OT: SE Michigan public and private school recommendations?
Our kids are out of the house but an old pal from college with much younger kids is moving his family to SE Michigan this summer. He's a successful guy and was asking me about the state's schools. I'm hesitant to give advice because I'm probably a bit out of touch. In addition to our kids being done, I assume the landscape has changed since the Great Recession and the population losses over the last 20-25 years when our kids began school. I'm fairly sure Ann Arbor, Birmingham, Bloomfield Hills, Rochester, Northville, Troy, Novi, Grosse Pointe still round out the top public districts, but do they still measure up to the best public districts nationally? I've read the state's schools have been slipping but I don't know if that's hyperbolic, or overall or also includes those top districts. If he decides to go private, you have $35K day schools Cranbrook Kingswood, Detroit Country Day, Greenhills or $17K Catholic schools including Ann Arbor FGR (coed), Detroit CC (m), Brother Rice (m), Marian (f), Mercy (f), UD Jesuit (m), Pontiac Notre Dame (coed)? Are there key differences between CK and DCDS? Catholic school parents generally send their children to the closest one to their home or are there notewothy distinctions? And any additional insights y'all can share would be appreciated.
Ypsi Prep Academy
Are they still a thing??
I checked out their website earlier. They only have the 20-21 basketball roster and schedule advertised on it. That alone seems to indicate that they dissolved the basketball program. But I'm certain that their highly touted college preparatory academy is still thriving (ha!).
I'd steer clear of private schools right now. Lots of issues with entitlement and bad culture. The top public schools in MI are doing excellent but the teacher shortage is causing disruptions at all schools, even them. It's just not as bad there.
Seriously?
Yeah, seriously. There are several very good public school districts in Michigan, starting with those in Ann Arbor. And if you're unaware that private schools are problematic on multiple levels, further separating the haves from the have-nots, you're living in an alternate universe.
Yea, I guess I live in that alternate universe where nuanced views are OK and demonizing an entire education system is challenged.
Thank you for your "opinion" along with the broad brush accusation that all private schools are problematic on multiple levels -- without providing any substantiating specifics.
The very concept of private schools, and the "othering" involved (We're different/better because of money/morality/etc.) is problematic.
I don't quite get Scottie's take, but I do believe that when you can participate in the public school experience, you reaffirm the idea that public ed is important--something some of us M grads feel strongly about. While I totally understand that in the end you need to do right by your kids, I continue to be proud of having graduated from AA Huron and the UM.
Also--as we found in raising my daughter--the very prestigious local private school in which she did K-8 was in fact not as well equipped to ID or address learning disabilities (not always obvious) as public schools often are. My daughter suddenly went from an A student who loved reading to slipping badly in fifth grade, and although her teachers had PhDs and Masters degrees and were quite gifted in some ways, they had zero insight and (sometimes) even less tolerance for what they perceived as laziness and disinterest in her. We were some time sorting all of that out. We removed her to the local public IB program, and in time (and with an ed plan) she thrived. She also loved the more multikulti setting, and said so.
I send three kids to Catholic School. I don't see what you are describing. I live in a very good district that happens to also have low levels of poverty. I am confident that my kids would do as well in the public school district I live in because my kids are awesome (thanks to their mom). In addition, the best schools almost always have very low levels of poverty. Coincidence? Maybe.
My point, choose private/Catholic/Christian if that fits your personal moral goals. Otherwise, save the money and send them to a good public school.
Yeah, this has been my experience with young kids in a different state but similar dynamics. We sent our kids to the local Catholic schools for a while but then decided the culture at the school didn't match our goals anymore and then sent them public. The actual classroom quality wasn't different because the demographics are similar. I think most differences between schools tend to come from socioeconomic elements and not the quality of teaching or the innate intelligence of the students.
This is the worst/funniest thing I've ever heard.
So ALL private schools have this issue??? What a stupid fucking ignorant blanket generalization, and if you have any more pearls of wisdom, keep them to yourself.
Unfortunately it seems that political polarization has seeped into which school you support now. They're all trying to do right by the kids. Fortunately there's enough good options for most any philosophy. Just disheartening that this is everywhere, including this blog sometimes.
I don't get this pearl clutching. Schools have been a political football in the US since the 1800s. Who gets to go, how they get funded, whether parents should have the right to divert tax dollars earmarked for public school funding into private school vouchers... It ain't nothing new that kids end up as pawns in the ongoing struggle for political supremacy.
Well said. And maybe it's just not such common knowledge, but there are elements of the far right that want to kill the public schools, who are open in declaring such intentions. For example:
https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/07/destroy-public-education-system/
This--as far as I am concerned--is a simple fact. But as I noted above, if you live in a district where the public schools are bad, then you may well decide not to sacrifice your own darned kid to the political football that is/are our schools. The school my daughter was zoned for received a D grade the year before she was to enter, and while this grading of schools is puerile nonsense (as if a school, like a child, should be reduced to a letter grade, and then--often--receive less funds for doing poorly. . . ) you do what you feel you gotta do.
Troy and Rochester schools are very highly rated. Utica Community Schools are pretty good as well.
I cannot speak to CK or DCDS, but I have experience with a couple of different Catholic schools and my recommendation would be Notre Dame Prep. We have found it to be professional, well run, and academically rigorous with a strong faculty. They have a diverse set of programs, from IB, to AP, to a very strong art program. The facilities are top notch. It is coed, and not large, I would say medium size. Athletically, they compete typically in division 2,3, and 4, depending on the sport. Their teams are competitive, but nowhere near, De La Salle, Brother Rice, CC, or OLSM. It is probably the most expensive of the Catholic schools but we have found it to be worth the extra expense.
From my experience, this assessment is spot on.
Agreed. Had a tremendous experience there and granted, that was a fair bit of time ago, but many of the same folks are still around and a number of former classmates are now on the staff there.
Sorry, edited my response, just realized your were replying to Terrible Ted :)
My kids go to Northville schools and have had a great experience. I grew up in rural Michigan in the 90s and what they get is so much better than I got. One thing to consider with Northville at least is that they don't necessarily have the best reputation for kids that aren't on a college track, but that is probably not that unusual for the schools that do well in the rankings.
Mine also. Motivated kids are well prepared for whatever college they want to attend. Around 100 get accepted to Michigan every year. The only downside is the large size for athletics. Your kid has to be a pretty damn good athlete to play varsity in most sports given the 800 student class size.
Only nice thing about the athletics is that they have more teams than most schools do such as Lacrosse and Hockey, but doesn't make up for how big it is.
Agree. My daughter finally found a spot on a team with Lacrosse but it took a lot of getting cut from other sports to get there. You just have to prepare your kids for that.
On the other hand, I have heard (unverified) that UM only takes a set amount from these larger, high-performing schools. Reportedly easier to get in from a lower tier school with same academic profile.
I've heard the same. However, students from lower tier schools will tend to find themselves struggling at UM once they're in, due to the lower quality education.
I have two girls at CK. They love it. Tuition for them averages about $30K. I can't speak to the differences between CK and DCDS outside of the fact that DCDS has nicer and newer athletic facilities. Also, CK is not just a day school. They do have border students residing in the on-site housing.
Not sure the ages/genders of your buddies' kids, but CK for middle school has a girls school and boys school. They do have some mixed classes, like band and other fine arts, but for the most part, they are in their separate buildings.
Another private school to consider is Roeper. They have lower/middle/upper schools and the tuition is on par with CK and DCDS. One benefit to Roeper is that they do offer full scholarships. You typically have to apply in the fall. Side note: The students address their faculty by first name. Weird (to me at least).
Cranbrook was nice when I was there as a day student from 1972 - 1977 and still pretty good in 2017 when I went back for my 40th reunion.
But you have to take into consideration that I lived at home and had parents with a real good marrage. So there's that.
What happens at Cranbrook if your parents have just an average marriage?
My kids will be able to answer that in 20 years after counseling.
you're too funny <3
Nice, Clarence.
He's scared to death! Scared to look at his fucking yearbook.
That last point only matters if you're trying to curry favor with those in the 313.
I would recommend they reverse their decision to move to Michigan and find a better area.
As someone who grew up in Michigan, moved away, then moved back for 12 years .....
shuddup
I’ll start off by admitting I’m biased and that I’m very anti private school and a big proponent of public school. So I’d obviously suggest he send his kid to any of the public schools you mentioned along with a bunch of quality districts like Canton/Plymouth, West Bloomfield, Saline, etc.
While college outcomes is only one way of looking at school quality, the link below dives into the top feeder schools to U-M. There isn’t really a huge difference in admissions between the top public feeder schools vs. private schools in MI. It’s not really worth the ROI imo. He can save the money for sending his kids to college. https://www.michigandaily.com/news/academics/we-looked-301-high-schools-most-applicants-u-m-heres-what-we-found/
Interesting. May I ask why you are so anti private school? I'm not judging, just curious. Perhaps it a Michigan thing because the public school system in Chicago, outside of a couple magnate schools, is an abomination of public school education.
This is a digression from the thread's initial question, but I don't think your characterization of Chicago Public Schools is fair, or particularly accurate. There are inequities and other problems that most of us would unfortunately expect of any major urban district, but CPS offers exemplary options well beyond "a couple magnet schools".
CPS has the five top-ranked high schools in the state, and several more in the top 50. It's a similar story at the primary and secondary school level. Active, engaged parents of capable students will find great options here, just as the original poster's friends will do in metro Detroit; as with so much else, kids in the wrong neighborhoods/districts, or with parents who lack the capacity or willingness to navigate the system, get left with substandard options.
To the original question, I came up through Farmington Public Schools, which had a fine reputation as of my graduation in '96. I've heard comments that things have declined a bit, but it's hard to know what's true, and what's a reflection of discomfort with the schools' demographic changes.
Unless something has changed recently, you have to apply and be accepted into all three of those schools. I used to live 5 mins from Walter Payton, and it would have been nice if my kids could have gone there simply for living in that area.
While those three schools are offer an exceptional education, they do not represent public school education in Chicago. Not even close.
Also, the top 5 CPS high schools are all selective admissions. There are exactly 3 CPS high schools in USNWR top 50 which are not selective admissions - Phoenix Military Academy, Lincoln Park High School (which is pretty bougie), and Solorio Academy - compared to 10 which are (don't be fooled, several of the listed CPS schools are actually Noble charter schools, but listed as "public" b/c they are free of tuition).
Bigger issues are things like the severe disparity in funding across schools and extremely tenuous-at-best relationship between the administration and teachers union.
Going back to high school (which is a long time) I've been continuously astounded by some of the decisions people make on K-12 education. This is real-time with a couple of my friends.
If you have a reasonably bright and focused child and your school system is halfway decent *and* you don't have FU money, private school generally seems like a shaky decision. (I'm also ignoring the faith angle for the moment. That could be very important to some.) The ROI can be brutal.
Ann Arbor is a good example. I think both Greenhills and Gabriel Richard are excellent schools, but (again, assuming a bright and focused kid) I don't see how their cost is justified when Pioneer, Huron, and Skyline are available.
Of course this goes on at the college level, too. I know a few young adults working retail jobs with expensive private-school educations. They could've reached the same point for far less money by going to UM / MSU / EMU.
I agree with this comment, with the obvious caveat that there's a huge diff b/t talking about public vs. private education in general vs. how and why one might arrive at a decision on behalf of one's own kids. I grew up in Ann Arbor in the 70's and my parents were very (overly?) concerned about the presence of weed and who knows what other social/cultural influences in the public junior high schools at the time. So they made the unilateral decision to send me to Greenhills instead of Clague which surprised and upset me at the time.
Looking back I would say that the education I received at Greenhills was probably better than I would have received for 7th-9th grades. I was challenged and had to learn how to study earlier than I might have in public school, but of course I'm speculating. As for high school I think I would have been fine switching to public school because Huron offered plenty of good courses that would have prepared me well for college and beyond. It so happens that I did attend public school for 11th grade when we lived in NJ for a year while my dad was on sabbatical--so that was sort of a comparison group experience. I really enjoyed it and did well academically.
Fast forward to the present where my wife and I are raising our 3 kids in a B1G college town (Iowa City) that is smaller than Ann Arbor but sort of similar to how Ann Arbor felt ~45 years ago. We send our kids to the excellent public schools here and would not have considered otherwise. So in sum I've had at least a bit of each of the experiences described in this thread and in general I land in favor of public school, assuming the public schools in a particular location are of high quality. I think the $$$ spent on private secondary school might be better saved for college unless there is a particular reason why public school seems like a bad choice for the family.
My uneducated impression was always that those sending their kids to top private schools typically were thinking of something 'bigger' than UM for college and that UM was, like for many in the North East, a safety school. I'm guessing that OP's friend is not looking at UM as the prize at the end of the road.
Edit: fuck, there are a lot of students from the wealthier districts going to UM. I know that's not a full picture and that there are a lot of students admitted from districts not listed and there are likely a number of poorer students enrolled in wealthier districts getting admitted, but man, it's disappointing to not see a greater representation of applicants from low-income areas included.
I never understood this.
I barely graduated high school. Took adult ed classes and got a diploma from a high school I have never seen in person. My "senior year" of high school was 3 months long from 6pm to 9 pm 3 nights a week.
I went to a hole-in-the-wall college where the only difference between it and a community college was that it actually offered 4 year degrees and the local community colleges looked nicer, had newer buildings, more teachers, more programs, etc.
I have lots of people with resumes that look like this B.S. from Yale, M.S. from Oxford, Ph.D. from MIT.
They report to me.
Once you're in college, no one cares what high school you went to. Once you're in grad school, no one cares what college you went to. Once you're in the industry, no one cares what schools you went to.
With all due respect, what do you do?
There are a lot of professions where college choice matters. At worst, going to a prestigious college can open up doors not available elsewhere.
scientist ... i run a lab for a global corporation
Good luck finding a lawyer at Kirkland and Ellis that went to Cooley (I'm sure there's a medical equivalent to this hypo). Like it or not, there are still many prestige whore professions.