Choosing the best high school is a tough assignment. We’ve taken out the guesswork with our most comprehensive ranking yet of which schools are worth the money – whether in tuition or property taxes – and which aren’t.
Chris Coughlin, a senior at Noble and Greenough School, knew he’d had enough of Natick High School when his geometry teacher assigned a drawing project. "If you’re good at math, but you can’t draw, you’re not going to get a good grade. I just thought it was totally absurd." It wasn’t just what Coughlin calls "mindless busywork," however, that caused him to jump to a private school last year. "You can tell the kids at Nobles want to be there," he says.
Coughlin’s complaint isn’t surprising given that every public school educates whoever walks through the door. Yet there are plenty of kids who choose their own public high school over even a top-tier private one.
Take Ian Crowley. Crowley, now a junior at Natick High, spent eighth grade at the Rivers School before transferring back to the public school system. "When you only have 40 kids in your class, and half of them are focused on art, you don’t have a lot in common." He adds, "I like how teachers [at private school] were more involved, but if I’m getting help all the time, I’m not going to be prepared for college."
Such anecdotes speak volumes, but we wanted to spell out the differences more clearly.
We ranked 212 Boston-area public and private high schools for the first time, based on 28 measures. Some of what we found won’t surprise you: Schools of the wealthy are better than those of the poor. But some will: Contrary to the doom-and-gloom scenarios, many public schools are doing outstanding work. And, despite what they tell you, some private schools aren’t that good.
Private schools have obvious advantages, and just about all of them ultimately come down to money. The Boston area boasts many of the richest private schools in the nation, with endowments bigger than some small colleges. Phillips Academy has an endowment of $560 million, Milton $143 million. What those zeros translate into is better facilities, more staff members, and greater resources.
Money may not buy love, but it buys something very close to it in the education world. Experts agree that the more involved teachers, counselors, and coaches become, the greater the chance they will develop genuine relationships that help students pursue interests. And the more resources a school has, the lower it can keep its student-teacher ratio.
Because private schools are not burdened by sheer numbers of kids as in public schools, class sizes can be ridiculously small – as small as 4 students per teacher at Gann Academy in Waltham, compared to 23 students per teacher at East Boston High.
Kids have to want all that attention. Robert Henderson, head of school at Nobles, says about the kind of student who does well at his school, "It’s the kid who wants adults involved in their lives at all times." Bill Wharton, headmaster of the Commonwealth School in Back Bay, says, "You have to know every kid. It’s in the one-on-one conferences that the revelation occurs."
If there’s one way wealthy public schools compete with private schools, it’s financially. Look at Weston High School, which topped our ranking of public schools. A school in a wealthy community can attribute excellence not just to property tax revenues and high-achieving kids, but also to what’s thought of as a PTA on steroids.
The Weston Education Enrichment Fund Committee, raises hundreds of thousands of dollars for the town’s schools. Last year alone, WEEFC bequeathed to Weston High everything from a $40,000 weight room and courtyard garden to digital-video-making equipment, food mixers for culinary classes, and tutoring sessions for the MCAS exams. It’s the kind of manna a school in a poorer community can only dream of. But if you live in a town like Weston, it can make the choice between a public school and a private one a tossup.
To spot subtler differences, you have to look closely, for example, the disparity of counselors to students. Even the WEEFC can’t bring Weston High up to par. While the average students to counselor in Massachusetts public high schools is a staggering 415 to 1, private high schools have resources to keep the ratio as low as 5 to 1. Which is why 80 percent of the kids walking through Lloyd Peterson’s door come from public schools.
Peterson is the vice president of education at College Coach, a Newton-based college counseling company. He says the public school kids come to him for academic strategy. "They ask, ‘Should I take this SAT II? Does this essay say what [the college admissions officers] want it to say?’ It’s a lot of fine-tuning strategy. I think public school counselors know this information. The extent to which they have the time to sit down and really talk about how your tennis is going to play to this admissions office, I just don’t think they have time for it anymore. There are just so many students and there aren’t that many counselors." Another reason some private schools have a leg up in the realm of counseling, according to Peterson, is that more private school counselors than public school counselors have actually worked in college admissions offices and therefore know firsthand what colleges are looking for.
And the private school kids who consult with Peterson? "Private school kids come in earlier [in the process]," he says. "All the academic stuff – ‘Should I take this AP course or this one?’ ‘Is an A in an easy course better than a B in a tougher course?’ – all that stuff, those Groton and Milton kids already know it." What they come to him for is focus. According to Peterson, private school kids can feel overwhelmed by the sheer number of offerings at their high-powered bastions. "I personally spend a lot more time helping the private school kids find a passion, bite down on something, and then run with it for a couple years," he says.
When asked what qualities most set private and public schools apart, Bob Weintraub, headmaster of Brookline High School, deadpans, "They don’t let everybody in. Isn’t that a big difference?" Which leads to the great benefit of a public school education: Simply put, public schools may better prepare kids for the real world because they more accurately mirror it.
