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Comment by vostok | Hacker News Reader

> No. The rich and everyone else send their kids to the same public schools.

They don't send their kids to boarding schools in the UK/US/Switzerland?

For all practical purposes: no. Less than 0.1% attends privately funded schools inside or outside of The Netherlands.

Sure, but is such a school giving their child any actual advantage? They'll be in a foreign country taught by likely a lower quality teacher (esp. in US private schools, there is a reason our private teachers make $10k less a year).

If they want to work in the US/UK/Switzerland? Or perhaps internationally more broadly? Probably. And I wouldn’t assume those private schools and their environment are giving a lower quality education.

I'd not give private schools much credit, they have a rocky track record of sexual abuse and 2nd rate teachers here in the US.

There are a lot of schools with bilingual programs (English+Dutch) and the programs are of high quality. Seems simpler to go for such a program, no need to send your kid abroad.

Simple economics and public choice theory would say that, if parents are willing to spend lots of money to send their kids to a private school, rather than sending them to public school for free, then they believe (and most likely with good reason) that it is preferable to do so.

This "market" (if you could even call it that) is far from transparent, objectively measuring the effect of one school versus another is hard. The most concerning metric when I look at private schools is the severe pay differential. This isn't cause private schools are getting better deals on quality teachers, they've been self selecting for teachers that local school districts won't hire (for good reason) and get commensurate results. Being in the right social circle is the prime driver of going to private schools from what I've discerned and experienced. Most don't have diversity requirements or scholarships to ensure the classroom isn't a mono-culture of socio-economic status or race.

> Sure, but is such a school giving their child any actual advantage? They'll be in a foreign country taught by likely a lower quality teacher (esp. in US private schools, there is a reason our private teachers make $10k less a year).

If they're rich, aren't they intentionally selecting schools to try to avoid the perceived "lower quality teachers"? I don't think money would be the limiting factor there (effectiveness in turning money into results is a different matter, but after all, school is as much about networking as anything else, and you're probably buying into a very powerful network).

No, usually they're going to a private school to be in a certain social clique. Its actually quite poisonous IMO, had a few upper crust friends who went to O'Dea or Bishop Blanchet for high school here in Seattle (despite not being Catholic), and ended up getting in with those social cliques while letting their old friendships drift.

Most of that group did not make it through college, even for an Associates.

I'm not sure the quality of the private schools you mentioned (O'Dea or Bishop Blanchet) are on par with what others consider as elite private schools. For one, those two schools have tuitions in the 10k-15k/yr range which is pretty low. Private schools in the northeast, like Milton Academy or Phillips Exeter are in the 45-50k/yr range. These schools also tend to have higher than average matriculation rates to elite universities like the Ivies as well. Teachers at those schools are definitely making more than their public school counterparts.

> Teachers at those schools are definitely making more than their public school counterparts.

I'm sure this is correct, but do you have a reference? Anecdotally, I have heard that teachers at top tier NYC private schools make less than teachers at NYC public schools. I don't have a source for that so I'm grateful for any information you can share.

> Sure, but is such a school giving their child any actual advantage?

I think so. It puts them in touch with other rich children from all around the world.

Pretty much, sending your kids to private school in the US all about connections and having them join the right clique, even if they come out with poorer skills overall.

I actually think that American boarding schools can be quite good academically (Andover, Exeter, etc.), but sending your kid to boarding school in Switzerland is likely not about academics in the least.

$10k a year could easily just be a difference in living expenses between the US and Netherlands.

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