What would expect to get for $40,000? A great car? A renovated kitchen? What about $40,000 every year for four years, $160,000? A Harvard diploma? Nope, try a high school diploma.

The American School in Rio de Janeiro, at the high school level, costs $33,000 a year. New students pay a registration fee of $6,500, making the grand total for freshman year $39,181. This does not include bus fees or lunch. Now, if you only have a toddler, it’s much more reasonable. Just $19,600 for half day pre-school.

A few months back I got a message asking about schools for American kids in Rio de Janeiro. Full disclaimer: I have no kids of my own. What I know about EARJ, the American school in Rio, comes from working with high schoolers applying to college in the US. And that was only for two years. My sample size is admittedly small. Weight my opinion what you will.

I’ve never written about EARJ because I was working with kids attending the school (i.e. their parents were paying clients). They were all great kids and I thought the professional thing to do was to remain neutral on the subject.

Now that I’m based in Vitoria, here’s my opinion. For $40,000 a year, I expect my child to be able to build a time machine to travel back to ancient Rome and discuss in fluent Latin with Julius Caesar his reasons for taking the army across the Rubicon.

It’s not that the school is bad. On contrary, I’ve met some really bright and driven kids who go there. I’ve also been stared at by a room of blank faces when asking for the formula for the area of a circle. My problem with the American school is that you pay $40,000 for the equivalent of a solid public school education.

In my classes, students from the British school and Brazilian private schools like Sao Agostinho ($9,900 per year), consistently out scored the EARJ kids in math. Let’s not talk about the EARJ kids’ abysmal writing scores. I now think the best way to learn English grammar might be by taking it at a Brazilian high school.

Essays, vocabulary and reading comprehension are EARJs strong points. This makes perfect sense given American educational culture. American teens (or Brazilians who attend an American school) don’t know what to do with a semicolon but they can express their personal opinions quite fluently. We also tend to focus more on the type of critical thinking tested in reading comprehension.

To be clear, when I say the EARJ kids score better, that doesn’t mean they’re making 800s on the practice tests. No, the scores I saw were typically average, if not a little below. And here’s the amazing thing, they seem totally unaware of the fact that they are average.

I said earlier that the kids I’ve taught were great. I genuinely liked everyone of them. There’s just a sense of entitlement common to the EARJ culture. Pausing to look up from their iPhones and Blackberrys, kids with average SAT scores will tell you how NYU is their backup school. Or maybe Duke. Duke might be ok if Cornell turns them down.

NYU as a backup? Maybe if you’re the next Stephen Hawking. Where are the guidance counselors?! How can these kids be in their junior year of high school with no clue as to what a competitive SAT score is? For $40,000 a year, I’d want someone my kid can dictate her essay to.

And we’re back to what you get for your money. I would assume that one of the benefits of sending your kids to the American high school as opposed to the British or Brazilian schools, is that you have a leg up when it comes to college admissions in the US. Someone would be there to guide you through an admissions process that is complex, bureaucratic and unique. It doesn’t seem to be the case at EARJ. The kids don’t seem more knowledgeable than any other students.

So it’s left to the SAT teachers to talk to the kids, point out the average scores, and crush their dreams. Thanks a lot, EARJ!

My husband and I will most likely go the Brazilian school route with our kids. They will get their English lit exposure from Mommy’s Summer Reading List. Expats moving to Rio with older kids probably can’t put them into a competitive, Brazilian school like Agostinho or Bento. In that case, I’m forced to be a traitor and recommend the British school. Their students have a more solid foundation in math and English and the school’s a little cheaper.

Of course, if Chevron is footing your tuition bill, hell, go crazy. Enroll your kids, your maid’s kids, and your dog too. The campus is gorgeous and I think each student is given her own pet monkey.