Evanston vs. New Trier (Chicago, Glenview: equity, income, big home)

[chet everett]

Originally Posted by Lookout Kid

Berwyn isn't that bad either. You talk about it like it's Cicero or something.

The next tier down would be Cicero to Maywood...

Actually, Berwyn has a lower crime rate that Schaumburg, which many people may find surprising.

When you think about "break-ins" in Berwyn I bet a lot of them involve garages right off an alley -- it is just so easy to grab some garden tools and sell 'em to somebody in Cicero or something. Pretty easy to steal an older car parked on street too.

I'd be shocked if most of the crime in Schaumburg was not directly related to the malls -- from retail theft to auto related thefts & break-ins to even parking lot purse/package snatching. The damned subdivisions are so twistey that crooks would get lost trying to rob anybody...

To tie this the Evanston vs the towns that are part of the New Trier attendance area -- lots more people park on street or in surface parking lots in Evanston, most people in Wilmette, Winnetka, Kenilworth or going to have pretty substantial garages -- makes all that auto stuff harder to pull off. If somebody does break-in to a garage it is doesn't make sense to steal some garden tools are drive all the way Waukegan or the City to find someone to buy 'em. Retail theft? Kids shoplifting is probably the biggest issue. Now I'm sure there are plenty of elaborate organized robbers too, but the odds of somebody up their not having at least a fancy alarm if not something monitored by one of those guard services is a pretty good deterrent.

No doubt some kids from Evanston or NW steal from their own parents and/or neighbors. Bet much of that goes "unsolved by request"...

[Anthera]

Another thing to keep in mind is that even if NT has higher test scores overall, that doesn't mean that your child will necessarily get better scores by osmosis. It actually means that your kids may face tougher competition for AP classes and percentiles.

Parents need to decide what is important for their kids education, what the kids interests are, and what classes would peak their interests. All kids are not the same, there is no one choice that is best for all kids.

Any teenager who has the opportunity to go to either school is lucky.

[NUman]

I live in Glencoe and I can say that the educational system in Glencoe and in New Trier Township has exceeded my expectations. My feeling is that New Trier is the best high school in the country and you cannot do any better. The notable alumni list rivals that of top colleges. There simply is no comparison between Evanston and New Trier. I feel that people who purchase large homes in Evanston are getting ripped off especially when Glencoe is lower price when it comes to price per square foot in Evanston's desirable areas.

[Lookout Kid]

I was the one who originally brought up Schaumburg. By comparison to Evanston, I was trying to downplay the silly fears about Evanston crime. There are a couple of shrinking bad areas in Evanston. Stay away from them, and your chances of being a crime victim are greatly decreased.

Now, I realize that ETHS is adjacent to one of these "bad parts of Evanston", and this is a valid criticism of the school. But you can't condemn Evanston as a whole for being "high crime" when the opposite is really true.

[chet everett]

You make some good points, put "ripped off"? When you get to a certain price point it really is the "whole package" that people are buying -- they aren't just buying a house in a certain school district they are buying something that is on the block that is most appealing to them , maybe a view of the lake, or a historic architect or who knows what. Some people who get a multi-acre giant 25 room place in some town might feel that it is bargain, but they are no where near the lake. and honestly what are the odds that a kid from either place is going to the public schools?

I tend to agree that NT is among the better high school districts in the country, but is spread out over two campuses, that makes it sort of unique. The structure of Illinois school districts is sort of hard to compare to -- some of the feeder districts to NT do a better job of getting kids into the top ranks of NT grads, but most of the evidence is not tracked to the extent that you'd need to prove that one feeder is better. With Evanston it is a lot obvious. There are certainly individual public high schools in places as diverse as Chicago, Palo Alto, or New Jersey that have just as good if not better records of percentage of kids going on the top notch colleges, but few if any of them have school a long track record of success as a whole district...

Each school, it total is very different. That doesn't mean that kids at both schools can't have similar experiences with regard to post HS success. The frustrating thing is as a parent you have NO WAY to predict whether your child's experience at one HS or another are more likely to get them into a "better college". Here is the dilemma: You hava kid that is doing well, let's say in the point on standardized test where they have a legitimate shot at a range of very selective schools. I'm talking the kind of place that only 10% or less of the people that apply will have a slot. The kids continues to do well throughout HS. They apply to top tier. Harvard says no, Stanford says no, Yale says "waiting list", UofC says yes, Penn says yes. Was it that Evanston was not so good? Was it that your kid's talents did not match the slots that were available? Who knows. Such a kid is a slam dunk to get a nice safe back up admit to UIUC, maybe even a scholarship to many schools. If you and your kid lived in another town there is no way to predict the result. Frankly if you go to a school that ANY grads get into an Ivy and you don't is it the school's fault?

I mean I am sure that there are many high schools in Chicago where none of the kids get into even UIUC, in that case one could argue that the schools is kindy crappy OR you argue that NONE of the kids got there as freshmen capable of getting into a school even that competitive.

It might be more instructive to consider where one school's "bell curve peak" goes to college -- not the top kids that are way out on the edge of the curve that get into really good colleges that most people dream about, just the middle of the pack kids -- are they going to colleges a lot better than middle of the pack? It would also be very interesting to see how the scholarship picture lines up, and the minority profile and even how many kids have the kinds of classes to do well in a vocational field/community college.

Sadly I know that schools would not be happy to track such things. Even IMSA doesn't like to share too much of that sort of data. It is expensive and intrusive and can be used to suggest that maybe taxpayers aren't getting their money's worth from any schools...

Without that kind of data we are all sort like blind men describing an elephant

[Anthera]

Originally Posted by NUman

I feel that people who purchase large homes in Evanston are getting ripped off especially when Glencoe is lower price when it comes to price per square foot in Evanston's desirable areas.

But you're the same guy who told us that the North Shore Convention Center is the governing body of the North Shore villages - we're still waiting for your explanation of that one.

[Anthera]

Originally Posted by chet everett

It might be more instructive to consider where one school's "bell curve peak" goes to college -- not the top kids that are way out on the edge of the curve that get into really good colleges that most people dream about, just the middle of the pack kids -- are they going to colleges a lot better than middle of the pack? It would also be very interesting to see how the scholarship picture lines up, and the minority profile and even how many kids have the kinds of classes to do well in a vocational field/community college.

Sadly I know that schools would not be happy to track such things. Even IMSA doesn't like to share too much of that sort of data. It is expensive and intrusive and can be used to suggest that maybe taxpayers aren't getting their money's worth from any schools...

Without that kind of data we are all sort like blind men describing an elephant

I agree completely. Although there are other factors in the college ademissions that would muddy the picture. Some school have "NT quotas" because they don't want to admit too many kids from one high school. NT only has one valedictorain, one yearbook editor, etc. The sheer size of the school is a negative for kids who are not stars.

I live in the NT district and have tow kids in high school. One goes to NT, the other to a private academy. Do I like paying tuition when I pay tens of thousands of dollars in RE taxes? No. Do I think that its what that child needs? Yes. Do I (and many other parents) wish that instead of a freshman campus, NT had gone with plan B, a 1000 kid magnet campus in Northfield - absolutely, NT would have had the best of both worlds.

Chet - another interesting tracking would be of the different feeder elementary schools that are part of NT. They did it many many years ago, but then it became a political hot potato when JSS kids ended up outscoring and out placing the other school that feed into NT. I don't know if there would be a significat difference today, but there are test differences between the kids in from the three different elementary school in Winnetka.

[aragx6]

I think I would really dislike starting at New Trier on the freshman campus, going through the difficulty of getting around, learning the ropes and meeting new people only do have to do it all again as a sophomore. Could anyone that knows explain the reasoning?

[Anthera]

Many years ago there was only one campus at NT. As time went by the campus became more and more crowded. OCC had purchased land in Northfield to build a new campus, then changed their minds. The land and plans were offered to NT. A beautiful new campus was built - New Trier west.

However, as time went by, numbers went down and the two campuses were consolidated. the NT board wisely decided to retain ownership of west in case it was ever needed again. Eventually numbers went back up.

There was much discussion and gnashing of teeth. Should there be two campuses? (The parents on the west side were appalled that heir children would (gasp) go to school on the west side) Should there be a magnet school? Or a freshman campus. The freshman campus was the worst idea, but the most politically expedient one(everyone's kids would go to school together always).

the only good thing about the freshman campus is that it does semiprotect the freshman girls from the uppercalssmen at East.


BTW - I am being verrry politically incorrect by using "east" and "west". NT no longer uses NT west and NT east. the PC terms are "Winnetka campus" and "Northfield campus" because of course, "west " is a pejorative on the NS.

[chet everett]

Politics. Same as Lyons Township -- if they would have split the attendance areas so that only kids that came from Western Springs went to one campus that would have been like Hinsdale Central and the La Grange Campus would have been like Hinsdale South. Instead one campus is frosh soph, the other Jr./Sr.

NT doesn't really have an area as bad off as Hodgkins, so the fall off would not be as dramatic, but people spend A LOT of money to be "in district" and for years that meant ONE SCHOOL.

Way way back when NT ran two full campuses there were fairly different ideas about what high school meant -- competition for slots at state schools is WAY tougher, you have people that would sue to keep their kid in school, fortunes in real estate have been made by people who exists as Realtors to those seeking a home in the district...