School Districts to avoid? (Minneapolis, St. Paul: best school, to live, cottage)

[golfgal]

Originally Posted by nick is rulz

yeah there is also the obvious law of percentages. Easy to brag about how many students your district graduates when it has 400-500 in a graduating class compared to tens of thousands.

196 is the third largest district in the state behind Anoka and Minneapolis.

[nick is rulz]

what are the raw numbers though?

[golfgal]

Minneapolis schools are about 36,000 students K-12, 196 has about 28,000, Anoka has about 40,000

[Camden Northsider]

Originally Posted by golfgal

This illustrates the problem with a lot of rankings--what are they looking at? The one ranking I like is the Expansion Magazine one. It is a relocation magazine. It ranks schools on many things, the education level of the community, the funding the schools get, the graduation rates, the test scores and several other things. Since they have no vested interest in the outcome of the results they are very unbiased. Too many ranking simply look at one aspect of school life and don't really give you a clear picture of what the school is really like.

The owners/ staff of Expansion Management (and their advertisers) obviously have vested interests in commercial and residential real estate, so that would open up plenty of avenues for bias in their educational rankings "research" - what's one of the biggest factors in a decision for relocation? - the schools there. In addition, their 'Senior Research Editor' does not even possess a doctorate (has a master's in library science?), and I highly question any study that uses the below as part of its rankings (taken directly from their website) - what do these have to do with the quality of education in a district?

From "how we calculated the rankings" (2007 EDUCATION QUOTIENT: Today’s Schools Are Shaping Tomorrow’s Work Force):

"The final category is the Community Index (CI), which looks at the educational and income levels of the adult population, and the child poverty rates. It is primarily used as a benchmark for sociological observations and accounts for only 5 percent of the overall EQ score. This category includes the percentage of the adult population in the district with at least a high school degree, the percentage of the adult population with at least a college degree, the average household income in the district and the district’s childhood poverty level."

Also, the below "graduation outcome" (GO) index ranking is hardly scientific, what about early graduation, transfers to other schools/ relocations, persons getting GED's? Undoubtedly, urban public school systems would fare much worse than suburban/ rural districts:

"The GO also includes the district’s graduation rate. Because there are literally dozens of ways to calculate a district’s graduation rate — most districts, not surprisingly, use whatever looks the best — it was necessary for us to establish our own definition in order to ensure comparability when we looked at districts nationwide. Therefore, we compared a district’s 11th grade students in the fall semester of 2003 with the number of students who graduated in the spring semester of 2005."

[PhDmommy]

Hi Everyone. I just returned from a house hunting/school registration visit to Minneapolis. My husband and I looked at multiple schools in Minneapolis & St. Paul. We decided that our family would be very happy in the Minneapolis public schools. We visited Lake Harriett Upper and Field. We put Field as our first choice because it has a more diverse population. We had a long meeting with the assistant principal who knew a great deal about how students learn best (not a bunch of mumbo jumbo crap, but truly thoughtful ideas). The staff in the office was great. The teachers seemed smart and attentive to the children. The kids seemed focused (especially impressive since they were middle schoolers). We thought carefully about moving to the suburbs where there would be lots of options for "good" schools and "great neighborhoods with lots of kids", but decided that we like the idea of living in a more urban environment. I attended a private school with only 3 African American students and a couple of east Asian kids. It was fine, but not ideal. I am willing to risk not having my kids go to the very best school so that they can grow up in an environment that is racially and economically diverse.

[ozzie679]

Originally Posted by golfgal

In what ranking????

South and Southwest are two of the best public high schools in the state.

[Camden Northsider]

Originally Posted by ozzie679

South and Southwest are two of the best public high schools in the state.

I would similarly add Patrick Henry High as one of the best public high schools in the state (yes, a high school on the Northside).... Our students know history!

[ozzie679]

Originally Posted by Camden Northsider

I would similarly add Patrick Henry High as one of the best public high schools in the state (yes, a high school on the Northside).... Our students know history!

Very nice!

[Mark_22]

Originally Posted by MNNative

Also, why isn't Osseo on your list? According to the "ratings" they're worse than some of the schools you mentioned.

I learned more from reading the newspaper everyday growing up than I did from attending K-12 in the Osseo Public Schools. They're terrible.

[Slig]

I was surprised too about Patrick Henry but it's true. A good friend of mine came up through the Minneapolis public school system. He graduated from South and now works at Washburn while his brother graduated from Washburn and now works at Roosevelt and both are firm that Patrick Henry ranks right up there with South and Southwest.