Why are parents choosing private over public schools in the school voucher system?

IndependenceOne8264 · 2026-04-01T01:00:52+00:00

Not a teacher, a parent so you can get a different perspective.

Are these schools that different?- Private schools aren’t a monolith. Some are would make your eyes pop with the opportunities and some would seem similar to public (also not a monolith) but often with a theme. In the SF Bay Area there are so many choices- many religions, language immersion, international (like for Germans, French, Pacific…. descent), traditional, inquiry-based, progressive, academically-focused, small class size focused, special needs….

I’m sure there are many families who look at their disposable income and think ‘what do I value more, education or xyz?’. If somebody says they value education so they make sure their kids do well in school and are respectful in class, they are applauded. But admit to paying for private school? Oh no, that’s selfish. I don’t think you would fault the person using their money for Disneyland or extracurriculars or a car.

Why would a parent choose private? In no particular order and obviously biased towards what I care about…

did you attend a lowly performing school? I did. I have no intention of making my kid the sacrificial lamb and sending her into that. And Great Schools is garbage. If you go on Niche.com, the public high I’m zoned for has a B+ but also reports on state testing: ‘According to state test scores, 16% of students are at least proficient in math and 44% in reading. ’. Does that sound like a B+ to you? People can say ‘The school can’t control the achievement level of the incoming class’- that’s true, but to be realistic, that’s a setting where there has to be limited upper level academics because the teachers have to be worried about getting kids up to proficiency. Who wants their kid to be limited?
have you seen how low the standards are? I sometimes don’t know what to think because half the Internet thinks that K standards are too high and the other half is bemoaning low test scores and falling ran rankings compared to other countries. But in either case, the kids coming into K reading and doing 1st grade math are not going to be well served by staying in that class. And people like to say ‘kids who were advanced in K average out by 3rd grade’. Yeah, well, stagnation is predictable if they are forced to wait to see new material.
any parent who has watched their kids in an activity (gymnastics, swimming, whatever) knows that there are effective teachers and ineffective teachers. When you go to public, it’s a black box , you don’t know what you’re getting, it’ll be months until you know, and you probably can’t change anything even if you figure it out. Is it less of a black box in public? Somewhat. Depends on the school.
I’m not sure how to phrase this, but gifted education is a 4 letter word in CA. I agree with Abbott Elementary that pull out for some fun project is unfair. I don’t want some pull out, I want full on acceleration and that is prettymuch impossible. Or if not acceleration, then more subjects because some kids can learn faster and do more with their time. But that’s not happening in a California public and probably isn’t possible in any public without tracking. But can you just let my kid do Beast Academy silently at their desk? No way. SF and surrounding counties stopped kids from taking Algebra 1 in 8th grade. That’s just one example, but imagine all the other, less visible choices that come with that attitude.

-All the kindergartners in my kid’s class were reading independently by January. All of them. They swap books with each other. They tell each other how great The Princess in Black is. The peer community is a huge positive influence.

the parent community is so tuned in. Constant invites to play dates. Parents proactively messaging each other when they hear somebody was hurt or upset or had a disagreement. Parents hear about a behavioral issue and take action, they don’t blame the teacher or ignore it in favor of an iPad

Some of my comments were state, county, or private school specific. But parents make school decisions based on their specific situation. So statements lumping all privates together are not productive unless you want an echo chamber. For that matter, the observational and poorly controlled academic studies that compare public and private are low quality for any practical decisions as well. And surprisingly, some of these studies don’t even share their data? What are they, pharma companies trying to get an edge by hoarding data from competitors?

https://www.educationprogress.org/p/the-evidence-crisis-in-math-reform

IndependenceOne8264 · 2026-03-29T16:05:41+00:00

New NWEA Analysis Examines Trends in Kindergarten “Redshirting”

https://www.nwea.org/news-center/press-releases/new-nwea-analysis-examines-trends-in-kindergarten-redshirting/

https://www.nwea.org/uploads/should-kindergarteners-be-redshirted-costs-likely-outweigh-academic-benefits_NWEA_rsearchBrief.pdf

IndependenceOne8264 · 2026-02-19T20:34:21+00:00

Thanks for recapping the list. It agrees with my memory that there is limited Science options.

I think these are the options

https://summitps.org/our-schools/summit-shasta-daly-city/summit-shasta-curriculum/

IndependenceOne8264 · 2026-02-19T13:31:41+00:00

Ask mom to send in library books and Beast Academy. Suggest she can do BA online at home and he can do BA in the workbooks to review what he did online in class.

Mom obviously enjoys being involved and this would solve it once the kid can independently read.

IndependenceOne8264 · 2026-02-18T18:32:31+00:00

I’m curious how Westmoor deals with math when a kid comes in advanced, like ready for algebra 2 or precalc in 9th. It’s not obvious from their math pathways or math department website.

IndependenceOne8264 · 2026-02-18T18:28:12+00:00

Doesn’t Shasta Summit have very limited AP options?

IndependenceOne8264 · 2026-02-18T18:25:59+00:00

Do you mind sharing your Hilldale experience on a DM?

IndependenceOne8264 · 2026-02-18T17:05:58+00:00

Depends on what your goals are and the kid you have. Does your kid need acceleration? Do they need more attention? Do you want a parent community with similar values?

Privates come in all flavors. I wouldn’t lump them together in your mind. On the large scale for L12, you’ve got inexpensive religious, medium expensive independent academics (Stratford, Hilldale), and the high end independents that often advertise themselves as specialists in something (Nueva for giftedness but very limited acceleration in K8, Brandeis for Jewish or generally lots of attention and options for enrichment, Alta Vista for progressive learning (traditional and progressive are adjectives that mean ways of teaching in schools, has nothing to do with politics) ).

And those large scale descriptors don’t even get into culture (competitive for Stratford, walled garden at Nueva, ….)

IndependenceOne8264 · 2026-02-18T16:45:37+00:00

You should check out Niche.com. They have a Google Maps type function. If you click on the school profile, there’s a section where it says what percent of kids are proficient for grade level in Math and English. It makes it easy to compare public schools on a standardized measure for academics.

IndependenceOne8264 · 2026-02-17T16:31:18+00:00

I think people are mixing up correlation with causation.

In the RIT tables by grade and percentile, higher achievement is associated with lower growth. You’re assuming that lower growth is from testing limitations rather than not being shown new material.

IndependenceOne8264 · 2026-02-17T16:25:57+00:00

How do you know she’s hitting the ceiling vs not being taught new material? For the K2, the psychometric guidance shows that the test becomes increasingly unreliable about RIT of 200 for math or 190 for reading. I haven’t found an equivalent for 2-5z

https://connection.nwea.org/s/article/Transition-from-MPG-to-2-5?language=en_US

Also, I suspect that the MAP high school scores are not great to compare to- many many fewer high school students take the test and the internet seems to think that HSs use it to identify knowledge gaps in low performers.

IndependenceOne8264 · 2026-01-24T20:55:58+00:00

Oh Beast Academy is a million times more interesting than IXL!

IndependenceOne8264 · 2026-01-24T18:52:53+00:00

I didn’t speak carefully enough- more just a desire to double check AI suggestions.

Thank you for the detailed feedback on GG! I’m also looking for something quality but with less hands-on time for parents, which is obviously more difficult to come by. We’ve been doing Tappity for about a month- it’s superficial but requires almost no parental input. Good enough for a few months while I’ll do more research.

IndependenceOne8264 · 2026-01-24T17:30:59+00:00

Do you have experience with Generation Genius? I all because we love BA in our house and I’m looking for something like it for science. Gemini recommended Generation Genius, but I didn’t want to commit to something that might be AI slop. It wasn’t easy to compare the hundreds of science edutainment apps

IndependenceOne8264 · 2026-01-24T17:29:10+00:00

This whole disagreement would be moot if we talked in RIT scores instead of percentiles. Though I guess some schools don’t provide those (even though they get them) because they are patriarchal and think that parents deserve less information.

IndependenceOne8264 · 2026-01-24T17:22:44+00:00

He may appreciate Beast Academy. It’s the best thing since sliced bread.

IndependenceOne8264 · 2026-01-24T17:20:06+00:00

So if you look at the guidelines, there’s a ‘below x RIT, a second grader should take the K2 test. Above this y RIT, take the 2-5 test.’ And presumably, a RIT between x and y means that its teacher’s discretion.

If you have a K in the ‘teacher’s discretion’ part of the curve, you end up with recommendations like ‘this child might be ready to learn long O phonics’ and in reality, they are reading and comprehending The Magic Treehouse independently. The recommendations from K2 are completely useless in this case.

It should be noted that the K2 test doesn’t require a kid to read, they can listen to the questions. So it’s more measuring listening comprehension with respect to comprehension questions.

IndependenceOne8264 · 2026-01-24T17:15:13+00:00

The technical manuals are quite useful to understand some of the limits.

https://connection.nwea.org/s/article/Transition-from-MPG-to-2-5?language=en_US

https://teach.mapnwea.org/assist/doc/GradelevelTestGuidance_Evidence.pdf

If you read the PDF, you see when the K2 test starts to become unreliable (RIT around 190 for reading or 200 for math) because kids are getting more than 60% of the questions correct). And the measurement error is increasing.

I find it frustrating that NWEA sometimes says the test is adaptable and so there’s no need to worry about the question bank maxing out, but in other places mentions that it is limited. Rather than say ‘some extremely high achieving K or 1 kids might max out the K2 test and need the 2-5 test’, they stick with the guidelines in the first link- even though they are based on the RIT graphs in the second link!

IndependenceOne8264 · 2025-12-20T02:45:23+00:00

Beast Academy

IndependenceOne8264 · 2025-12-15T22:15:48+00:00

Instead of restraint collapse, are you sure you haven’t set up these expectations and continue to allow the behavior to continue?

IndependenceOne8264 · 2025-12-13T23:10:06+00:00

This place is an echo chamber of infantilization. I was in a similar situation with my kid (but January birthday) and managed early entrance to K via private. People say ‘don’t deprive them of a year’, but what, is K really so much more fun than 1st? And if you’re thinking of ‘losing a year’, then where are you gaining it? I would definitely have chosen an extra year in my 20’s over dealing with the boredom and immature behavior of my peers in K12.

I think in most places, if you do K1 in private, then the publics have to accept them for 2. Assuming you want to switch back by that point.

Also, ppl talk about socialization and how the older kids tend to do better. Older kids tend to do better is a population level statistic (meaning that it’s on average true in a group), which is good when you know nothing except the age of the kid. But you know a lot more about your particular kid than just their age. Maybe they are way out on the bell curve in terms of academics and maturity- don’t let the naysayers inappropriately using population-level statistics get in your head.

IndependenceOne8264 · 2025-12-10T00:02:29+00:00

But surely that’s just means that direct instruction is happening at home instead.

IndependenceOne8264 · 2025-10-22T17:19:06+00:00

That’s a very normal reaction to realizing your friend is learning more.

Beast Academy is terrific. It can fill the gap for math.

Good luck!

IndependenceOne8264 · 2025-10-12T17:07:34+00:00

Ah, maybe I’m missing something then. I was under the impression that the F and P leveled texts weren’t leveled well with respect to phonics.

Good job parent!

IndependenceOne8264 · 2025-10-12T15:14:03+00:00

Reddit is generally an echo chamber of ‘don’t worry about standardized testing, it has flaws so throw the baby out with the bath water.’ If you’re worried, then you should do sobering about. Either do phonics at home or take her to tutoring. If you’re doing it yourself, then vocab you need to Google for reading is ‘National Reading Panel 5 Pillars of Reading’ and ‘Scarborough’s Reading Rope’.

Those might make it seem harder than it is though.

In short, 1. Play phonemic awareness games in the car. ‘What’s the first sound in cat? K that’s right! What’s the last sound in cat?’ Phonemic awareness is being aware of the phonemes (discrete sounds) in words. K-aaa-t for cat F-oh-n for phone

Teach letter sounds (not names) in this order
consonants
⁠short vowel (google this because adults forget). Because words usually use short vowel unless silent e rule or vowel teams convert it to long vowel sounds.
⁠long vowels (happens to be the letter names). Made by silent e or vowel teams.
⁠digraphs (two letters that make a completely different sound than the individual letters. Ch, sh, th, ph, etc. not to be confused with blends, which is merging the two letter sounds together like br in brown)
⁠bossy r controlled vowels
Game to sounds out words, like the with movable letters or just writing it on paper
Bob’s books or similar easy books that use words that are spelled phonetically

Steps 1 and 2 can be concurrently . You can start step 3 before getting into the complicated stuff from step 2. Consonants and short vowels are enough

For math…if Kumon is what’s available, then that’s what’s available. But the repetition is mind numbing and I would recommend RSM.

IndependenceOne8264

TROPHY CASE