Public schools, charter schools, private schools

[mplsjaromir]

Off topic a bit. I read a boilerplate managerial book years ago. The authors surveyed American executives about their routines to illustrate how one can emulate their success. It was what one might expect, work hard, have supportive friends and family, take care of yourself etc.

The interesting part of the book was when then broke down responses by metro area. One interesting survey response and I think positive about the Twin Cities was how few 'successful' people sent their kids to private schools. In all metro areas save for MSP, the majority of those surveyed sent their kids to private school. Some areas like Chicago and Boston were at 90%. While here only about 15% sent their kids to private school.

Overall the public school system here has a good brand and some schools held in higher regard than private institutions. A good thing overall in my opinion.

[tedlanda2571]

Off topic a bit. I read a boilerplate managerial book years ago. The authors surveyed American executives about their routines to illustrate how one can emulate their success. It was what one might expect, work hard, have supportive friends and family, take care of yourself etc.

The interesting part of the book was when then broke down responses by metro area. One interesting survey response and I think positive about the Twin Cities was how few 'successful' people sent their kids to private schools. In all metro areas save for MSP, the majority of those surveyed sent their kids to private school. Some areas like Chicago and Boston were at 90%. While here only about 15% sent their kids to private school.

Overall the public school system here has a good brand and some schools held in higher regard than private institutions. A good thing overall in my opinion.

This doesn't surprise me, and I agree it's a very good thing.

The problem is, I think the pandemic has exposed the extent to which public education has been held together with duct tape and bailing wire and we've hit the point where the can can no longer be kicked down the road. The issues facing MPS, for example, (and they are dire) are likely not fixable without a major re-structuring of the district or a highly unlikely sea change in public education funding.

We have never personally considered private or charter schools for our child.

<Until this year.>

(...we are hanging in for now, but believe me we know all the deadlines for applying/enrolling elsewhere and we've given ourselves to December of this year to pull the trigger.)

There have been lots of kids dis-enrolling from MPS for years now, and this year is very likely to be MUCH worse. While a number of them will open enroll in public schools elsewhere, many will go to privates or charters. And while MPS has some unique structural issues (like a whole bunch of small buildings requiring capital investment), many of the issues facing it will begin to appear in neighboring districts (and already have, really). For example, the need to please constituencies with diametrically opposed opinions of what public education should be, the vilification of school boards, and the basic attractiveness of teaching as a profession in a public school at all, where you won't get paid much and risk getting dragged into culture wars from anyone along the spectrum by either having the gall to, say, support mask usage or slip up with correct pronouns.

Long way of saying, I think that the perceived attractiveness of public education is slipping fast in the Twin Cities. I also think this is a HUGE deal that even with the MPS teacher's strike coverage isn't getting nearly the coverage it deserves. It has the potential to be a horrendous development for our metro area.

(this should be moved to the school forum, I suppose)

[alexschief]

Without getting into moral judgements, the value proposition for private school in terms of dollars and cents has never made sense to me. Just the cost of Grades 9-12 at Minnehaha Academy is $107,220. K-12, it's $284,715. Is the marginal value of an education there worth the money?

If you can afford private school, surely your kid is better off if you take the annual cost of tuition, stick it in an index fund instead, and give the account to your kid after they graduate. I'm convinced a lot of parents shell out for private school because it's a personal status thing, not because they're thinking clearly about the costs and benefits.

[VacantLuxuries]

If you can afford private school, surely your kid is better off if you take the annual cost of tuition, stick it in an index fund instead, and give the account to your kid after they graduate. I'm convinced a lot of parents shell out for private school because it's a personal status thing, not because they're thinking clearly about the costs and benefits.

Yes, but then they wouldn't get to tell a story about how the public school system personally wronged them and how they took a stand against it to anyone within earshot. Can you really put a price tag on that?

[Mdcastle]

As someone that went to Minnehaha Academy (grades 6-12) there's absolutely no way I would want the money as a graduation present or whatever rather the chance I got to go there. Just my opinion. Although I don't disagree that if you count nothing but academics and are looking for the best value rather than the best education, no matter how good private school are it's hard to find a better value with "Free" at a public school. And a lot of parents send there for the wrong reason. 95% of the problem kids were those 5%. Though the typical reason was they viewed it as some kind of reform school for their kids rather than something to do with their own egos.

At least around Minnehaha, we viewed Blake as the place where the parents of rich snobs sent their kids as a status symbol, so if there's any truth to that it may vary from school to school.

[twinkess]

Aren't you paying for your kid to have contacts and a network (future) powerful friends?

[Mdcastle]

Perhaps. That wasn't the case at Minnehaha Academy, I can't think of a person in my graduating class that you'd term "powerful" nowadays. Most were grateful to their parents for sending them there, went to college, and got Middle to lower Upper Class jobs in business, as doctors, as lawyers rather than becoming ultra-rich and powerful. Again Blake may be different since it's reputation as we understood it was it was where the kids of the rich and famous went. (Breck had the reputation of being similar to us, while St. Paul Academy was laser focused on academics as opposed to anything else.)

There were obviously a few really rich parents there, one couple donated a million dollars to start a lower school campus in Bloomington so their kid wouldn't have to ride the bus into Minneapolis, but these seemed to be more the exception. None of the houses of other kids that I saw were especially ostentatious.

[tedlanda2571]

Without getting into moral judgements, the value proposition for private school in terms of dollars and cents has never made sense to me. Just the cost of Grades 9-12 at Minnehaha Academy is $107,220. K-12, it's $284,715. Is the marginal value of an education there worth the money?

If you can afford private school, surely your kid is better off if you take the annual cost of tuition, stick it in an index fund instead, and give the account to your kid after they graduate. I'm convinced a lot of parents shell out for private school because it's a personal status thing, not because they're thinking clearly about the costs and benefits.

Well, charter schools are free, there are private schools that cost a lot less than Minnehaha Academy, and most importantly, you are putting a price tag on your child's social development and mental health. And yes, it's social development and mental health that many parents are concerned about. Parents aren't pulling their kids out of MPS because they doubt their teacher's ability to teach reading, writing, and arithmetic. They are pulling them because they perceive the environment as detrimental to their children. Is that worth 100K? If you got it, yeah, it probably is.

My best friend just pulled his daughter from Hopkins mid-school year because she was absolutely miserable in a chaotic, disruptive environment where she literally felt unsafe at times. She is now thrilled to death to be at De La Salle (significantly cheaper than Minnehaha). There's LOTS of parents weighing precisely this trade-off who never would have considered it 3 years ago.

[NickP]

Perhaps. That wasn't the case at Minnehaha Academy, I can't think of a person in my graduating class that you'd term "powerful" nowadays. Most were grateful to their parents for sending them there, went to college, and got Middle to lower Upper Class jobs in business, as doctors, as lawyers rather than becoming ultra-rich and powerful. Again Blake may be different since it's reputation as we understood it was it was where the kids of the rich and famous went. (Breck had the reputation of being similar to us, while St. Paul Academy was laser focused on academics as opposed to anything else.)

There were obviously a few really rich parents there, one couple donated a million dollars to start a lower school campus in Bloomington so their kid wouldn't have to ride the bus into Minneapolis, but these seemed to be more the exception. None of the houses of other kids that I saw were especially ostentatious.

To me, knowing a lot of doctors, lawyers, and business folk seems like a pretty rich and powerful network.

[mattaudio]

Going to a wealthy south metro suburban public school did that too.

[fehler]

There is a marked division between Catholic schools and private schools.

[Mdcastle]

To me, knowing a lot of doctors, lawyers, and business folk seems like a pretty rich and powerful network.

I suppose. My career path hasn't been conventional and thus hasn't really benefited from networking so I guess I wouldn't know. I was the one kid from my class that didn't go to college, something I still regret daily (couldn't reach an agreement on what school to go to with my parents), so I went to trade school, got a job in video production for 5 year until computers made my training obsolete, then went to community college, dropped out when I had 5 credits left, another something I still regret daily, then got a comfortable back office job in the finance industry where I've been for close 20 years.