I've heard stories of institutional racism from both faculty and students toward minority students at some of these Christian schools. Not very Jesus like. I haven't heard anything about St. Thomas, but know a lot of people who went to schools like Strake Jesuit, Grace and SBS and been told some terrible stories. If you're in the majority, I guess you should be ok.
Knew of 2 minorities who graduated from kinkaid, one of them a salutatorian, and none of them mentioned anything about that. 2007 and 2005 ish grads.
You are a known troll-- and a passive aggressive one at that. Time to put on your big boy pants, stop hating what you see in the mirror and stick to one personality.
Bellaire and Memorial are fantastic. St Johns is worth the $$$. It is hard to generalize in these instances as each school ebbs and flows on a case by case basis, so I would research each school specifically and talk to parents as well. This applies to Christian schools as well-- you don't have to be a fundamentalist or hardcore church goer to enjoy and benefit from their educational curriculum. it's also served many kids well to have some kind of moral compass and guidelines growing up. Know a few girls who went to duchesne and they have turned out darn near perfect- that's where my daughter will be headed when I move back.
I went to two boarding schools - Eaglebrook School in Deerfield, MA for 8th to 9th and Loomis Chaffee in Windsor, CT for 10th My mother taught AP History among other things at Memorial HS. I went to MHS for 11th and 12th, and I had my mother as a teacher. I love my mother very much, and she was a great, dedicated teacher, and all her students loved her to death. I don't know that much about any of the local private schools, but trust me when I say that there was absolutely no comparison in terms of the quality of the education. AT ALL. And that was before my mother and her generation of extremely well educated and erudite old school teachers retired. When my mother went into teaching in the early, early 60's, there weren't a whole lot of other options for smart women. The next generation is decidedly less impressive. Putting aside all the test results and college placement and all that crap, which of course is all very important to parents, in terms of challenging my mind and making me learn how to learn, and think, and interact with the world, I got more out of a single semester at Loomis Chaffee than the 9 years I had of public school education. Going from Loomis Chaffee to public school - even "honors" classes at one of the better local schools - was like being sentenced to a dull, monotonous prison sentence. Actually, if you want to know what it feels like, watch Orange Is The New Black. Ultimately, if the child doesn't have it in them, you can throw as much private school at your child as possible and it won't make a difference. But if your child has any inclination towards education, your money won't be wasted, even if it is difficult to quantify in terms of test scores and such - and usually you get that stuff too. And I also managed to get the stink eye from Michael Douglas, hung out with the grandchildren of the von Trapp family from The Sound of Music was told how much he loved me as Perchik in Fiddler on The Roof by John Sebastian and holy **** I just realized that the dorky awkward kid Duncan who was in my classes was Duncan Shiek, who had a mega-hit in the 90's. How did I miss that until now?
Ahh, your mom is Captain Blodgett! We used to call her that. I had another teacher for AP history, but your mum ran the Model UN program if I recall correctly.
The stats say otherwise. They are the second in SAT score for all public schools behind DeBeakey. I had kids that could have went to Kindaid andSt Thomas all the time but got in there. Only 1 in a hundred kids that audition get in. Harder than getting into a private school.
Folks can debate private vs public schools all day in terms of quality of education. There are public schools that are competitive with the top tier private schools in terms of graduation rate and facilities. However, most public schools aren't nearly as well equipped or have the kind of teacher to student ratios as the better private schools. Public tax monies just can't compete with private endowments. Does that translate into a better education? Yes, no, maybe. It depends a lot on the individual schools that you are comparing. However, there is one major advantage that private schools have over public schools that can NOT be replicated, and that's the socio-economic background of the students. Let's look at the reality of how the work world works. Schools, qualifications and hard work are important in finding good opportunities, but what is just as, if not MORE important is WHO you know. The difference between a top tier public and private school is that while both will have students with a high success rate, those in the top tier private schools will ALSO be plugged into society at a very high level. That means your opportunities in terms of networking will be substantially better in sending your kid to a private school assuming that they make use of those networks. Let's put it this way... is your kid better off growing up and having as friends the children of senior executives, politicians, industrial magnates, and foreign dignitaries? Or growing up with the children of your next door neighbors? And before folks dive in with the, "I wouldn't want to hang out with those types" argument, if your child were unemployed due to bad luck like a lay off or decided they wanted to change careers, start a business or establish contact with a person of power that can assist them in chasing their dreams, which group of people would be More likely to help them in that pursuit? If you have the means, you should certainly send them to the schools and Universities that will provide them the best opportunities to succeed later in life, and that success is not just measured by their academic performance but the social networks that they will build and maintain during those years.
To call SJS a Christian school is a little iffy... There was no religious curriculum and I went there from 5th grade through graduation (after a few years at ROBS). While there was a weekly "chapel" service at the adjacent but not-affiliated St. John's The Divine Church, it hardly constituted any type of Christian education. The services were non-denominational and we often had speakers from other non-Christian faiths (as well as non-religious speakers).
The downside to this argument is if you aren't really in the upper-class and are just throwing your savings for your child to be in private school, would the "senior executives, politicians, industrial magnates, and foreign dignitaries" want their kid hanging out with the poor kid to being with? Also those in the real upper echelon of society are probably in the type of private school that wouldn't except non-alumni children.
$49,220 boarding tuition; $37,570 day tuition (for the 2012–13 school year) for Loomis ? It's more than some top 100 Universities, even Out-of-state. If your family has that much money, go for it. As far as "honor" classes in public HS being boring, I don't know when you went to school and if that classification is still the same but these days there are more challenges than the honor classes. There are the regular classes, honor classes and pre-AP and then AP classes (basically college level classes). http://www.ccisd.net/departments/advanced-academics-and-gt
I was in private school from 6 to 12th grade (Awty), and it was great for me. So much so that I had a grand plan that would send my kids there (albeit financed by the French government). That totally failed after 3 years (I made a thread about it at the time), and my kids are now at a very good public magnet school and I'm much happier. But, I'm a bit wiser, I think, for the experience. Private schools are good simply because they can choose the cohort, and the strength of a student's peer group has a strong impact on a kid's success. I think that's great for the people on the inside, not so great for the people on the outside. Where schools have trouble with institutional racism, or general uppitiness, I think it flows from this essential fact -- the school's success is built on the freedom to discriminate. Even if admissions lets someone outside the usual profile in, they aren't always organizationally or culturally equipped to handle it. Public schools always take all comers. Awty could when I was a kid, but they couldn't when my kids attended -- they weren't set up for it, and didn't have the desire to make any special accommodations. As well endowed as private schools can be, they also do not have the resources a major school district like HISD has. If your child has a speech impediment, or a handicap, a learning disability, need for special medical accomodations, doesn't speak English, is homeless, or whatever, HISD has the resources to help you where most if not all private schools do not have the resources (unless they specialize in it), or do not even want the resources (because they don't want the bother of someone with special needs in their cohort).
I went to Public School, albeit as an honors student. No complaints. My little brother (he's 10) is in private school. I think the real world would eat him alive.
harder because of the artistic aspect, the education still doesn't compare. My sister didnt think their dance program was worth learning nothing academically (she had multiple classes where they only watched DVDs in classroom. I did go to Episcopal as did my sister and we have both done very well after graduating. But I dont know anyone that would say it was worth the money. It certainly doesnt compare to the really good privates schools like Kinkaid and St Johns. The teachers are lazy and unmotivated, kids are not challenged, lots of "downtime" during the day for student, and honestly we learned very little there. I would NEVER send my own children there. There are plenty of smart kids at Episcopal (as well as lots of really dumb, unmotivated rich kids). So the smart kids still do well and go to good schools (but not nearly on the scale of those other schools who can get underachieving kids into excellent schools based on reputation alone). So your kid can certainly do fine there, but if they are capably of doing well there, they will be just as successful at any school imo
The well-established schools with large endowments want (or say they want) economic diversity and hand out scholarships to families that want to attend but can't afford it. If you want to go public, that's fine. But, if you wanted to send your kid to private schools and were willing to jump through the hoops to make it happen, it's attainable.
You're assuming the parents keep track that closely. A lot of the time the parents are very busy and aren't exactly monitoring their kids' social lives. Many of the top private schools are boarding schools or have significant numbers of boarding spots, so their parents see them only a few times a year. A lot of those kids are thinking about making friends and not worrying about how much their friends' parents make. One of my childhood friends went to a top private school and his family wasn't wealthy. He did however perform well academically and most private schools make accommodations for those with athletic or academic talents. He made no shortage of friends in a significantly higher economic strata, and it helped him tremendously when he later decided to launch his own company. It created opportunities to open doors that would have been hidden behind layers of middle managers and administrators had he been a complete stranger. If you're from a very well to do family or a "legacy", obviously the bar for entrance isn't as high, but that doesn't mean middle class kids don't go to those schools. That said, he did just fine in terms of making friends. When everyone is wearing school uniforms people don't focus nearly as much on it. Sure, maybe they're not running around with the same kind of pocket change but those kids like doing a lot of the same things as middle class kids whether that's playing video games, screwing around on the computer, going to movies, or watching TV and watching sports. Also, you're assuming the parents care that much about it. Most of their friends are going to be from upper strata, however many of those families are also self-made in their success and actually like that their children make friends with people who aren't necessarily in that upper 1% as it can help keep them grounded. I think of one guy I know who sent all 4 of his kids to one of the most expensive private schools in his area... he said that of his kids friends many of the ones he liked the most were the ones from working class backgrounds as his biggest worry about his children is that they would not appreciate the value of hard work and money. That's not to say there aren't going to be kids that are snooty or spoiled, but that's not going to be everyone. Class means something but not nearly as much as it used to, especially in the modern age when kids are exposed to so many things in this age of social networking and the internet. Just look at the Clutchfans message board. Without the Internet, I'm sure many of the folks here wouldn't look twice at each other in real life, let alone have a meaningful chat about a topic. I have no doubt that there are posters here that are college educated and high school educated, as well as across every strata of the economic spectrum. Technology has been a great leveler of opinion and interaction, and that has spilled over to a degree into society at large, especially with the younger generations which are more tech savvy, open minded and tolerant than us older folks.
