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Full disclosure, my daughter isn’t in school yet BUT I grew up in the suburbs, as well as worked in the Hinsdale middle school district at the start of my career, not as a teacher but I got a lot of insight, and my instinct is a pretty strong “it depends”.
Your highest ranked suburban schools are going to be better than most CPS schools but your highest ranked CPS schools are going to be better than most suburban schools.
Just like not all CPS schools are equal, neither are all the burbs. Some districts are amazing and some are mediocre at best.
I think your best bet would be to take a look at The Illinois Report Card website and compare your local neighborhood schools, as well as selective enrollment schools you think your child has a chance at getting into, and compare them to school districts in the burbs you would consider moving to.
@Petra Thanks for the insight! When looking at ELL RGC programs, Russian was thrown around with Spanish and Polish. It seemed like the odd language out, population-wise, but I figured I’d ask and I’m not all that surprised to hear it isn’t a thing anymore.
Also, what I’m taking away is that it changes from school to school, but, on average, I can expect RGC programs to be a bit more accelerated than Classical programs, but it’s mostly school specific, right?
@jazzman
Now how much alcohol or mind altering meds are you willing to consume??
All of them xD
But seriously, I’ve heard that there are different curriculum for classical and regional gifted centers. Is this just centered around the grade level that they’re teaching at, or are there different focus points between the two?
I like them over the private because whatever you are lacking in the gifted or classical schools you can pay a tutor or enrichment classes on the weekends or after school.
That’s kind of our thought on it. When my wife and I talked about it, we were playing with the idea of sending our kids to the Lab School in Hyde Park. We qualify for some tuition discounts, but the Bronzeville Classical school is literally down the street and the National Teacher Academy or even, really, the South Loop, aren’t that far away either.
We figure we can start with public and then, if it seems like it isn’t a good fit, go from there.
Classical you can test prep easier its more so about more concrete thinking reading and math. The gifted test is more so about how you think patterns, logic, and making inferences.
What sort of prep did you do? Generally, I’m seeing the OLSAT for the Regional Gifted Centers and CogAT for the Classical schools.
Another question I have is about the Regional Gifted Centers for English Learners. Is this program aimed at ESL students or for bilingual families? Because my daughter is being raised speaking Russian in addition to English. We are planning on sending her to Russian language school as she gets older, but if that can be streamlined, that is something to consider as well.
