Akron Ohio High Schools - What happenend? (Stow, Kent: neighborhood, magnet schools)

[totsuka]

A friend of mine is being relocated to Akron Ohio and we were looking at various high schools for his two daughters. I could not find any of the various high schools rated beyond a 5 (Firestone) with the average score being a 2.

What happened to the Akron Public High Schools? They used to have such a great reputation, but that was going back 30 years, but it appears they are really sinking or have already sunk.

[reed303]

You need to look outside of Akron. Tallmadge High is an 8, as is Stow-Monroe Falls.

Since the demise of the rubber industry in Akron, it is a dying, hollowed out city. Much like Detroit, for many of the same reasons.

FWIW, I attended McEbright Elem in Akron 1950-1956, Tallmadge Jr & HS 1956-1961. Did very well for myself based on just a HS education, but not in Akron :-(

[SquareBetterThanAll]

Originally Posted by reed303

You need to look outside of Akron. Tallmadge High is an 8, as is Stow-Monroe Falls.

Since the demise of the rubber industry in Akron, it is a dying, hollowed out city. Much like Detroit, for many of the same reasons.

FWIW, I attended McEbright Elem in Akron 1950-1956, Tallmadge Jr & HS 1956-1961. Did very well for myself based on just a HS education, but not in Akron :-(

That's a load of BS that it is necessary to go to the suburbs to find good schools.

Admittedly many of the neighborhood high schools in Akron are not so hot, but Akron has absolutely fantastic magnet schools that surpass what any of the suburban schools offer. I say this from familiarity with both.

Akron Science, Technology, Engineering and Math High School ("Excellent" state rating) is amazing. Akron Early College (10 out of 10 rating/"Excellent" state rating/Gold ranking on USNews & World Report's "Best Public High Schools" list) regularly blows it out of the water and the kids all graduate with Associates Degrees. It is on the UA campus.

Firestone gets hit on those non-education website scores because it takes general ed kids as well and has a higher instance of poverty, etc. even though a significant amount of the students are middle class or above. Akron School for the Arts is housed there, they have a fantastic Engineering program, and it is one of the few schools in the region that offers the coveted International Baccalaureate program. Firestone is frequently featured in Newsweek's top public high schools list.

I can, with 100% certainty, tell you that if your child has a desire to go into a STEM/Engineering field or performing arts that none of the suburban schools offer comprehensive and fully immersive programs like APS does. None.

If you have a kid that wants a gen ed walk-on neighborhood school, yes, the suburban schools as a whole will outperform most of the Akron neighborhood high schools. The downside of having great magnet programs is that it does skim the best and the brightest from the neighborhood schools.

It drives me absolutely up the wall when I hear people such as yourself (and I know it comes from an unfamiliarly, not some malicious intent) say that you must go to the suburbs for a quality education. Heck, APS offers engineering, robotics, and Chinese to MIDDLE SCHOOL students. (That is also an "Excellent" rated school).

The chuckle here is that a chunk of each of those programs are also populated by kids from suburban districts. If you go to PTA meetings it's amusing to see that there are kids from Medina County and Kent (among other areas) whose parents drive a half an hour so their kids can go there. I personally steered my own kids from one of the excellent rated suburban districts to APS specifically because the suburban district did not have comparable programs.

Ok, that's my rant.

[totsuka]

That's interesting..we will look at the STEM schools....the kids there must have a desire to be there vice just going because they are told to go....