As a parent I do not rely upon nor trust the government to accomplish what is needed for my family. My daughter attend private schools until end of 3rd grade, then we pulled her out to go into a gifted program in the public schools. Through that, she also started acting and then was able to get into a magnet school of the arts for gifted children. Think "Fame" but with college level classes and all the teachers had masters and Doctorates - and were really really good. From there she was accepted into a joint enrollment program as the local college - she will have her Bachelors of Science in Mechanical engineering at 18.

My son has been in the gifted programs and is progressing equally well. As a family - we assign reading, discuss assignments and points, have discussions about the world and opinions and essentially do parallel home-schooling...same as my parents did with me.

There is a lot I do NOT like about the public schools, but that is mainly around the Common Core idiocy and lack of accountability...but many teachers are of the same mind and help with that.

Private schools are NOT a panacea and frequently the academics are not at the level we would like - at least in my personal experience with 2 schools. So like most things in life - comes back to what you do as an individual and family. That and a $1.50 gets you a cup of coffee.

My sons and daughter all went to a parochial school.

They all got a good education and the ones who went to college did well there. My son went to Ohio Northern, which is a good academic school.
He was shocked that he was so well prepared.

We got a football coach at their school one year a while back and he turned the football teams around and started win state championships.
When asked why it was easier to coach at a Parochial school he said; "When coaching at MOST public schools, the first 2 to 3 weeks of practice was spent teaching discipline while at the parochial school the first two weeks were all football.

I think the same could be said about the education. One local public school, which used to be pretty good for education is now really bad, they also have a huge discipline problem.

bigdeal,

Are you in either Orange or Seminole County?

Right now we're in Orange but our daughter isn't school age yet. We're hoping to have moved into Seminole by the time she starts school. We're looking at Oviedo, to be specific. From what we've gathered, the public schools there are significantly better than Orange county schools.

Also been looking at Lake county as you get so much more house/land for your money there. But haven't looked into their school quality yet.

Even a "good" public school is still subject to the Leftist whims of the NEA. For the sake of your children, you need to consider private school.

As earlier posters said, it's market forces, and a selection process, which lead to private schools being better.

They always will, for the same reason socialism always fails.

And, because they're socialist in nature, public schools spend most of their funds on bureaucracy, mainly at the level of superintendent and higher, rather than on textbooks, teachers, etc.

quote:

Originally posted by Edmond:
bigdeal,

Are you in either Orange or Seminole County?

Right now we're in Orange but our daughter isn't school age yet. We're hoping to have moved into Seminole by the time she starts school. We're looking at Oviedo, to be specific. From what we've gathered, the public schools there are significantly better than Orange county schools.

Also been looking at Lake county as you get so much more house/land for your money there. But haven't looked into their school quality yet.

You have mail.

quote:

Originally posted by Edmond:
bigdeal,

Are you in either Orange or Seminole County?

Right now we're in Orange but our daughter isn't school age yet. We're hoping to have moved into Seminole by the time she starts school. We're looking at Oviedo, to be specific. From what we've gathered, the public schools there are significantly better than Orange county schools.

Also been looking at Lake county as you get so much more house/land for your money there. But haven't looked into their school quality yet.

I'm in Orange County, but my parents and my brother live in Seminole County. The public schools in Seminole are better than Orange, but given their rate of growth, I can only wonder how long they will hold that standing. My son spent grades K-8 at The First Academy (private), and high school in the Finance magnate at Boone High School (public). The Finance magnate at Boone is simply amazing, all due to the man who designed, built, and runs the program. I suspect when he retires in a couple years, that program won't look anything like it has over the past 10+ years. That's unfortunate because my son has been on the Dean's list since attending college and continues to mow through college coursework with little issues, primarily due to the education he got prior to college.

quote:

Originally posted by synthplayer:
Even a "good" public school is still subject to the Leftist whims of the NEA. For the sake of your children, you need to consider private school.

Here, the primary enemy is local county government. State funding of public schools is tied to performance metrics, and if student performance does falter, local government is all too ready to cut the offending programs to remove the issue. Now that behavior is likely further motivated by the teachers union, but these local government officials should be hung for what they've done to many of our local schools and their students.

We started homeschooling 2 years ago. Best decision we ever made. Our children are learning more and their personalities have flourished outside of the schoolbox environment. Plus none of that common core nonsense. It has allowed us to find their weaknesses and help them better than we could when they were in public school. Communication was a huge issue in the public school system, one year a teacher might be good, the next two not so much. If you have the means I highly recommend it. There are plenty of groups and resources available as well as charter schools that can help organize curriculum.

quote:

Originally posted by synthplayer:
Even a "good" public school is still subject to the Leftist whims of the NEA. For the sake of your children, you need to consider private school.

Not saying you are wrong, but to be fair the schools in the SF Bay Area are probably about as different from the schools in my part of GA as possible.

As I said my wife works at the school and we both volunteer a lot. We are friends with multiple teachers and staff. We are pretty aware of what is going on and if there is anything in a text book or whatever that we have an issue with we simply talk to our kids about it.

Also this may come as a surprise to some of you but not every school teaches common core. They did for one year at the local grade school but dropped it. Another reason why it’s important to actually research schools and not make assumptions