vienna or fairfax station for a new family?

[saganista]

Originally Posted by kutra11

Trulia.com has 48 SFH foreclosures for Vienna and 5 SFH foreclosures for Oakton.

Of those 48, a total of 8 as I count them are actually in Vienna. The rest are in Tysons, Reston, Fairfax, and other non-town areas that happen to have a Vienna mailing address. There are about 8,300 households in actual Vienna and about 5,300 in the Oakton CDP. Looks like about one in a thousand any way you slice it.

As for the high schools, both Madison and Oakton are top-rated schools, as are most of the high schools in the area. If you seriously pack up and move on account of some statistician's fancied gradations and distinctions among schools that are all already in the top one half of 1% of all schools in the country, I'd say you might be tilting just a little too far in the anal-retentive direction....

[kutra11]

Originally Posted by saganista

Of those 48, a total of 8 as I count them are actually in Vienna. The rest are in Tysons, Reston, Fairfax, and other non-town areas that happen to have a Vienna mailing address. There are about 8,300 households in actual Vienna and about 5,300 in the Oakton CDP. Looks like about one in a thousand any way you slice it.

If they have a Vienna address, the HS are either Madison, Marshall or McLean. But it is still Vienna. Period. I stand by my statement.

Originally Posted by saganista

As for the high schools, both Madison and Oakton are top-rated schools, as are most of the high schools in the area. If you seriously pack up and move on account of some statistician's fancied gradations and distinctions among schools that are all already in the top one half of 1% of all schools in the country, I'd say you might be tilting just a little too far in the anal-retentive direction....

So by your logic, if I ever had an opportunity to move to the #1 ranked school in the country from a #100 ranked school in the country, I should still not make the move just because both those schools are in the top one half of 1% of all schools in the country?

I value "great quality of education" over a convenience like a 5-minute walk to a grocery store. And if I can afford to attain the satisfaction of being in a better school district for my kids, then, that to me is enriching your life. You might be satisfied with test scores in the 80s for a particular school, but I am aiming for schools with test scores in the 90s. It's just a matter of priorities.

There's a very good reason why the best schools are to be found in the most affluent neighborhoods...if you can't afford a house in those neighborhoods, don't try to bad-mouth others who are going up.

The Fairfax County Public Schools Web site clearly proves that Oakton test scores are MUCH better than test scores in Madison. I don't need a statistician to spell that out for me, but it doesn't hurt to get a reconfirmation!

Good luck with whatever schools you can afford to send your kids to! I am not making any opinions based on your selection....I am above that.

[saganista]

Originally Posted by kutra11

If they have a Vienna address, the HS are either Madison, Marshall or McLean. But it is still Vienna. Period. I stand by my statement.

Well, in that case, some in Vienna actually go to Oakton HS, half of Oakton goes to James Madison HS, and more than half of Oakton (including nearly the entirety of what Oaktonites quaintly refer to as "downtown") is actually a part of Vienna. All of which is meaningless, the point being that if you're fleeing to Oakton in order to escape the crushing poverty and crumbling education of Vienna, you've gone to a lot of trouble for nothing.

Originally Posted by kutra11

So by your logic, if I ever had an opportunity to move to the #1 ranked school in the country from a #100 ranked school in the country, I should still not make the move just because both those schools are in the top one half of 1% of all schools in the country?

That's correct. There are no definitive yardsticks by which the performance of schools can be precisely measured across small ranges of performance. The statistical noise and margin of error would make any conclusion invalid, and the actual difference in expected outcomes of education at any two top-rated schools would be nil in any case.

Originally Posted by kutra11

There's a very good reason why the best schools are to be found in the most affluent neighborhoods...if you can't afford a house in those neighborhoods, don't try to bad-mouth others who are going up.

I'm not bad-mouthing anyone. Just pointing out that the vast majority of those Trulia foreclosures for Vienna are not actually in Vienna. Wasn't meant as a personal putdown...