Decatur schools may be most diverse in state (Tuscaloosa, Madison: crime, private schools)

[RocketDawg]

[quote=Southlander;53998942]My point was not quality. It was diversity.
According to the Decatur Daily, Decatur's public schools are: "40 percent non-Hispanic white, 31 percent black and 24 percent Hispanic. The remaining students are classified as Native American, Pacific Islander or Asian." Those figures actually come from Niche.

I figured Homewood would be more diverse than Hoover.


Mountain Brook, Vestavia Hills, Hoover, Gardendale and more are separate municipalities and are not under any kind of Birmingham umbrella. They all have separate school systems, fire and police protection, water authorities etc. Almost all broke out back LONG before the civil rights upheavals - Mountain Brook in 1942 and Vestavia Hills in 1950.[/QUOTE]

I could look it up, but may as well ask: Were Mountain Brook and Vestavia Hills actually part of Birmingham before they broke out, or were they just part of one school system?

[mcalumni01]

Originally Posted by Southlander

My point was not quality. It was diversity.
According to the Decatur Daily, Decatur's public schools are: "40 percent non-Hispanic white, 31 percent black and 24 percent Hispanic. The remaining students are classified as Native American, Pacific Islander or Asian." Those figures actually come from Niche.

I figured Homewood would be more diverse than Hoover.


Mountain Brook, Vestavia Hills, Hoover, Gardendale and more are separate municipalities and are not under any kind of Birmingham umbrella. They all have separate school systems, fire and police protection, water authorities etc. Almost all broke out back LONG before the civil rights upheavals - Mountain Brook in 1942 and Vestavia Hills in 1950.

There are under the birmingham METRO umbrella. Mountain brook, vestavia , and hoover are under birmingham water works. Most of jefferson county are bww except a few municipalitlies

[mcalumni01]

[quote=RocketDawg;53999323]

Originally Posted by Southlander

My point was not quality. It was diversity.
According to the Decatur Daily, Decatur's public schools are: "40 percent non-Hispanic white, 31 percent black and 24 percent Hispanic. The remaining students are classified as Native American, Pacific Islander or Asian." Those figures actually come from Niche.

I figured Homewood would be more diverse than Hoover.


Mountain Brook, Vestavia Hills, Hoover, Gardendale and more are separate municipalities and are not under any kind of Birmingham umbrella. They all have separate school systems, fire and police protection, water authorities etc. Almost all broke out back LONG before the civil rights upheavals - Mountain Brook in 1942 and Vestavia Hills in 1950.[/QUOTE]

I could look it up, but may as well ask: Were Mountain Brook and Vestavia Hills actually part of Birmingham before they broke out, or were they just part of one school system?

Most OTM older adults went to schools in birmingham. Once the movement over the mountain occurred and communities was formed, having their own school districts happen as well.

[RocketDawg]

Originally Posted by Mississippi Alabama Line

Mountain Brook and Vestavia are all rich white families (Vestavia more upper middle class). Huntsville has the whole spectrum of everyone that a city normally does, that's the difference. There's no one to integrate in to MB and Vestavia. Huntsville had the white neighborhoods and the black neighborhoods who were zoned for different schools based on location. It would be like if Mountain Brook, Vestavia and Birmingham were all 'Birmingham'. The federal court can't cross those city limit lines, if the city has their own school system. Jefferson County schools were doing this and Gardendale tried to form their own school system to prevent it, but the federal court shot it down. Too little too late. MB and Vestavia got in before zoning got in the cross hairs, but I'm not 100% on the history there.


He did it to prevent the fragmentation that happened in Birmingham. He wanted a united front for future development, and he accomplished that. There's an article about it here.

Of all the good it did, it certainly has hurt the schools, getting back to the point in the previous paragraph. Bussing kids around based on race and scores does not create a situation where any particular race is pulled up, it creates a situation where everyone regresses to the mean, so while you help some of the bottom level students you also stifle your top level students, regardless of race. Many think that's "fair", but it's really a social experiment based on ideals, not reality. It's a very socialist phenomena that often happens on accident because idealists think they are doing the right thing but are gravely mistaken. A school is only as good as the students and support it gets.

I certainly agree with your points. I'm really surprised that Madison was allowed to form its own school system. Triana is not part of Madison, and in fact is somewhat remote from most of the town. But Madison is mostly white (I think about 10% black), and Triana is mostly black. They try to say that they included Triana kids in the Madison school system because the Madison County schools were so far way from Triana, but the real reason is including them was the primary reason they were able to have a separate system. Or at least that's the way I see it. Would Madison have grown as rapidly without their own schools? I doubt it, but it's in a good location so that has a lot to do with it.

Give it time ... the feds will probably find some way to try to homogenize things by ordering Moutain Brook and Vestavia to expand their school district borders.

[RocketDawg]

Originally Posted by mcalumni01

There are under the birmingham METRO umbrella. Mountain brook, vestavia , and hoover are under birmingham water works. Most of jefferson county are bww except a few municipalitlies

It's just the opposite here. Huntsville Utilities supplies electricity and gas to basically the entire county, but Madison, Madison County, and Huntsville have their own water and sewer systems (some parts of the county are still septic). I think all would be ahead of the game if they combined all services and utilities, including police, even if they insist on having separate municipalities. It's bound to work better, and there's really no reason not to.

[Rick In Madison]

Based on National Merit Scholarship semifinalist from quick tally off of al.com articles (public schools only):

2015 2016 2017 2018
Madison City 22 20 17 30
Huntsville 16 13 20 11
Mt. Brook 9 12 15 6
Vestavia Hills 20 12 17 11

Although I would have to admit that percentage of possible semifinalist for Mt. Brook & Vestavia Hills is most likely higher given that Huntsville has six high schools alone; I suspect Madison's two are roughly the same size as Mt. Brook & Vestavia combined. So although we (Madison) might not be "head and shoulders" above Mt. Brook & Vestavia; we are smarter based on at least one empirical measurement.

[Rick In Madison]

Originally Posted by RocketDawg

Just curious -- "widely considered 2nd best" by whom? Is it a real researched rankng, or anecdotal? Asking for information, not to be a smart ass.

I don't know why Dallas Fanning (isn't he dead now?) did all the land grabbing. I'm not sure it served any purpose, other than for tax income without many services.

Greed, plain and simple. Glad he is gone.

[RocketDawg]

Originally Posted by Rick In Madison

Based on National Merit Scholarship semifinalist from quick tally off of al.com articles (public schools only):

2015 2016 2017 2018
Madison City 22 20 17 30
Huntsville 16 13 20 11
Mt. Brook 9 12 15 6
Vestavia Hills 20 12 17 11

Although I would have to admit that percentage of possible semifinalist for Mt. Brook & Vestavia Hills is most likely higher given that Huntsville has six high schools alone; I suspect Madison's two are roughly the same size as Mt. Brook & Vestavia combined. So although we (Madison) might not be "head and shoulders" above Mt. Brook & Vestavia; we are smarter based on at least one empirical measurement.

The number of National Merit Semifinalists may be empirical, but it's a pretty darn good measure. Of course, it doesn't measure the system overall, just that there are a lot of top-enders. Maybe Madison has more 'low-enders' to even out the average, but I doubt it. Evaluating which system is "best" is highly subjective, but objective data is much better, in my opinion. There's a lot of variation year to year also in the above numbers, which kind of dilutes any conclusions one way or the other.

Places like Randolph, Montgomery Academy, and Indian Springs may have even better percentages. I seem to remember that Randolph some years ago, with a graduating class of about 50 (it's twice that now), would have about the same number of scholars as Grissom, which is much, much larger, and at the time was a highly respected public high school.

According to our trustworthy friend, Wikipedia, Mt. Brook and Vestavia Hills High Schools together have about 3000 students, and the two high schools in Madison have about 3500. But ... Mt. Brook only has grades 10, 11, & 12 so it's not a one-to-one comparison.

[RocketDawg]

Originally Posted by Rick In Madison

Based on National Merit Scholarship semifinalist from quick tally off of al.com articles (public schools only):

2015 2016 2017 2018
Madison City 22 20 17 30
Huntsville 16 13 20 11
Mt. Brook 9 12 15 6
Vestavia Hills 20 12 17 11

Although I would have to admit that percentage of possible semifinalist for Mt. Brook & Vestavia Hills is most likely higher given that Huntsville has six high schools alone; I suspect Madison's two are roughly the same size as Mt. Brook & Vestavia combined. So although we (Madison) might not be "head and shoulders" above Mt. Brook & Vestavia; we are smarter based on at least one empirical measurement.

That would be comparing apples and oranges though ... Mt Brook and Vestavia have very selective student bodies, based on their city's makeups. A better comparison is Huntsville Schools to Birmingham Schools but that's not near equal. Comparing Madison to Mt Brook and Vestavia is a more reasonable thing to do, which has been done in the chart.

[Mississippi Alabama Line]

Originally Posted by Rick In Madison

Based on National Merit Scholarship semifinalist from quick tally off of al.com articles (public schools only):

2015 2016 2017 2018
Madison City 22 20 17 30
Huntsville 16 13 20 11
Mt. Brook 9 12 15 6
Vestavia Hills 20 12 17 11

Although I would have to admit that percentage of possible semifinalist for Mt. Brook & Vestavia Hills is most likely higher given that Huntsville has six high schools alone; I suspect Madison's two are roughly the same size as Mt. Brook & Vestavia combined. So although we (Madison) might not be "head and shoulders" above Mt. Brook & Vestavia; we are smarter based on at least one empirical measurement.

You must define what you’re comparing. In Madison you have a bunch of kids of engineers. They will make the schools better in that way. But overall? I don’t really think average scores is a good way to judge either. Community support is probably the best.

People have a very wrong view of what schools are all about. In my opinion, “good schools” are not much more than thinly veiled racism code.

So let me say this another way - Mountain Brook and Vestavia Hills are the most “desired” school systems in the state of Alabama.