by regular contributor Chris Belden

My wife is in a tizzy because we’re not sending our daughter, Francesca, to private kindergarten next fall. For the past three years, from ages two to four, Frankie has attended a local private pre-school, which has been expensive but worthwhile. She learned how to use the potty at two, memorized the alphabet at three, knows numbers one through one hundred, and is now, at four and a half, reading simple books. She’s made good friends and has thrived in a tightly structured environment. When I was four, I went to a nursery school where we ate graham crackers, took naps, and listened to Bozo the Clown records.

So why are we making the switch?

Her tuition for this past year was $13K, a head-spinning amount that we felt was justified by Frankie’s progress—and by the $13K gift her grandmother gave us as an estate tax strategy. Next year’s tuition at the same school will be $24K. Twenty-four thousand dollars—for kindergarten! No matter how I look at it, I cannot justify that obscene amount. Maybe—maybe—if our local public schools were below average, I would consider it; but our public schools are in fact above average.

My wife agrees that the private school tuition is ridiculous. She recognizes that the public school kindergarten has worked well for the neighborhood kids, all of whom we like and admire. And yet she has this nagging feeling that we’re hurting our child’s chances of thriving in the world by pulling her from private school. She worries—understandably—that Frankie will be bored, that she’ll be academically ahead of her classmates, that the class size will be larger. I worry about those things, too. But I also believe in the public school system, which is under attack from all sides—from self-serving politicians; from parents hoodwinked into thinking all public schools are less effective than all private schools; even from artists like Davis Guggenheim, whose pro-charter school film Waiting for Superman neglects to mention that charter schools more often than not underperform compared to public schools*—and I believe it’s important to take a stand. It’s a proven fact that, when “affluent” children (and I use that term loosely in our case—we’re affluent only in the sense that, if we scrimped and saved, we could actually afford to send Frankie to private school) attend public schools, it has a positive affect on all the students—upper and upper-middle class kids provide a positive example for kids who have fewer advantages at home. Just think if every middle and upper class parent sent their kids to public schools, how much better those schools would be!

Then there is the practical side of the argument: we’re paying property taxes for this public school, so why not send our kid there? It’s also good to be a financially responsible parent. The money we save on school may pay for a new car, or a nice vacation, or repairs to the house.

I like the private school Frankie has attended for three years. I like the teachers and I like the parents, whose Range Rovers and Lexi (plural of Lexus) I’ve weaved past in the parking lot in my old Toyota Matrix. But I won’t miss this culture of “My kid is better because she attends this tony school” or “This is the only way to make sure my kid gets into [Ivy League school of your choice].” I don’t think that I’m shortchanging my daughter be moving her to public school. I’m not in a tizzy. Frankie is going to do just fine.

---

* A 2009 Stanford study showed that while 17% of charter school students performed better at math than their public school counterparts, 37% performed worse.

by contributor Matt Winkler

In education, there are three levels. If you know how to add, solving addition problems means operating at your comfort level. Your instructional level involves learning multiplication, which expands on your understanding of addition. If your teacher tries to jump straight to exponents, that’s the frustration level. It’s just too much of a stretch.

My teenage daughter commutes to college in New York City and dreams of living there, during and after college. That’s quite a step from living at home, raiding the fridge, and avoiding housework. At nineteen, she’s responsible for funding her car, cell phone, and digital media habit. That’s her comfort level. She’s taken on student loans and learned how to read an amortization chart, at the instructional level. But there are a lot more intermediate steps to true independence. We’re walking her through cash flow tracking, budgeting, and strategic planning for stuff like food and shelter.

For my part, I rode the parental gravy train straight to college graduation, and then got a job and an apartment that amounted to a monthly net zero. I might have taken college more seriously, if I had understood the relationship between study and salary and lifestyle. Too late, I learned those lessons from Professor Visa and Colonel Mastercard, who were happy to conduct classes at the frustration level. Hopefully, my daughter will avoid those pitfalls by accepting some guidance and responsibility along that steep staircase to adulthood.

As parents, we’re supposed to “provide” for our children, but does that necessarily always mean monetary support? Some lessons can only be learned with less cash-flow. What lessons are your kids learning about money?

by contributor Matthew Winkler

One of the commenters on my recent post (Degrees of Debt: Paying for College) recommended the book Real Education by Charles Murray. I just finished reading this well-argued indictment of American education. Among other things, Murray decries the cost of college, but barely touches on the question raised in my original post (”Who should pay for it?”). He does say, “…for students whose parents are paying the bills, college life throughout much of the American system is not designed to midwife maturity but to prolong adolescence.” But instead of offering advice on navigating the current system, he proposes to revamp all of K-12 and college education.

In his opinion, our country suffers from a delusion that he calls “educational romanticism.” For example, 90% of high school students polled expect to complete college. They are encouraged in that belief by their guidance counselors, No Child Left Behind, and society at large. Statistically, only about 35% of them will graduate from college. We ignore that fact and unfairly stigmatize students who don’t strive for a B.A, however unrealistic that aspiration.

Murray argues for early abilities testing for each student, followed by a universal core knowledge curriculum in schools, while guiding students toward realistic educational goals based on their individual abilities. He champions the school choice movement as an existing avenue toward this result.

“It is not good enough to just wish children well. It is our obligation as adults to oversee their journey. Sometimes that means encouraging, reinforcing and praising – things that make us feel good…When a [gifted] child’s potential is unlimited, making good on our obligation sometimes means pushing, criticizing and demanding – things that make us feel like the bad guy. When a child’s aspirations really are unrealistic, making good on our obligation means guiding the child toward other goals – something else that makes us feel like the bad guy.”

In summary, “The goal of education is to bring children into adulthood having discovered things they enjoy doing and doing them at the outermost limits of their potential.” This definition of education isn’t newsworthy, but the reforms he suggests certainly are.

As a father, I’ve instinctively pursued this utilitarian line with my very talented elder child, and I’ve certainly felt like (and been called!) “the bad guy” for pushing her. She’ll enroll in college this fall, but she certainly isn’t operating at the ‘outermost limit of her potential.’ Murray would blame me for this performance gap, and I plead guilty to moments when I consciously decided that, in the words of Homer Simpson: “My marriage is more important than [her] future.” Leaving aside intra-parental disagreements, I evolved away from Murray’s paternalistic view as my daughter grew older. At some point, a young adult needs to learn how to push herself, and that’s a subject she can’t study while someone’s hand is on her back.

My young son is another story. He’ll probably be among the statistical majority of students who don’t belong in college, known in educational policy circles as “the Forgotten Half.” My wife and I intend to pursue an affirmative course of study that maximizes the intellectual gifts he does possess, while preparing him for an appropriate career path toward fulfillment and success on his own terms. Hopefully, his own kids will benefit from the ideas in this book, through the implementation of real education for the next generation.

Matthew Winkler and his son, Logan, just finished traveling (and skateboarding in) all 50 states to create a unique 6th grade of school. Read earlier installments here.

We got home to New Hampshire last week. Since then, Logan has been acting like a returned astronaut, relishing the comforts of a remembered life. The sunny days have kept him outside, riding bikes around the neighborhood and to meet friends at the town beach, playing flashlight tag each night. Indoors, he spends every waking minute building Legos or rereading his old comic books, sitting on the couch beside a cat. These activities sound awfully pedestrian, but after nine months zooming around the country in a capsule, they are a dream come true.

We visited two schools to tell our story, spoke to four newspapers, and even got interviewed at the local NPR station. Logan is comfortable and articulate, answering questions with a matter-of-fact attitude. One middle school principal praised our exploration of learning opportunities outside of the classroom and educational rewards that he can’t offer. I accepted the praise, but reminded him of the science lab, music department, and peer group interactions that he can offer, but were missing on our trip. Indeed, these factors have drawn Logan back into a public school trajectory for next year.

We are relocating to New York State this summer, so on our way home from Washington, D.C., Logan and I stopped to visit two schools near our new hometown. The Kildonan School is an expensive, private school that serves kids with language-based learning disabilities. Stissing Mountain Middle School is a public school in a rural school district with a diverse student body. The private school offers a robust and proven remedial program that would certainly improve Logan’s reading and writing, but there are only ten kids in each grade. The public school has 80 seventh graders. Even if we could afford the private option, the social piece weighs heavily on the scales of decision. Logan’s self-esteem is at an all-time high, but it has been a solitary year. He needs to apply these gains in an interpersonal environment to finalize his metamorphosis. In the “big school” is where he’ll learn the most next year; and we can always hire an after-school tutor.

The national road trip is over, but we are still exploring undiscovered territory. Every year will offer new destinations, new roadblocks, new milestones on this lifelong journey. In fact, Logan has an idea: his mom should take travel nursing assignments in each state, so we can all be together during our second orbit of the country. I explain that back-to-back thirteen week contracts would mean that such a tour would take twelve and a half years. “So?” he replies. If you throw open the scheduling, we are all 50skatekids.

by contributor Matt Winkler (author of 50 Skate Kid)

College students are adults (we keep telling them), and college is expensive. Who is responsible for paying the college bills? As we ramp up to our daughter’s high school graduation, the numbers are coming together for her freshman year of college in the fall. My wife and I counseled and supported her through the college application process, but she decided where to apply and finally where to enroll. Ultimately, it is her professional, adult life that is on the line, so shouldn’t she make those decisions? And shouldn’t she bear the costs?

This sounds ugly. I feel like “the bad dad” when I take this line, because in many cases it is tantamount to selling your child into slavery. How can I justify indenturing my kid to eternal student loan payments? Rising college expenses are universally denounced, but every year more families shrug and sign up for six figure debt, unwilling to deny their child a college-educated career, yet equally unable to cover the expense. There is a lot of social pressure to march thoughtlessly into this bondage, and I resent it. The alternative is to send our children into this trap themselves?

There are basically three ways to pay for college: (1) gifts (grants and scholarships), (2) cash, (3) debt. The FAFSA calculators spit out a student aid report defining your Expected Family Contribution (EFC), and each college’s financial aid office in turn serves a personalized offer to your student, varying the ratio of those three ingredients. A small group of colleges have boldly put their endowments where their mouths are, pledging to reduce or eliminate college debt, but college costs are still daunting.

Even if you accept the legitimacy of the EFC figure, there are material considerations (specific to each individual student and family) which will dictate where that money comes from. What I’m asking for is a principle that these practical decisions should rest on. Are parents duty-bound to cover 100% of the costs? (To my mind this prolongs childhood to age 22.) Should students contribute “as much as they can reasonably earn” before and during college, so that they have some skin in the game? Or, should parents contribute zero dollars but lots of analytical counseling about return on investment, career path earning potential, and student loan amortization spreadsheets? On second thought, should this principle, itself, rest on the student’s demonstrated scholastic ambition in high school (are dedicated honor roll students more entitled to parental collage funding than their goof-off siblings)?

How are you planning for your child’s education? What’s your opinion on them sharing some or all of the costs?

Matthew Winkler and his son, Logan, just finished traveling all 50 states to create a unique 6th grade of school. Read earlier installments here.

If this were a Disney movie, our original departure would have been momentous, thronged with crowds of well-wishers. Actually, it was a non-event. We slept at home during the first week of our adventure, making day trips into Vermont and Maine. On the day we actually packed the car and left home for state number four (Massachusetts), nobody was around. My daughter, Alex, was at school, and my wife, Jessie, was working.

Today, we arrived in state number 50 (Virginia), and the first thing we did was go to the public library and tackle the next module of Logan’s online English course. No trumpets, no fanfare reception. Tonight, yet again, we’ll impose on the hospitality of strangers, and tomorrow there is more driving to do. The tally has reached 50, but the journey isn’t over yet.

On Monday, Jessie and Alex will meet us in Washington DC, where we’ll spend the week reconnecting with each other, visiting museums, and touring the White House and Capitol. Our family reunion will go a long way toward reestablishing a more standard daily life, but we’ll still have another eight hour drive northward before we can quit living out of a car!