Any up and coming school districts I should know about? (Cincinnati: college, voucher)

[Chemistry_Guy]

The greatest correlation I have seen to student success in college is the education level of the student's parents. For the most part, the children of other faculty, doctors, pharmacists, engineers, etc. are generally great students. On the other hand, students who are the first in their family to attend college are more likely to struggle. I know that it is difficult to decouple this effect from income, school district, and certain forms of cultural bias. Still, it has been my experience that the much less affluent children of adjunct history professors, for example, tend to do better than the children of much wealthier business owners or families that inherited wealth but have less experience in higher education.

[Wilson513]

Originally Posted by Chemistry_Guy

The greatest correlation I have seen to student success in college is the education level of the student's parents. For the most part, the children of other faculty, doctors, pharmacists, engineers, etc. are generally great students. On the other hand, students who are the first in their family to attend college are more likely to struggle. I know that it is difficult to decouple this effect from income, school district, and certain forms of cultural bias. Still, it has been my experience that the much less affluent children of adjunct history professors, for example, tend to do better than the children of much wealthier business owners or families that inherited wealth but have less experience in higher education.

Flash, this just in: Bears Still Using the National Forests.

[robrobrob]

Originally Posted by Wilson513

First off, it wasn't my idea to try to rate schools in the first place. My question was rhetorical. Trying reading the thread first.

Second, the SAT is intended to predict success in college, nothing more. It is no indicator of how they are doing in school at all. that is the last thing one would derive from an SAT score. And, as a part of that it mostly tests intelligence. Raw intelligence. Of course an intelligent person who has never been in an American government school classroom won't do as well as he would if he had, but he will still score miles above what a below average person who has dutifully done all of his homework and got decent grades at a good government school like Mariemont or Wyoming. Any intelligent kid from any school will outscore a below average kid from the best school. That's why they can study endlessly for the SAT, retake the test and the score goes up 1% or so.

So, try again.

I've read the thread. You were/are acting like a smart a**.

Again, parents are interested in preparing their children for the future. One indicator of this is what college they get into. The SAT is big factor in this. Sure, no one is going to ace the SAT just by taking an SAT prep course. It is all relative, how much better would a student do on the SAT if he went to one school over another. There is no clear way to determine this therefore the a school's overall SAT scores become relevant to a parent.

[Wilson513]

Originally Posted by Wilson513

There is a reason for that. And, the union owned demorat politicians have it set up to fail. It comparing apples with tadpoles.

First, the "charter schools" operate on less than half the $$ per student that CPS does. Second, parents do not get a voucher that they can use at their choice. They must spend it at a "participating charter school." They cannot spend the vouchers on existing private and religious affiliated schools. So, what you are left with is a new schools, formed by sometimes idealistic, sometimes opportunistic, persons run on a shoestring. Even so, I think you will find tremendous loyalty to some of these charter schools.

I think with St. Xavier HS costing no more than CPS, if you gave parents a voucher for what it is really costing CPS to educate the kids, no one would choose CPS. For a couple thousand plus the voucher you could send tyour kids to Country Day. Schools like Purcell cost half as much as CPS spends. Vouchers would work if they really were vouchers and not ghetto coupons.

Originally Posted by jlawrence01

What would be interesting is to compare the performance of the local parochial schools with those of the various public schools ...

Originally Posted by Wilson513

Choose a metric, I think most of the stats are published. Graduation rate, % admitted to college?

Originally Posted by robrobrob

I've read the thread. You were/are acting like a smart a**.

Again, parents are interested in preparing their children for the future. One indicator of this is what college they get into. The SAT is big factor in this. Sure, no one is going to ace the SAT just by taking an SAT prep course. It is all relative, how much better would a student do on the SAT if he went to one school over another. There is no clear way to determine this therefore the a school's overall SAT scores become relevant to a parent.

Try again, slowly, and see if you can see the point.

I said parochial schools would get the vouchers. Lawrence raised it as a question of whether parochial schools had better "performance". I invited a metric knowing, as we all do I hope, that parochial schools score far better than public schools, on average, by any metric. Is that hard to understand?

And, despite my explanation to you, you still are in the dark about SAT scores.

What more can one do.

[robrobrob]

Originally Posted by Wilson513

Try again, slowly, and see if you can see the point.

I said parochial schools would get the vouchers. Lawrence raised it as a question of whether parochial schools had better "performance". I invited a metric knowing, as we all do I hope, that parochial schools score far better than public schools, on average, by any metric. Is that hard to understand?

And, despite my explanation to you, you still are in the dark about SAT scores.

What more can one do.

You are still acting like an a**.

By the way, in Pennsylvania vouchers may actually happen. However, they would be limited to the poorest of the poor and only from the worst performin schools.

By the way, Catholic Schools aren't alway the greatest. At least in Pittsburgh, the premier Catholic high school has lower SAT scores than the top public high schools.

[Wilson513]

Originally Posted by robrobrob

You are still acting like an a**.

By the way, in Pennsylvania vouchers may actually happen. However, they would be limited to the poorest of the poor and only from the worst performin schools.

By the way, Catholic Schools aren't alway the greatest. At least in Pittsburgh, the premier Catholic high school has lower SAT scores than the top public high schools.

I take it you did not go to college. When you apply, they require a test called the SAT. If you look online you can see some sample questions. Then you will have an idea what I am talking about.

[progmac]

hey, i never took the SAT and i went to college. i took the ACT! a far superior test.

just kidding, i have no idea what i'm talking about

[Wilson513]

Originally Posted by progmac

hey, i never took the SAT and i went to college. i took the ACT! a far superior test.

just kidding, i have no idea what i'm talking about

Actually, you are correct. I took the ACT also. It had 4 (or was it 5) parts and probably did a better job at evaluating what you learned in school because it had more content related stuff. Of course today, the SAT has been watered down to respond to complaints that the life experiences of the disadvantaged do not prepare them as well for the test as the privileged who take it. A valid example of this was offered by a critic who said that if you put a subway schedule on the test and asked questions about the schedule you would get a better result from the urban poor than from the rich kids who had never been on a subway. OK, I get that.

[robrobrob]

Originally Posted by Wilson513

I take it you did not go to college. When you apply, they require a test called the SAT. If you look online you can see some sample questions. Then you will have an idea what I am talking about.

Try again. College graduate with two graduate degrees.

[Sarah Perry]

No expert on parochial schools, but I know two things. Performance measures for inner-city parochial schools with a large percentage of poor/minority/voucher students aren't so great. Not all schools are St. X just because of a certain religious affiliation. AND you better not say anything even remotely perceived as negative about Catholic schools around here. Too many people will take it personally.