[NewToMeeeechigan]

The elementary schools seem to be high-rated. The high school is off the charts. But the middle school is really low for an area wth such great elementary schools and such a great high school. While it's typical for middle schools to suffer a bit relative to elementary and high schools, the drop off in Gross Ile is much more substantial, and the test scores seem very low relative to other areas (for middle school only).

Any theories on this to explain this anomaly away?

[craig11152]

what is the source of your information? When I go to the State Department of Education rankings which I only see 2013-2014 as the most recent I get in terms of state wide percentile...

High School 76
Middle School 71
Meridian elementary 85
Parke Lane elementary 97

Pretty good scores all in all but I wouldn't call the High School "off the charts" at all. But that source I see is hardly the "official last word". I guess its official from the State but I suppose there are other ways to measure.


Here is a link to what I see...
http://www.michigan.gov/documents/md...s_465183_7.pdf

[Coldjensens]

Recently the High School has fallen quite a bit in rankings. In some rankings GI has suffered because of a lack of diversity and almost no free lunch program students. I have been told it is also pretty terrible at dealing with special needs kids. I have no idea why the Jr High would be ranked substantially differently than the High school. Probably some kind of test scores, and it could be they just had a bad year for test scores.

I think the drop in rankings for the high school is because they have been pressing the awesome highly experienced teachers out, so they can replace them with younger, cheaper inexperienced teachers. This has been going on for a long time - about the same amount of time we have seen falling test score results. The falling test scores have hurt the rankings. Someone told me it is because they changed the tests that are used and did not change the teaching methods/curriculum. However I have doubts there. The change and the drop do not correlate (the drop started before the change in tests). In any event, they did not teach to the tests in the past, and as far as I know, still don't. The correlation between off loading experienced teachers and the falling test scores is too obvious to ignore.

Our older kids said virtually all of their teachers were awesome and were extremely good at making subjects interesting and clear. They had very very few teachers they disliked. Our middle kids had more teacher complaints ("this teacher is terrible, they do not focus on the subject matter, etc) Signing up for the right teacher (or avoiding the bad ones) became more critical to how well you do in school. Our youngest is still in high school and the situation is even more that way. Quite a number of the newer teachers are terrible and a very large number of the great ones the older sibs had are gone. It is very difficult to work out a schedule to avoid bad teachers or teachers who are teaching to feed their egos rather than the help kids learn. Maybe the same thing has happened at the middle school.

The school is still very very good, but not as good as it was. One of our middle kids and our youngest are getting even higher test scores than their extremely accomplished older siblings did, so we are not seeing the test score drop the district is facing as a whole, but they are having to work a lot harder to learn things on their own because they sometimes do not learn them in class.

However this year something else is gong on. The fabulous vice principal (Favoris) quit mid-year and left. The principal did not get his contract renewed for next year (no idea why) and I just heard three other administrators are leaving.

As to the middle school, I am not sure it has the same problem. I do not know whether they have been shedding their more experienced teachers. I do know the middle school has a very good principal right now (Tucker - hopefully he is not leaving).

There is also some sort of budget problem going on. All districts are required to have a certain percentage of something or other in their budget each year, and we have failed this for three years. Apparently, they may have to agree to some sort of outside financial management because of this. However I also heard this problem has been resolved.

Still GI has some of the best schools in the state. The statistics are still very good even if test scores have fallen somewhat. If you look at graduation rates, college matriculation rates, scholarships awarded, student involvement, number of students going on to highly selective colleges, etc. You will see they are still doing extremely well.

Another thing that can impact any of the schools in various rankings/ratings is that GI schools offer no frills basic education. Thus, they do not have a lot so specialty classes. They do not teach a lot of social correctness or life skills or similar things. Just the basics for the most part. There are quite a few AP classes available, but no where near the mega-schools like Novi and Northville or Grosse Point South offer. (The Jr. High used to have a mandatory "Building and Boating" class where the kids learned boating safety and got their license to operate up to 25 hp boats at the end of the class, but that got cut due to budget issues, plus with all the subdivisions, they no longer have over 50% of the kids living on the water).

You have to take rankings and ratings with a grain of salt. Look at what is considered and decide what is important to you. Various rankings consider all kinds of different issues. Some include diversity and free lunch programs, others do not. Some are based only on test scores. We fell for the whole rankings craze and moved here in part because GI has the best schools around according to rankings. We came from a district in California with some of the worst rankings in the nation. Now looking back, I can tell you rankings do not mean squat. Our kids got great education in both places and did very well in both places. They were not significantly behind when we moved to GI (ahead in some areas), despite moving from one of the worst public school districts to one of the best.

Anyway you look at it GI schools are still top notch, but they are no longer as highly ranked as they were. Nationally I think we did not even make the USNWR top 200 this year and I saw some report where we were not top 50 in Michigan (although some of these rankings do not consider GI at all, I think due to size, or the fact we are not really a city or town). I do not see the current rankings as a problem, however the downward tend is definitely a matter of concern.

On the other hand, the reduced rankings (and the recent press about members of the boys Lacrosse team sacrificing a guinea pig before a game) will keep away some potential buyers. This may prevent home prices from raising as much as some comparable areas, but then it will also help prevent new subdivisions - something we definitely do not need.

[Coldjensens]

You would be hard pressed to find a better family place. That is why so many parents come back as 30 somethings after moving away to find someplace more exciting as 20 somthings.

[NewToMeeeechigan]

Originally Posted by craig11152

what is the source of your information? When I go to the State Department of Education rankings which I only see 2013-2014 as the most recent I get in terms of state wide percentile...

High School 76
Middle School 71
Meridian elementary 85
Parke Lane elementary 97

Pretty good scores all in all but I wouldn't call the High School "off the charts" at all. But that source I see is hardly the "official last word". I guess its official from the State but I suppose there are other ways to measure.


Here is a link to what I see...
http://www.michigan.gov/documents/md...s_465183_7.pdf

Great Schools