No tolerance for commutes, bad schools, or crime. Help Needed. (real estate, townhouse)

[vanyali]

Schools in Old Town are bad.

[thrlskr]

Thanks for the help everyone. I've found some apartments in the Eisenhower Metro area. How is that area?

Also, will someone expand on the whole "Schools in Old Town are bad." comment?

[pcity]

Eisenhower Metro is safe. Groups of teens hang out around the movie theater but they're pretty harmless. Great area with lots of new construction. Don't know anything about schools there though.

[The Dissenter]

Originally Posted by thrlskr

Thanks for the help everyone. I've found some apartments in the Eisenhower Metro area. How is that area?

Also, will someone expand on the whole "Schools in Old Town are bad." comment?

"the schools in Old Town are bad" comment is a case of severe overkill. Alexandria City has a decent public school system which is the average for the Non-NoVA Virginia. The problem is that being stuck in between Arlington and Farifax County would make any otherwise decent to good school system look terrible.

The area near the Eisenhower Metro is a prime area that is very safe.

[thrlskr]

Thank you for your reponses.

[vanyali]

This is from the wikipedia entry on TC Williams HS, which serves Old Town:

Test scores

The average SAT score in 2006 for T. C. Williams High School was 1,530 (509 in Math; 512 in Critical Reading; 509 in Writing). The Critical Reading and Math combined score was a 1,021, which is a 58 point increase from T.C.'s 2005 average, which occurred in a year where SAT scores on average dropped throughout the United States.

School Year Mathematics Critical Reading Writing Total

1999-2000 476 477 n/a 953
2000-2001 485 478 n/a 963
2001-2002 491 485 n/a 976
2002-2003 495 493 n/a 988
2003-2004 474 483 n/a 957
2004-2005 481 482 n/a 963
2005-2006 509 512 509 1,530 (1,021 M & CR)

Here's some other local high schools (just 2006):

LANGLEY, 1804
MCLEAN 1755
WOODSON 1711
YORKTOWN 1735

[The Dissenter]

Originally Posted by vanyali

This is from the wikipedia entry on TC Williams HS, which serves Old Town:

Test scores

The average SAT score in 2006 for T. C. Williams High School was 1,530 (509 in Math; 512 in Critical Reading; 509 in Writing). The Critical Reading and Math combined score was a 1,021, which is a 58 point increase from T.C.'s 2005 average, which occurred in a year where SAT scores on average dropped throughout the United States.

School Year Mathematics Critical Reading Writing Total

1999-2000 476 477 n/a 953
2000-2001 485 478 n/a 963
2001-2002 491 485 n/a 976
2002-2003 495 493 n/a 988
2003-2004 474 483 n/a 957
2004-2005 481 482 n/a 963
2005-2006 509 512 509 1,530 (1,021 M & CR)

Here's some other local high schools (just 2006):

LANGLEY, 1804
MCLEAN 1755
WOODSON 1711
YORKTOWN 1735

This is an extremely unfair comparison. 4 High-income schools vs. one low income one. Of course TC Williams looks inferior when you put it up against those high schools. TC is more comparable to Lee, Hayfield, Annandale, and Wakefield. I graduated from TC just two yrs ago and i think it was a good high school with a bright future.

[RAM_AF]

thrlskr,
Take a look at Kingstowne. We love the areas and they have great schools, three metro stations are all close as mentioned above, and we are on a metro bus line.

Also, take a look at militarybyowner.com and ahrn.com. You will find some great listings. We are moving this summer and have posted our TH there as well. We have found those websites to be VERY helpful since they let the property owner put in a LOT of info instead of limiting to abbreviations etc...

Good Luck!

[akorosdc]

Originally Posted by Alanboy395

This is an extremely unfair comparison. 4 High-income schools vs. one low income one. Of course TC Williams looks inferior when you put it up against those high schools. TC is more comparable to Lee, Hayfield, Annandale, and Wakefield. I graduated from TC just two yrs ago and i think it was a good high school with a bright future.

I do agree with the comparison being unfair, or at least not enough to convince that "Old Town schools are bad". It's good to keep in mind that there's a lot more to a school's quality besides the SAT scores. What's the graduation rate? How many go on to 2- or 4-year colleges? Where did they go? Are AP courses offered? What's the average AP score for those courses? Student-teacher ratio? Extracurriculars available? SAT prep offered?

Then, of course, there's the issue of income. While this doesn't necessarily make it a better school, it does make it stand out on paper through higher test scores, more AP courses, etc. just by virtue of being able to actually afford prep courses and such.

[The Dissenter]

Originally Posted by juniperbleu

I do agree with the comparison being unfair, or at least not enough to convince that "Old Town schools are bad". It's good to keep in mind that there's a lot more to a school's quality besides the SAT scores. What's the graduation rate? How many go on to 2- or 4-year colleges? Where did they go? Are AP courses offered? What's the average AP score for those courses? Student-teacher ratio? Extracurriculars available? SAT prep offered?

Then, of course, there's the issue of income. While this doesn't necessarily make it a better school, it does make it stand out on paper through higher test scores, more AP courses, etc. just by virtue of being able to actually afford prep courses and such.

The graduation rate is 73% last time i heard it. I'm not certain on how many go on to college but it is a fair number. The common colleges are NVCC, ODU, GMU, Howard, Bowie St, UMD-ES, and VCU and in some cases Hampton and Yale. A lot of AP courses are offered. I have no idea what Ap scores are but most i know do pretty well. The average size i saw in the classroom is 20-22 students (i've been in schools that had 30 students in class. A whole mess of extracurriculars available like FBLA, DECA, Titan Pride, and a wide choice of sports.

That's TC Williams in a nutshell.