I think I’m going to simply say we need to agree to disagree here.
Everyone has their own idea of what is important in education. I have found that the social circles a student is raised in and family access to resources matter more than pretty much anything else with regards academic achievement, though to me that makes me quite firm on the idea that a safe neighborhood and even half-way decent public schools can allow someone to thrive. What you’re saying actually makes me even less inclined to want to send my (non-existent) children to a private school, because it means they get less diversity of experience and thought in their classrooms. They grow up like me, assuming that everyone gets a nice new car for their 16th birthday (“everybody but me”) and a new cellphone every 6 months (“everybody but me”), going on trips across the globe for every winter and summer break (again, “everybody but me”), growing up to be very entitled and with a whack idea of what is “fair” in this world and believing that all public schools are crap holes with guns where you can’t learn anything because there is too much violence. (hahahaha. So said all my friends that went to private high schools.)
Also, I know plenty of private school teachers who were well-loved by students that lost their job because a few wealthy families didn’t like their liberal ideas, and even more incompetent private school teachers that kept their jobs because they were rich and had themselves attended the school. In the end, you have to choose what works best for you. It looks like you lean on the side of private schools are better. For me, it would depend on a lot of factors. If I were in Taipei, I would keep my children in the public schools through 6th grade. After that, I would be very, very thorough about the potential private and middle and high schools, making sure I knew what really went on vs. what their propaganda and social media said, because I would never subject them to the level of nonsensical testing in Taiwan’s 7-12 public ed. Though I would likely just move the kids back to the US.
In the public schools, yes. I’m pretty sure local teachers made more in the end, actually. They could all “afford” to buy houses and go on vacations to the US and Europe with the whole family anyway… In the private school I taught at last year, I don’t think so. But I can only assume, because not discussing salary and compensation was in the contract.
I don’t have access to academic papers right now, but there is a ton of research that shows that children from “well off” backgrounds do just as well in a “bad school” as a “good” one. The only thing you miss is social connections, which people only really make to that extent in very ultra wealthy K-12,schools. Educated parents and family with time and resources quickly make up for any “missed” opportunities in “bad” schools.
That’s worrying. My plan for a long time has been to send the kid to TES after elementary school. He has a British passport so I had assumed it would be easy. Perhaps I should check …
This used to (somewhat) be the case before covid. Many 華人 came back last year and completely overwhelmed the system. It might take a while before the congestion eases.
We couldn’t get our daughter into TES. It was a bit frustrating that a native English speaking kid with a British passport loses out to a rich Taiwanese kid who needs ESL lessons, but that’s life. Saved me a lot of money.
I was told that the classes were full with kids who had gone through the primary section. I guess there will be some churn as the rich Taiwanese scamper back overseas.