Please advise - Public school vs private school (home, living)

[Dkeating]

If Bill Gates and I are sitting alone at a bar, the average net worth of the people at the bar is somewhere around $40 billion dollars. Doesn't really tell you much about what either one of us is worth.

About 50% of Grady High's students qualify for free or reduced lunch, and don't do that well on standardized tests, on average. The other half come from some of the wealthiest families in the metro, and do pretty well on the tests, on average. The average test scores at Grady or Inman don't tell you much. I don't understand the emphasis people put on a school's average scores. And that's what I for the most part understand people to be talking about when I hear, "The schools in Morningside/Buckhead/VaHi aren't as good beginning in middle school." I may be wrong--they may be talking about overcrowding, bad school environment, etc. Correct me if I'm wrong. I just hate to think that people are making big expensive decisions like that based on a school's average test scores, or some website or magazine ranking of "best schools."

I certainly wouldn't pay for private school for my kid if I lived in the Grady district. Of course, I couldn't fathom having enough money to do that anyway.

[AtlJan]

For our family, the smaller class sizes, smaller school size, the transparency and responsiveness of the administration, and the consistent excellence we have seen among the teachers have made private school worth every penny for us. It depends on your child, your finances, and so many other factors.

[purplebread]

Originally Posted by AnsleyPark

There are good intown options. I have a child who attended Morningside elementary - it was okay. Now, I live in the burbs (Forsyth) and have a child in the Lambert system. The Lambert system beats the intown system hands down.

I now commute between Forsyth and town. FOR ME, the education Forsyth county schools provides outweighs the inconvenience of my commute. But, different strokes for different folks.

To achieve an educational experience intown that equals the Forsyth school experience will require private school. That cost, plus increased housing costs, plus vastly increased property tax will be an additional burden you should consider.

Really appreciate your feedback, AnsleyPark! It confirmed our thought that we would put our child in a private school if we were to move in town. At the same time we are wary of the extra cost that comes with intown living and private school. It is a really hard decision for us to make. We thought we had made up our mind to stay put then it would only take a bad traffic day to sway us to other way.
If you don't mind, could you share how do people with long commute to work handle their children's school drop off and pick up ? Especially in the morning we need to hit the road before school bus comes. Thank you!

[PacinoWig]

Originally Posted by Dkeating

If Bill Gates and I are sitting alone at a bar, the average net worth of the people at the bar is somewhere around $40 billion dollars. Doesn't really tell you much about what either one of us is worth.

About 50% of Grady High's students qualify for free or reduced lunch, and don't do that well on standardized tests, on average. The other half come from some of the wealthiest families in the metro, and do pretty well on the tests, on average. The average test scores at Grady or Inman don't tell you much. I don't understand the emphasis people put on a school's average scores. And that's what I for the most part understand people to be talking about when I hear, "The schools in Morningside/Buckhead/VaHi aren't as good beginning in middle school." I may be wrong--they may be talking about overcrowding, bad school environment, etc. Correct me if I'm wrong. I just hate to think that people are making big expensive decisions like that based on a school's average test scores, or some website or magazine ranking of "best schools."

I certainly wouldn't pay for private school for my kid if I lived in the Grady district. Of course, I couldn't fathom having enough money to do that anyway.

Average test scores by themselves don't tell you much. It's not hard to have impressive average scores when your student population is less than 15 percent free and reduced lunch, unless you happen to be running a charter school in Grant Park.

Burgess Peterson Academy in East Atlanta, for example. It's the kind of school that would be immediately written off by most people, because their average test scores are not impressive per se - they are in no danger of having better scores than schools in the northern suburbs or City of Decatur anytime soon.

But take all the schools in the state and plot average CRCT scores against FRL students as a percentage of total student body, and Burgess Peterson produces better scores than their FRL percentage predicts. This means that either non-FRL kids do well enough to raise average scores for the school as a whole or the administration is doing a good job figuring out how to get better academic performance out of economically disadvantaged students. Either way, Burgess Peterson is a much better school than it is just going on average CRCT scores. The recently closed Coan Middle in Kirkwood performed similarly (makes sense that they closed it instead of King, right?) Someone actually did the kind of statistical analysis mentioned above, I wish I had the link handy.

[PacinoWig]

Here it is. This is a pretty useful tool for evaluating Georgia public schools, IMO.

Grading Atlanta • Bending the Curve: Why CCRPI Misleads Educators and Parents

To elaborate - Burgess Peterson has 80 percent free and reduced lunch kids and has average CRCT scores of 85.20. Pretty impressive, and about 10 points higher than the average Georgia school with a comparable population of free and reduced lunch kids. Morningside, to use another quality APS school mentioned in this thread, has only 8 percent free and reduced lunch kids, with CRCT scores of 96.10. Better, but not earth-shatteringly better. Mary Lin has only 12 percent free and reduced lunch kids, but CRCT scores only 1.2 points higher than Burgess Peterson despite being perceived (not wrongly) as one of the best public elementary schools in APS. So, you really have to look past preconceptions to figure out how well a school is really doing.

Also, the aforementioned Grant Park Charter school is doing just fine. Sorry if I offended any Grant Park residents, my bad.

[AtlJan]

Originally Posted by purplebread

Really appreciate your feedback, AnsleyPark! It confirmed our thought that we would put our child in a private school if we were to move in town. At the same time we are wary of the extra cost that comes with intown living and private school. It is a really hard decision for us to make. We thought we had made up our mind to stay put then it would only take a bad traffic day to sway us to other way.
If you don't mind, could you share how do people with long commute to work handle their children's school drop off and pick up ? Especially in the morning we need to hit the road before school bus comes. Thank you!

I think it was suggested earlier, and I'll second it--you could look at closer in suburbs. Why not the Heard's Ferry, Riverwood area? Your commute would be shorter, but you could use the public schools and your housing dollars would go farther than if you were buying in the city of Atlanta...Heard's Ferry's PTA is very strong, with parent volunteers working in the classrooms to make the class sizes seem smaller. . .

[Dkeating]

Originally Posted by PacinoWig

It's not hard to have impressive average scores when your student population is less than 15 percent free and reduced lunch, unless you happen to be running a charter school in Grant Park.

I didn't think ANCS was an exception to the first part of the sentence. According to DOE records its free and reduced lunch percentage was 13.4% last year. I cringe whenever I see people pointing out ANCS as an example of what charter schools can do. It's really not an apples to apple comparison with Parkside (77% Frl eligible).

[aries4118]

You should look in the Smyrna/Vinings/Mableton area.

Here are the school districts you should try:

King Springs Elementary
Nickajack Elementary
Teasley Elementary
Smyrna Elementary
Mableton Elementary


CCSD Elementary Schools

District Attendance Zone and Other Maps

[PacinoWig]

Originally Posted by Dkeating

I didn't think ANCS was an exception to the first part of the sentence. According to DOE records its free and reduced lunch percentage was 13.4% last year. I cringe whenever I see people pointing out ANCS as an example of what charter schools can do. It's really not an apples to apple comparison with Parkside (77% Frl eligible).

Not even close. If you could get a traditional public school with the student population of ANCS, I suspect that you'd have similar results. Then again, traditional public schools can't really choose their students the way charter schools can.

The Georgia charter that probably deserves the most attention is the mostly-ignored Dekalb Path (96% FRL) north of Town Brookhaven, which outperforms all but a handful of traditional public schools in Dekalb County, all of which have a lower FRL percentage.

[LovelySummer]

This. Why are people always talking about the performance at charter schools relative to other schools? I don't get it. Everybody knows there is no comparison. Charter schools can cherry pick the best students of those that have applied or at the very least say they do not have the resources (and therefore will not admit) students that have learning difficulties, english as a second language, behavior issues, etc. All of these kids are taken by regular publics so there is really no comparison. Then by virtue of the charter school process (parents must be interested enough in the kid's education to go to the trouble of applying to a special school, adhering to more stringent rules, etc.) you are automatically segmenting a portion of the population that probably would do ok with decent resources in the traditional public schools. So the mention of charter schools is mostly somewhat irrelevant with respect to traditional public schools. Charter schools are really like a step between public and private.

Originally Posted by PacinoWig

Then again, traditional public schools can't really choose their students the way charter schools can.