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Quote:"Do not imply that parents who send their kids to public schools don't care about their kids' education."
I am not implying anything. Just stating that the best educations do not come cheap.
Quote:"The closest is my husband, a PhD physicist"
Nice. My father was a PhD in physics. His advisor was Phil Morrison. (Go look it up.. it is called the 'Manhattan Project').
Quote:"though he did have a degree from the University of Pittsburgh Medical School, which has always been one of the top medical schools in the country."
Well, 14th. We never went to ones lower than 5th.
Quote:"Now my grandparents were very modest people; none of them even graduated from high school but all of them wanted the best for their kids, and all their kids got some higher education."
My grandmother became a math professor in 1913.
My direct relatives each run the most prestigious medical research labs in the US.
Quote:"What is YOUR educational background?"
All I will state, to keep anonymity, is that I have more degrees than a thermometer, from the best schools in the US. Hint: one in Cambridge MA, one in Palo Alto CA, and a few others. And the private schools served me well enough that I no longer had to work since I was in my early 40's. Now I donate all my time to helping others, and my resources to help others in need.
Quote:"More important than who I am related to IMO is my own accomplishments."
Not worth my time to compare accomplishments with you, unless you can drum up the number of medical patents you have that have saved many lives, or the contributions to help others around us (in a very significant way).
Why do you think any of this makes a difference? What kind of crap is this, anyway? You think I'm unworthy of you? You think you're better than me b/c my maternal grandmother only went to 6th grade, worked her butt off on a farm in Wisconsin, and insisted her oldest daughter, my mother, go to high school? My mom was the first person in her family to graduate from high school. She went on to nursing school after working two years as a nanny to pay for it, and served her country as a nurse in the South Pacific in World War II. My paternal grandmother finished 8th grade (I think), and she was an accomplished seamstress who owned her own dress shop. My maternal grandfather was a farmer. He helped feed your family. My paternal grandfather was a carpenter who owned his own business.
BTW, my husband was a student of Richard Feynman (perhaps you've heard of him?) when he was at Caltech, and he worked with John Bardeen (google him if you don't know who he is) when he was at the University of Illinois. A project DH worked on at Caltech is on display at the Smithsonian.
My husband and I help others, too. DH, who isn't afraid to get his hands dirty, is a big supporter of Habitat for Humanity. Actually, one of the DDs was invovled with Habitat as well, and both of them have done much charitable work, as have I. As for my humanitarian efforts, I will remain modest and not discuss them on this forum. I am an RN with 40 years' experience.
Don't break your neck falling off your high horse.
Last edited by Katarina Witt; 01-09-2012 at 03:46 PM..
What are you savings all your money for? I mean, I put education pretty high and worth the cost. What is worth the money to you?
Oh, there are PLENTY of other things I can spend $45k a year on with my family. LOL. Traveling around the world, living in an upscale neighborhood, collecting art, musical instruments, lessons and studio (I've very big on this as I'm a part-time recording artist), retirement savings, and on and on.
But we all have our priorities. Sure, if I had a very high income, then $45 a year for private school would be nothing.
Depends on the school 100%. I have friends of friends that attended private (religious) schools and flunked out of half of their classes yet still graduated in 4 years. This on top of a pervasive drug culture within said elite school.
The public schools we are pathed to are top in the country, including a high school that's often in the top 50 nationally. Rigorous? Very.
Quote:"Do not imply that parents who send their kids to public schools don't care about their kids' education."
I am not implying anything. Just stating that the best educations do not come cheap.
Quote:"The closest is my husband, a PhD physicist"
Nice. My father was a PhD in physics. His advisor was Phil Morrison. (Go look it up.. it is called the 'Manhattan Project').
Quote:"though he did have a degree from the University of Pittsburgh Medical School, which has always been one of the top medical schools in the country."
Well, 14th. We never went to ones lower than 5th.
Quote:"Now my grandparents were very modest people; none of them even graduated from high school but all of them wanted the best for their kids, and all their kids got some higher education."
My grandmother became a math professor in 1913.
My direct relatives each run the most prestigious medical research labs in the US.
Quote:"What is YOUR educational background?"
All I will state, to keep anonymity, is that I have more degrees than a thermometer, from the best schools in the US. Hint: one in Cambridge MA, one in Palo Alto CA, and a few others. And the private schools served me well enough that I no longer had to work since I was in my early 40's. Now I donate all my time to helping others, and my resources to help others in need.
Quote:"More important than who I am related to IMO is my own accomplishments."
Not worth my time to compare accomplishments with you, unless you can drum up the number of medical patents you have that have saved many lives, or the contributions to help others around us (in a very significant way).
So I venture that you didn't have an epiphany during your impoverished childhood that you needed to attend an expensive private school that charges more in tuition than your parents earned?
I appreciate that you have made life-changing innovations that enabled you to devote your time to philanthropy. I also appreciate what you are doing to help others. My form of philanthropy was to give up my career in rocket science to become an inner-city teacher. Trust me when I say that it has not been financially rewarding. My reward is intangible, which I don't mind. But I do get put off when people who esteem a more pecuniary nature scorn those who chose to live modestly.
That said, I now understand the value of private schools. Had I known better, our children would have attended them. Even so, our local public schools were good enough for five generations of our family, all of whom were doctors except for me. I was more the engineering type, without the temperament for medicine. Our daughter is reviving the family tradition as she begins her second semester of medical school.
I wasn't so impressed with the schooling when I was there, but it is much improved now. Yet it was good enough to get me a job at NASA in the '70s when I was 18. It was good enough to get my father into Yale in the '50s. It was good enough for my grandfather to get into Tulane Medical school in the '30s. I'm not sure if his father attended public schools here, but I do know that he was the town doctor beginning in the '20s. I know that his father, my great-great-grandfather moved here in the 1870s. All-in-all, the public schools haven't been too bad, and our family has valued education very highly.
I trust that you are aware that things may have turned out very differently for you had you been born into a different family. As for me, if my father hadn't died when I was young, I would have had more guidance and I would likely have finished my engineering degree. I would now be quite well off and who knows what my life would be like. Do I regret my choice? Not at all, because it is truly a mission, and no one without a mission can really understand what it is like when one hits you. I hope that you have a mission to share what you have earned due to your blessings and your hard work. I thank you again for sharing.
Only if they accept everyone is a true public school. Magnet schools, while run by the public school system, are not true public schools because not everyone can attend.
Everyone can attend. But because we have more applicants than we have spots we have to rank students from each district. We take the top two from each town.
Frequently, from the small towns we only get one applicant. Then that person gets in, regardless of scores or other criteria. There are only 5 ot 6 districts which are really competitive to get into our school, and then we have sometimes 20-30 kids competing for each slot.
In a neighboring district everyone wants to go to one of the two town high schools over the other, since they cannot take all of them does it mean it is not a public school?
Yes, I know about High Tech. Since it has an entrance requirement, it cannot be compared to other public schools. Ofcourse it's going to have better results, since it only takes brighter students. Whereas my public school has to take everyone.
There are not specific entrance requirements at HTHS.
If there are only one or two applicants from each town they get in automatically. But when there are more applicants than allocated spots they have to rank them based on grades and exam scores. This is much more common at HTHS than at my school. HTHS typically has 400 kids apply for 80 spots.
Now at HTHS and my school we expect students to have had Algebra I before they get here but for kids who get in without the course we give them a summer class. So it is an entrance requirement but we do not exclude students who have not had that course yet.
(So what mischief did your husband get into during the Rose Bowl game? )
I think he was usually at home in Omaha, watching it on TV!
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One of my favorite people of all time!
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