4 in race opt for private schools

Four of the five candidates running for governor have sent their children to elite private schools, even as they pledge to devote themselves to improving public Massachusetts schools if elected to the state's top job.

Republican Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey, independent Christy Mihos, and Democrats Deval Patrick and Chris Gabrieli all decided to send their children to private schools with annual tuition about $20,000. Attorney General Thomas F. Reilly, who calls himself the only non-millionaire in the race, is the sole candidate whose three daughters attended public schools, in Watertown.

Forgoing Milton schools, Patrick's elder daughter followed her father's footsteps to Milton Academy, and his younger daughter attends a private boarding school out of state. Mihos's two children, raised in Cohasset, attended Derby Academy in Hingham and St. George's in Newport, R.I.

Gabrieli, who has made headlines for advocating for extended public school days, sends four of his five children to private schools. One daughter attends The Winsor School for girls in Boston, two go to Southfield School for girls in Brookline, and a son, now at Fessenden School in West Newton, will be heading to Roxbury Latin School in West Roxbury. The fifth child is in nursery school.

Healey, who lives in Beverly, sends her two children to Shore Country Day School there. In an interview with the Globe and New England Cable News last week, Healey said she made the decision ''because I want my kids to be in an environment where they can talk about values and talk about perhaps values in a way that you can't always do in a public school setting, and I want uniforms and I want a very structured environment for my kids."

Reilly bristled at those comments. ''She's completely out of touch with the lives of regular people," he said in an interview with the Globe. ''Somehow the perception is that the kids in public schools are not learning the values that they should be learning. . . .Public schools reinforced the values of our home -- hard work and respect for differences, teamwork. It was a wonderful experience and certainly they came out of public schools with even stronger values."

Healey's campaign manager, Tim O'Brien, responded by calling Reilly ''an old, tired politician who believes his mean-spirited attacks are going to help him get his edge back in this election. . . .There are thousands of parents across the Commonwealth who make these decisions, and he's attacking every single one of them who decides to make a choice with their child's education."

In an interview, a Brookline parent and public school advocate said the candidates' decisions reveal a division in the state.

''The fact that four out of the five candidates send their kids to private schools is a reflection of trends in our society -- the increasing gap between the haves and the have-nots," said Lisa Guisbond, a Brookline mother who said the wealthy candidates have the luxury of avoiding schools they may deem inadequate.

But the candidates, if elected, will help set the agenda for public schools across the state. Guisbond said she would be listening closely to what the candidates say about public education policies, particularly the emphasis on the MCAS.

''I really don't believe that some of these policies are creating an atmosphere that they would want their kids to be learning in," said Guisbond. ''Private schools don't revolve around preparing kids for standardized testing and teaching them to regurgitate facts. They teach them problem-solving and nurture their creativity and teach them art and music, but for some reason, [Beacon Hill] policies are forcing all that out of public schools."

The candidates all profess a commitment to improving public schools and said their decisions for their children's education were based on personal circumstances.

Explaining their decisions, three of the candidates pointed to their family ties in education: Patrick's wife was a teacher in New York for five years before going to law school; Reilly's wife was a teacher for 35 years in Belmont schools; and Healey's mother and mother-in-law were both teachers.

Patrick has emphasized that he went to public schools in Chicago before he got a scholarship to Milton Academy through a program called ''A Better Chance." ''Education had a very transforming effect on Deval's life," said spokeswoman Libby DeVecchi. ''He encourages and will work for excellence in public schools in Massachusetts."

The issue can be particularly contentious in Boston, where schools integrated through the court-ordered busing plan of the 1970s. Nearly half of the white children who live in Boston attend private schools rather than city schools, according to a 2003 study by the Lewis Mumford Center for Comparative Urban and Regional Research at the State University of New York at Albany.

Gabrieli, a Beacon Hill resident, chaired the mayor's task force on after-school time and founded the nonprofit Massachusetts 2020, a nonprofit foundation that supports after-school and summer education programs. At his children's private schools, he said, he has seen the benefits of a longer school day, tutoring, and extracurricular activities. ''It's one of the reasons why I feel and know every kid should have the same opportunity," Gabrieli said in an interview. ''Every parent wants the best for their kids. For Massachusetts to remain competitive, for us to support families, schools have to inspire confidence for parents and get the job done."

Mihos, a graduate of Brockton High School, said his two children's private school experience has shaped his campaign, as he proposes to devote more state funding to local communities for schools and to eliminate fees for extracurricular activities. He pointed to the almost ''militaristic" experience his children had at St. George's, where he said rigorous academics and a host of extracurricular activities gave them a well-rounded education.

''It only makes me even more committed to trying to find the proper funding, so that the public schools can offer as much to public school children and not charge them for arts, band, cheerleading, football," Mihos said in an interview.

It is the kind of well-rounded education that Guisbond wishes all public schools provided. She would like ''a candidate who shows me they don't think of public schools as the place where other people send their kids or the place where we do the best we can with the limited resources that we have," she said.

Stephanie Ebbert can be reached at ebbert@globe.com