How To Give Your Kids The Best Education In The USA: Our Personal Experience

Our daughter was the last year to Harvard-Westlake, the #1 high school in California. It was also ranked the #2 in the United States for 2019. It was a long and difficult journey. We have made mistakes, especially when it came to our kids' education.

Photo credit: Wise School

I don't believe in relying on luck. I believe in hard work. In order to correct our mistakes, we faced harsh obstacles along the way.

I hope that other parents can learn from our mistakes. I hope you can get a lot of fun.

My husband and I met in Los Angeles. I'm an immigrant, born in Chernovtsy. When we met, he was a filmmaker, born and raised in the American Midwest. At the time I was working for a state elected official. When our daughter turned in rural Colorado. My husband had a long-term work opportunity there.

We weren't thinking about schools. We weren't thinking at all about the future. Soon our son was born, he was time to investigate Kindergarten. What happened over the next few years.

What we uncovered about schools was shocking. As new parents, we’ve made some assumptions about child rearing. On many occasions, we've been proven wrong.

I’m remembering, worrying over nothing: researching pacifiers; where my pumped milk was poured; and later, I’m not sure what they’re doing.

It turned out that none of these things were priorities. None of them would be life changing.

I should have been reading about elementary schools in the United States. When our daughter was in Kindergarten, I found this out the hard way.

In our rural area, there were two options for elementary school. From the two options, all educated parents were always choosing one of these schools.

And this is exactly where we went wrong. Those families were choosing the same reason that we would. My mother was a physicist, I had careers. There are always high standards for fundamental academic subjects. We reckoned that we have reached the tips of their careers, shared our high standards.

So we enrolled our daughter in Kindergarten. I love you.

I didn't get that feeling right.

Research was my specialty. So I began to do some digging around. I was stunned by the outcome.

In the United States, all students of the townspeople were in charge of reading and comprehension. I’ve seen the lowest incomes and the highest. I was in my daughter's school.

I thought it would be better for me to use it. I was comparing the parts of the country.

Wouldn't it be absurd if low-income students in rural Alabama — whose first language wasn't English — were to outperform the most affluent kids in our affluent town?

We were blindsided by the results of my research. How could this be?

Photo: Depositphotos

Showed you the research. It was all there, in black and white. It was no way to argue. The school. They didn’t want a plan in place. Our son was already attending their preschool two days per week. Our third baby had been born. We had no choice. We didn’t re-enroll our kids for the following school year.

It was when I started the school. Home-schooling was something I had never imagined. But we wanted nothing more than a meaningful education for our children. We were going to achieve that. For each academic subject, I had to figured out through a trial-and-error. I made many errors, but I was able to find solutions to most of the hurdles.

I aimed at finding the most socratic method of learning for young children. They were progressing beautifully.

But it wasn't long before the kids became lonely. They needed a peer group. They needed to interact. So we created a proposal for the local School District. We met with our Superintendant and our proposal. I continued to receive them.

Pretty soon, word got around. Many other parents began to jump on the bandwagon. This was where our plan collapsed.

We’re created for our kids. The District could not sustain that, they said. It was too confusing for the teachers and staff. School year. After that, we'd have to choose one or the other.

We’ve been able to find out. In some ways, I was relieved. To have my career. The kids would make friends. Finally, we could put our roots down. Reinventing the wheel.

What would be the most fitting option for our family? Where would our kids thrive?

We had freedom. We could move anywhere. School District. After countless hours of research, we narrowed our choices down to fourteen schools. Our search spanned all over Los Angeles, and farther. We visited the San Fernando Valley all the way to Manhattan Beach. Public and private. We even trekked out to Palos Verdes.

If I had to choose one thing, I would like to teach my kids.

At Wise school, we found that and much more. Wise School has a longstanding partnership with USC. It is a gifted level.

Wise School is home to the California State Champions of “Odyssey of the Mind” international problem-solving competition.*

* The photo above was taken in Project Studio at Wise School. It's the only STEAM-based facility of its kind in the Los Angeles area. Because of the facility's unique resources, Wise School's champion Odyssey of the Mind teams work out of project studio. Odyssey of the Mind is an international problem-solving competition. Thousands of schools, including China, China, and India, There are three states of interest in the world.

Wise school is the only Jewish Day 5-Star Gifted Awardby the California Association for the Gifted. Critically and ask profound questions.

Wise School has a vibrant, international community filled with children who are first-generation (and second, and third-generation!) Though it is affiliated with a Jewish temple, Stephen S. Wise, many non-Jewish families hear about it and enroll. It is a school of law. Wise is the most impressive security operations in the city.

From the moment we walked, we knew that it was a school for our kids. The “Gifted-Education-For-All” Approach

About the Author: Inna Rosenzweig is a former speechwriter. She lived in Boston, New York City, London, Miami, Chicago, and Aspen, CO. She teaches writing in Los Angeles.

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