| Subject: Here's the Magazine article |
Author:
Liam
|
[
Next Thread |
Previous Thread |
Next Message |
Previous Message
]
Date Posted: 11:18:37 06/27/01 Wed
In reply to:
Liam
's message, "Susan Rhea's picture is in Forbes Magazine" on 18:13:03 06/26/01 Tue
Here's the full story. Soory the pic is in the Mag and I couldn't get it here.
Public Choice
Ira Carnahan, Forbes Magazine, 06.11.01
Pick your home carefully and save the $20,000 a year you planned to spend on private school.
Two years ago Susan Rhea was thinking about pulling her first-grade son from his public school just outside Dayton, Ohio and putting him in a private school. "His school just wasn't challenging," she complains.
Then her husband took a job in Washington, D.C. When they went house-shopping this time, they homed in on neighborhoods with terrific public schools. They talked to Realtors and other parents, researched test scores and class sizes, and ended up picking Carderock Springs Elementary, in Montgomery County, Md.
Even in Montgomery County, where 60% of adults are college graduates and 30% have graduate degrees, Carderock's test scores and ambience stood out. "Obviously we pay a lot to live here. But if you get good public schools, it's worth it," says Rhea, whose two children are now in kindergarten and third grade.
She's right, and you should do the arithmetic before buying a house. What if the house in the town with the good schools costs you $300,000 more? If it saves you a $20,000 school tuition bill, it's worth it. Assuming a 7.5% mortgage cost and a 1.5% property tax, the expensive house adds a tax-deductible $27,000 to your living expenses--perhaps $15,000 aftertax. With two kids in school the costly home is a screaming bargain.
Across the river from Montgomery County, Thomas Jefferson High School in Alexandria, Va. offers Latin, Russian, Japanese, thermodynamics and artificial intelligence. And the kids can actually handle this stuff; a stunning 153 of the school's 392 seniors were National Merit Semifinalists last year. From that class, 7 went to Stanford, 11 to Harvard, 13 to Princeton and 21 to MIT.
What about a rigorous liberal arts education? More public schools, such as Montgomery County magnet school Richard Montgomery High, have started offering International Baccalaureate Diploma programs. Students must complete five years of a foreign language, pass six sets of exams and write a 4,000-word essay.
Scarsdale and Great Neck, near New York City; Brookline, near Boston; Shaker Heights, near Cleveland; and Winnetka, outside Chicago, all boast excellent public schools. Even in California, with its school funding problems, towns like Palo Alto and Saratoga stand out.
Of the 40 finalists in this year's Intel Science Talent Search, the nation's most prestigious science competition, 35 hail from public schools. Of this year's 141 Presidential Scholars, 107 attend public schools. Of National Merit Scholars, three-fourths attend public schools. Nearly two-thirds of Harvard freshmen come from public schools.
Alice Anne Freund, a Washington consultant and former private school admissions director, recommends that parents with access to a great public school consider it first, and look at private schools only if it doesn't meet their family's needs.
High-priced private schools usually offer smaller class sizes. Are they worth it? "The research on class size suggests it's not a great buy. It seems not to pay off in academic achievement," says Eric Hanushek, a senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution. Also, your child may get some small classes at a public school; in Montgomery County, first-, second- and third-graders get 90 minutes of reading instruction a day with 12 to 15 students per teacher.
[
Next Thread |
Previous Thread |
Next Message |
Previous Message
]
| |
Feedback: 