Great School Analysis (Huntsville, Madison, Valley: neighborhood, theater, school district)

[DvlsAdvc8]

Originally Posted by BKOTH97

It wouldn't improve their standing in pure performance where per pupil funding is not taken into account.

Top 10 performing Systems (Reading, Math):

1) Mountain Brook City, Al (98.6, 98.5)
2) Vestavia Hills City, Al (96, 93.5)
3) Arab City, Al (94.4, 94.1)
4) Winfield City, Al (92.2, 88.3)
5) Homewood City, Al (91.5, 88.4)
6) Hoover City, Al (92.4, 87.4)
7) Madison City, Al (92.5, 86.7)
8) Falls Church City, Va (92.8, 85.7)
9) West Point, Va (90.9, 86.9)
10) Muscle Shoals City, Al (91.1, 86.3)

Ah, my apologies - I thought you took a price/performance approach in creating the ranking. My mistake.

Those numbers are indeed surprising. I wonder what percent of the population attends public school in NoAL vs NoVA... or how much of the difference could be accounted for by "brain drain" of sorts to private schools in NoVA.

[BKOTH97]

Originally Posted by DvlsAdvc8

Those price/performance numbers are likely skewed fact that the cost of education in VA is MUCH higher, even if you only take teacher salaries into account. Everything is simply inflated here, but it doesn't mean we're getting less for the money. It's not quite an apples to apples comparison.

You would need to normalize the data by mean income or something like that to get a more comparable gauge of value. This will likely improve NoVA's standing in your price/performance ranking.

ie - NoAL may earn Y, spend X on education/capita and get Z results.
NoVA may earn y+10, spend X+10 on education/capita and get Z results.

The real dollar values don't really indicate "level of effort". Everything is relative.

Since Madison and Falls Church are right next to each other on the performance listing, we can take those two cities to compare.


Madison: Household income of $72,805
Falls Church: Household income of $87,884

Madison School Expenditure: $11,189
Falls Church Expenditure: $25,621

Madison Performance Score: 179.2
Falls Church Performance Score: 178.5

Household income for Falls Church is roughly 20% higher than Madison.
Expenditures for Falls Church are roughly 230% that of Madison.
Performance for Falls Church is .7 or .35% behind Madison (Tied)

This little exercise that I have gone through over the last day or so has actually changed my mind about how important per student funding is. I still think that funding is important, but it is obvious to me that funding that is way out of line with normal is not going to dramatically increase performance. This is evident in the comparison of Madison / Falls Church as well as looking at all of the other comparisons within the state and between Alabama and Virginia.

[DvlsAdvc8]

Originally Posted by BKOTH97

It wouldn't improve their standing in pure performance where per pupil funding is not taken into account.

Top 10 performing systems (Reading, Math):

1) Mountain Brook City, Al (98.6, 98.5)
2) Vestavia Hills City, Al (96, 93.5)
3) Arab City, Al (94.4, 94.1)
4) Winfield City, Al (92.2, 88.3)
5) Homewood City, Al (91.5, 88.4)
6) Hoover City, Al (92.4, 87.4)
7) Madison City, Al (92.5, 86.7)
8) Falls Church City, Va (92.8, 85.7)
9) West Point, Va (90.9, 86.9)
10) Muscle Shoals City, Al (91.1, 86.3)

I'm amazed Fairfax isn't in this list, what with its number of exceptional schools. I can only imagine there must be greater disparity between schools in NoVA. I'm inclined to believe the Fairfax County covers a wider demographic.

[DvlsAdvc8]

Originally Posted by BKOTH97

Since Madison and Falls Church are right next to each other on the performance listing, we can take those two cities to compare.


Madison: Household income of $72,805
Falls Church: Household income of $87,884

Madison School Expenditure: $11,189
Falls Church Expenditure: $25,621

Madison Performance Score: 179.2
Falls Church Performance Score: 178.5

Household income for Falls Church is roughly 20% higher than Madison.
Expenditures for Falls Church are roughly 230% that of Madison.
Performance for Falls Church is .7 or .35% behind Madison (Tied)

This little exercise that I have gone through over the last day or so has actually changed my mind about how important per student funding is. I still think that funding is important, but it is obvious to me that funding that is way out of line with normal is not going to dramatically increase performance. This is evident in the comparison of Madison / Falls Church as well as looking at all of the other comparisons within the state and between Alabama and Virginia.

Very interesting results indeed! I'm also surprised to see Falls Church's median household income so low. I know Fairfax County's is a little over 100k, and I would have expected Falls Church to be higher.

[BKOTH97]

Originally Posted by DvlsAdvc8

I'm amazed Fairfax isn't in this list, what with its number of exceptional schools. I can only imagine there must be greater disparity between schools in NoVA. I'm inclined to believe the Fairfax County covers a wider demographic.

Fairfax County is HUGE - 165,000 enrolled. It has it's VERY GOOD schools like TJ High and a bunch of not so good schools. Huntsville isn't near as big, but it has the same situation. Very good schools like Grissom and poor schools such as Butler. Given the number of students, Fairfax is doing a good job....however, they are spending a ton of money to do it.

Here are the numbers for Fairfax:

Total Performance Score: 166
Reading: 85.7
Math: 80.7
Spending: $19,128

[ionlife]

Originally Posted by BKOTH97

Since Madison and Falls Church are right next to each other on the performance listing, we can take those two cities to compare.


This little exercise that I have gone through over the last day or so has actually changed my mind about how important per student funding is. I still think that funding is important, but it is obvious to me that funding that is way out of line with normal is not going to dramatically increase performance. This is evident in the comparison of Madison / Falls Church as well as looking at all of the other comparisons within the state and between Alabama and Virginia.

PPE doesn't always indicate better performance (obviously) on tests. However, is that PPE higher bc cost of living is higher in FX County? And what about the many additional programs provided for ESOL, special education, Gifted & Talented, etc. I would bet that increases the costs as well. I remember one meeting I went to where I learned that f every 5 dollars spent on special education, 1 dollar was spent on gifted education. Of course, the training and time and commitment of teacher's aides, shadows, interpreters, etc., add to the bottom line. So the schools could spend more trying to bring their failing/struggling/non-English speakers up to the median and then still have a poor result/outcome on the tests.

What is the community like in that school?

[BKOTH97]

Originally Posted by cglover

PPE doesn't always indicate better performance (obviously) on tests. However, is that PPE higher bc cost of living is higher in FX County? And what about the many additional programs provided for ESOL, special education, Gifted & Talented, etc. I would bet that increases the costs as well. I remember one meeting I went to where I learned that f every 5 dollars spent on special education, 1 dollar was spent on gifted education. Of course, the training and time and commitment of teacher's aides, shadows, interpreters, etc., add to the bottom line. So the schools could spend more trying to bring their failing/struggling/non-English speakers up to the median and then still have a poor result/outcome on the tests.

What is the community like in that school?

I assume you are talking about Falls Church:

Falls Church:
72% White
12% Asian
8% Hispanic
4% Black

Madison:
69% White
21% Black
6% Asian
2% Hispanic

Economically Disadvantaged
Falls Church: 21%
Madison: 17%

ESL
Falls Church: 14.1%
Madison: 2.1%

ESL is really the only main difference, except that Madison has a Black Majority Minority, while Falls Church has an Asian Majority Minority.

[ionlife]

Originally Posted by BKOTH97

I assume you are talking about Falls Church:

ESL
Falls Church: 14.1%
Madison: 2.1%

ESL is really the only main difference, except that Madison has a Black Majority Minority, while Falls Church has an Asian Majority Minority.

ESOL is a big factor--look at the huge difference in numbers. And I'd wager that the languages in Falls Church span more than one or two other languages than English.

[flowslikeabutterfly]

We chose to move to Madison over HSV city for this reason. However, after realizing how low Alabama ranks nationwide, we decided to send our kids to Randolph School. Pricey, but its a National Blue Ribbon Dept of Education winner and so many of their graduates go on to ivy league educations.

[Charles]

Originally Posted by flowslikeabutterfly

We chose to move to Madison over HSV city for this reason.

For what reason?