Public or Private?

As many of you know, The Boy started Montessori preschool at the end of August. He absolutely loves going to school. He also seems to be love with his afternoon teacher, Ms. Becky. He is learning so much so fast. He now knows the days of the week and asked The Husband yesterday what 2+2 was. It is amazing.



The Boy is only 2 1/2, but we have been contemplating what his fate will be once he is school age. Will we send him to public school or fork out thousands of dollars on private school. I am just not sure yet and this is something we talk about at least once a month right now.



As I was leaving the preschool this morning I overheard one of the carpool mom's talking about how relieved she was the her child got into such and such private school. She made the comment that she didn't think it was going to happen because of all the "criteria." I am not sure what the criteria is, I guess I need to do more research.



The Husband and I, plus everyone we associate with (for the most part) are products of public school systems. We all turned out okay in my opinion. But, I also know that we were raised when children could walk to school by themselves, where you weren't bused to a school across town in order to meet a quota and where everyone in the neighborhood knew everyone else. Things just don't seem to be like that anymore. We went to high school before Columbine and Paducah. Public schools seem to have the stereotype of being unsafe and bad at educating, especially in our city.



With private school you deal with battling a sense of entitlement, preparation for college, competitiveness and the all important tuition which in this day in age is masses more than most college tuition. And, if you don't get into the right elementary school, you won't get into the right middle school, etc., etc. But, "they" say it is a better education, there is less to worry about, you can't go wrong with private schools.



I think an important factor to think about is the fact that The Husband and I plan to be appropriately involved parents. I say appropriately involved because I work in Higher Education and have dealt with parents who will not let their child(ren) make any decision's on their own to the point that they are attending internship interviews with them. Maybe public school will be okay if we are involved. But, hey we have another year before we need to seriously talk about it.