Conference moira::parenting

    Jay, 
    
    There are private schools that don't fall under any of the categories
    you listed, such as the Bancroft School in Worcester.  I guess you
    would file that under "Traditional"--or maybe "Expensive!" :-)
    
    FYI, there is also an Education_Issues notesfile.
    
    -Tracy
    

   Actually, there is another catagory that you haven't mentioned... that
   of home schooling.  Since you're entering notes here, I presume that
   means that you are employed  (smart, ain't I?!), so that may not be an
   option for you, bur if you're interested, see 
   
   CRONIC::HOME_SCHOOLING
   
   - Tom
   

    Is there a resource (e.g. book in libraries) which lists private
    schools in an area?
    
    In particular, I'm in Nashua, and know about the Catholic schools,
    the Waldorf school in Wilton and the Well School in Peterborough,
    but are there more, and what are they?
    
    		-John Bishop

    John:
    
    The Nashua Public Library has, in its reference section, several
    directories of "Independent Schools", which is the buzz-word for
    "non-public schools".  These directories are quite informative,
    including data from size of school to faculty credentials to
    curriculum and cost.
    
    Beth

    Please see related notes:
    
     73 Montessori
    375 School Choice Program.  (Pertinent to Massachusetts residents)
    419 Home Schooling
    
    Laura
    

    I also live in Shrewsbury.  My son is 13 yrs old and has attended
    Shrewsbury Public schools since kindergarten.  I grew up in Shrewsbury,
    and after I had my son we decided to move to Shrewsbury from Worcester
    because I knew the school system was much better here than in Worcester.
    
    I have been very pleased with his education.  He did have some problems in
    Math when he was in grade school.  But, they have an excellent program
    called Chapter I in which the children are tested, scored, and placed
    into individual groups for extra help on a weekly basis.   He is know
    getting straight A's in Math.  He is still getting extra help for his 
    reading and language arts.  I am sure in other school sytems he would 
    have just been passed on grade to grade without the help that he really
    needed.  I am really pleased with all they have provided for him and we
    are not sorry for choosing public over private school.
    
    I just thought you might like to hear my opinion.
    
    Cheryl
    I did not send him 

    re .5, etc.
    
    The books in the library are full of information about residential
    schools for high school and junior high, clearly intended for
    worried parents of children who aren't doing as well as the parents
    expect (e.g. "Caring", "Structured" and "Low pupil-to-teacher ratio"
    show up in all of them).
    
    They have almost nothing about day elementary schools--I didn't
    find the Pine Hill school (the Waldorf one) in any of three books,
    even though it's been there for over a decade, none of them had
    the Well School in Peterborough either, and only one had High Mowing
    (Waldorf High School).   There were only two mentions of the Nashua
    Catholic system that I found--one book refered to a (now closed)
    girls' high school, another to a (now closed) elementary schools.
    
    So they weren't a help.  I'll try this another way:
    
    Who out there is sending children to a non-public elementary school
    in the "Greater Nashua" area, and what is special attraction of the
    school?
    
    			-John Bishop

The following is being posted for a member of the PARENTING notesfile
community who prefers to remain anonymous at this time.  If you wish
to contact the author by mail, please send your message to me and I will
forward it to the anonymous noter.  Your message will be forwarded with
your name attached unless you request otherwise.

      Carol duBois, PARENTING Co-moderator

**************************************************************

Looking for comments from the parenting community on pro's/con's of parochial
versus public education (particularly in the primary grades).  I am not
interested in a debate of finanicals but am more interested in your 
experience of classroom sizes, curriculum, extra curricular, and so on.
We are approaching decision time as to whether or not go public or parochial.
Part of me wonders if the discipline may be better at parochial (although
in my opinion discipline starts at home).  On the other hand however I
would tend to believe public schooling is more culturally diverse.  I do
have some rather serious concerns regarding our local public schools, but
would first like to better understand the viewpoints of some more "seasoned"
parents.

Thanks very much.

    I haven't tried public primary schools, so I don't have an opinion of
    how they work, but I do know you get out of public schools what you are
    willing to put into them.  Parental involvement is key IMO to any
    student's success, and often this is why private and parochial schools
    have "better" educational records.
    
    Lolita survived and even thrived through two inner-city elementary
    schools, a Jr. High school and High school.  She took honors courses
    and lettered in Cross-country and track three years running.  Her
    grades, SATS, and ACT's were high enough to get her a 1/2 ride
    scholarship to a private, small college in VT.  
    
    Carrie is not sufficiently challenged, but most of her teachers 
    recognize this and have pushed her into some gifted courses, and also 
    into helping kids who aren't "getting" a subject.  We do encourage her
    reading, writing, and arithmetic and problem solving skills.  We also
    try to finds enrichment through helping her focus on her interests
    (which vary).  We have toyed with the idea of home-schooling, but feel
    she wouldn't get the socialization she needs, as most of the
    home-schoolers in our area have strong religious beliefs which are
    incompatabile with ours, so the other home-schoolers are not an option
    for this.
    
    Atlehi has three years to go before we have to worry about it.  
    
    Letting teachers admin, etc know that we are involved with our child
    has been key to getting our kids educations pushed as far as they wish
    to go.  being involved in PTO, and other volunteer efforts around the
    school also helps.  
    
    meg

>>    and lettered in Cross-country and track three years running.

Pun not intended, I presume...  :-)

    If you are interested in homeschooling, drop me a line and I will mail
    you the homd-ed mailing list FAQ (it's rather long).
    
    michael

    
    
    My husband and I have been looking at private schools
    on and off for our daughter in the past 5 years. My
    daughter will be going into the 5th grade this Sept.
    
    I think the pros and cons of public and private
    schools vary tremendously from town to town. The
    quality of any public school system depends on the
    town, ie. the amount of money allocated for education,
    and the involvement and expectation of the community.
    The quality of any private (non-public) school education depends
    on its philosophies and its budgets. One way to gauge
    the quality of a school is to obtain their national 
    test scores. There are 3 or 4 nation-wide tests that
    children have to take during the 12 years. For public 
    schools, you can get that from the superintendent office.
    In my particular town, the public school test results
    are equal to and exceed the parochial schools in and 
    around town, but are slightly below this one private 
    (non-parochial) school that charges $8K a year for 1st grade 
    and $11K for 9th grade. Another information one can consider is
    the college entrance statistics, ie. how many kids went to
    which colleges. One can have an idea what kind of crowd
    one's child will be hanging out with, which may or may not
    be an issue depending on the child and parents. The classroom 
    sizes in the neighboring parochial schools are equal to and 
    slightly bigger than in my public school system! The expensive 
    private school has 1/3 fewer kids per class. In my town, the
    public school education is as good as and better than parochial 
    schools. In my town, the classes are not supposed to be grouped
    by ability, but in reality, certain groups of kids do end up
    with certain groups of teachers and parents have input in
    classroom assignment. The two parochial schools I have talked
    to do not group their children either, others may be different.
    In a couple of occasions over the years, I had to ask the teachers 
    to challenge my daughter since she was bored and they did. We
    also supplement my daughter's education on the our own with
    magazine subsriptions, "field" trips, etc.
    
    Besides the academics, there are also other issues to consider
    such as transportation (busing), extra-curriculum activities,
    daycare, friends. Typically, parochial schools do not have afterschool 
    programs at the elementary level. My town may have extensive 
    afterschool programs, drawing, skiing, foreign languages, 
    drama/music, to name a few. My town also have a very well run and
    challenging afterschool daycare program, way beyond babysitting.
    The parents have to be more aggressive in fostering friendships,
    ie. do a lot more planning and driving, when their children attend
    private and parochial schools.
    
    Parochial schools, from what I understand do offer better
    discipline. I have seen some parents sending their children to 
    parochial schools because the public school could not adequately 
    *control* them. In the expensive private school, they will only
    take cream-of-the-crop kids. Depending on the school districting
    in a town, children in one school can come from very different
    social-economical and cultural backgrounds, or they can come
    from similar backgrounds. In my town, kids go to their nearest
    elementary school, so kids from well-off part of town go to the
    one school and kids from an average part of town go to another
    school. In parochial school, the kids are more homogenous. In
    an expensive private school, the kids are all wealthy and come
    from all over the state and neighboring states.
     
    As you see it is not as straightforward as seems ;-) 
    Good luck.
    
    
    
    Eva

I agree with the previous notes that said that it is hard
to generalize.  The quality of all schools varies widely.
When my now 9 year old son was born, my wife joined out School Committee
to start improving the schools and she (and several other committed
parents) have made a gigantic difference in the quality of our local
elementary school.  We now have people looking for land to build
in our town due to the excellent school reputation.  You can make
a difference.

Beware of how you read test scores.  Some schools stress the tests
and some do not.  In our high school, the tests used to be viewed
as having no value and were almost considered 'a vacation', and the
school showed poor results.  With no real change in the school except
a change whereby the tests were considered 'important', the whole school
scored much higher.  For example, now the kids take home a note to
the parents saying 'try to make sure your kid gets a good nights sleep'.
Also, be careful reading who's scores are included.  Some schools do
not include ANY Special Ed kid scores in their school data, others
include some, others include all.  To have good test results, some
schools dont give the tests to everyone.

Good Luck
bob