who make these kinds of statements as elitist, but that doesn't change the facts.

It's really not because these kids are less smart than the kids in other school systems, it's because "no child left behind" is really leading to "no child gets ahead". Nobody asks more than the basics of the youngsters, and they'll get an "A" for the most modest achievement. So why bother to make better use of your time and learn some more?
No sane young man or woman in that age group will volunteer to work harder, especially if that also moves you down a few ranks in the social pecking order (which is apparently based on who's the most idiotic.)

In my daughter's prized and top-ranking public high school, she is in a Biology class where the "academic" level is so low it's ridiculous. Everybody (and I mean: everybody) can get an A there if they're not asleep. When I hear stories about the curriculum, we both keep wondering what these kids have been doing in "Science" classes since elementary school. There is no other Biology class for ninth-graders.
She cannot take more than one foreign language. It's not allowed.
If you ask why, you'll hear that there is no money. This in an area where people are paying >$1 mil for 3BR ranchers just to be in that school district.

I think the situation is nothing short of scandalous, and I can't understand why nothing is being done about it.

Well, one reason could be that if you don't try to move to another country, you'll never learn about the issue. So you may not even care and can call folks who do care snobs.

But don't kid yourself: In an increasingly international world, if you send your kid to a California public high school (even the "best" ones), some doors will be closed in your child's future.

Girgl,

Great post.

The situation is particularly ridiculous given that the parents had to be amazing overachievers just to get into these school districts.

I'm not positive about US v. other countries. I find the best programs in US are better at developing creativity and critical thinking ability, while there's more rote learning in foreign programs.

Randy H,

:P I have nothing against either Ohio State or Michigan. Most of my boyfriend's family is from Detroit and one of my favorite professors went to Ohio for undergrad.

- Ohio
+ Ohio State

Garth Farkley Says:

Freewheeling, gentle, non-authoritarian, innovation-fostering, multi-cultural, unbureaucratic, energetic.

I’m pretty sure you’re serious. I don’t work in the valley — or apparently on the same planet as you do — so I haven’t a clue. I have had a handful of great supervisors through the years. And a few flamers.

I am serious. I have worked in Germany, France, the East Coast and Japan, all on this planet last time I checked. There is no comparison to the way some companies are run here in the SV.
I've had my fair share of idiot bosses around here, too. That's not really what I was talking about.

One example I can think of right now: It's not uncommon that technical people are in executive roles around here, and run the show without all the bullshit. In any other place I know, that would be nothing short of revolutionary. Engineers are usually low-paid peons on the bottom of the corporate food chain.

Anyway, maybe I've just been lucky around here and unlucky everywhere else. Or maybe I'm high on crack. Whatever.

P.S. Sorry for the late reply, but these days, the threads are moving way too fast for me, what with the working and stuff. I can hardly catch up in the evening.

Actually what astrid said about Exeter and Philips is true only for certain schools, particularly Yale. My wife went to Harvard under, and most of her classmates were from Exeter, she went to Los Altos High. Where I went to in Hong Kong, we sent on average 10 - 15 kids to mostly UPenn, Cornell, Princeton, Oxford and Cambridge, out of a class of 100 kids.

However, you see the same feeder system between other sets of schools too. I went to MIT grad school and made friends with lots of undergrad, most of them are from Bronx Science, a public school in NYC. Saratoga High and Monta Vista High seem to be feeder school for Stanford more so than Exeter, altho they feed far more into Berkeley and UCLA.

I prefer to send kids to private school because we won't have lots of kids, 2 max, and we both want lots of land, which will be hard to achieve in a brand name school district anywhere down in the South Bay.

Lychee,

I went to RM. Same separation there, no hostility but I think they did look at us as some sort of alien arts collective hive.

We did share science and foreign language classes with the regular honors program. It was mainly history and English got tracked separately, but at least the regular classes had some access to the same amazing teachers.

There are also lots of international choices for feeder schools, the Eton College, Harrow School in UK, etc. are no less prestigious than Philips like the US, in fact if I am willing to pay that much, I would rather send them to Eton to get more international exposure.

What is magnet program?

Owneroccupier,

However, aren't Eton and Harrow still all boy schools?

astrid,

I am not familiar with girl's schools, so I can only give boy's school examples :-)

I am of the camp that boys and girls should stay separated till college :-) :-)

Owneroccupier,

This gives a pretty comprehensive definition.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnet_school

They're basically like Jefferson (in Fairfax, VA) or Bronx Science, except they're only a part of a schoo instead of the whole school.

I think I'm going to home school my kids for the far out, wacko fringe flavored diversity that all the cool colleges will be looking for.

I will also give them names like Mulberry and Ritz Coat Hanger. That will lead the admissions committee into believing my kids are the spawns of celebrities.

Actually the easiest way to get into an Ivy, according to my wife, is to become a top kid at a really impoverished area, like the middle of nowhere in Alabama.

"is to become a top kid at a really impoverished area, like the middle of nowhere in Alabama."

Yes, that's the "easiest" way. But their school experience would suck and being half Chinese, half mutt northern European will not help them in the local popularity contest. It's not worth it.

I'd rather they have a good primary and secondary education, attend a second tier university/college (if Cal or UVA can be called second tier). If they're smart enough, they can get into Big Name U. for grad school. If they're really smarter, they'll drop out and start a company to revolutionize..., if they're absolute geniuses, they'll figure out a way to capture a blackhole and use it as a renewable energy source...enabling man to time travel and fight Daleks and...

Yup, I'm not going to be one of those overly demanding Asian parents, not at all :P

astrid says:
The situation is particularly ridiculous given that the parents had to be amazing overachievers just to get into these school districts.

Yeah, I think it's a cruel joke on these folks...

I’m not positive about US v. other countries. I find the best programs in US are better at developing creativity and critical thinking ability, while there’s more rote learning in foreign programs.

Yeah, you're probably on to something. Creativity cannot flourish when you're stressed out. So in that sense, a school that's somewhat less academically demanding could very well bring out that talent in kids.
(Although I must say that where I went to school, it was pretty laid back, too. No cramming.)

But what if Junior is bored with what's offered, and there is no other choice because there's no money for it in the richest corner of the richest area of the richest country in the world?

The only answer is private school.

My understanding (and it's from watching a PBS feature about the subject, so it's worth exactly what you paid for being able to read it), the philosophy behind the U.S. single-tiered higher education system is that they really wanted to get away from the elitist, "Old European" tiered system to give every child a chance to excel whereever their talents are (of course the theory being that in evil Old Europe, the upper tiers were open only to the upper classes in society).

Great idea, and worked very well for quite a while.

Enter Prop. 13, plus some good old fashioned organizational atherosclerosis, a good dose of touchy-feelyness and the societal mandate for political correctness, and the quality of education these once great schools provide has reached rock bottom.

The result is that the tiered system is back - with a vengeance. This time, it's *actually* class-based, because you can send Junior to a decent school only if you make the necessary coin to afford going private, whereas in evil Old Europe, Junior just has to be smart.
Sigh.

SFWoman where do you intend for your daughter to go to high school? I know there are a number of good private high schools in The City, but I haven't really done any research on it.

Where does she go now, if you don't mind my asking?

And do you know if St. Paul's is any good?

I got into CalTech by being the top kid at Red Bluff High School. I applied to Stanford but did not get in. So I have two good reasons to hate Stanford Jr. University!

Girgl, I think you overestimate the quality of education overseas, or at the very least the importance of secondary education. Our colleges are still the best in the world and how can that be if they start with the world's worst High School students? I just don't buy the standard line that the American educational system is so bad. We still generate the most Nobel Prizes, the best scientists, the most clever engineers and on and on to the point where our economy is still the envy of the world.

I am sure our high schools could do better, especially here in California where we have been starving secondary education for decades. By some measures, California schools are 40th or worse in the nation. But we still end up generating a tremendous number of great college graduates. My guess is that we are doing a poor job with many and very good job with a few. We should spend more resources on our public schools.