I'm sorry the attorney coaches are dead inside.
Read half, skimmed half of the linked article; it's well written and does a good job of answering "but why should I sacrifice my little Johnny?" It's good that they clearly establish that it's no sacrifice at all.
The "how to get the most out of diverse student populations" recommendations sound more like college organization than I experienced in high school, but maybe that's changing.
I wasn't too concerned, neb, until it looked like major pieces of clothing were getting dislodged.
I live near SUPER-WHITE NATIONALLY RECOGNIZED HIGH-ACHIEVING SCHOOL DISTRICT - where my older brother sent his kids.
Right next to SWNRHASD is the not-so-high-achieving school district, probably majority-minority, where I send my kids. My brother is appalled by this, and isn't shy about saying so. Neither are my white neighbors, who mostly send their kids to private (typically Catholic) schools.
Racist morons, all of them. First of all, Catholic schools, despite their reputation, routinely suck. My kids are a year or two ahead of where I was at their age when I was in Catholic school.
Second, my kids have all of the advantages they can use. The opportunities they have match their abilities. The fact that some non-white kids get those opportunities too makes no difference.
And hey, guess what? Where my kids will attend high school, the white kids do every bit as well on standardized tests as they do in SWNRHASD.
White privilege: Much more durable and adaptable than most white folks think.
It seems like most people decide, after having kids, that acting with maximum selfishness on behalf of your family is what makes a good parent, and that to not act selfishly is something to feel guilty about. None of my friends have kids over 4 but I'm not looking forward to seeing this transformation.
Where my kids will attend high school, the white kids do every bit as well on standardized tests as they do in SWNRHASD.
That must be common.
Last night I took the big girls out to a Chinese buffet restaurant and Mara was getting a little noisy so I teased her by whispering "Pianissimo!" because she was so excited about learning dynamics. She said, "No, two Fs. No, ONE HUNDRED Fs!" So at least one of the kindergartners at their school is paying attention during music class.
I've probably said everything I've had to say on the topic, and sounded obnoxiously self-congratulatory about it.
Listening to my kids talk about race is interesting -- like, it's different from the discourse I'm used to in other contexts, I think in mostly good ways, but I'm not dead sure. "White" isn't an unmarked norm, it's a particular ethnic group, and it's tightly defined; that is, you're Latino (my word -- they'd say Dominican or Mexican or whatever) or you're white. They're pretty relaxed about identifying interactions as kind of racist without needing to immediately shun the perpetrator (white gym teacher deciding Sally's nickname is now "Whitey" because she's the only unambiguously white kid in the gym class? Kind of racist). But they can object to something as racist without rupturing the social fabric.
And most of their friends are white or Latina, but both girls are deeply uncomfortable when they're the only or almost the only black children in a class. (Mara's was about 1/3 white, 1/3 Latino, 1/3 black or biracial; Nia's for some had no Latino children but was 1/3 black or biracial.)
10: They have more fucking brio than about any kids ever, despite having plenty of reasons to be glum if they so chose.
(Today is Nia's birthday and thus almost her second anniversary in our home. Last year on her birthday Lee and I had this horrific parent coaching session where she and the coach tried to convince me that the reason I wasn't willing to have Nia moved was that I have a savior complex and think I can care for any kid. Today we gave Nia a card that reads "To our daughter, from both of us" and meant it. Lee has come so far with her and become such a positive part of her life and inspires her in ways I never could. I have spent so much time second-guessing myself and being terrified I'm ruining everyone's lives out of selfishness, and seeing something good happen is such a relief. These girls are the best kids in the world and I want to be good for them, think I have been. But I am so grateful and so lucky to have gotten to this.)
7: CON BRIO!!!
con amore unirequitutto (I have linked to that before).
Along the same lines of ethnicity not race, Domincan kids in NYC aren't black no matter what their complexion.
and sounded obnoxiously self-congratulatory about it
No, you don't.
What I'd have you brace yourself for, if you haven't encountered it already, is the response that of course your kids thrived in a diversity environment, because you've got so much privilege and cultural capital they'd thrive anywhere. Sort of the argument of the durability of white privilege above thrown back at you.
This will be coming from friends or family members who feel less intellectually or educationally secure than you, or who feel that their kids are going to be more vulnerable or susceptible than yours. Or that your career allows more time for you to look out for them than someone else's.
13: Right, although enough generations in it gets complicated.
11: Congrats to you, Lee, Nia, and the other girls (but especially you) for all of the work you've done building your awesome family! Sto lat to Nia!
The 'durability of white privilege' argument is, of course, on some level depressing as hell. I mean, it's right -- as long as my kids were living at home with us, they'd probably be just fine in a genuinely terrible school, as long as they weren't physically injured. But of course that re-emphasizes all the ways in which kids who aren't UMC white kids aren't, in many cases, going to be all right, for reasons other than that their schools are objectively bad.
"Sto lat" is Polish for happy birthday? I was looking at, trying to place why it looks familiar, and I think it's a city in Discworld. I wonder if Terry Pratchett did that on purpose, or if it's a coincidence.
re: 18
No, it's '100 years'. Czech would be 'Sto let'
Although wiki says that the traditinal Polish birthday song uses it: http://discworld.wikia.com/wiki/Sto_Lat
Oh, so it's like banzai (ten thousand years).
11 is really terrific news. Congratulations to you all, and happy birthday to Nia!
I have spent so much time second-guessing myself and being terrified I'm ruining everyone's lives out of selfishness, ... I am so grateful and so lucky to have gotten to this.
As others have said -- Congratulations!
12: I'm going to print that out and hand I to my kid halfway through the long haul flight we're going on soon, and then sit back and enjoy the helpless laughter.
Happy birthday to Nia! Congratulations, Thorn!
Keep on being selfish!
Congrats Thorn, that's great.
One contrarian possibility that I'm toying with is that all of the aggressive standardization, common core stuff, etc makes the SWPL decision to send kids to a poor person school easier, because the curriculum is standardized and rigorous and established so you can be reasonably sure you're getting a pretty good purely academic education wherever. As I've said my kid's academic program at the current 80% low income, 99% minority school was way more rigorous than the one at super fancy private school. Though, on the other hand, a lot of the benefit was just simply that the low-income school teacher was better and had a better personality.
Anyhow, much more generally, I do think that background class/race paranoia that's fairly described as "racism" even though it's quite common among people who are politically liberal and very far from old school racism, plays a bigger role in thinking about these things than many people are inclined to admit.
One contrarian possibility that I'm toying with is that all of the aggressive standardization, common core stuff, etc makes the SWPL decision to send kids to a poor person school easier,
Is that contrarian? I mean, I hadn't thought of it as SWPL-enabling, but I had thought of curriculum standardization as a good thing for very much that reason. Curriculum standardization and every-year-high-stakes-testing don't have to be tightly linked, and I'm all for the first and all against the second.
But I hate federalism, and while I'll listen to people rhapsodizing about 'local control', I'll do it suspiciously.
There's some interesting stuff with local control going on in California - with the Jesuit part of Jerry Brown harping on "subsidiarity", the state has loosened a lot of the restrictions on what schools have to do, while simultaneously making an all-new funding structure where funding is set per pupil, but 20% more for each English learner, free/reduced-lunch-eligible, or foster child, plus 50% more if those targeted students make up more than 55% of enrollment (at the district level rather than the school level, though). I don't follow education policy here that closely but I'll be interested to see how it turns out.
I have a cousin who was in the seminary with him. They both dropped out.
But only one dated Linda Ronstadt.
I don't want my kid's curriculum standardized. I want it customized for his unique needs, interests and abilities.
I also want a pony.
30: But the reasons why that's not going to happen have nothing to do with nationwide standardization, they have to do with the other twenty kids in the class. Individualized snowflake curriculum means homeschooling.
We're living in Good School District X (which produced a certain prizewinning historian, among many others), where the high school is majority African-American. I have a feeling that it will produce an effect similar to my (public, majority-minority, suburban) and rfts' (public, 40% African-American, urban) high school, where the college-prep classes have a certain bleached quality to them compared to the school as a whole. Nonetheless, it's worth it to me, because it means my neighbors and Jane's classmate's parents aren't people so terrified of their kids going to school with urban influences that they haul out to the deep suburbs.
And yet! We are totally living here instead of a more interesting neighborhood because of the school district, which makes us kind of awful.
We are totally living here instead of a more interesting neighborhood because of the school district, which makes us kind of awful.
That doesn't sound awful. What makes the other neighborhood more interesting? More gun fights?
quite common among people who are politically liberal and very far from old school racism, plays a bigger role in thinking about these things than many people are inclined to admit
Yes. My point with the "durability of white privilege" argument is that the people who make it to me are themselves white UMC, but without the confidence to risk sending their kids to urban schools or give them the freedom of the city. Apparently I have a lot more white privilege than they do, but unfortunately I haven't found a way to bottle and sell it.
One thing that's at work is what I think of as the flip side of Kaelism--to be fair to Pauline, she was from Napa, but had gone native. My wife grew up middle class in the city, taking public trans, rubbing shoulders with different people. She believes it's possible and feasible to raise kids this way, because it's what she knows.
Some of our friends and neighbors just don't have that confidence. They know it works for us, but they're afraid of making a mistake, of a gesture on which some bad result could be blamed. They were raised in the suburbs, and believe as my wife does not that that's normal.
I had my fill of the suburbs, and think the risks of the kind of school I went to, in boredom and stupidity, are under-appreciated.
Man, we toy with moving to Evanston, because it's divide-by-zero more interesting and diverse than where we live, but I suspect we won't do it in the end, for various reasons. I'll make sure my kids watch The Wire every year, though.
"I had my fill of the suburbs, and think the risks of the kind of school I went to, in boredom and stupidity, are under-appreciated."
This was my deep agonizing experience as well as that of my stepdaughter. She had a healthier reaction than I did.
We are unsatisfyingly half assed with our son. We have the living in the city/public trans/freedom thing all covered, but he goes to a niche private school. If that school were off the table, tho, we would sooner send him to SFUSD than any of the other private schools. Too much hot house atmosphere in them, particularly in the high schools. Frankly his school seems less pile-it-on, and i like that. Also Lowell seems scary from a pressure cooker perspective. I want him to not be bored, but to have a life, geez.
That doesn't sound awful. What makes the other neighborhood more interesting? More gun fights?
More bars/restaurants/shops, especially within walking distance; more people-watching opportunities; Snoop and Chris dropping bodies. (No, it's fine out here, just very leafy. I want a bodega on every corner.)
And the awfulness is partially because to a first degree of approximation no UMC children go to the Cleveland public schools, where 70% of students get free lunch and 54% of high school seniors graduate on time. Which, by the nature of how things work in America, means that there's no move to fix it that politicians respond to (and fund) and further means the school district and the kids are vulnerable to charter school grifters. I'm not making things any better.
Apparently I have a lot more white privilege than they do
I have had that discussion based not exactly on white privilege, but on the assumed invulnerability to harm of my particular children. Which, fair enough, they're probably on the unusually durable end of the bell curve, but it is irritating.
I just went to a talk about the Cuyahoga County land bank. Apparently, Cleveland is made of abandoned houses that are full of asbestos.
41: Us Cleveland natives are tired of being looked down upon by snobs from other parts of flyover country.
Thank god for Detroit.
Those abandoned houses are full of pierogies?!
Apparently, pierogi abatement isn't expensive enough to cause a concern.
I was thinking that Cleveland is made of (abandoned houses full of asbestos) and pierogies, but Cleveland is made of abandoned houses (full of asbestos and pierogies) works too. Or, really, "Thank God for Detroit and pierogies."
You are also living near pioneering in the field of land banking. Ohio is the only place with a dedicated funding stream for this and Cuyahoga started first/has the most abandoned houses.
Cleveland is made of abandoned houses full of asbestos and pierogis?
Cleveland is actually made of abandoned pierogies full of asbestos and houses.
A good friend of ours just came off a stint of streamlining the city's land bank process! What that actually involved, I have no idea.
Cleveland is actually made of abandoned pierogies full of asbestos and houses.
I admit, I'd have abandoned those pierogies too.
Cleveland is a pierogi. It is the Great Pierogi, full of chunks of diversity and asbestos.
I've only ever driven through Cleveland, but feel contractually obligated, as a Chicagoan, to disparage it.
50: The city land bank is different from the county one. The city is supposed to be trying to identify and assemble plots of land for redevelopment. At least that's what the guy from the county says. The county's bank is taking land from the delinquent list as quickly as possible and then doing a triage (rehab/try to sell to someone to fix/demolition). Mostly, it's demolition and then the city's land bank gets the now vacant land.
When I went to the University of Michigan in 1981, all the incoming freshman from the Cleveland area were adamant that Cleveland was the rock n' roll capital of the world. There were lots of very stupid arguments about this.
And I've spent maybe eight hours more time in Cleveland than ogged and that was close to 20 years ago. I can't verify what this guy said.
54: They seem to have won the argument in terms of buildings containing Michael Jackson's glove.
56: I'm thinking that even though Michael Jackson only wore one glove at a time, he probably owned more than one glove.
I could be wrong.
When I went to the University of Michigan in 1981, all the incoming freshman from the Cleveland area were adamant that Cleveland was the rock n' roll capital of the world. There were lots of very stupid arguments about this.
Well at that time it was! if you include all of northeast Ohio. Pere Ubu, Devo, the Dead Boys, Chrissie Hynde... also Joe Walsh, Boz Scaggs, and Screamin' Jay Hawkins, apparently.
58: I don't think any of those names came up in the arguments -- the band contemporary Clevelanders knew about was The Michael Stanley band.
Back on topic, sort of, here's another theory: aside from their natural attributes and specific family upbringing, the main thing you can do for your kid's future life prospects is simple: become or already be rich. The anxiety over schools derives mainly from people who have (a) failed to become sufficiently* wealthy to offer their kids the prospects of the rich, but (b) want a pathway to the unfair advantages held by the rich, but (c) also understand at a gut level that they are insufficiently wealthy to do so.
*with "sufficiently" and "rich" based on relative expectations of the parents, not an absolute scale.
53, 55: My Cleveland pseudo-in-laws were just telling me that the county (I think must have been, pretty sure they're just outside the city proper) had recently swooped in and knocked down their former neighbor's house after it had been vacant for not all that long (though apparently long enough to develop mold issues that the bank didn't want to bother with), and now was offering them the lot for a song (though with weird medium-term use restrictions). So that's one anecdote suggesting that they are indeed being aggressive.
56, 57 buildings containing Michael Jackson's glove.
Like churches with pieces of the True Cross. I ban myself on several counts.
And yes - happy birthday to Nia and best to the Thorn-Lee household.
60: If your goal for your kids is that they be rich, I would agree that being rich yourself would probably give them the best shot.
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On the topic of schools -- this story is horrible.
A Pennsylvania woman died in a jail cell over the weekend while serving a 48-hour sentence for her children's unpaid school fines. Eileen DiNino was found dead on Saturday in a Berks County jail cell where she was midway through the sentence that would have eliminated around $2,000 in fines and related court fees related to her children's attendance at school. Police have said her death is not considered suspicious, but the cause has yet to be determined. She was 55 years old and a mother to seven children.
"This lady didn't need to be there," District Judge Dean Patton -- who said he was "reluctant" to sentence DiNino -- told the Associated Press. "We don't do debtors prisons anymore. That went out 100 years ago." More than 1,600 people have been jailed in Berks County alone -- the majority of them women -- because of similar fines.
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It sounds less insightful when you put it that way. Let's try it like this: school anxiety=80% or more displaced wealth/status anxiety.
My goal is for my kid to be rich, but mostly so he can buy me stuff.
That's their sideyard program.
I think I've seen that in action a block or two down the road from here.
Yeah. Or maybe like a really nice monitor and a phat graphics card.
Although, I suppose I could buy those things now if I just spent the money I was going to use to send him to camp this summer.
And maybe I could buy myself a Tesla instead of sending him to college...
Oh, I think 60 is absolutely right. A family can be making $2-300k/yr, and feel like they should have the world at their feet, but without great wealth, they can't tell their kids to do whatever they want, and it will all be fine. Those kids need to "make it" to maintain their social position, and the competition for making it is fierce.
66: Yes, I wonder if that's right. My sense was that people feel that they need to have money so that they can live in a safe neighborhood and send their kid to good schools, not the other way around.
73 is what I'm saying. Just spend the money on yourself and re-place the displaced anxiety. For example even though I'm about to have another kid I totally should buy a new 2015 WRX.
Is there some missing information to support that judge's statement that "we don't do debtors' prison anymore"? Because if not, he did sentence her to debtors' prison. So fucked up.
73: By buying a Tesla you're investing in the future of all humankind not just your own offspring. It's the unselfish thing to do!
Really, the plan of buying the car now and not sending him to college is a lot more likely to succeed than the plan of sending him to college and expecting him to get rich enough to buy me a car.
In Ohio, the ACLU recently won a victory preventing judges from sentencing people to jail for failure to pay fines until they've held a hearing establishing whether they can pay them (and requiring that this information actually be disseminated to everyone). So that's one for Pierogiland over Scrappleburgh.
Man, I've been jonesing for some scrapple lately.
I've never seen scrapple here. At least we both have sideyard programs, even if ours is less efficient.
A family can be making $2-300k/yr, and feel like they should have the world at their feet, but without great wealth, they can't tell their kids to do whatever they want, and it will all be fine. Those kids need to "make it" to maintain their social position, and the competition for making it is fierce.
I feel like this describes the families of a lot of the people I went to law school with.
79: And even if he makes it big, the entrepreneurmobile (http://www.tropicalmba.com/entrepreneurmobile/) is the new status symbol. Better get that Tesla.
I was discussing schooling with a woman who has just got herself a job at a private school with something like 230ha of land. (Context: this school is near London) An ancillary benefit is her kids gets free schooling. We both expressed some concern about the debilitating effect on character of attending private school. I joked our plan is for our kids to get an academic scholarship to the local very-good private school (but they sure as hell aren't getting a sporting scholarship), but, really, I don't know. The private school kids seem to be more polished in social situations and certainly have more opportunities, but I don't think it's *that* important.
I'll be pissed if, after all that, he thinks he can stick me with a used Tesla.
In Ohio, the ACLU recently won a victory preventing judges from sentencing people to jail for failure to pay fines until they've held a hearing establishing whether they can pay
Thanks for the link, that's (somewhat) encouraging news.
Ohio's claim to Boz Scaggs is outstanding bullshit in a bullshit field.
Sort of on-topic: NBC paid Chelsea Clinton $600k/yr for nine news pieces. Truly, it pays to pick your parents with care.
I hope she at least bought her dad a car.
I had my fill of the suburbs, and think the risks of the kind of school I went to, in boredom and stupidity, are under-appreciated.
I have a mild concern that our local public schools are going to be the diverse, poor kind that is not located in a city and is therefore also rife with boredom and stupidity. Which school has two thumbs and loves worksheets?
I believe I can tie all threads together:
My sister lives in a Cleveland suburb with not-great schools. My obnoxious brother (mentioned in 4 above) has three kids college-age and older, none of whom is setting the world on fire, with the possible exception of the youngest, who could actually be an arsonist, for all I know.
My sister's eldest (my namesake!), a product of those pretty crappy Cleveland-area schools (as am I) just got into a residency program as a general surgeon. Take that, educational elitists!
And to wrap it all together: My sister and her husband used to own the Euclid Tavern in Cleveland, where they filmed parts of this rock 'n' roll masterpiece. There's a picture of my surgeon nephew at age 4 with Michael J. Fox. So in the rock 'n' roll debate: Advantage, Cleveland.
91: I went to a gold-plated, world-class urban public high school, a school about whose students a NY Mag article was once written titled "The Joyful Elite". And it was still rife with boredom and stupidity. A certain amount of boredom and stupidity is baked into the cake.
But there is a major difference between school-based boredom & stupidity in the heart of a city or in the suburbs.
Boredom and stupidity is safer when public transportation is available.
84.2: I have a friend who went to a fancy academy for high school because his mother worked there. I gather he spent most of his time torn between envy and disdain. I don't think he kept in touch with any of his classmates. His younger siblings seem to have acclimatized better.
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OT: I'm applying for jobs all over the place and came across one in CA which has under employment standards in addition to possession of the relevant degree an additional requirement:
Possession of a valid California Driver's License prior to appointment and the ability to qualify for and maintain a County Drivers Permit.
I'm in NY. If I'm reading this correctly it seems to be effectively limiting the job to CA residents, or those crazy enough to move there in the hopes they'll get the job. Am I off base here?
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It says "prior to appointment," so I think that you could get an offer and then move and then have your start date.
But, it's probably going to go to somebody from California.
Thanks Moby, I just reasoned it out to myself thus:
To answer my own question, I take it that 'job offer' and 'appointment' are two different things, the latter occurring subsequent to the former.
That I did not know this shows my clear unsuitability for the job in question.
The job is with the California Department of Temporal Ordering Words.
100.last: It is a silly way to word it, but the folks who wrote the posting are probably so used to using "appointment" for the date you begin work that they didn't think about it.
Possibly they haven't had any water for so long that they can't write correctly.
Either that or the staffer who writes clearly perished in one of the fires.
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So exhausted . . . it's been a long week.
But, it looks like we are probably going to get a big contract at work, which is sort of exciting (but does mean that work will be busy/stressful for a while).
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My sister and her husband used to own the Euclid Tavern
!!
106: Yes, shameless namedropping on my part. But hey, I'm related to celebrities.
18: As others said, "sto lat" is "(May you live for) 100 years," and the song--which mainly repeats the phrase a bunch--is akin to "For He's A Jolly Good Fellow." My family members and I try to sing it as dramatically as possible on eachother's voicemail for birthdays and other celebratory occasions.
107 - They're making it into the Eastside Happy Dog. I'm so excited.
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Fucking crazy parents driving me absolutely insane. I think my Dad may manage to fuck a whole bunch of shit up royally in a fit of pique which could leave my mother in a super bad spot when he dies. Man can't deal w/ reality. Fucking-a.
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.. semi funnier
I have this incredibly disorganized patient who rarely says anything coherent. I was trying to work with him on something, and I said.
"What's important to you?" And he said, "plastics." I don't think he's a Dustin Hoffman fan, but it still made me laugh.
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There are a distressing number of police cars outside my apartment building right now. Whatever they're responding to is out of view of my window but clearly on the same block. At one point I saw one of the cops carrying an assault rifle, but then he put it away in his patrol car. They haven't blocked off the street or anything, and people appear to be driving through, but it's disconcerting nonetheless.
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They appear to have all left now, so I guess everything's okay.
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Probably for most of the other people in the building too, I'd imagine.
I guess I'm just fundamentally a very boring person.
You should have gone down there and announced that you are a tax paying citizen and demanded they immediately explain to you what was going on. And never take no for an answer. They have to tell you, it's in the Constitution.
117: isn't it early to have already opened up the gin?
Heh, I drank a regrettable amount of it last night. Not today though, have to work.
It is World Gin Day today. So not actually too early.
I've decided it's Armagnac day. It doesn't seem to make me want to hassle cops, so maybe it's for the best.
I so have nothing relevant to contribute to this conversation, and plus you know this story. my same story, let me show you it. my kids would be made miserable by the rigorous, continual high-stakes testing of local public schools, and--in any case, and quite reasonably--can only ever hope to find a place in the least good and furthest from us of those in a small circumscribed group of school near our home, the location of which may change at any moment due to rent raises. and they would hate it. and girl x would be having panic attacks and her dyslexia would never have improved as much as it has; she's a pretty fast reader now. so they go to a private international school with all the other expat kids.
the jokers in charge of the chinese international school finally fucked up one too many times and a proposed raise in rent to 6.5K SGD per month flung us from the downtown, and now we live near the canadian international school. they both love it. like every asian parent I'm concerned the that the math isn't difficult enough--it's like 18 months behind CNIS. they've got diversity at the school--kids from 70 countries or something? diversity of rich expats who are paying [and now lets all swap pseudonyms and tell everyone our net worth and whether there was blood in our occult stool sample] 27 motherfucking thousand SGD a year. each. jesus fuck. it's a really nice, good school an' all, but still. expats who work for banks and oil companies get "packages" that include tuition for all kids; this drives up prices.
my kids are definitely "third country kids;" they can't relate to american kids their age in some ways and have never had any african-american friends. some african, but never african-american.
Shit. That's what the most expensive private schools cost here.
And it wasn't an "occult stool sample" so much as "shitting down the cold air return before leaving their house."
It's peanuts compared to the most expensive private schools here.
Actually, the most expensive schools here are probably that amount but in regular dollars.
129: Some of the boarding schools are over 40K a year.
It's 27K in regular dollars, but you get a 20% discount if you pay in peanuts.
124.2: They'll be very happy at Macalester.
Looking at this list $40k a year seems pretty standard for prep schools around here.
That's surprisingly cheap for an expensive city with a zillion expats with free tuition. Quite a bit less than int schools in Geneva and New York which seem to run at a bit over 30K in their respective local currencies these days. There's a boarding school about twenty miles outside Geneva which these days is charging 130K SFR (about $150K). I guess having to maintain two campuses, one by the lake and another in Gstaad for the winter months has to be paid for somehow. Not sure about now, but back when I was growing up it had a reputation for mediocre academics and truly obscenely wealthy students. Not a school covered by expat packages.
What is probably the most prestigious prep school in South Florida* a is 33K. IIRC, it was around 6-8k in the early-to-mid 90s, though part of the what is responsible for the increase is, I believe, that they now follow the Ivy League model of making the rich student majority pay a lot and offering as much scholarship as necessary for the proles who can get admission.
*Campus featured in the cinematic classic, Wild Things.
OK, what I meant was: I pay jack shit to send my kids to some cheap-ass narnian school where they learn about caring because canada. so much so that they assigned roles in their musical versions of the hunger games by lot rather than with tryouts, because hurt feelings canada, resulting in a tall indian boy playing katniss in one section, with the even taller korean boy ming-suk playing rue.
they assigned roles in their musical versions of the hunger games by lot rather than with tryouts
Which is really sticking with the theme of the book, isn't it? Or is the point that they all fight to the death after being picked by lot? I haven't read it.
My kid goes to the local international school. Its $24K a year, of which we pay 25% and employer covers the rest. High in diversity of rich expat children of petroleum engineers. If my kid didn't go there, he'd go to the Canadian school.
I found out some of the history of the place. When the school was started 20 years ago, on of the founding sponsors was the US Embassy, which brought in help from the US Department of Education. The theory being that, if there is a decent school here, then the hardship rating of the diplomatic posting is reduced, and so they don't have to pay embassy staff an extra hardship allowance to be here.