patrick.net

To add something to my overlong prior post:

(6) If you are on a tight budget and both parents work, be sure to compare the cost of your area parochial schools offering before and after school care to the cost of the before and after school care plus transportation offered in conjunction with the local public school. You may get quite a surprise, especially if you have two or more children. As a further benefit, at the parochial school your child stays at the same campus all day, while with the public school option there is the daily fear that little Tommy will miss the bus from public school to daycare and be stranded while you are at work. A lot of people just don't do the math, and end up paying more for something worse, especially since the public school invariably have more oneupsmanship with clothing, etc.

Also, parochial school runs to the 8th grade, which means all of your children are on the same campus. Your 2nd grader can be in after school daycare while the 7th grader practices basketball and the 5th grader learns to play the piano or organ. The school commute and extracurricular activity schedule is greatly simplified. The parochial school my children attended even took the younger children to swimming lessons at a neighborhood pool. My younger daughter was on the parochial school cheerleading team for a couple of years, and got all of that out of her system before (private) high school where she focused more on sports.

(7) Being the poorest family in a public school in a rich neighborhood is probably worse than being a full-scholarship kid to a swanky private school, because at a private school the kids are spread out geographically and don't usually know too much about where most of their classmates live. I personally experienced the former situation, and it was NOT pleasant. It is far better for your child to develop a real lifelong social network of middle-class kids than to be a bitter social outcast among the offspring of the rich and famous. You may think that your child is so gifted and outgoing that having the wrong car, wrong house, and WRONG CLOTHES won't stop him from being class president, but you are mistaken.

I also agree strongly with people who have posted above that avoiding a bad school district is a lot more important than trying to find the perfect school. No child should have to go to school worried about being jumped in the bathroom, or being stuck in a "mixed-ability classroom" where they drill for the state exams all day, every day. Once you are in at least an average school district, there are diminishing returns on paying more and more for a house so that you can be in a better district.

civilsid says

Consider that maybe the kids are bright or not bright, have a work ethic or do not have a work ethic. Apples do not fall that far from the tree!! Some are sinkers and some are swimmers. I don't think the school system makes that big of a deal. The parents do and the work ethic does. I did better than my father because I don't have 7 kids and I did not grow up on a farm. That simple. Same work ethic and same intelligence, plus or minus.

This is worth repeating. The bottom line is that just because you do this, this, and that for your kid doesn't mean he/she will automatically be a success in life. They could be sent to the absolute best schools and live in a sheltered bubble in a squeaky-clean neighborhood. They could still turn out rotten. Same could also be said for a kid who went to the worst schools in the worst area. Then again kids in either scenario could turn out to be geniuses and go on to become millionaires.

seth.engstrom says

Springer, Blach, Mountain View HS, UC Berkeley. Public schooling was fine by me.

I'll go even farther...

GED, Community College, UC Irvine, dropping out of public High School was fine by me.

edvard2 says

This is worth repeating. The bottom line is that just because you do this, this, and that for your kid doesn't mean he/she will automatically be a success in life. They could be sent to the absolute best schools and live in a sheltered bubble in a squeaky-clean neighborhood. They could still turn out rotten. Same could also be said for a kid who went to the worst schools in the worst area. Then again kids in either scenario could turn out to be geniuses and go on to become millionaires.

My husband grew up in Orinda and went to Miramonte, ended up a college drop-out. He has loads of friends from Miramonte that have not made a damn thing of themselves, and others, with mostly help from their rich parents, that are rich. He also has loads of friends that went to Richmond public schools that are happy and successful people.

I think people hyper-focused on school districts are insane, and are breeding some pretty fucked up kids.

Sashi, you asked about $8k schools. In Silicon Valley, $6-8k gets a small k-5 parochial school. Basically, attached to a church, one class per grade.
$12k gets a bigger parochial k-8, like Valley Christian.
$12k-$25k gets a secular k-8. Old Orchard is one of the ads on the bottom of this page, that's $12k. Harker is around $25k.
$10k-$15k gets a parochial high school, like Valley Christian, Bellarmine.
$25k-$30k gets a secular high school, like Harker, or Castillejo.

Just to put that all in perspective compared to a $100k premium on the house. You can see that even with one kid, paying $100k which you will likely get back on resale is not bad compared to these. Of course all bets are off if Silicon Valley turns into Detroit.

seth.engstrom, those public schools (Springer, Blach, MV HS) are Los Altos, Fortress. So yes, those are considered good and worthy of a premium.

It is a complicated question. Here in NY metro area using a hypo of two kids. and comparing NYC upscale with suburb 30 mins from NYC via train. Where Tim Giethner lived when he ran Fed Reserve bank of NY (my son went to school with his son).

Decent house but fairly modest (though he bought it for 1.6MM in 2004). .18 acres and probably about 2500 sq ft. He couldn't sell had to rent for $7,500 a month. Area has 20+MM homes.

http://money.cnn.com/2009/06/03/real_estate/Geithner_housing_market/index.htm

They did a spoff on it on the daily show. Can find on youtube.

Anyway, NYC 1500 sq ft decent condo apartment (not luxury...non doorman, little amenities, etc) is about $1000 a sq ft and about 1.5MM. Then in NYC in the context of this audience you would be looking at private school (I grew up in public school in the Bronx in the 70s/80s and have a close and personal vantage point in the difference between inner city schools and very good suburbian schools and I have family and colleagues in some of the best private schools in NYC (kennedys, fords, etc kids go to). Private school for two let's say costs $50,000 per year (with multi kid discount -- fairly conservative). Taxes low in NYC but you are paying maintainance fee for common areas (less than a coop fee though). So PITI breaks down into ( just doing ITI as P is paying down the loan) lets say at I@5%=$75000, T@1%=15,000 and Insur+main@1%=$15000 SO $105,000 PER YR + $50,000 so $155,000 per year for apt and kids school.

Larchmont for a 2500 sq ft house on less than a quarter acre is say same cost 1.5MM. So using same equation I@5%=$75000, T@2%(higher taxes for school) is $30,000, I+M@1%=$15,000 total is $120,000.

So NYC apt is $155K/yr and NYC upscale suburb is 120K/yr. With city you have city at your fingertips all the time and short commute. With suburb you get more space and more greenspace. However, generally around here the city is going to cost more for a comparable school. (you can get decent schools in other school districts for less but to keep it as apples to apples as possible I used an upscale school suburb but it is far from the best .. scarsdale and other areas will be more expensive).

Here is the thing though. I have one son and I live modestly in a 800 sq ft 2 BR pre-war apartment in same school district (mamaroneck/larchmont) which has a decent stock of middle class housing and even some marginal areas (so school is relatively diverse) though it also has $20MM+ houses. I pay $2000 a month. A decent nut but safe, clean and my son gets a great school district. So I pay $24,000 a month vs the 120K or 155K above. If I lived in NYC and had the 800 sq ft apt I would pay $40,000 (rent) + $50000 (school) = $90,000. Sacrifice for me and wife on space but sometimes it boils down to individual preference (I want to save and I want a good education for my son so something had to give and it was the white picket fence...didn't really have an option to move as divorced and ex-wife lives here and we split time raising son). In addition, work somewhat tied to finance (not completely but somewhat).

You can see a Freakonomics-type experiment about school prices in Santa Clara County.

In Los Gatos, north of Blossom Hill Rd and east of LG Blvd, there's a nice neighborhood; some houses are older, some are remodeled, some are rebuilt. The eastern part of this neighborhood is in Union district (reasonably good), the western is Los Gatos (considered better). The boundary line meanders through the neighborhood with no discernible pattern. A similar house in Union will be about $100k less than in LG.

Also, in Saratoga, north of Cox, between Saratoga Ave to the east and Saratoga-Sunnyvale to the west, it's similar. The eastern part is Moreland (reasonably good), the middle is Cupertino, the west is Saratoga. Next door neighbors can be in different schools, but the neighborhood looks about the same. Moreland to Cupertino is about a $100k jump, Cupertino to Saratoga is another $50k.

Essentially people are willing to pay a premium for these and view it as an alternative to private schools. With one kid, it's minimum $72k for k-8 and $40k for 9-12 = $112k. Max is $225+$120 = $340k. Multiply by the number of kids. A $100k-$150k price rise increase is a reasonable alternative, even considering that you'll pay interest and property tax on that increase. (Plus the interest is deductible, and the property tax may be if you dont get hit by AMT.)

Realistically a private school such as Menlo will be $35K or so If, and only if, your kid a) gets in and b) doesn't get expelled. There aren't actually a lot of private schools in the area, but generally (nationwide) the better private schools will expel kids in a flash, or nearly so.

The correct choice is to a) pay extra for good schools as a backup and b) send your kid(s) to the best available school anyway. Welcome to parenthood. And perhaps you thought homeownership was expensive....

"Also, while private school teachers may earn less, I do not think that it necessarily means that the quality is less. As many will note, if money was the only thing wrong with the education system we could easily fix it. "

I don't believe that throwing money at anything solves the problem. But public education has been so largely ingrained in the country that it make private look a tad odd. Then again nearly every President I can think of has sent his children to private school...maybe that says more about the system of D.C but I don't know.

I know a fair amount of teachers and most will not work in private schools because the pay is that much lower. Now I don't know if the unions are as much in private as public but you also have to consider the records. Anything that is public generally has more open records than private. A private company or any organization is under no legal obligation to provide information to someone (unless of course it is a court order).

As mentioned earlier parenting is key here. If parents don't care then the student won't really care. I just bumped into an old coworker. I thought he finished his undergrad in business. Apparently he failed out! He didn't even blink an eye. He told me his parents financed it. This might be on a tangent but if you read William Easterly's White Man's Burden (it references the Kipling story the book itself is about foreign aid). If people do not pay money for something then they have no ethical right to complain.

When you think about it how many people just easily rent an apartment to get their students into a school or how many have parents pay for private. If there is no sense of ownership or a stake then they might not have the performance.

Testing is such a mix because on one hand test results are the easiest way to determine if a student knows the subject at hand. Others might look at it as simply a form of memorization. On the other hand often times it is the learning process that can transfer from one subject to another, that is much harder to quantify within the boundaries of a standardized test.

The funny thing about standardized tests though I will say is that if it is standardized then it completely nullifies the idea of the teacher presenting anything really different. Khan Academy teaches the vast majority of what K-12 will have...and it is free. Websites do not care what time it is and what day it is and do not go on strike etc. I don't think that schools in general are really prepared for what the internet and ebooks will bring in the future.

Now we have "helicopter parents" that want to monitor everything 24/7.

It wasn't that long ago that students walked home from school, did not have cell phones, did not wait in a car at the bus stop, did not have "play dates" etc.

@Sybrib You wrote, "I never did drink that Cool-Aid." I am with you there, neither did I!

The more I take a serious look at this smoke and mirrors Wizard of Oz'esk real estate bullshit of the past ten years it makes me realise how utterly insane the public really are.

Thanks for the response SiO2. Some additional thoughts:

- Since there are generally more elementary schools per area. One approach is to get a place near a top rated elementary school, get K-5 covered. Then pay for 6-12 of private schooling.

- There is definitely an education bubble or something crazy going on. We are talking minimum 25K for just K-12 schooling?? College is almost that much now. You have to hope your K-12 private schooling will get your kids a scholarship to college, otherwise, you are talking about a half a million dollars per kid for their schooling (in today's dollars)

- I really believe alternate forms of education are going to start coming up to compensate for the point above. THis could be some type of "group home schooling" - which could be a group of families getting together and sharing tuition costs for basic education (math, language, etc)....maybe something like this exists already, i don't know. You combine that with a ton of extra curricular activities where your kids get exposed to other things and develop social skills by interacting with different people in different activities. Maybe you go spend your two weeks of summer vacation in different countries and enroll your kid into 2 weeks of some local educational program.

- also, i believe math, language(s), arts, social activities and sports are really the only core specialities kids should focus on... everything else will be driven by the kid's natural interests and passions

Had to post my first ever comment on this thread.

Its not always "fortress" areas that people are clamoring to get into. We were homeowners (debtors) in Hayward when we had our son in 2003. We sold that house and bought a very similar home in Fremont because that school district, while not as good as cupertino, etc, is a million times better than Hayward.
We paid approx $125k more for essentially the same house but the benefits are more than the school. Its a much better neighborhood (no bikers and gangstas) and I don't worry about my kid playing with the neighbor kids.
We could have stayed in Hayward and paid for private school....we did consider this. But he'd still have to come home to the same crappy neighborhood. I don't have a problem at all with low-income people....I've been one myself more than once!! but I do object to the thugs down the street letting their pit bulls roam all over the neighborhood.

Any public school in USA is still 100 times better than the public school system in 3rd world countries. I also don't understand why parents put so much passion on getting their kids the best schooling. Is it a feeling that one person only strives for that passion once you become a parent? Practically speaking, why should a parent sacrifice so much for the kids school, when your kid will outlive you, and no guarantee of the kids outcome. "I bring you to the world, I provide you love, food and clothing and basic necessities, and toys, then after you finish public high school, it is all up to you!". The world is very complex, younger generation will suffer more, they will need to work harder.

Ok, this is what I think the best solution: RENT a place with good school. BUY when your kids are out. That what we did.

edvard2 says

That said, after moving here from NC it seems that people are a little nutty about schools. It seemed like most everyone I knew back home just went to a public school- the one they were zoned for- and that was that. They sent us runts on our way and somehow things were fine.

EXACTLY. It is completely nutty here. What I find really amusing is all this 'Tiger Mom' business which seems to focus entirely on credentialing the child rather than building a capacity for critical thought. You can see it in the adults they turn into. Great at math, poor at thinking.

PersainCAT says

you know the one thing no one has brought up yet is the fact that for the vast majority of the country private schools are not available.

Where i grew up there simply WASN'T a private school to choose. My parents bought a house that was 30 miles from work so that we could be on the edge of the best school system in the region. It may not have been 100k premium (it being very rural) but there was a 5-15k cost to live in that school district over the less desirable ones.

Private schools mostly exist in areas where white people are not the super majority. Outside of the south and large metro areas private schools are mostly unnecessary.

White liberals enable undesirable minorities to move into their general area and then they spend insane amounts of money on self segregation.

AnotherLaura says

To add something to my overlong prior post:

Well written with good info, don't worry about it being overlong.

My kids are not in school yet, and I have been thinking about a lot of the things you mentioned. Thanks for sharing you experience.

foxmannumber1 says

Private schools mostly exist in areas where white people are not the super majority. Outside of the south and large metro areas private schools are mostly unnecessary.
White liberals enable undesirable minorities to move into their general area and then they spend insane amounts of money on self segregation

Wow. Lovely thoughts there.

foxmannumber1 says

Private schools mostly exist in areas where white people are not the super majority. Outside of the south and large metro areas private schools are mostly unnecessary.

White liberals enable undesirable minorities to move into their general area and then they spend insane amount of amounts of money on self segregation.

Sooo... no brown kids = no need for private school?

Your suggestion to "white liberals" is to take a page from the "white conservative" playbook, and keep the brown kids out of their neighborhoods?

Yes of course, I see now, because white people are never undereducated bad-influence idiotic assholes that I would not want to expose my children to.

In the very best areas of old money White liberals aren't wanted for their precise hypocritical reasoning. Again, these threads make clear how crazy the public happens to be. Today private schools are what public schools were 25 years ago but short of home schooling entirely necessary unless the brat is smart enough to be in independent study. The public schools today in the USA are a huge babysitting enterprise and they cannot even do that effectively.

There may be an element of class isolation (keep us away from all those POOR people) in some private school decisions. I don't buy that it is racist beyond the implied racism when many minorities are on the bottom rungs of the ladder.

Some people view their job as parents to provide the best possible training in the period 0-18 years so that kids can survive and thrive in the world. For them it makes perfect sense to get the best possible education, as they see fit.

A narrow focus on "education" does mean that the child may miss out on learning how to get along with the populace at large, including poor people, in this country. C'est la vie. A good private school will send a lot of kids to the Ivy Leagues, and even if the Ivy Leagues were to have no educational value whatsoever, their networking advantage will give kids a huge advantage.

I hate to inform everyone of this harsh reality. If you think you are sending your kid to an expensive school and it is going to do something magical for them beside keep them from minorities or thugs of all persuasion, you are dreaming. I went to the best public and private schools before going independent study with some of the richest kids in the country, and for all the best schooling money could buy? Nine out of ten couldn't find their asses without two hands and a guide. Hence, there goes the tony school theory, parenting is what matters ultimately but we are here to discuss real estate not where to send the brat to school.

The joke on education generally is that the value of schools, universities especially, is in their networking (who you meet) and their signalling value (somebody reading your resume in 45 seconds will see "Princeton 2008" and put you in a separate pile).

How many people use whatever they spent 4 years learning in college in their daily life?

Carl1 says

There may be an element of class isolation (keep us away from all those POOR people) in some private school decisions. I don't buy that it is racist beyond the implied racism when many minorities are on the bottom rungs of the ladder.

Yes, also you need a critical mass of "rich" in-order to have enough rich kids to justify a private school. Urban areas have a greater density of "rich", and therefore more private schools.

Carl1 says

A good private school will send a lot of kids to the Ivy Leagues, and even if the Ivy Leagues were to have no educational value whatsoever, their networking advantage will give kids a huge advantage.

Social is probably one of the most important factors in career "success", but the networking advantage at the Ivy League level is not available for the "average" student.

It goes along with what AnotherLaura wrote above:
AnotherLaura says

It is far better for your child to develop a real lifelong social network of middle-class kids than to be a bitter social outcast among the offspring of the rich and famous. You may think that your child is so gifted and outgoing that having the wrong car, wrong house, and WRONG CLOTHES won't stop him from being class president, but you are mistaken.

commonsense says

Hence, there goes the tony school theory, parenting is what matters ultimately but we are here to discuss real estate not where to send the brat to school.

I don't think that the data backs up your point that "good" schooling is worthless, but from what I have read you are correct on the parenting aspect. The most important element of scholastic success is parental involvement.

Whether you like it or not a big part of real estate, for a lot of people, is where their sweet little angels are going to be going to school. So, don't expect this to be the end of that type of discussion.

Carl1 says

somebody reading your resume in 45 seconds will see "Princeton 2008" and put you in a separate pile.

This does happen, I have seen it happen.

However, that is not the big networking edge from going to an Ivy League school.

The big advantage is from the people you went to school with suggesting/offering you positions without ever accepting resumes from anyone else. This social advantage is only available to those from families of the wealthy elite already. Your middle class student is very unlikely to make these types of connections.

PersainCAT says

As a note the advantage of a "good public school" is that they cant kick my kid out for a petty reason and there's a lot less BS and politics that i need to be involved in when compared to a private school.

Is kids getting kicked out of private school really that much of a worry?

From what I understand in talking with parents of kids in "rich" public schools the politics can be pretty annoying, but I am not sure how this compares to a private school.

Yes, getting kicked out of private school is that much of a worry to parents who don't want to parent!

The fact that a kid CANNOT get kicked out of a public school is a deterrent to attending, not a benefit, IMO. Definitely one reason we pulled our children from the local high API elementary and middle schools. There is no recourse for children of bad parents, so the bully keeps bullying, and the drug dealers keep dealing.

You get caught with drugs at St. Francis or Bellermine and you are out. St. Francis has a zero toerance policy and have already shown the door to several kids this year.

Couldn't throw them out of Menlo-Atherton, so you'd have to put up with them terrorizing your child! Yet people still pay $2-4 million for homes here with a supposedly decent K-8, and a scary high school. Really don't get it.

bmwman91 says

However, I know and work with a number of folks that went to "top" colleges, and they are working with me making the same money at a top-10 employer. Naturally, it seems that a lot of the richest folks out there came from "top" colleges, so there is likely some correlation in there. At the same time, it still seems like people put aside common sense & work fervently just to "get the name." In some cases it pays off richly, but as far as I can tell, in most cases it doesn't seem to really put someone way ahead. Really, learning to work hard, solve problems and apply common sense to life seems to be a bigger delimiter between success & failure.

Some of the recent studies suggest that success is better correlated with applying to a top school as opposed to going to one. Many of the people who applied have the drive, ambition, smarts, etc. and will generally do fine.

What private schools often have is better college guidance. At many public schools, you don't have dedicated college guidance staff, but at private schools, sometimes you do. Good private schools do well with this, but crappy private schools tend to appease the parents more than find a good fit for the child ("sure, your kid should apply to an Ivy League -- he has a great shot with mediocre SAT, mediocre grades, etc."). A good private school can give you a little bit of an edge in some ways, but sometimes that's more about giving you good advice, rather than the fact that sometimes they have lunch with admissions directors. Self-selection does come into play a little bit here.

ih8alameda2 says

while i do think that some parents are perhaps a bit overzealous about the school's ratings, and i do think that there are plenty of good public schools and that we don't all need to cram into the top schools, it's a bit laughable that people want to blame the RE whores for inventing the importance of a good school district.

The trend these days seems to be more about hyper-optimization. I don't quite understand it. If your kid is not motivated/ambitious, then it doesn't matter if he/she goes to the best school, private or public.

AnotherLaura says

When people talk about a "good" public school they generally are talking mostly about test scores. But school is both an academic environment AND a social environment. There are 11 boys on the starting line-up of the football team whether the school has 250 students or 2500, and lots of parents are willing to pay for a small private school with "no cuts" athletics and school plays.

What does "no cut" really teach you? That if you suck, but really want to play football anyway, we'll make you feel special by letting you do so at a high school level against fellow inferior competitors, but never again? I'm not sure that teaches the appropriate lesson. People might be willing to pay for that, but I'm not sure it's completely wise.

I agree that private schools tend to be smaller and give you more opportunity to do more things, but is that really better than being an expert and doing more in-depth at 1 or 2 things? I'm not so sure. Colleges have also revised their desires -- they used to say "we want a well-rounded individual." Many now say, "we want a well-rounded class." You can see the difference with alumni interviewers too -- it's much more interesting to see someone passionate about something they do rather than just dabbling in a bunch of activities because they can and think it looks good on their application.

AnotherLaura says

A teenager who feels that he fits in at school and is kept busy with extracurriculars causes fewer problems and is less likely to get in trouble than a teenager who tried out for several things freshman year, didn't get accepted to any of them, and now smokes dope in the park after school or while cutting school. If you think private school is expensive, check out the websites for teen rehab programs.

You're jumping to the other end of the spectrum without sufficient justification. If your kid was a slacker in elementary and middle school, chances are that your kid will be a slacker in high school. At some point, kids get beyond your parenting, and high school is generally beyond parenting. If you haven't put a good head on your kids' shoulders by then, sending them to an exclusive private school probably where they can't hack it won't do it.

Contrary to popular belief, there are definitely kids who smoke pot in the school parking lot at private schools. And because they tend to be better off, they can buy more expensive things than pot sometimes too.

AnotherLaura says

At the 5th grade level, the inferior curriculum of the public school and the public schools' aversion to tracking by ability, combined with the low morals and lack of discipline of some of the kids and their parents makes the middle school years an absolute Hell.
...
The kids who have been to parochial school usually have a better work ethic, too, which helps enormously with the transition to high school.

But there's an element of self-selection here. Why can't you say that it's the kids whose parents are risk-adverse and who are already well-motivated are the ones who are going to private school in the first place? These are the kids who go to "academically gifted" programs within public schools in the first place. Putting them in a parochial school likely didn't cause that.

Elementary school can be easily supplemented as you said, with other things that enrich kids -- I agree. However, elementary school is also where foundations come from -- the value of a good kindergarten teacher is statistically much higher than the value of a bad one. The fault is thinking of elementary school as structured daycare -- those good habits come from a young age.

The thing about middle school is that you're bordering close to the point where your kids are more set in their ways. If they weren't motivated in elementary school, they probably won't be in middle school.

AnotherLaura says

As a further benefit, at the parochial school your child stays at the same campus all day, while with the public school option there is the daily fear that little Tommy will miss the bus from public school to daycare and be stranded while you are at work. A lot of people just don't do the math, and end up paying more for something worse, especially since the public school invariably have more oneupsmanship with clothing, etc.

This isn't really a good reason for public vs. private -- it's more about your own insecurities than anything else. You could easily go to an uptight exclusive private school where clothing matters, and possibly more so because they can afford it.

AnotherLaura says

Being the poorest family in a public school in a rich neighborhood is probably worse than being a full-scholarship kid to a swanky private school, because at a private school the kids are spread out geographically and don't usually know too much about where most of their classmates live. I personally experienced the former situation, and it was NOT pleasant. It is far better for your child to develop a real lifelong social network of middle-class kids than to be a bitter social outcast among the offspring of the rich and famous. You may think that your child is so gifted and outgoing that having the wrong car, wrong house, and WRONG CLOTHES won't stop him from being class president, but you are mistaken.

It can be just as bad to be the poorest kid at a private school, and the differences are more stark -- the range has more multiples. For private schools, cars, clothes, neighborhood, and other keeping up with the Jonses things can often matter much more because of the ability to afford them. I think you're focusing too much on your own personal experience. If you have neighborhood public schools, the poorest kids usually can't be that much worse off for elementary/middle than the richest. For high school, it's a different story because public high schools tend to be bigger and cast a net over a wider area, but a lot of the foundations are basically set by then anyway.

SiO2 says

You can see a Freakonomics-type experiment about school prices in Santa Clara County.

Careful -- Freakonomics has NOTHING to do with experiments. Freakonomics is simply a backwards look at data and has more to do with chance and random discovery, than having good smarts and doing good thinking. I'd much rather have a clever thinker than someone who can pore through mounds of data just to find a random correlation.

mdovell says

Now we have "helicopter parents" that want to monitor everything 24/7.

It wasn't that long ago that students walked home from school, did not have cell phones, did not wait in a car at the bus stop, did not have "play dates" etc.

This is what I was getting at with the hyperoptimization. If you have motivated kids, they'll generally do just fine. The fact of the matter is (and it's not politically correct to say this), there are fewer motivated kids in poor areas and many more in rich areas, and that has to do with structural issues including nutrition among many other things. Those in the rich areas tend to be more risk-adverse and hyper-optimizing because they can afford to be so.

pkowen says

What I find really amusing is all this 'Tiger Mom' business which seems to focus entirely on credentialing the child rather than building a capacity for critical thought. You can see it in the adults they turn into. Great at math, poor at thinking.

Agree -- solely putting your kid in a hyperoptimized environment won't make your kid into a success. There are a lot of factors at play.

You can't always make your child motivated. You can push them towards new things and new opportunities, but the degree you push matters and the personality of the kid matters -- maybe they needed a slight push to realize they liked something, but maybe you pushed the wrong way and are just causing the kid to accrue therapy bills in the future.

avpmenlo says

we are living in Menlo Park and actually had to pull our three sons from the high API public schools here for those very reasons.

I'm curious -- what grades?

My daughter got a summer job at a local supermarket while she was in high school (she attended an out-of-state boarding school). A group of 8 or 10 young people were hired at the same time. My daughter and another girl the same age who attended a swanky local independent all-girls school were given "checker" jobs while all the others were "stockers." Coincidence? I don't think so.

As far as kids getting kicked out of public schools for no reason, I have heard some disturbing anecdotes in the past couple of years regarding public schools with large minority enrollments suspending white students who were victims of aggression for "fighting." Apparently, the public schools are under HUGE pressure to equalize the percentages of students from different racial groups who are suspended/expelled, and so the principals throw BOTH kids out whenever there is a "fight," even though quite a few of the "fights" involve one kid jumping another with no provocation. In one case that I know of, the parents decided to enroll their victimized-and-suspended daughter in a private school as the result of this, even though they really were not in a financial position to do so.

Both public school and private schools get better and worse over the years, with a change in principal often greatly improving or worsening a school. People often fight to get their child into a top school that really isn't that good anymore. Attendance zones get altered, neighborhoods change, school enrollments drop and the school district cuts programs rather than reducing surplus staff, etc.

Carl1 says

The joke on education generally is that the value of schools, universities especially, is in their networking (who you meet) and their signalling value (somebody reading your resume in 45 seconds will see "Princeton 2008" and put you in a separate pile).

Not completely sure about that. I'd agree with leoj that the networking advantage diminishes if you are not already among the elite and possibly if you don't live in NY after graduation.

Seeing Princeton gives in an interview process gives you a couple things: 1) a second look no matter what, 2) an assumption that you probably were motivated/smart/etc enough to get into Princeton and probably still have some of that. But it doesn't get you the job without more. For anything other than an entry-level job, you still have to meet what they're looking for.

Even if you look a mid-career salaries, Ivy League grads are high relative to Podunk State but aren't that much higher than other good places where many students probably applied to Ivy League schools. There are studies on this: http://finance.yahoo.com/college-education/article/111664/collges-that-brin -- the top schools at mid-career include Harvey Mudd (engineering/science), and Colgate (northeastern school with a lot of people who didn't get into Ivy but are still highly motivated).

leoj707 says

I don't think that the data backs up your point that "good" schooling is worthless, but from what I have read you are correct on the parenting aspect. The most important element of scholastic success is parental involvement.

Right, schooling matters, but parental involvement matters more. In poor neighborhoods, sadly, parental involvement can be lower because parents are busy keeping the lights on. In upper middle class neighborhoods, you're doing better than just getting by and can spend the time and effort.

leoj707 says

The big advantage is from the people you went to school with suggesting/offering you positions without ever accepting resumes from anyone else. This social advantage is only available to those from families of the wealthy elite already. Your middle class student is very unlikely to make these types of connections.

Agreed, and your elite kid will get these opportunities whether he/she went to Harvard or Denison or Florida State.

avpmenlo says

The fact that a kid CANNOT get kicked out of a public school is a deterrent to attending, not a benefit, IMO. Definitely one reason we pulled our children from the local high API elementary and middle schools. There is no recourse for children of bad parents, so the bully keeps bullying, and the drug dealers keep dealing.

Still curious. Even the brown kids at Encinal, Oak Knoll, and Laurel elementaries have APIs at about 800 or more, and there are only about 150 of them out of a student body of 1150 or so. The situation at Hillview middle is not that different -- the brown kids are still near 800, and they are few in number. I don't know how the state determines "socially disadvantaged," but it's about 30 out of almost 700. All four schools are overwhelmingly white.

What specific things bugged you? Did you actually see drug dealers?

I have nothing against good schooling. I am against bad parenting. There are plenty of lost parents trying to find their own way today so they aren't really in the position to be finding the way for their children... like the schools most parents are not what they were 30 years ago either.

On schools, there are also a number of alternate options I know one guy who attended a very prestigious military academy and is doing his masters at a now well-known to the military (fully accredited) university that is online. He has told me it is harder than his undergrad study.

I know as a fact (in my opinion from personal experience over the years both delivering scholarly papers to them and reviewing their published materials) that many Ivy Leagues have turned into nothing but mass circuses today, including highly undesirables (with all these overpaid board members and millions in endowments they have to get that money where they can after all) again…. not what they were 30 years ago. Options are out there, and my point is that today private does not mean success or necessarily quality (there are plenty of liberal wacked out theories flying around the Ivy League these days in my view.) I will say it again in my opinion private today in the USA is what public was 30 years ago minus a very few headaches.

AnotherLaura says

As far as kids getting kicked out of public schools for no reason, I have heard some disturbing anecdotes in the past couple of years regarding public schools with large minority enrollments suspending white students who were victims of aggression for "fighting."

Sounds like anecdotes to justify white flight. Does anyone have actual stats on this or proof that schools must equalize the numbers? I doubt it.

AnotherLaura says

My daughter got a summer job at a local supermarket while she was in high school (she attended an out-of-state boarding school). A group of 8 or 10 young people were hired at the same time. My daughter and another girl the same age who attended a swanky local independent all-girls school were given "checker" jobs while all the others were "stockers." Coincidence? I don't think so.

Self-selection -- your daughter probably seemed more professional or at least as professional as you can be at a supermarket -- I worked at one too at that age, so not hating. My motivated co-workers at that store (a few of whom went to elite colleges) were not stimulated by the job, but found stimulation in silly things -- e.g. can I scan the most stuff per minute, and ultimately they were better job performers for that reason. The slackers smoked pot in the parking lot and stole stuff from the store, no correlation to public or private schools on this one. If those public school kids were really as well-dressed as you suggest, they should have been just fine in the interview process.

leoj707 says

Sooo... no brown kids = no need for private school?

Generally speaking, yes. It's the same reason why those White liberals have unwritten rules of not even driving through certain 'neighborhoods' at any time.

"I wouldn't even drive near that part of town for the statistically speaking higher rate of assault and/or robbery."

This has been paraphrased by many white liberals since the late 1960's and cost them trillions of dollars trying to protect their families from the problem they created.

Everyone knows what the problem is and how to avoid it, but they are too scared of the 'scarlet letter' of "racist" to say it outloud.

commonsense says

I know as a fact that many Ivy League have turned into mass circuses today including undesirables …. not what they were 30 years ago.

Are you joking? Clearly you have never spent time at an Ivy League campus or are just hating selectively. The vast majority of people are above median income, and a good percentage are more well-off than that. Yes, it's not just Andover, Exeter, and Groton WASPs any more, but it's not any worse for that. I don't think anyone who has actually spent time at an Ivy League school thinks there are "undesirables" there.

Ivy League.. very interesting !!!

"Few institutions have been as crucial to Silicon Valley's success as San José State University, which trains many of the engineers, software designers and tech savvy business people who keep the Valley's technology machine rolling."

-- San Jose Mercury News

SJSU churned out tons of professionals before Silicon Valley was spotlighted on the national conscience. Not even Ivy League schools have cranked out so many in recent years.

"CSU officials say their system awards half of all bachelor’s degrees in California annually, including 54 percent of undergraduate business degrees. About 70 percent of San Jose State University’s graduates remain in the nine-county Bay Area, according to Patricia Lopes Harris, a university spokeswoman. Out of 7,800 degrees awarded to the class of 2010, more than 2,800 of them were earned by business and engineering students."p>