[kidyankee764]

Originally Posted by emillswrx

Thanks for the feedback. These are definitely places to look at. What are the good sources for understanding the districts outside of looking at test scores and rankings? To throw in an alternative, if my wife leaves her Yale job, we are free to look further up 91. Any thoughts on areas further up 91/ closer to MA? We are more familiar with the areas down towards New Haven, but will consider this option as well. As you can imagine it gets hard to narrow down areas that we are less familiar with so any input will help and thanks for the feedback thus far.

You can check out Glastonbury. While it's a pretty affluent town, the home prices aren't exhorbitant and it's a very nice community. Great schools, too.

[anon860]

I agree with the New Haven suggestion. For elementary schools, there are several good options in New Haven - one of the K-8 schools in New Haven was recently ranked the 3rd best out of hundreds of elementary schools in the state based on its test scores.

There is an enormous bias against cities on this board, probably because 1) if you want a larger home with some land around it, living in New Haven is significantly more expensive than most of the suburbs, so a lot of folks can't really afford it, and 2) so many posters live in the suburbs and want to protect their investments there.

The fact is people focus on averages. Of course the averages are going to be lower in a city which is very diverse, but the average tells you little about the experience of a single student. Averages do not compare apples to apples especially in city districts which track students into honors, magnet, and other programs.

If you do choose to live near your job, the time and money that you save from not commuting can be reinvested in your children, instead of driving and making yourself obese. If you lose your job, you also have a lot more options if you live in the center of a metro area with good transit. This is why many of the highest achieving young families are choosing cities over suburban towns. Granted, some of them use private schools, but many do not.

For example, here are how White students do on the Reading 10th grade CAPT tests (2011 data):

% of Students At or Above Goal

Wilbur Cross New Haven 71%
Career New Haven 53%
Coop New Haven 53%
North Haven 53%
Branford 50%
Guilford 81%
West Haven 24%
Amity 83%
Hamden 44%
Milford - Law HS 47%
Milford - Foran HS 39%
Cheshire 66%

Here is how they do on Math 10th grade CAPT:
% At or Above Goal

Wilbur Cross New Haven 74%
Career New Haven 47%
Coop New Haven 46%
North Haven 66%
Branford 58%
Guilford 78%
West Haven 27%
Amity 81%
Hamden 48%
Milford - Law HS 50%
Milford - Foran HS 46%
Cheshire 76%

As you can see, the city schools actually outperform many of their suburban peers if you compare apples to apples. If you adjusted further (e.g., looking at student incomes), I think the city schools may stack up even better given that, for example, more students go to Yale from the New Haven Public Schools than any other district.

The point is that the parents determine the success of children more than the schools do. The caveat is every student is different, so students' needs will be different depending on their personality and abilities - some districts will do a better job catering to certain types of students (e.g., disabled, gifted, shy, interested in trades/technical, etc.). If you are stuck commuting for hours every day, you'll have a lot less time and health to give to your kids, and not to put too fine a point on it, the fact is that you and your family will pay the price of that.

[JayCT]

Originally Posted by kidyankee764

You can check out Glastonbury. While it's a pretty affluent town, the home prices aren't exhorbitant and it's a very nice community. Great schools, too.

Glastonbury is a nice town. It has good schools, a nice town center and a lot of great family activities. You would have easy access to I-91 and I-84 too. I live there and do recommend it. Jay

[Stylo]

Originally Posted by anon860

Wilbur Cross New Haven 71%
Milford - Foran HS 39%

Here is how they do on Math 10th grade CAPT:
% At or Above Goal

Wilbur Cross New Haven 74%
Milford - Foran HS 46%

Hmm, where'd you get data for white-only students? Can you provide a link?

The latest scores (2010) on the CT.gov site list Foran's Reading at 50.6% and Math at 54.7%. Unless their scores dropped drastically, that seems off? I recently looked up the scores, that's why it stood out to me.

And Wilbur Cross was at 17.6% and 14.7%, respectively.

Those numbers, of course, do not differentiate based on race.

[anon860]

Stylo: They are all posted at P-20 Council - Connecticut Board of Regents for Higher Education.

[Stratford, Ct. Resident]

Originally Posted by anon860

For example, here are how White students do on the Reading 10th grade CAPT tests (2011 data):

% of Students At or Above Goal

Wilbur Cross New Haven 71%


Here is how they do on Math 10th grade CAPT:
% At or Above Goal

Wilbur Cross New Haven 74%


As you can see, the city schools actually outperform many of their suburban peers if you compare apples to apples.

Tell us, what percentage of Wilbur Cross' student population identifies themselves as "White"?

[anon860]

Stratford, you're missing the point of the post. And I explained above why this might be sensitive to some folks. I'm not going to distract people from the point. Look at any of the data - percentage and # of students who are "very high" achievers on the SAT test, enrollees at top universities, CAPT, what have you. If you compare apples to apples, even regardless of race, achievement in New Haven is not what people here seem to think. If you are talking Bridgeport, Waterbury, or Hartford, then yes, that's a different story. There are far fewer high achieving students in those districts. The raw data speaks for itself, yet unfortunately, the CW on this discussion board will never support this. Their loss, in my opinion. Some people can't comprehend averages (or the fact, say, that just the enrollment in New Haven School System is much larger than the population of most entire towns in the state).

[Stratford, Ct. Resident]

Originally Posted by anon860

Stratford, you're missing the point of the post. And I explained above why this might be sensitive to some folks. I'm not going to distract people from the point. Look at any of the data - percentage of students who are "very high" achievers on the SAT test, enrollees at top universities, CAPT, what have you. If you compare apples to apples, even regardless of race, achievement in New Haven is not what people here seem to think. If you are talking Bridgeport, Waterbury, or Hartford, then yes, that's a different story. There are far fewer high achieving students in those districts. The raw data speaks for itself, yet unfortunately, the CW on this discussion board will never support this. Their loss, in my opinion.

I'm not surprised that you refuse to answer the question. There are >1600 students at Wilbur Cross. Around 160 of them are white. So, the test scores that you're touting apply to about 40 white test taking students: Student Teacher Ratio Wilbur Cross High School - New Haven, Connecticut - CT.

[JayCT]

Stratford is correct. Wilbur Cross has about 11% of its students as white so you are talking about a very limited number of students. Also overall the school scores very low on the Connecticut Academic Performance Test falling into the lowest 20% of high schools in the state. In fact Central High School in Bridgeport scores higher than Wilbur Cross. You can find more information on the website below.

Also I am not sure what anon860 means by the "CW on this discussion board will not support this". Are you talking about me as the Moderator? If so, I do not limit what people say unless it is against the rules of this forum. I will also point out any false posts or misinformation just like any other poster on this forum. If you do not agree with what I say that is fine but to imply that I have a hidden agenda is wrong. The facts don't lie. Jay

State Department of Education - CEDaR

[anon860]

The facts are that posters here are constantly steering folks away from larger towns (like Hamden, Hartford, and New Haven), based on a somewhat flawed understanding of what an "average" means. When you compare apples to apples, and adjust for other issues, some of the largest cities and towns in the state are actually among the most desirable and in sections have by far the highest performing students. And that is even before you consider private and parochial schools as options. See http://www.city-data.com/forum/22298226-post17.html and http://www.city-data.com/forum/22636103-post40.html for example. There is a reason why housing is so expensive in some of the specific neighborhoods with the highest concentrations of adults with graduate degrees (in the link above), but since everyone here focuses on town and district averages, they simply don't see that. That's what I mean by "Conventional Wisdom."