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I was shocked to learn, just a few days ago, that an old school friend of mine is paying roughly $9,000/month for private school for his two young children. (A

I was shocked to learn, just a few days ago, that an old school friend of mine is paying roughly $9,000/month for private school for his two young children. (Ages 14 and 8.) The guy is doing okay -- his income is somewhere over $200k/year -- but this expense is a _big_ fraction of his total income. For him, childcare costs are basically the difference between leasing a new Ferrari and living in a mansion, and buying clothes from Ross and begging his parents for money. (Which, I've learned, he does.) There are two factors in play. First, he lives in a large and diverse American city, and wants to insulate his children from bad influences. Second, he's under a great deal of, essentially, peer pressure to "Keep up with the Joneses" -- in other words, to keep up appearances relative to other members of his social group. It's insanity, of course. But, in his position, it would be difficult to raise a child cheaply. The outcomes might be quite poor. So, either way, there's difficulty and worry. There are also the opportunity costs of parenting, which are considerable, but that's a different matter.

jquery 3y ago
I assure you sending my kid to private school in a diverse city has nothing to do with "insulating her from bad influences" (diversity is good, not bad) and everything to do with ensuring she has motivated and happy teachers who will pay attention to her needs... not a super high bar but America loves underpaying its teachers and starving public education. There's a few magnet public schools that offer this, but getting admission is difficult. All public schools should be magnet schools... "Keeping up with the joneses" doesn't come into play at all.
chasd00 3y ago
wow this hits very close to home. I live in Dallas, and my wife and I struggled with the private school question. If you live in an urban area you pretty much have to budget for private school or roll the dice on getting in to highly competitive magnet schools. For elementary school we rented an apartment for 6 months to get an address in a decent school, it wasn't a guaranteed ticket but a risk we took because it was cheaper than private school. We were able to get in and worked closely with the school and our kids to make sure they were learning what they needed to get to the next school. They both got to a magnet middle school thankfully which was goal #2 but I mean even the magnet school is still like a zoo (sex in bathrooms, drugs, etc). Again, we work closely with the school and our boys, teaching them a lot of the skills they're not getting at school (it's very time consuming and basically a second job for me and my wife). My oldest is now in 8th grade and tested recently for the top magnet STEM HS in DFW. He feels pretty confident about it but we find out March 1 if he got it, that's goal number #3. Looking back, my wife and I both strongly agree just moving 45 miles north to suburbs with actual functioning public schools would have been so much better. Yeah sure, we live in a hot neighborhood (north oak cliff), downtown, uptown, and deep ellum are < 3 miles away but we never go down there anymore anyway. Suburbs with good schools and other amenities geared toward families are where it's at.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- bsdpufferfish 3y ago
  I am not at that stage of life and have a few question. What was your biggest concern about school? That they would become involved in bad behavior? Or that they wouldn’t be educated? My experience from public school is that it’s basically worthless. Could you treat it as social time and make up for the school in your own?
  - chasd00 3y ago
    > What was your biggest concern about school? That they would become involved in bad behavior? Or that they wouldn’t be educated? school performance and education which correlates to behavior. Obviously, when you drop your kids off at school you want to be confident they're going to be ok so behavior is important. My wife and I have found that low teacher rollover is also a good indicator of a school's quality. The top magnet schools in the district have the lowest teach rollover which is another vote for that metric. We do a lot of educating at home but it's a tough row to hoe. You're basically homeschooling and the last thing my kids want to do when they get home from school all day is more work.
    - bsdpufferfish 3y ago
      Thanks for the advice.

jquery 3y ago

I assure you sending my kid to private school in a diverse city has nothing to do with "insulating her from bad influences" (diversity is good, not bad) and everything to do with ensuring she has motivated and happy teachers who will pay attention to her needs... not a super high bar but America loves underpaying its teachers and starving public education. There's a few magnet public schools that offer this, but getting admission is difficult. All public schools should be magnet schools... "Keeping up with the joneses" doesn't come into play at all.

chasd00 3y ago

wow this hits very close to home. I live in Dallas, and my wife and I struggled with the private school question. If you live in an urban area you pretty much have to budget for private school or roll the dice on getting in to highly competitive magnet schools. For elementary school we rented an apartment for 6 months to get an address in a decent school, it wasn't a guaranteed ticket but a risk we took because it was cheaper than private school. We were able to get in and worked closely with the school and our kids to make sure they were learning what they needed to get to the next school. They both got to a magnet middle school thankfully which was goal #2 but I mean even the magnet school is still like a zoo (sex in bathrooms, drugs, etc). Again, we work closely with the school and our boys, teaching them a lot of the skills they're not getting at school (it's very time consuming and basically a second job for me and my wife). My oldest is now in 8th grade and tested recently for the top magnet STEM HS in DFW. He feels pretty confident about it but we find out March 1 if he got it, that's goal number #3. Looking back, my wife and I both strongly agree just moving 45 miles north to suburbs with actual functioning public schools would have been so much better. Yeah sure, we live in a hot neighborhood (north oak cliff), downtown, uptown, and deep ellum are < 3 miles away but we never go down there anymore anyway. Suburbs with good schools and other amenities geared toward families are where it's at.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
bsdpufferfish 3y ago
I am not at that stage of life and have a few question. What was your biggest concern about school? That they would become involved in bad behavior? Or that they wouldn’t be educated? My experience from public school is that it’s basically worthless. Could you treat it as social time and make up for the school in your own?
- chasd00 3y ago
  > What was your biggest concern about school? That they would become involved in bad behavior? Or that they wouldn’t be educated? school performance and education which correlates to behavior. Obviously, when you drop your kids off at school you want to be confident they're going to be ok so behavior is important. My wife and I have found that low teacher rollover is also a good indicator of a school's quality. The top magnet schools in the district have the lowest teach rollover which is another vote for that metric. We do a lot of educating at home but it's a tough row to hoe. You're basically homeschooling and the last thing my kids want to do when they get home from school all day is more work.
  - bsdpufferfish 3y ago
    Thanks for the advice.