Montessori school: mustachian learning style, but not a mustachian price tag

[austinmama]

My husband and I have been discussing if we should send kids to private Montessori elementary school. We live in a good school district with high test scores and involved families. However, I am totally a card-carrying member of the Cult of Montessori (former montessorian myself) and feel it's a more creative, engaging and just plain fun way for kids to learn. Who wouldn't want to spend lots of time outside, deciding what projects to pursue, planning field trip itineraries, have no testing, etc? It's not that they aren't doing great things at our public school, but it's just a different style.

However, the price tag is hard to swallow. We are currently saving about 30% of our income for retirement and 10% for their college. If we stuck with public schools, we could up the retirement savings number to 40% or put more into their college fund. Of course that is a big increase in savings. But my gut tells me we should go for the private school.

Any advice on how to decide if this is "worth it"? I'm so torn!

Also, I recognize there are other potential cons to paying for school, including but not limited to:

- What to do after elementary school? A bumpy transition to public school, or more private school? (and therefore greatly reduced retirement savings)
- What if one of us gets sick or isn't able to work? We would have a lot more money in the bank if we chose public school. I'm worried I'm shooting my future self in the foot by focusing on what I want for the kids right now.

If you're going to set aside money for private school but don't want to pay for all 12 years of it, do you think it's better spent in the early years when kids can be fostering that elusive 'lifelong love of learning' or later on, like middle and high school?

I know a lot of people are fans of homeschooling, and it does sound pretty awesome, but we would like to continue working for now.

thanks for any advice you have!

[SaintM]

Homeschool can be as cheap or expensive as you want to make it.

[austinmama]

Homeschool can be as cheap or expensive as you want to make it.

true. But we both work full time right now and would like to continue to. So I'm not considering homeschooling.

Would appreciate any feedback about the cost (does it seem like we're saving a high enough % of our income to justify the cost?) Also would love to hear about people's experiences with transitioning in or out of private school to public. thanks!

[mamagoose]

Private school is all the rage in my town right now, and many parents say they opt for it for elementary b/c the kids are used to small teacher/student ratios from preschool and private school has smaller ratios than public, so their little ones aren't lost in the mix when they start kindergarten. I've also heard the argument for private middle/high school to shelter the kids from the thugs b/c that's the age when illegal habits start coming out, which I think is complete BS from personal experience, private school kids are just as likely to get into trouble & have more money to spend on those bad habits, plus have parents out of town more often.

We are going with public school b/c we can walk there and to me that's a higher quality of life than packing up our car and driving 20 minutes each way twice a day to the Montessori school across town. I'd rather spend that extra time walking with my daughter and talking to her about her day leisurely, catching up with neighbors, and drinking homemade smoothies together than sitting in traffic after she'd soaked up said enriching experiences at school. Honestly I think public school gets a bad rep, but every school (public/private) is going to have critics, they just speak up louder than the proponents of public school. I also think some parents want to believe that their kids are more tender than they really are, but statistically speaking not every 5-year-old is going to be special needs and require the extra attention/resources that your run-of-the-mill public school may not offer. We just hear the stories about how public school failed our friends' kids b/c our FB feeds are full of parent rants and that creates an atmosphere of distrust in our school district.

[Ynari]

I would probably personally go for Montessori for primary school, then transition to public school after that.  Also, look into charter or magnet schools in your area to see if they would be cheaper options.  Especially when your kid is older, they may be able to choose which school is best for them (I chose a magnet middle school that was an hour away. Great for me, awful for my sister when she tried the same thing.)

I think the nature of education and schooling in this country means that a great foundation is way more important than anything else.  (Sorry, I'm about to get rambly and anecdotal.)

A kid who goes to Montessori school, enjoys it and learns a lot, will have a great foundation to explore their own interests outside of school (or set up their own education) in middle and high school.  I didn't go to montessori school, but I did attend magnet/gifted classes or schools as much as possible until high school. In high school, I took a lot of self-study classes and had more freedom to pursue my own schedule. You can't really do the same as an elementary schooler in public school.

Confidence is also a key thing here. It's pretty easy to "catch up" to your peers if they happened to learn a few things you didn't in elementary school, but it's devastating if you don't have a growth mindset keen on learning.  My little sister went from a 3rd grade class (that didn't teach fractions) to a 4th grade class (where everyone knew fractions) and was devastated. It didn't help that my mother (who was generally hands-off when I was little, except to bribe me to do workbooks) decided that she was going to drill fractions into my little sister. Gave her a "I'm not good at math" syndrome that's only gone away YEARS later (after consistent straight As and probably a good teacher or two in there.)

[KBecks2]

We stretched to send our first child to year of 3 year old Montessori.  But then we found out we were having a third child, and the school had a 13% tuition increase. We just couldn't take the pricing.  If they kept increasing their prices like that, it would be unaffordable, so we just stopped after that first year and went to a different pre school program and now public school.  Our public school is very nice!

If your public schools are bad, maybe you want to plan a move to a better district. 

My rationale was that my kids could do more activities and also we'd save more for college.  That's the plan now. 

Good luck with your decision!  I loved the school but it was out of our price range.  My oldest ended up with some learning difficulties (ADHD + writing difficulty) and he has great support in our public school now.

[MayDay]

We have an amazing Montessori school in our town with great public schools.  Because the public schools are good (and people are paying the high taxes to support them) they tend to go with public.  That results in the Montesorri fishhook being comprised almost entirely of kids who for whatever reason struggled in the public school environment.  That's not automatically bad, but the classes are mostly boys, often with ADHD, or similar styles of issues.  But if you look at the preschool age kids, that isn't the case at all!  Just the elementary age.  Something to consider.

[austinmama]

We have an amazing Montessori school in our town with great public schools.  Because the public schools are good (and people are paying the high taxes to support them) they tend to go with public.  That results in the Montesorri fishhook being comprised almost entirely of kids who for whatever reason struggled in the public school environment.  That's not automatically bad, but the classes are mostly boys, often with ADHD, or similar styles of issues.  But if you look at the preschool age kids, that isn't the case at all!  Just the elementary age.  Something to consider.

that's really interesting food for thought that I hadn't considered. thank you for adding!

[austinmama]

private school kids are just as likely to get into trouble & have more money to spend on those bad habits, plus have parents out of town more often.

We are going with public school b/c we can walk there and to me that's a higher quality of life than packing up our car and driving 20 minutes each way twice a day to the Montessori school across town. I'd rather spend that extra time walking with my daughter and talking to her about her day leisurely, catching up with neighbors, and drinking homemade smoothies together than sitting in traffic after she'd soaked up said enriching experiences at school.

We live frugally and are never out of town, so it's unlikely the kids are going to end up any more spoiled than if they went to public school. If anything, I think they're less likely to be materialistic because the values of montessori put an emphasis on caring for the Earth and respecting others.

regarding spending quality time after school, I totally agree with you and that's one of the reason's I want to switch to Montessori. No homework and no testing means more quality time after school. Luckily the school isn't a long drive away, it's almost as close as the public school.

 

[CopperTex]

My son went to a Montessori preschool for 3.5 years. If elementary Montessori had been available in our area, I would of paid big $$$ for the education. Especially now with common core.

[Rage]

You're paying thousands of dollars a year to fund the public school system (whether you realize it or not), and you live in a great school district, but that system is not good enough for your kids, you need to spend thousands more to send them to a private school?  Delaying your retirement, virtually guaranteeing that your kids will be long moved out by the time you can retire?

I don't know, seems like an easy and obvious choice to me if you're the type of person who reads Mr Money Mustache.  But I do understand, I went to public school and that's definitely not where I developed my love of learning.

[Louis the Cat]

I can really only speak to one aspect of this: I moved from a public middle school to a private high school. My parents were and are adamant supporters of public school but our local school system was quite awful and I was not getting what I needed. My district's Gifted and Talented programs were anemic at best and got worse as you older. It got to the point where we were being told to leave my Algebra teacher alone by my history teacher because we were wasting his time trying to figure out something out (turned out the textbook was wrong and the Algebra teacher was having a great time). Unfortunately, the history teacher was the norm, not the Algebra teacher. My parents moved me to a private high school and, educationally speaking, it was a great move. Socially, it was very painful and high school is a time in my life I prefer to forget. The school was almost entirely made up of the elite of Oklahoma City (lots of money for the area, peanuts for someplace like NYC) and outsiders were barely tolerated. I was the only public school student who started my freshman year and graduated, not for lack of talent but because the environment was borderline hostile. There was one more in the class ahead of me and none in the class behind. Educationally, I graduated with honors and an education that rivals a lot of college educations. It got me into a very good college where I had a wonderful experience both academically and socially. This is obviously only one unique experience and yours will be highly dependent upon the quality of your public and private schools.

Another thought: I have a student (I teach private lessons) who went to Montessori school through 5th grade and then moved to the public middle school and does not seem to have suffered any adverse effects. She does suffer from anxiety and depression but from what I understand, that has been ongoing and is unrelated to the transition.

[Runningtuff]

I would go with your intuition, but that's just me.

Currently having a similar choice around whether to have our 4 year old go to Waldorf kindy for the next 2 - 3 years (some $) or standard public school from 5 (free/not much $). The latter is more sensible financially but we like the Waldorf style of not hurrying kids academically and their daycare has suited her well.

[Dee18]

I debated public school/Montessori for my daughter when she was 5.  I chose public school (which was close enough for walking) because I wanted her to have a neighborhood childhood.  I also found a great book I think it was called "Montessori at Home," that gave me great ideas for creating a Montessori like environment at home.  I ended up switching her to a private school in junior high which turned out to be a great choice.  (There were so many things by then that drove me crazy at the jr high...including having to choose between being in the school band- the key social scene- and taking a foreign language, not being allowed to go to the bathroom as needed, having 65% of the kids on the honor roll...) She is headed off to college next year.  She chose a small private college because she likes small classes.  She has a full tuition scholarship, largely because of her academic experience...the private school accommodated her taking two foreign languages for 5 years each and two math courses her senior year.  I say, save the private school money for the later grades.

[11ducks]

I taught at a Montessori school, and love their teaching style. The kid were happier there, relaxed but focused, cared about each other, and were able to make eye contact and have decent in-depth conversations with adults, something I find really rare among teens I work with now.  It may have just been the great teachers and school that I was at, but I was left with a very positive  opinion of Montessori.

I now work/teach at a public school, and DS is in fifth grade at the junior campus of my school. I've been happy with his education/happiness levels so far. As long as he is trying, doing well socially and is happy, I'm happy. If that changed and I was seriously concerned, I would definitely think about moving him to a Montessori school, in spite of the cost. I would suggest you start with public and see how they go. I think it's easier to go from public to private rather than the other way, and, who knows, they may love public!

[austinmama]

I debated public school/Montessori for my daughter when she was 5.  I chose public school (which was close enough for walking) because I wanted her to have a neighborhood childhood.  I also found a great book I think it was called "Montessori at Home," that gave me great ideas for creating a Montessori like environment at home.  I ended up switching her to a private school in junior high which turned out to be a great choice.  (There were so many things by then that drove me crazy at the jr high...including having to choose between being in the school band- the key social scene- and taking a foreign language, not being allowed to go to the bathroom as needed, having 65% of the kids on the honor roll...) She is headed off to college next year.  She chose a small private college because she likes small classes.  She has a full tuition scholarship, largely because of her academic experience...the private school accommodated her taking two foreign languages for 5 years each and two math courses her senior year.  I say, save the private school money for the later grades.

thank you for the book recommendation and for the personal experience with choosing public for elementary school and then later switching. That seems like a good choice.

[austinmama]

I taught at a Montessori school, and love their teaching style. The kid were happier there, relaxed but focused, cared about each other, and were able to make eye contact and have decent in-depth conversations with adults, something I find really rare among teens I work with now.  It may have just been the great teachers and school that I was at, but I was left with a very positive  opinion of Montessori.

I now work/teach at a public school, and DS is in fifth grade at the junior campus of my school. I've been happy with his education/happiness levels so far. As long as he is trying, doing well socially and is happy, I'm happy. If that changed and I was seriously concerned, I would definitely think about moving him to a Montessori school, in spite of the cost. I would suggest you start with public and see how they go. I think it's easier to go from public to private rather than the other way, and, who knows, they may love public!

thank you for this feedback about it being easier to go from public to private. It's also a lot cheaper! I think I've become so hung up on wanting them to have a childhood without testing or homework, where they can really pursue what they are interested in at their own pace, that I'd maybe written off the public school. It's good to be reminded that the kids might do quite well there... and in the meantime, we can be saving money in case we want to private for later schooling.

[yoga mama]

For our family, we have made a very non-Mustachian commitment to a private elementary/middle education for our 3 kids.  Around the time I was reading MMM's posts about public school education, along with all the comments, and leaning toward home schooling because of my newfound frustration with the public school system, we discovered a language immersion school just a couple of miles from our home that we fell in love with.  For us to send 3 kids to this school, pre-K through 8th, will set back my retirement a couple of years but we've decided it is worth it.  It was a very difficult decision.  One aspect of this choice that may actually save us quite a bit of $$ is that it frees us up from our current neighborhood - we love the area but home values have skyrocketed and there are a few things we are not quite thrilled about.  One of the big selling points to us was that the public elementary school we are zoned for is the best in our state.  At the time, we had only one infant and didn't consider anything except sending the kids to public school.  Since we are no longer bound by district zoning, we are free to move to another area closer to our language school, pick a home that better suits our needs now that we are more "seasoned" parents, and stash the extra 100-200K from selling our current home.