can someone please explain the school systems there? (Chicago, Naperville: real estate, houses)

[annesg]

Hi all--I hope I can get a quick word or two of info about the schools there. I've spent nearly all my life in the SE portion of the country, where schools are districted by county--in other words, and ENTIRE county is a "school district." I keep seeing in my searches on this board district numbers. I'm lost!

Is there a "no fail" school district in the N/NW/NE suburbs? We're potentially relocating there and my #1 priority is great schools, followed by looking for a walkable community (I would LOVE to live where we could walk/bike to shops, restaurants, etc.; we have that now and love it). The house--looking for a 3/2.5 at a minimum if it has a basement; otherwise, we need a 4th bedroom/office.

Any wisdom?

Oh...and is there a realty website that lets you search by school district? Realtor.com is just so awkward to me.

[thePR]

First of there are no Northeast suburbs.

If you look at the North Shore that whole area is basically your idea of "no fail."

[gardener34]

Taxes are also funded through your property taxes. So the areas with the best schools generally may have high property taxes.

[Drover]

What's your real estate budget?

[annesg]

I think we'd go about 450k. We were hoping for less but it looks like housing is just a wee bit (smirk) more pricey there than in NC where we are now. We have an almost-new 5/4.5/2 3200sf house here with all the bells and whistles....not even fantasizing about that in Chicagoland! 3/2.5 with basement would be fine. Schools, and community feel, matter most.

[chet everett]

Some clarifications are in order.

It is true that the Chicago suburbs are characterized by a large number of relatively small schools districts. The borders of these districts generally DO NOT coincide exactly with the towns they serve. The separate taxing authorities in many cases came into existence at different times.

In general the advantage to the system that is common in the Chicago suburbs is that the elected School Board of a district was to be very responsive to the parents that the school district serves as well as respond to spending concerns of the resident property owners within a districts. The last phrase is key and it bears elucidation: RESIDENT PROPERTY OWNERS are the people that by virtue of living in an area can vote for in the School Board elections and because they are property owners they must PAY PROPERTY TAXES which are the primary means of support for the schools around suburban Chicago. The result of this is that areas with large numbers of non-residential properties can have very well equipped schools at relatively modest cost to the folks that use the schools. Becuase of the way in which property taxes are computed and referendums approved it is entirely possible to have a low tax rate and excellent schools. Similarly, in area where the most expensive homes bear a large burden of the taxes the relative amount that any normal tax payer shoulders is rather modest. The State of Illinos does report on the amount of property wealth each district has per student and the statistics pretty much show that districts that can afford to have lower tax rates per students (due to high property values / large amount of property wealth per student) can afford to spend the most.

HOWEVER the correlation between simple spending and student achievement is NOT BORNE OUT nearly as strongly as the correlation between areas with HIGH INCOMES and high student achievement. Thus the IDEAL school district is one with : Large percentage of high income parents, large amount of valuable real estate and above average proportion of non-residential property.

The first two are far more important than the third.

This explains the results of high achievement and LOW TAXES in districts like Butler 53 which serves portions of Oak Brook and District 103 in Lincolnshire becuase of the relative value of corporate office buildings and retail shopping areas.

The rest of the data can be cross checked via the stellar results of places like District181 which serves Hinsdale and most of Clarendon Hills and a bit of Burr Ridge in the western suburbs, and neighboring District101 in Western Springs. These are the most affluent area along the BNSF rail line where even with very high average home prices there are also a large number of individual homes that are valued at many times the high median prices. A similar situation can be found in PORTIONS of other schools districts and then the concept of "attendance area" is needed to explain how some portions of districts have much better performance than others. Thus large districts like Naperville 203 have some stellar schools and some that are 'merely' far above average.

I strongly recommend following the data from US News that does NOT rely solely one a one dimensional analysis like the weak tests the State of Illinois self administers. Unfortunately USNews does not include elementary schools so one must follow back to the feeder elementary schools and adjust for the weak State Tests which only attempt to set a minimum and thus far too many high performing distances are separated by fraction from 100% mastery and the selective admissions schools of the messed up CPS crowd the top (as would be expected when the admissions process for "gifted & talented" assumes mastery...)

Best High Schools Search - US News and World Report

http://www.chicagotribune.com/media/acrobat/2009-10/50168344.pdf (broken link)

[JustJulia]

I live in Naperville (SD 203 that Chet mentions above) and couldn't be happier. Houses here range from well below your budget to quite a bit more. This is a large town, geographically, and I don't consider it walkable--that is, it's not feasible to walk from my house to any shops other than a couple of strips malls near my neighborhood. We do have plenty of places to go for a walk, with lots of bike paths and walking paths near the river and through the prairie and forest preserves, but that's not the same thing.

[chet everett]

A fairly small percentage of Naperville is VERY walkable. The section nearest the Historic District as well as portion close to downtown would rate as walkable as any where in the state. Library, hospital , beach, commuter train elementary school, high school college all within a few blocks, together with both national retail chains and locally owned shops / resturants but this at the top of the list of development patterns to emulate. If Naperville was a town of about 15,000 all residents would be in a super walkable situation. Except that instead of sticking to the core the edges have grown and spread and population is over 100,000...

[JustJulia]

Originally Posted by chet everett

A fairly small percentage of Naperville is VERY walkable. The section nearest the Historic District as well as portion close to downtown would rate as walkable as any where in the state. Library, hospital , beach, commuter train elementary school, high school college all within a few blocks, together with both national retail chains and locally owned shops / resturants but this at the top of the list of development patterns to emulate. If Naperville was a town of about 15,000 all residents would be in a super walkable situation. Except that instead of sticking to the core the edges have grown and spread and population is over 100,000...

Yes, that's true, but those houses are not in the OP's price range. More like twice that.

[thePR]

Originally Posted by annesg

I think we'd go about 450k. We were hoping for less but it looks like housing is just a wee bit (smirk) more pricey there than in NC where we are now. We have an almost-new 5/4.5/2 3200sf house here with all the bells and whistles....not even fantasizing about that in Chicagoland! 3/2.5 with basement would be fine. Schools, and community feel, matter most.

I'd Look at Mount Prospect and Arlington Heights. They both have good schools and are nice cities.