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That's how it is in Pennsylvania as well. We have 500 school districts in the state and outside of the cities, that often means one or two elementary schools, one middle school and one high school per district. If you are moving, you absolutely choose your house because of the school district. It's not about insulating your kids, it's about finding a district that will give your kids the best education. I would have much preferred a racially and economically diverse district, when we were last looking at houses, but our number one priority was academics and a small school district. My kids found their diversity in real life and all live in large cities.
And that's fine.
But when you have potential parents to a school come and ask, "What percentage of your students are Black" (with no refinement to the question), or "Do you have Latino kids here, cause you know they're mostly in gangs?", or "I don't want my son to have any Black teachers"...that's merely insulating kids based on racial stereotypes.
But when you have potential parents to a school come and ask, "What percentage of your students are Black" (with no refinement to the question), or "Do you have Latino kids here, cause you know they're mostly in gangs?", or "I don't want my son to have any Black teachers"...that's merely insulating kids based on racial stereotypes.
No, but I do wonder why people are so concerned about demographics!
Here is the OP: "How can I find out how good a school is? I have checked greatschools for a rating, and talked with an administrator over the phone. But how can I find out if the school has a drug problem, or if there are problems with violent youth? I guess I'm looking for more demographics. The school isn't going to tell me if they have issues, so how can I find this out?"
S/he (I think a "she") wants to know how good a school is, how much drug use and violence there is there by demographics!
No, but I do wonder why people are so concerned about demographics!
Here is the OP: "How can I find out how good a school is? I have checked greatschools for a rating, and talked with an administrator over the phone. But how can I find out if the school has a drug problem, or if there are problems with violent youth? I guess I'm looking for more demographics. The school isn't going to tell me if they have issues, so how can I find this out?"
S/he (I think a "she") wants to know how good a school is, how much drug use and violence there is there by demographics!
I think the OP is saying that demographics and score reports won't show things like drug problems or problems with violent youth. Perhaps the OP doesn't know what the word demographics means and thinks it just means information. I agree with that - you won't find that info on school reports. In our area that would be hard to find out because our closest local paper doesn't cover my community much at all - good news or bad. It has to be something like a bad car accident or a horrific crime and that would take some digging to find.
I think the OP is saying that demographics and score reports won't show things like drug problems or problems with violent youth. Perhaps the OP doesn't know what the word demographics means and thinks it just means information. I agree with that - you won't find that info on school reports. In our area that would be hard to find out because our closest local paper doesn't cover my community much at all - good news or bad. It has to be something like a bad car accident or a horrific crime and that would take some digging to find.
Well s/he's looking for MORE demographics! If the school has a lot of Hispanic kids, maybe a lot of drug problems? Something like that? Just to be clear, I do categorically disagree with this statement, just giving an example.
I don't buy the excuse that maybe s/he doesn't know what the word means. I guess we should let the OP explain that one.
Demographics don't just show race, they show income, age and all sorts of things. They are helpful in knowing how good a school might be, since majority of school funding comes from property taxes, so an area with higher income people and higher value homes will probably have less overt problems. Schools in areas of poverty DO most often have many more troubles, regardless what the races are. A high school in a very poor area of West Virginia will be just as bad as one in a poor area of Baltimore. Demographics show many things about an area, it's really unfair to try to imply OP is racist or something.
Demographics don't just show race, they show income, age and all sorts of things. They are helpful in knowing how good a school might be, since majority of school funding comes from property taxes, so an area with higher income people and higher value homes will probably have less overt problems. Schools in areas of poverty DO most often have many more troubles, regardless what the races are. A high school in a very poor area of West Virginia will be just as bad as one in a poor area of Baltimore. Demographics show many things about an area, it's really unfair to try to imply OP is racist or something.
The only income stats schools collect is the number of students on free and reduced price lunches. Age? The type of school determines age. A K-5 will have kids from 5-11/12. A K-8, 5-14/15. Etc. There are few students in a high school past age 19.
In Colorado, school funding is a state/local partnership, so there's less "good school/bad school" on the basis of SES. It's not perfect of course, but it helps.
The only income stats schools collect is the number of students on free and reduced price lunches. Age? The type of school determines age. A K-5 will have kids from 5-11/12. A K-8, 5-14/15. Etc. There are few students in a high school past age 19.
In Colorado, school funding is a state/local partnership, so there's less "good school/bad school" on the basis of SES. It's not perfect of course, but it helps.
No one said to get the demographics from the school. I told OP to use City Data. The demographics would be for the area the school is in. She asked how to find out how much trouble a school has in terms of crime, and much of that can be gleaned from the crime stats in the general area. I was simply defending OP using the term "demographics" as one poster took issue with it, implying she just wanted to know how many black kids were in the school or something, and I said demographics involve much more info than that.
Well s/he's looking for MORE demographics! If the school has a lot of Hispanic kids, maybe a lot of drug problems? Something like that? Just to be clear, I do categorically disagree with this statement, just giving an example.
I don't buy the excuse that maybe s/he doesn't know what the word means. I guess we should let the OP explain that one.
Thank you for mentioning that, because that is exactly what I have been getting at. All too many times when parents came in "researching" schools, there were what I would "code questions" that, quite frankly, made no sense other than to address racial stereotypes. And the example you gave is perfect. In our school's case, we had not a large Latino population, but still significant, and parents who asked, "What percent of your students are Latino" were clearly addressing drugs and gangs, and guess what we had about as little of either that's possible nowadays. Same thing with white parents asking how many Black teachers we had. What else could be the purpose?
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