Evaluating Schools

Here is another way of looking at the private school search process. This checklist highlights the main tasks in what is, for most of us, an eighteen to twenty-month-long project. While circumstances will occasionally require you to do everything in a rush at the last minute, we will review progress from the point of view of the more customary time frame. Work transfers or some other event requiring you to move to a new city never happen conveniently, do they? When you have to find a private school quickly, you will have to telescope the full-length search into a few months. That is doable, and I discuss how to handle that situation in Is It Too Late To Apply?. In the meantime, let's review the five signs that you are on the right track in your private school search process.

You have scanned dozens of private school websites.

In step one, you look at as many private school websites as possible. Start with the powerful search engine right here on Private School Review. We have over 27,000 schools in our database. As a result, you should be able to find plenty of material. The only filters which you might want to use at this early stage are the following: kind of school, i.e., religious, military, and special needs; and the grades offered. Before you start searching, determine the kind of school which you want for your child. If you are looking for

Parents have many reasons for deciding to take their children out of public school and enroll them in private school. This circumstance can happen at any stage of your child's education. You could face this issue as early as nursery school or as late as high school, or even somewhere in between.

If you're considering making the switch, you may also find our guide to Private School vs. Public School: Key Differences helpful.

A Real Situation

Recently, I spoke with a mother who had taken her son out of a Montessori school and put him in the local public school. The problem with the Montessori school was the teacher. The public school worked fine for one year. Her child loved his new teacher, who seemed to love her children. Ironically, the public school teacher did a better job following the child than the Montessori teacher did. Considering that following the child was one of Dr. Maria Montessori's principal tenets, you would have thought the Montessori teacher could have gotten that right. In any case, his mother reported that they had one good year. Her son was happy. The teacher was delighted. All was going well. Unfortunately, things began to unravel during the second year, largely due to an inflexible teacher who expected all the children in her rather large class of 25 first graders to march in lockstep.

Against that backdrop, let's you and me explore a couple of typical scenarios where a change of

I think that any young person who pursues excellence in anything is probably going to come away from that experience with very healthy doses of discipline, structure and purpose. Whether your child wants to be a really good hockey player or the best app writer ever, he will have to decide on his goals and figure out how to get there. That's what military schools are also very good at doing. They offer the kind of rigorous discipline and structure which is every bit as demanding as the kind of athletic preparation a top-ranked runner gets, every bit as focused on teamwork as the members of the Simon Bolivar Symphony Orchestra are, for example.

Discipline

We know that discipline produces good results. It is never enough to be a genius and have a myriad of wonderful ideas and projects nobody else has thought of unless you possess the attribute of discipline. All those wonderful ideas and projects will come to naught without discipline. Fortunately discipline can be taught. Military schools have discipline figured out. They know how to teach discipline. And, no, I am not talking about the popular image of kids in a military school somewhere being yelled at every minute by some nasty drill sergeant. Those days are gone. Military schools these days are filled with students who want to get ahead academically and make something of themselves. Military schools allow that to happen.

The kind of discipline which you will find at military

When making an important decision that will impact your children's lives, you need to have all the facts in place.

Aside from the basic questions of cost and affordability, there are many different factors to consider when choosing where to educate your kids. “Selecting a private school, like so many things in life, requires care and attention to detail,” believes Judi Robinovitz, Certified Educational Planner and Founding Owner of Score At The Top Learning Centers and Schools.

We compiled a list of the most important factors to consider when choosing a final private school for your child.

Academic Style

The #1 reason parents invest in private schools is to get the best possible education for their children. Keep in mind that not just raw academic strength is important, but the style of the learning environment and if it meshes with your child’s personality. We are learning more and more that each student learns in different ways and responds to different types of teaching styles. Some children may thrive on the competition while others succeed under reduced pressure. Others may learn quickly and need more advanced subject matter, while their contemporaries struggle with the basics.

Mike Weagley, CEO of elite tutoring service Lotus Prep, suggests that parents ask themselves, “Is the school too hard or too easy for my kid? Does my kid flourish in a looser or more structured, rigid atmosphere? Is the school a pressure cooker or Zen-like?” Learn how teachers structure their

This article has been updated to reflect 2026 data and recent developments.

This article is a companion article to How Do They Teach?, which discusses what goes on in private school classrooms. It explores the academics and other material that schools teach.

When we parents start thinking about sending our children to private schools, one of the first questions that comes to mind is the teaching content. What exactly will the schools you are looking at teach? Obviously, with thousands of private schools, I cannot address all the permutations and variations. So, I thought it might make sense to look at several educational approaches and methods and see what they teach. That will at least give you a starting point for some in-depth exploration of what they teach at schools you might be interested in.

Toddler

The wee ones won't be at school for very long each day. Apart from that, the teachers will create a rich environment to pique a child's interests. The development of fine and gross motor skills, as well as language and speech skills, is a focus. In 2026, these priorities remain consistent with guidance from the National Association for the Education of Young Children, which emphasizes developmentally appropriate, play-based learning that supports children's development across multiple domains.

Prekindergarten

Most prekindergarten programs focus on preparing their students for kindergarten. Look for the development of motor skills and teaching children how to socialize. Also, look for play-based lessons with an