Taylor Park Area in Oak Park (Chicago, Hinsdale: apartment, house prices, schools)
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No chip on my shoulder and certainly if there is some secret trove of any kind data that supports your assertions that students are achieving at the highest levels but are being missed by the objective data of the ISBE I would certainly be more than happy to review it.
I've said before I do have direct experience with Oak Park. It is nice place. I like the FLW sites, I respect the efforts that most residents take in maintaining their homes and promoting the town. What I do not understand is how some folks claim their is something magical that cannot be understood by data. That sounds awfully close to saying "forget the data and believe the story I make up".
Proof is in the pudding, or the colleges many Oak Park kids get accepted to.
No magic, just pure and simple research and analysis. There's a difference between "forget the data and believe the story I make up", and review the data through analysis, but that simple difference seems to be lost on some. Speaking of making up stories, that seems to be a passion of yours, at least in regards to the picturing of Oak Park and it's residents, which would indicate that you do indeed have a chip on your shoulder, yet stories you tell do call into question this so called "direct experience" you've had in the village... must have been that time when you sold someone a house in north west Oak Park while warding them off from the rest of it, as undesirable. You know, visiting a place a few times could be called "direct experience" to some, and in that case, I have "direct experience" of a lot of places, but the "direct experience" one gains as a resident affords them a different perspective on the day to day realities of it's activities, institutions and residents.
Last edited by chitownperson; 06-20-2012 at 01:32 AM..
Wait, are you saying you have to live in a place to weigh in on a topic related to that place? Do you now or have you past in lived in Oak Park's Taylor Park area? If the only folks qualified to comment on such narrow choices the participate of City -Data would certainly not be attractive to the advertisers that our host wishes to attract...
Most of the information I've posted about the school that one would attend has been directed at the elementary level. If you care to shift focus to that I 'll be happy to look at data regarded OPRF high school.
There is no doubt that give the large base of high income people throughout Oak Park that it is expected to have decent percentage of students get accepting into colleges. There are MANY sources that do in fact track the rate of college acceptance, especially US News and Newsweek. If there was anything exceptional about OPRF there is nothing cited at either publication to suggest OPRF is pretty run of the mill. The ISBE does in fact use track college readiness as measured by aggregate ACT performance as well as subject areas data. As I have said, OPRF performs Ok, but it is not any kind of standout. Just for comparison sake here is how it stacks up against Downers Grove North -- College Readiness DG North vs OPRF College Readiness Lest you cite some unique virtue that OPRF has due to its higher percentage of low income students here are the scatter plots that show it falls right in line with the trends: OPRF Low Income performance vs Donwers Grove North Low Income Perfromance slightly less low income and slightly better performance.
I honestly don't think Oak Park is a bad place or OPRF is a particularly atrocious choice for most students. If your goal is find a spot that is less iffy than Chicago but still puts you close enough to hope an El then the next most obvious choice of Evanston performs about the same on College Readiness ETHS College Readiness but a bit wrse on the low income achievement ETHS Low Income Performance , right about where the trend line would predict with larger numbers of low income students...
It very much is in the best interest of schools to track their success in getting students into colleges and the success that kids have in those college. Given the enormous pressure from both the overall community puts on schools to be accountable and the feedback that parents demand I am fairly confident that most districts have explored how they could compile such data. Given that they do not currently release such info my inclination is to believe it does not reflect favorably on school. I don't mean just OPRF or ETHS or even other well regarded schools that anyone that lives inside their boundaries can attend, I know for a fact that IMSA, th crown jewel of Illinois' efforts to foster selective admissions at a merit based no-fee residential high school, has not felt it serves them to release detailed info about either the kind of schools its graduates excel at or the relative success in helping students from disadvantaged backgrounds achieve success that might otherwise be out of their reach...
I don't doubt that the trade-offs one accepts in living in any part of a town with high taxes are particularly easy to swallow and I stress hard numbers in an effort to both encourage others to demand more of their local officials / schools, not to make those choices any harder...
FWIW, another advantage of Oak Park versus more outer suburbs is the ability to live with decreased reliance on the automobile. Given the ever escalating costs of car ownership, the ability to decrease number of miles driven and/or number of cars owned saves significant amounts of money. In addition to those cost savings, there are the unquantifiable (in terms of dollars) health benefits of greater reliance on walking and biking.
Last edited by oakparkdude; 06-20-2012 at 06:58 AM..
Agreed. and probably a bit easier than from Evanston...
...in general Oak Park is more compact than Evanston, which is really the only other town with as many Metra and CTA options as Oak Park. I have no problem "giving credit where credit is due" and folks that want to really get by with minimal car use can do it easier in Oak Park than anywhere other than Chicago. Now I certainly won't diminish the ease of using Metra to get to and from work in other towns, but as a far as towns with the whole range of CTA/Metra being able to help meet needs for shopping and such Oak Park would be hard to say is other than top notch. Even the parts a bit farther from the core are still generally only a few blocks from at least an arterial bus line, and probably one that runs 24x7.
Quote:
Originally Posted by oakparkdude
FWIW, another advantage of Oak Park versus more outer suburbs is the ability to live with decreased reliance on the automobile. Given the ever escalating costs of car ownership, the ability to decrease number of miles driven and/or number of cars owned saves significant amounts of money. Also unquantifiable in terms of dollars are the health benefits of greater reliance on walking and biking.
Wait, are you saying you have to live in a place to weigh in on a topic related to that place? Do you now or have you past in lived in Oak Park's Taylor Park area? If the only folks qualified to comment on such narrow choices the participate of City -Data would certainly not be attractive to the advertisers that our host wishes to attract...
Most of the information I've posted about the school that one would attend has been directed at the elementary level. If you care to shift focus to that I 'll be happy to look at data regarded OPRF high school.
There is no doubt that give the large base of high income people throughout Oak Park that it is expected to have decent percentage of students get accepting into colleges. There are MANY sources that do in fact track the rate of college acceptance, especially US News and Newsweek. If there was anything exceptional about OPRF there is nothing cited at either publication to suggest OPRF is pretty run of the mill. The ISBE does in fact use track college readiness as measured by aggregate ACT performance as well as subject areas data. As I have said, OPRF performs Ok, but it is not any kind of standout. Just for comparison sake here is how it stacks up against Downers Grove North -- College Readiness DG North vs OPRF College Readiness Lest you cite some unique virtue that OPRF has due to its higher percentage of low income students here are the scatter plots that show it falls right in line with the trends: OPRF Low Income performance vs Donwers Grove North Low Income Perfromance slightly less low income and slightly better performance.
I honestly don't think Oak Park is a bad place or OPRF is a particularly atrocious choice for most students. If your goal is find a spot that is less iffy than Chicago but still puts you close enough to hope an El then the next most obvious choice of Evanston performs about the same on College Readiness ETHS College Readiness but a bit wrse on the low income achievement ETHS Low Income Performance , right about where the trend line would predict with larger numbers of low income students...
It very much is in the best interest of schools to track their success in getting students into colleges and the success that kids have in those college. Given the enormous pressure from both the overall community puts on schools to be accountable and the feedback that parents demand I am fairly confident that most districts have explored how they could compile such data. Given that they do not currently release such info my inclination is to believe it does not reflect favorably on school. I don't mean just OPRF or ETHS or even other well regarded schools that anyone that lives inside their boundaries can attend, I know for a fact that IMSA, th crown jewel of Illinois' efforts to foster selective admissions at a merit based no-fee residential high school, has not felt it serves them to release detailed info about either the kind of schools its graduates excel at or the relative success in helping students from disadvantaged backgrounds achieve success that might otherwise be out of their reach...
I don't doubt that the trade-offs one accepts in living in any part of a town with high taxes are particularly easy to swallow and I stress hard numbers in an effort to both encourage others to demand more of their local officials / schools, not to make those choices any harder...
I'm saying that living in a place always gives the person much more real knowledge in comparison to an armchair quarterback that looks up a few stats every now and again, and yes, I do live around Taylor Park. What I find weak is when some people come on here and pretend to be an authority on a place they've spent minimal time in based on a few numbers ANYONE in ANY country could pull up.
I was talking about the elementary schools, you know, academic excellence and human character development start at a young age, not in high school. I'm always game to converse about other schools, but You've shown in and past and present that your arguement is just more of the same, raw data without analysis.
See the problem with your whole arguement about condescendingly coining OAk Park schools as "not atrocious" is that your lumping everyone together and judging the school, as oppose to the many students with excellent academic records that show an excellent level of education is to be had.
We could go on and talk about how if a large group of minorities from families with uninvolved parents and or poor parents that could not afford extra tuition... some how miraculously found a way to send their kids to Hinsdale Central, how Hinsdale Central would be struggling to keep their head above water, and then we could use that raw data to make the conclusion about how its actually an average institution, since it could not pulll those certain students up to the level of the top tier. But we all know that would never happen with the lack of low income properties... Plus with some of the reviews as to how some minorities get treated at the high school, I'd imagine that a good percentage of residents would be running for the hills in the event of a large influx of low income minority families. Or we could talk about the Herion abuse problems places like Hindales pretend they don't have... If people are happy with the children being in a place where the life values are about having the most expensive material item, having unregulated allowances, unregulated parties with an abundance of substances purchased from the west side of Chicago while mommy and daddy are off in the Carrabien, and insulating ones child from anything other than rich white people, then places like Hisdale may be the correct choice. The attitude of superiority by sending ones children to a school where everyone else is privileged seems to be alive and well in H. I'd highly recommend to anyone looking to move into any area to do as much of a back ground on the place as possible, which will include some data, talking to a variety of people and heavy amounts of analysis.
So, more of the same generic arguement about raw data is not impressively revealing about anything other than the lack of supporting analysis.
Oak Park schools provide a top tier education for anyone will to work for it, with involved parents, but that's the case with all schools that provide good educations.
Last edited by chitownperson; 06-20-2012 at 12:40 PM..
Jeez, what a bunch of hot air. Any reasonable person who went to the school, met some of the teachers, looked around the classrooms, talked to parents, investigated the curriculum, and analyzed the test scores would come to the conclusion that it is a good school. Then, of course, we have unreasonable people who have not done any real research and they come to different conclusions....
I don't think anyone on this thread has suggested that it is a "bad" school. The objective data shows there are schools within the same district that are better. That, together with the fact that it is a little further from the core of town, and is not as visually appealing as the leafiest blocks, largely explains the lower prices. Depending on how important schools and being close to the core are to the OP they ought to be cross-shopping smaller homes closer to the more desirable parts of town. The price stability in the better parts of town has shown more consistency, and as the pressure on budgets increases the potential impact of housing prices as real estate taxes rise should be a primary consideration. Frankly I have the same advice for home shoppers ANYWHERE given the current status of Illinois budgetary mess. Whether you are shopping for a single family home inside Chicago in a pricey area close to the lake or something more affordable out near Midway or in any suburb, from the most posh to the most pedestrian the potential to see real estate taxes sky rocket from current levels is more than a remote chance. Unless Speaker Madigan gets serious about make dramatic changes in how isolated the various pension systems in the state are (with separated responsibilities for CPS, other teachers, state employees and municipal workers...) the additional burdens that will be needed to sustain current services and make-up for decades of deferred contributions to the systems that state legislators did not make taxes could rise to paralyzing levels -- 50% or more increase are possible. If current taxes are already high for the level of services one receives what happens when things escalate? It just makes sense to have the kind of neighbors that can best cope with such increases instead of those that will suffer the most if there are cuts...
I don't think anyone on this thread has suggested that it is a "bad" school. The objective data shows there are schools within the same district that are better. That, together with the fact that it is a little further from the core of town, and is not as visually appealing as the leafiest blocks, largely explains the lower prices. Depending on how important schools and being close to the core are to the OP they ought to be cross-shopping smaller homes closer to the more desirable parts of town. The price stability in the better parts of town has shown more consistency, and as the pressure on budgets increases the potential impact of housing prices as real estate taxes rise should be a primary consideration. Frankly I have the same advice for home shoppers ANYWHERE given the current status of Illinois budgetary mess. Whether you are shopping for a single family home inside Chicago in a pricey area close to the lake or something more affordable out near Midway or in any suburb, from the most posh to the most pedestrian the potential to see real estate taxes sky rocket from current levels is more than a remote chance. Unless Speaker Madigan gets serious about make dramatic changes in how isolated the various pension systems in the state are (with separated responsibilities for CPS, other teachers, state employees and municipal workers...) the additional burdens that will be needed to sustain current services and make-up for decades of deferred contributions to the systems that state legislators did not make taxes could rise to paralyzing levels -- 50% or more increase are possible. If current taxes are already high for the level of services one receives what happens when things escalate? It just makes sense to have the kind of neighbors that can best cope with such increases instead of those that will suffer the most if there are cuts...
I am doing my best to stay away from this thread. I just need to clarify some misconceptions. The Taylor Park area is not far from the "core" of town, and closer to the core than the folks that live in 70% of Oak Park. It's actually a convenient area of town with tons of one car families. Walking to the farmer's market and Ridgeland Commons pool is amazing, and two core activities.
The objective data, as collected by the ISBE, has established that Whittier's non iep non low income kids perform the same or better than kids at other schools, especially with similar demographics (like a median income of $128,000). Whittier's composite scores are lower due to the vagaries of NCLB laws, like safe harbor.
I used to live in the "Taylor Park area," actually north of Division, east of Ridgeland. The wife and I routinely (every Sunday) walked to downtown OP for Oberweis. So it's not THAT far - a half hour walk.
As for the left turn the discussion took about property taxes, I have no idea where that's coming from. Except it must be yet another attempt to steer buyers away from OP and Cook County, to the more-affordable towns of Hinsdale and Western Springs. Apparently houses are being given away in Hinsdale, with almost no property taxes to boot.
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