Children's Education - Where is Best? - China or the West?

If it were me, I would consider hiring a tutor(s) instead of paying expensive tuition.  With a private tutor, you get to decide who teaches your child and, to a degree, what they will teach.  Also, there is the aspect of one on one learning and teaching. It could be a win, win situation and usually is.  With this approach you could concentrate more on weaker points and maybe better prepare your child for future success.

Just my opinion.

I think Chinese schools are OK for nursery/kindergarten levels and the first actual grade or two, but in most cases (and EL's case is NOT typical...) after that I just can't recommend Chinese schools to anyone.

I spent too many years trying to teach the products of those schools, and I say to Hell with 'em.   And the first day my kid came home with one of those shitty red neckerchiefs around their neck would be the day I'd be up in the clock tower shooting random passers-by.

My oldest child ( goes to international school as he didn't speak Chinese when we moved here and didn't take kindly to being put into an immersion environment (immersion in terms of language AND culture, the educational style of a Chinese kindergarten is very different from a Western kindergarten).

Second son (almost 5) has been here since age 1 and is very happy at Chinese kindergarten (and not one of the fancy expensive ones, a very ordinary one). There is lots of structure but that's not a bad thing, he gets plenty of play/running around time including kungfu lessons, and he is learning the all-important social skills and "listen to the teacher" skills that I think are all a 4-yr old needs. We have the occasional differences of opinion with the management, for example when he had settled on being left-handed they encouraged him to use his right hand until I asked them not to, but generally I am very happy with the education and care he has received so far. We hope to keep him in Chinese education system for at least the first two years of primary school as this is the best way to give him a solid foundation in Chinese, then we will reassess and may move him to international school.

So in my experience it would be wrong to dismiss Chinese education out of hand, especially for a pre-school age child, as I do think there are alternatives to prohibitively expensive international schools. For example, here in Chengdu there is a Steiner school which offers a very "alternative" style of education to Chinese and expat children so it's well worth doing research into all the options.

Can I ask, how are international schools feasible in your family? I assume at least one family member is employed outside of the TEFL industry?

If it were me, I would consider hiring a tutor(s) instead of paying expensive tuition.  With a private tutor, you get to decide who teaches your child and, to a degree, what they will teach.  Also, there is the aspect of one on one learning and teaching. It could be a win, win situation and usually is.  With this approach you could concentrate more on weaker points and maybe better prepare your child for future success.

Just my opinion.

That is in general, the best way to go no matter where you live.  It's too bad that Korea (don't know about China) makes doing this illegal.

I was thinking more along the lines of supplementing school and not replacing.  Although it is often not practical, replacing school altogether would be my preference.  However, schools can serve many purposes beyond academic content.

You can homeschool here in China as long as your kid is a foreign citizen. Chinese citizen kids have to complete the national Chinese curriculum (with very few exceptions). That's why lots of the "real" international schools only take kids with foreign passports. There are lots of foreign communities that do homeschool co-ops too, where parents switch off teaching the subjects  (especially the missionaries) they're comfortable/qualified to teach.

I think Chinese schools are OK for nursery/kindergarten levels and the first actual grade or two, but in most cases (and EL's case is NOT typical...) after that I just can't recommend Chinese schools to anyone.

Yeah, my darling got lucky in the school lottery (and there was a good school in the lottery - not always the case).  She could have been assigned to one of the majorly bad schools and then I'd be a very poor man paying private school tuition.

Also, since my daughter is homegrown Chinese, she doesn't have any language barrier.  Newly arrived expat kids could encounter some serious issues on that front.  I'm not even sure if Chinese public schools will accept them.

I'm not even sure if Chinese public schools will accept them.

They will...saw several examples of it.
It's all done with money, my friend.

There are some will and some that won't. It depends on the school and the city.

I knew of an all-foreign girl who was attending mainstream Chinese public school with all the regular Chinese kids at one of the best primaries in Kunming and it seemed to me that most of the students and parents viewed her as a bit of a sideshow act. I don't know that I'd really be willing to put my kids through that.

There are some public schools though, especially in the big cities, that have designated "international" departments that attract foreign kids. In Beijing this is mostly Koreans but you do see Western kids too. In these departments the kids get special instruction in Chinese the way one would in English if they were in an ESL program back home. One public school in Beijing in particular, Fang Cao Di, is really well known for its international program and has quite a lot of Western kids (and had a big scandal last year when a Swiss kid was hit by a car ON the school campus last year).