Moving to Huntsville area (Lincoln, Hazel Green: real estate, rental, work)

[Keeper]

I can tell you Arab has some great schools. This year 136 out of 185 graduating seniors received scholarships of some type to college.

[Reactionary]

To say that Madison County schools are "okay" and Athens has a "good" school system is not accurate in my experience.

Melanie - I'll concede that I should not have made unsupported statements about Arab and Athens schools. Since I said "I don't know them as well as HSV" - I should have stopped right there. I have a good impression of Arab and Athens schools, but have no empirical data to support that conclusion.

And maybe I should have said: compared to the best Huntsville City schools, "Madison County schools are just OK."

I do stand behind my comment that Huntsville City elementary schools that feed into Grissom and HHS are the best in the area, and that Madison City schools are consistently good (8 point spread between best and worst scores). Note that County Mt. Carmel scores as well as the worst scoring Madison City Horizon and that there is a 17 point spread between best and worst County scores.

I absolutely agree with you that many Huntsville City schools are pathetic (in terms of test scores, etc.). Note that Lincoln Elementary 'should' be scoring much lower than it is, but that significant volunteer efforts (mostly churches) have boosted it's scores by probably 20 points. I don't know if there are enough churches in Huntsville to fix all of the poorly performing schools.

Here is a list of Huntsville City, Madison City, and Madison County Elementary Schools, sorted by composite SAT score (3rd grade reading and math and 5th grade reading and math):

Huntsville Challenger 80
Huntsville Blossomwood 78
Huntsville Hampton Cove 78
Huntsville Jones Valley 78
Huntsville Mountain Gap 77
Huntsville Monte Sano 73
Madison Heritage 73
Madison Columbia 72
Madison Rainbow 72
County Monrovia 72
County New Market 72
Madison West Madison 71
Madison Madison 70
County Lynn Fanning 68
County Endeavor 66
County Central 66
Huntsville Chaffee 65
Madison Horizon 65
County Mt. Carmel 65
County Owens Cross Roads 63
Huntsville AAA 62
Huntsville ASFL 61
County Hazel Green 60
County Riverton 60
County Harvest 58
County Walnut Grove 58
County New Hope 58
Huntsville Lincoln 55
County Madison County 55
County Madison Cross Roads 55
Huntsville Farley 52
Huntsville Whitesburg 51
Huntsville Providence 47
Huntsville Chapman 46
Huntsville Ridgecrest 42
Huntsville Rolling Hills 39
Huntsville East Clinton 39
Huntsville Morris 39
Huntsville University Place 35
Huntsville Williams 34
Huntsville Highlands 33
Huntsville MLK 31
Huntsville Montview 31
Huntsville West Mastin Lake 30
Huntsville West Huntsville 29
Huntsville McDonnell 28
Huntsville Lakewood 25
Huntsville Terry Heights 24

[flstatenolefan]

LOL...As a former teacher, I can tell you that those scores mean very little when it comes to *your* child. If you overlook a school simply because it scores 17 points lower than another school on the SAT, then you are not an informed parent. All research shows that student:teacher ratio is a more important predictor for success. But, that's fine with me. Please everyone, send your children to the top-ranked SAT schools! That means the school my DD attends will have fewer students and a better student:teacher ratio

[Reactionary]

flstatenolefan - there's a 17 point difference between top-scoring Challenger and OXR. There's a 17 point difference between Providence and West Mastin Lake. I understand that SATs aren't the sole measure of school quality, but they are real and IMO reflect many factors of school quality.

Can you recommend a website with student:teacher ratio information at the school level? I'd love to put that into a spreadsheet to see what happens... And then, of course, share the findings with you

[flstatenolefan]

Reactionary...that SAT score could tell you a number of things. It could tell you that it's a wonderful school, with excellent teachers and involved parents. It could also tell you that all the teachers spend their time teaching to the test.

Greatschools.net gives the student:teacher ratio for each school, IIRC.

[Reactionary]

fsufan - I'm not finished yet, but a quick look shows that schools with more teachers have worse scores.

For example, Blossomwood, Hampton Cove, and Jones Valley all have student : teacher ratios of 17 : 1 while MLK, Lakewood, and Terry Heights have ratios of 12 : 1. Looks like you were right, student : teacher ratio is "a more important predictor of success"

Just kidding, but not really. I don't see how student : teacher ratio is a better indicator of school quality. Also, please take my comments in good spirit - that's how they are intended.

[Charles]

I have all these numbers in a spreadsheet. As soon as I'm done watching the Lakers get their *sses kicked, I'll throw some stuff out...

[Charles]

Originally Posted by Charles

I have all these numbers in a spreadsheet. As soon as I'm done watching the Lakers get their *sses kicked, I'll throw some stuff out...

Elementary school data sorted by students/teacher (fte)




Middle school data sorted by students/teacher




High school data sorted by students/teacher

[Southlander]

Charles, is the "rate" column or the "fte" column the students/teacher ratio? Also, where did you get this info? I'd like to see how Decatur City Schools stack up.
Thanks!

[Charles]

Originally Posted by Southlander

Charles, is the "rate" column or the "fte" column the students/teacher ratio? Also, where did you get this info? I'd like to see how Decatur City Schools stack up.
Thanks!

Rate is the Great Schools rating.

FTE is students per (I think) full time employed.

I got these data from great schools using the advanced search tool with a radius of (I forgot) miles. You can pull these numbers yourself my picking a school in Decatur and performing the same steps I did.