T.,
As the mother of three children who have gone through RISD, I feel a kindred spirit with what you are going through. My husband is also an attorney with a large law firm, and he also has a genius IQ. We were the typical parents who wanted nothing but the best for our kids, could afford private schools but we were also strong proponents of public schools. So talked to everyone we could talk to, visited the private schools and magnet schools, etc. One of my husband's partners had a daughter who graduated from Hockaday and the other daughter from Pearce HS, and he thought that his daughter who took AP classes at Pearce received the better education. When my two now college age sons were in early elementary school, we went through much of what you are experiencing, and we moved them to a magnet school. Although they did fine there, I beleive my daughter, who went through the local much maligned neighborhood school because of the high minority mix, received the better education. It all seems to boil down to the quality of the teacher in the individual classroom, and sometimes, the higher risk schools actually have the higher quality teachers. And the level of academia all seems to pretty much even out. My now college junior seemed to be somewhat weak in math. I believe he had a head start on his multiplication tables at the end of 2nd grade, so his 3rd grade teacher seemed to think he knew them. At the end of 4th grade, he was really struggling in math, and I was the one who figured out that he didn't know them. I could never have predicted this, but he is now an accounting and finance major and is currently interviewing with the big accounting firms for an internship. But he had an excellent teacher with a master's degree at a magnet school, and she totally missed it. There are so many issues that will arise along the way, and my stories are legion, but whether you choose public or private education, your involvement will ultimately determine the success of your child, because your child will never have an advocate as strong as you.
The one other aspect that I would urge you to consider is that education entails more that just academics. The social aspects often will determine the success of your child long term, and if they interract only with kids like themselves, their social deveopment will be hampered when they are mainstreamed. I spoke with a junior high counselor who brought this to my attention about students who came from public schools versus private, and my own experience bears out the observation that when private school students enter the public system in either 7th or 9th grade, there is a major adjustment. Not only have students already formed relationships that are hard to break into, but so have the parents. So when your daughter is considering who to invite to the Sadie Hawkins dance,it is much easier to invite that platonic boy friend from elementary school and whose parents you already know and have a bond with. These are seemingly simple observations, and some kids have no problems whatsoever, but when kids hit the early teen years, there are enough changes going on in their lives without voluntarily adding lots of other changes to the mix. True agony is seeing your child hurt socially, and that carries over into the classroom. If they don't have a friend or group to eat lunch with, then it is hard to concentrate on math in the class period before it. Public schools offer such a variety of kids and backgrounds that your child is sure to be able to find kids with they whom have values and interests in common. (If you like the idea of your child hanging with the predominantly affluent crowd, then private schools will obviously offer that, but we fight against that perspective.)
I've rambled and I wish that we could have coffee together and perhaps I could allay some your fears. But my husband and I often chuckle at the thousands of dollars that our friends have spent on the best private schools knowing that they could easily pay for any college of their childrn's choices had they saved their money and sent their kids to public schools. Oh yes, even though the genetic and talent pool should be heavily weighted in favor of the private school kids, we have not yet had a valedictorian or salutatorian from our high school who came from a private school.
Best of luck,
K.