Should MCAS results be a deciding factor on which town you move to? (Boston: how much, home)

[Brena16]

My husband places much importance on MCAS results. I feel that it is also a measuring tool for improving. I'm not sure if it should be the deciding factor on whether or not we should move to a particular community based on the MCAS results. What are your thoughts?

[clevedark]

If I were to make a moving decision based on scores, I'd look at the high school SAT scores for the town and wouldn't get bogged down in third grade MCAS scores, if you know what I mean.

I would probably use a bunch of factors to determine a group of towns I'm interested in, like walkability, ease of commute, who the townspeople are, quality of the public schools, aesthetic qualities, what kind of home I could afford, and then make the decision based on actual properties available at the time.

So, no, I'd never make a moving decision based on MCAS alone.

[smarty]

All Standardize test scores track extremely well with Parent income and education level.

MCAS scores varies from year to year. As long as you look at towns with similar scores, I think you'll be fine.

BTW... town's MCAS score does not always reflect what your kid will score. I know someone (one out of the entire class) in a bad town is going to Harvard. On the other side, not everyone from a good score town goes to Harvard.

[Brena16]

Thanks for your feedback. Could you further elaborate on:

"All Standardize test scores track extremely well with Parent income and education level."

Yes, I realize that they vary from year to year, this is what I tell my husband, but he says it's a TREND, and that typically there is not a tremendous stray from the scores each year (especially in the towns that have mediocre to low scores).

[CaseyB]

Brena, the wealthiest towns tend to have the highest standardized test scores. I noticed that you were inquiring about Amesbury in an earlier thread, so I am inferring that is what concerns you? I know earlier you were interested in Duxbury, but it is like comparing apples and oranges, imho. From the data in our city-data stats, it lists a median income of $60,000 for Amesbury, and over $135,000 for Duxbury.

[clevedark]

But if Brena moves to Amesbury, her child may do better on the MCAS than another student does in Duxbury, even though the median scores and incomes are different.

[CaseyB]

True, but she was asking about trends. The general public doesn't have access to an individual student's standardized test scores, only the school system as a whole. We also don't have access to much in the way of teacher statistics, other than class size.

[clevedark]

Right, but sometimes people put too much emphasis on averages and forget about individuals. I say this in regards to school testing because I used to live in a town that had pretty mediocre test scores compared to surrounding towns because of the social and economic makeup of the town. And every year just as many kids from my town's high school went to Ivy League and other top colleges as the next town over, which was often ranked #1 in the state (while we were like #132 or something really awful sounding).

Our school was bigger, and it had a bigger pool of students who didn't perform as well, but the top students were just as good as the top students from the #1 ranked school.

Now I know nothing about the Amesbury school system, but I'm just sayin'.

[haberstroh]

I must have written a book by now in here about my experience with test scores. But I have to comment again :-)
We moved here about 2 years ago and test scores was the first thing I looked at - next to the commute. We even considered Boston proper. But I wanted to live in a top ranked district like Winchester, Lexington, Sudbury, Belmont, Westwood. But then came the housing shock and although we had a good size budget, we could have only afforded a tiny starter with lots of work to do in any of these towns. So we expanded our search and looked at towns like Canton, Hingham, Milton, Needham ect. We ended up in Walpole. The test scores for our town were not top ranked but still okay. But what was the deciding factor was housing affordability (although not cheap by any means but okay for us) and commute time. I had also talked to parents, students, principals, checked out websites, neighbors and so on. I have to say now that I am very happy with our decision to live here. After two years of public school I know we live in a good town. But that is something you will not know for a while. It took me for instance a long time to realize that this town has a lot of children and young families (yes I saw that in the statistics but it did not mean anything to me). Not until my daughter started playing soccer I realized how many kids we have. And despite the problems that that might bring for the schools and future growth the town seems to handle it well. And we love it!!!
This is just an example and it depends on what your priorities are i.e strong sports programs, arts, music, after school clubs, special ed, talented programs, languages just to name a few. A lot of things you will not know for a while maybe years of living in a town. The test scores can only be a guideline, they should not be the deciding factor. I also agree with the previous posters about the income ratio and college attendance. You should also know that MA in general has a very good public school system and unless you live in problematic town like Brockton (I don't mean to be offensive) your children will get a good education in MA.
Good Luck!

[Beachcomber4]

I don't think it should be the only consideration but it definately has to come into play when making a decision.

Talking in general terms, after going through the process of selling our last home, I realize how much importance many people put on those numbers. In terms of resale, a town with high test scores is more desirable to the masses.

Good Luck.