My wife and I are expecting w/ our first soon, so these are questions on my mind as well. A site that helped me out a bit is http://www.neighboroo.com/

It has interesting data from elementary school ranks to politics.

Nice posting. Tough decisions people have to make at some point. Thanks for the insights. I’d really like to read any thoughts you had on 529 plans!

-William
A Financial Revolution

My wife is also a teacher so she is a little biased but she swears by the public school system.

Here is a question. If you live in a not so great school district you may consider paying for a private school. However, private school can be very expensive. Instead of spending the money on private school, would you be better off moving to a better school district?

Often, a better district means higher home costs. A cost/benefit analysis of a higher mortgage & taxes vs paying for private school, of course factoring in the kid’s education, would be interesting to see.

I teach at a private school (whose tuition is well above the median). One thing that many people are not aware of is the financial aid opportunities. The National Association of Independent Schools guidelines for financial aid imply that families making as much as $200K a year can be eligible, depending on circumstances. (Of course, individual schools need not follow the NAIS guidelines, but I am led to believe that most of them base their policies on these guidelines.) A few years ago, an admissions person at my school told us that the fastest-growing category of aid recipient (nationwide, iirc) is families making $100K-$150K. So plenty of people who don’t think they’re eligible for aid actually are. In fact, many private schools are frustrated because they have tons of rich people, and they have some very poor people on enormous scholarships, but (except for the teachers’ kids) they just don’t have a middle class; many people assume that they just can’t afford it and don’t even look into the possibility.

(When I first heard this I was startled — I don’t typically think of six-figure incomes as middle class — but then I started running the numbers for my area (Boston) and realized that, with the housing market and cost-of-living around here, a family with two kids and $100K actually is likely to need aid. Gosh.)

Also — 529s help pay for private schooling? Is there something I’m missing? I had thought that Coverdells could be used for K-12 as well as postsecondary, but 529s were only college and grad school. (I’m having a baby, oh, any day now, so I’ve been looking into it…and I expect to private school, given that my husband and I have very high educational standards, and given that — in re the above comment — we think that the tradeoff of buying a cheaper house in an area with inadequate schools and paying for private is worth it. Well, let’s be honest here — we actually can’t afford to buy anything in the towns with really good public schools, because we can’t acquire a million-dollar mortgage (Boston, remember). And, you know, you can get scholarships for private schools, but not for mortgages…

There’s also a risk factor I think is important to take into account, albeit hard to quantify, in that analysis. No school is a good fit for every child; you can buy an expensive house in an area with great public schools only to find, when the kids are of age, that they have some kind of need not well-supported by the school in your district. By expecting up-front to private school we build choice into the equation; we can wait to see what the kid’s personality and needs are, and select a school that will be a good fit. We haven’t committed ourselves to a potentially bad fit in the absence of data.)

I hope you all have some suggestions for me. On Monday I have to let my son’s private school that we ADORE give his space away for next year because we can no longer afford it. My husband makes decent money, but not enough for us to afford this and we received no financial aid because they do not take into account that my daughter attends a private preschool that costs an additional $400 a month. I have spent the whole summer looking for some sort of job, but having my daughter in school for only 3 hours a day does not leave me any time to work at a job. I am caught in that middle class area of wanting more for my child, but not being able to afford it. It is such a shame, because my son really struggled with some issues in preschool and now he is finally at a school where he is thriving and I have to pull him because of money and put him in a bad, overcrowded public school system where I will worry every day about how he will even make it to college (much less how to afford that!!!). If any of you know any options that I can consider I could really use some advice quickly!!!

Private school is expensive but it’s a huge investment in a child’s future. I know that my parents struggled to put me through private school from K thorough 10. And although I went on to get my GED, I didn’t have to take any classes in order to pass and it the top 90th percentile. So I think that’s a good indicator of the quality of the education. I also think homeshcool is an interesting option. In Hope’s case, she could look into that as an alternative. It’s not what it used to be. They have support groups, you can do your own field trips, and have social groups. I know several ppl who’ve been homeschooled and they are extremely inteligent, well adjusted, etc. I did homeschool for 11th grade and I really enjoyed it, it was self paced and the materials were well designed. Extremely cheap too. Anyone interested should look into American School. But no matter what choice the parent goes with, they need to be in charge of their child’s education. I wouldn’t leave it up to the teacher to teach my child to read, for instance. But too many parents send their kids off on the bus and figure the teacher has it under control.