DH and I are thinking about moving. We are considering a lot of different areas in our current city. Some of the areas have great schools and others are not so great. LO is almost a year old so I am trying to decide how important the ratings really are. If you were moving with a one-year-old how low of a rating would you go on the elementary school?
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I don't put that much stock in, say, the ratings on GreatSchools.org. They're all based on test scores and usually "good" heavily correlates with "rich/white." Our neighborhood school is a 6/10 on the website but we took a tour and were impressed, and the people we know whose kids go there are happy with it. It has a lot of racial and socioeconomic diversity, which brings its own benefits and challenges, but I still think it will be a good enough environment for my kids.
By contrast, I just looked up the elementary school I went to and it's a 9/10. It's a good school, no doubt, but also exclusively upper middle class, which also has its own challenges.
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Not sure by what you mean by rating (Greatschools?). I assume you are in MA? I am in MA also and would probably be ok with a school that is considered "middle of the pack" by MA standards, as MA schools are some of the best in the country on average. We are in one of the cities that has a lottery system though, so we will probably be moving before our LO hits K. Even though the district as a whole is probably considered "middle", there are some pretty low performing schools here and I don't want to leave it to chance to see if our LO has to attend one of those. Since we will be moving anyway, we will probably go to one of the better school districts. If I knew for sure which school I could get here though, I might stay.
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@hummusgirl: that makes a lot of sense and something I didn't know (regarding what the ratings are based on). The not great schools in my areas are definitely the "up and coming" neighborhoods aka not yet gentrified.
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@catlady: I'm in Portland OR. the schools here are already known for not really being very good so it's something that's weighing heavily on our decision.
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@hummusgirl: it's on the realtor app I've been using. Here's the blurb about the ratings
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I think anything below 7 would give me pause.
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@Portboston: Lol, I totally missed the dog avatar. Oops! We have a statewide exam called the MCAS that makes it a little easier to sort and compare schools. Do you have something like that? Otherwise, I believe the site niche might be a little better than Greatschools.
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@catlady: that's a great resource thank you! I just checked a school that is rated a 1 on this realtor app and on niche it's a B-. Good to know there are different ways to check things out!
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It's really about the teacher, but I also want my kids to have peers with educated parents. If at all possible I would visit a school or try to find a message board or pta where I could chat with actual parents if the school didn't have great test scores. I totally agree t st scores are more a product of socioeconomic status, sometimes the teaching can still be quite subpar with a high rating. (I work in education.)
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I agree that the greatschools.org rating is highly associated with income (percentage of children who get free/reduced lunch). So higher ratings generally correlate with richer/whiter areas. Though student/teacher ratio and test scores are also factor in the rating.
That being said, we are in the middle of moving to a nearby city with crazy high property taxes just to get into that school district. All of the schools are rated 8-10.
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I want to say it doesn't matter to me at all, but in truth, it does. At the end of the day, I went with a school that is brand new, has no test scores at all, but I felt it is the right choice based on the track record of other schools in that district.
What I've learned so far in my search for a public school for my son is that if you have parents that have to "compete" for spots (charter, magnet), you tend to get higher parental involvement in the school. That means more fundraising, extra curricular stuff, etc. Those are the kinds of parents that I want to be around, they inspire ME to get involved and be part of the community.
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I'm in Portland metro as well, and we will almost certainly move before our 10 month old starts school, so this is on my mind as well. I voted 6. I believe that the teachers and involvement of the parents can be the difference between a good education and a great one. However, I know a lot of people go solely off of ratings and I would want to increase our chances of re-selling our house easily by buying in a highly rated school zone.
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I live in the Portland metro area also. When we bought our house it was before kids were a factor. I will gladly stay here looks like B/C is the rating depending on the site. I just think the ratings are so subjective. I'd go low, but I am also considering private school. So it's really more how I feel about the school and other people's experiences that I can speak to in person.
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@LindsayLou: @youboots: We're currently in the sellwood-moreland area which is really the best area on the eastside as far as schools go. But our house is just becoming smaller and smaller. We're looking at the westside but really love the walkability of the eastside. Im open to north portland but the schools there aren't as good. I really don't want to deal with the expense of private. I know a lot of people here go private and I respect that, I just know that there are plenty of good public schools (I went to public my whole life so I have no issues with it!)
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@Mrs Green Grass: Thank you for your input. Its good to hear from people in education!
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We moved 2 years ago and def had to do a lot of thinking. For awhile we only had a list of potential cities and for some of those cities I felt like the public school situation was completely abysmal and safety would even be a concern. So when we found out what city I was happy, there's plenty of less than stellar schools but they don't have bad safety reputations and decent parental involvement.
We ended up in a school with a very good rating but low diversity. If we had been 800 meters in, we'd be in a great, diverse, highly rated city school but the taxes were higher and properties much smaller. We ended up limiting ourselves to looking just in the top few city schools and a few on the outskirts bc the reading level percentage even at third grade was really low in some schools. Some of our friends are spending close to 20k on kindergarten next year for private school but at this point in our lives id much rather that $$ go to housing than kindergarten. -
Our state does school grades and while it's based on test scores other things are also a factor (like improvements/gains for the lowest achieving students). Things like that are important to make sure all students are getting services/education. I would look into seeing if your state has something similar.
Also you can look at some of the international assessment data such as TIMMS/PISA/PIRLS
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I live here in Portland too, and my daughter is starting kindergarten this year, so I have a lot to say about this. We live four blocks from a 'good' elementary school, which just means that we're in a white, middle class neighborhood. Right nearby, though, is the lowest rated school in the district.
And why is it so poorly rated? Well, it's in a very poor neighborhood. There are a ton of kids who don't speak English. Tons of food and housing insecurity. Stressed out, hungry kids. High turnover amongst the staff, because they're not paid enough to deal with all they're asked to. High burn out in the remaining staff because again, they're really not paid enough.
So, before rejecting a school as 'bad', I'd want to know why. So many English language learners that their overall test scores are low? High poverty and poor graduation rates? High teacher turn over?
When we went to our school, I looked at a few things. Were the teachers burnt out? Were they experienced? Were there toys in the classroom? How were the administrators? All of these were positive, so my daughter will be going to her neighborhood school this fall.
I have a lot more to say about Portland schools, so wall me if you want to chat.
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@Portboston: I just saw your update. I live in north Portland. I am zoned for Roosevelt high, which is not great, but might be in ten years. I would not move into the Jefferson district - that school is not fixable, imho. There are good and not so good elementary schools up here, and also tons of charter schools. It's good up here.
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@sarac: thank you SO much for all that info. That is super super helpful! We're currently deciding between southwest, north and milwaukie. Obviously southwest has the better of the schools (per the ratings) but they're also predominantly white and richer. So this has all given me great food for thought and it's invaluable to hear first hand from someone who is going through it!
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