good schools zones (Houston, Austin, Sugar Land: real estate, credit, buying a house)

[Questions4houston]

Maybe others can commiserate? When searching for a home on Har.com, it's baffling how many nice homes can be found but are zoned for 2/10 or 5/10 on greatschools.com. It makes searching for a home zoned for "good schools" difficult.

[WRM20]

Originally Posted by Questions4houston

Maybe others can commiserate? When searching for a home on Har.com, it's baffling how many nice homes can be found but are zoned for 2/10 or 5/10 on greatschools.com. It makes searching for a home zoned for "good schools" difficult.

Who cares what great schools says? My kid went to a school rated 3/10, graduated 4th in his class, goes to A&M, and had a perfectly good education, including a number of AP classes and got credit for 4 college level classes. School is pretty much what you make of it. Stay involved, meet the teachers and administration, and your kids will be fine. In Spring Branch, buying a house zoned to Spring Woods will be much cheaper than a house zoned to Memorial, but your kids will get a good education, even though the Spring Woods is not as highly rated.

[nana053]

Originally Posted by Questions4houston

Maybe others can commiserate? When searching for a home on Har.com, it's baffling how many nice homes can be found but are zoned for 2/10 or 5/10 on greatschools.com. It makes searching for a home zoned for "good schools" difficult.

greatschools is not the best rating system.

Look for the schools you see on Niche.com

[hereticiam]

schooldigger.com is an excellent resource.
you can see the school demographics, spending per student, rankings and how it compare to other schools in the state.
You can see the history of rankings as well.

I do empathize with you. We have found so many beautiful homes and had to walk away due to poor rating.

I do agree that it is up to the student and parents to stay involved with them but we are in one of the best public schools in a different state and we want to find a similar highly rated school.

Here is a ranking list I created this weekend.

City Suburb High School Rankings Diversity
Houston Katy Seven Lakes High School 16 Y
Houston Cypress Bridgeland High School 40 N
Houston Katy Tompkins High School 52 Y
Houston Woodlands Woodlands High School 55 N
Houston Cypress Cypress Woods High School 63 N
Houston Cypress Cypress Ranch High School 67 Y
Houston Tomball Tomball High School 78 N
Houston Spring Spring branch High School 80 N
Houston Sugar Land Clements High School 83 Y
Houston Katy Cinco Ranch High School 120 N
Houston Friendswood Friendswood High School 147 N
Houston Katy Katy High School 152 N
Houston Kingwood Kingwood High School 158 N
Houston Katy Taylor High School 163 N
Houston Cypress Cy-Fair High School 202 N

[gwarnecke]

Originally Posted by nana053

greatschools is not the best rating system.

Look for the schools you see on Niche.com

I agree with this - a lot of very well-regarded schools have so-so Greatschools ratings (for example, the aforementioned Memorial High School is just 6/10), and school ratings can change dramatically from year to year (for example, the elementary school near our old house was 7/10 when we bought it and later dropped to 3/10 before recovering some - conversations w/parents did not suggest that any significant changes in educational quality occurred during this time).

As far as the difficulty in finding "good" schools...I don't think Houston is that different from any large city in this regard. Good schools, convenient location, good price - pick two!

In general, the newer mid-to-high-end suburbs have good public schools if you can stomach the commute. Older (20+ year old) suburbs are a mixed bag - in terms of schools, some have held up very well (ie older Katy neighborhoods south of I-10), some have declined (ie the otherwise-beautiful neighborhoods along FM 1960 between 249 and I-45). In the wealthiest inner-loop neighborhoods (River Oaks, West U), you'll get an excellent elementary school but not a highly-rated middle or high school. Most folks we know in these areas go private or magnet after elementary school.

We picked Spring Branch/Memorial Villages in part because it was the closest to town we could find with well-regarded public schools elementary through high school (although admittedly our school ratings aren't as high as in parts of Katy and other suburbs). The numbers worked for us in terms of time savings (10 minute commute vs 1+ hour to the suburbs) and cost savings (vs paying $15k+ per year per kid for private school). Our oldest son is in kindergarten, so we've had limited experience with the school system so far, but it has been very positive.

If possible, talk to homeowners who live near the house(s) that you're considering. They may have some valuable experience with the schools that they could share. Maybe the ratings don't tell the full story.

[mkwensky]

Originally Posted by nana053

greatschools is not the best rating system.

Look for the schools you see on Niche.com

I think Niche overrates schools. They seem to bump a school up a notch just for having a diverse student body. If I want another source to compare to GreatSchools I use schooldigger.

[LocalPlanner]

And can you really say that your child won't get a perfectly fine education that prepares them for their future if you don't go to one of the "top-rated" schools, especially if you're not requiring some sort of specific academic of extracurricular offering or program? Why pay extra for Seven Lakes when you could send them to Mayde Creek for less?

[atmcclel]

I'm most familiar with FBISD as that's where I grew up. The top high schools out there (in no particular order because you're truly shredding hairs no matter what others might say) are Stephen F. Austin, Clements, Dulles, Elkins, and Ridge Point. Kempner and Hightower are also fine but are not everyone's cup of tea for whatever reason.

If you're looking in HISD, Westside, Lamar, and Bellaire are probably your only non-magnet options. Depending on your kids' age Waltrip should be added to that group in the coming years as it's improving every year and all my friends with young kids who live in Oak Forest/Garden Oaks plan on sending their kids there down the road. Can't speak to Heights High school but maybe someone else can speak to that.

All of Katy ISD should be fine as well. Don't know much about the Cypress or Woodlands/Conroe area schools but know they're all pretty good, if not solid.

Memorial and Stratford are solid schools rating wise as well.

[mkwensky]

Originally Posted by LocalPlanner

And can you really say that your child won't get a perfectly fine education that prepares them for their future if you don't go to one of the "top-rated" schools, especially if you're not requiring some sort of specific academic of extracurricular offering or program? Why pay extra for Seven Lakes when you could send them to Mayde Creek for less?

People don't tend to want their kids to mix with the 'wrong crowd', and they think that won't happen at a better rated school. Also in terms of real estate investment areas with high achieving schools hold values better.

[WRM20]

Originally Posted by mkwensky

People don't tend to want their kids to mix with the 'wrong crowd', and they think that won't happen at a better rated school. Also in terms of real estate investment areas with high achieving schools hold values better.

That's what they think, but they are wrong. There's a bad crowd at every school. And bad crowd does not mean kids of a different ethnicity. It means kids who lead themselves, and other kids, astray.