When ranking school districts, which sites do you rely on most? (Boston: calculated, live)

[pennyone]

Originally Posted by CaseyB

I guess the confusion stems from your insistence that Somerville is some magical place where one can discount the low income influence. Anyone can make the same claims about any city or town.

Your kids must be young. Their peers become more important when they get to high school.

At least Somerville High only gets an A- from Niche.....

[semiurbanite]

Originally Posted by pennyone

Cambridge Ridge Latin, with such a relatively low graduation rate, should not be getting an A+ from Niche. That's just ridiculous. If this is not pandering to Harvard then I don't know what is.

Lower income kids drop out for many reasons - to supplement family income, pregnancy, etc. Should the school be ranked significantly lower because of these personal decisions?

[Dm84]

Originally Posted by semiurbanite

Lower income kids drop out for many reasons - to supplement family income, pregnancy, etc. Should the school be ranked significantly lower because of these personal decisions?

The point of these rankings is that they don't make adjustments based on factors that are outside of the school's control. They are evaluating raw data, whatever the reasons.

For instance if 10 people drop out of Somerville schools and 1 drops out of Sudbury, then it shows the dropout rate is significantly higher. Why isn't relevant unless you want it to be. Even still, it won't change the raw numbers.

[jayrandom]

Originally Posted by pennyone

I don't worship prestige or status, for Pete's sake, I live in Quincy (and love it!). My question is exactly what Casey asked.....what exactly is being controlled when we say "control for income"???? It sounds to me like rich kids hanging out with rich kids and they score well, and poor kids hang out with poor kids and they underperform...and these kids might get to see each other in Glee club or some other social settings once or twice a day. But that's it. How is this "diversity"? It looks more like segregation to me.

Based on some of the figures I've seen on this board, I think when one speaks of controlling for income, it is done by looking at the MCAS scores for those considered low-income and those not considered low-income (or as the state puts it "economically disadvantaged"). You can look at the numbers yourself using this website.

I'd be somewhat weary of drawing too many conclusions from these trends, however. What's pretty clear from all the data is that there is a strong correlation between family income and parental education levels and student academic performance (SAT Scores and Income Inequality: How Wealthier Kids Rank Higher - Real Time Economics - WSJ). That's most of what school rankings tell you--how affluent students in a given district are.

When you control for income in this crude way, it likely tells you just as much about the kinds of income distribution as it does about any particular trends in education. A district like Somerville or Cambridge has a large number of low-income students that bring down the general average and a relatively large number of very-well-to-do (and from very well educated) families, who bring up the non-low-income average. A middle-class town, on the other hand, doesn't have a lot of low-income students or a lot of high-income students, so generally won't see as much of an improvement when controlling for income in this very crude manner. Based on the information available to the school when the MCAS is taken, that's about the best they can reasonably expect. Most children don't know their parents income and even if they did I don't think schools would be justified in asking for this information.

The problem of determining just how good a school district is at educating students as opposed to the relative affluence of the incoming students is a difficult problem. I think different kids responds differently to different environments, sometimes even two kids in the same family. High-performing districts are usually safer choices, but well-funded high-diversity districts may be a better choice for certain students and families.

[pennyone]

Originally Posted by semiurbanite

Lower income kids drop out for many reasons - to supplement family income, pregnancy, etc. Should the school be ranked significantly lower because of these personal decisions?

Yes, but we rank schools in Chelsea, Lowell and Springfield in large part for their drop out rates and low scores too. So should we not do that and say that those schools are great?

[semiurbanite]

Originally Posted by pennyone

Yes, but we rank schools in Chelsea, Lowell and Springfield in large part for their drop out rates and low scores too. So should we not do that and say that those schools are great?

Do they send many kids to top colleges? Ridge does.

[Peppa20]

I'm looking into Cambridge schools for my kindergartener, 2nd grader and 4th grader. We are coming from a small town. How is the community? I have heard all the schools in the city are very different from one another. Which ones are more desirable? We are just looking for a good education and support for our high functioning ASD boy.

[semiurbanite]

Originally Posted by Peppa20

I'm looking into Cambridge schools for my kindergartener, 2nd grader and 4th grader. We are coming from a small town. How is the community? I have heard all the schools in the city are very different from one another. Which ones are more desirable? We are just looking for a good education and support for our high functioning ASD boy.

You really need to visit the schools,I believe Haggerty has a well regarded special needs program. In general Graham and Parks is usually the most wait-listed school but that mostly because it has higher scores due to a higher income student body. There is a choice lottery system so there is never a guarantee you will get your first choice of school. Disclaimer - I have no first-hand knowledge of Cambridge schools.

[Cassy Fae]

These rankings confuse me. One of the reasons we're moving to Hopkinton is for the school district, but it doesn't rank well on dreamschool finder. Yet, it's #5 in the state on US news ranking and even ahead of Lexington. I don't get it. I haven't visited any schools either and my girls have more than a decade before they get to high school.

[CaseyB]

Originally Posted by Cassy Fae

These rankings confuse me. One of the reasons we're moving to Hopkinton is for the school district, but it doesn't rank well on dreamschool finder. Yet, it's #5 in the state on US news ranking and even ahead of Lexington. I don't get it. I haven't visited any schools either and my girls have more than a decade before they get to high school.

It looks like that site is based on what you input for criteria. We would all get different results.