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If getting into a top school district is a major priority, there are plenty of options in places like Sewickley and Mount Lebanon where you can get substantially less house but in an expensive ZIP code. Sewickley in particular even has some nice family-sized condo apartments if you can't afford a house there.
In the long run, you may find it to be worth it many times over.
No. Just no.
Districts like Mount Lebanon and Upper Saint Clair are top ranked mainly because they're expensive. If you move there you're basically one of two kinds of people:
1. Someone fairly well off, like a doctor or a lawyer. Generally speaking, most doctors and lawyers did well in school when they were children. And since intelligence and personality traits which determine studiousness (e.g., ability to forward plan, lack of impulsiveness, high conscientiousness) are around 50% genetic, the kids of upper-middle class professionals will tend towards being high performing too.
2. People who don't make as much money, but are willing to make major sacrifices (e.g., buying a smaller, more dated home) to give their kids a "good education." Again, parents who care about education will, all things considered, tend to have children who care about trying in school, which again means they'll do fairly well anywhere.
Of course, the local peer culture which develops in a school matters too. The dull/average kids who are surrounded by kids who are a bit average will want to fit in, and thus may try a bit harder than they would at a more typical school. Still, all data on education I have seen has suggested that correcting for the level of education of the parents, there is no real evidence the school a child goes to matters at all in terms metrics like say how much money they make at age 30.
To give a local example, consider Fox Chapel Area SD. Yes overall it's highly rated, but it doesn't come out as close to the top as Upper Saint Clair and Mount Lebanon. The reason for this is Sharpsburg is in the school district. Kerr elementary, where the Sharpsburg kids now go (since they closed Sharpsburg's elementary school) lags the rest of the elementary schools in the district considerably. This is exactly what you'd expect if there was a tight association between school test scores and social class (which there is).
Edit: The bottom line is, at least IMHO, unless you come from an immigrant background, you shouldn't expect (on average) that your children will exceed your own social class dramatically regardless of how much of a "leg up" you try to give them. It just means you'll spend more money and have roughly similar life outcomes.
Hard to argue with any of those comments about Dormont. I've made the comment before (and I think others have obliquely referenced the phenomenon as well), but the vast majority of the larger, more "expensive" ($150k and above) homes that are selling in Dormont are being purchased by young, college-educated couples or individuals (may be 10 - 15 homes a year). I guess the big question is whether these folks will remain in the borough when they start to have families. Anecdotally, I have seen it go both ways -- for example, in our immediate neighborhood, I know of a teacher at one of the "blue ribbon" high schools that is comfortable sending his child to Dormont Elementary. On the other hand, I'm also aware of two others that moved -- one family to Lebo and one to USC (although I don't know how much the school district issue factored into the decision to move). (There is also a recent thread on the South Hills Mom's Facebook page about the Keystone Oaks School District that you may find helpful.)
My wife and I personally struggle with this issue, however -- and it is not something you can necessarily discuss with your neighbors (from experience, I've found that it is difficult to raise the issue at neighborhood gatherings: "this sure is great dip, and by the way, are you concerned that you are irreparably harming your child's future by not, if you can afford it, getting them into one of the "blue ribbon" districts").
It depends on how important you really think the minutia of what happens inside the four walls of a school is for your kid's future. Personally, as a trained educator, my opinion is that it doesn't matter that much. As long as a school is safe, reasonably well-run (every school is dysfunctional in its own special way, including the ones with super awesome reputations, believe me), and has a critical mass of quality teachers (no school anywhere has 100% A++ quality staff across all grades and subject areas), and has a reasonable student: teacher ratio, there is not much evidence that much else having to do with one school vs. another really matters. What has been shown over and over again to have the greatest impact on educational outcomes for children is the educational level and socioeconomic status of the parents. If your kid has two involved, reasonably well-educated, middle class parents, they're already starting way, way ahead of the game. There is no research that has ever indicated that sending such a child to a B+ school vs. an A+ school is going to make a jot of difference to their educational outcomes.
My concerns for my kid's school (he's not school-aged yet, but, as I say, I'm an educator and have worked in schools--local and out of state--plenty) is #1 safety, #2 reasonable student:teacher ratio, #3 building-level administration that is not massively incompetent. In the city school distrct, that rules a few of the local schools out, but by no means rules out PPS as a whole. (Also, I should mention that the biggest disaster of a school I ever saw in all my years of classroom teaching and educational research was not a public school at all, it was a local parochial school that has since closed.)
Districts like Mount Lebanon and Upper Saint Clair are top ranked mainly because they're expensive. If you move there you're basically one of two kinds of people.
1. Someone fairly well off, like a doctor or a lawyer. Generally speaking, most doctors and lawyers did well in school when they were children. And since intelligence and personality traits which determine studiousness (e.g., ability to forward plan, lack of impulsiveness, high conscientiousness) are around 50% genetic, the kids of upper-middle class professionals will tend towards being high performing too.
2. People who don't make as much money, but are willing to make major sacrifices (e.g., buying a smaller, more dated home) to give their kids a "good education." Again, parents who care about education will, all things considered, tend to have children who care about trying in school, which again means they'll do fairly well anywhere.
Of course, the local peer culture which develops in a school matters too. The dull/average kids who are surrounded by kids who are a bit average will want to fit in, and thus may try a bit harder than they would at a more typical school. Still, all data on education I have seen has suggested that correcting for the level of education of the parents, there is no real evidence the school a child goes to matters at all in terms metrics like say how much money they make at age 30.
To give a local example, consider Fox Chapel Area SD. Yes overall it's highly rated, but it doesn't come out as close to the top as Upper Saint Clair and Mount Lebanon. The reason for this is Sharpsburg is in the school district. Kerr elementary, where the Sharpsburg kids now go (since they closed Sharpsburg's elementary school) lags the rest of the elementary schools in the district considerably. This is exactly what you'd expect if there was a tight association between school test scores and social class (which there is).
Edit: The bottom line is, at least IMHO, unless you come from an immigrant background, you shouldn't expect (on average) that your children will exceed your own social class dramatically regardless of how much of a "leg up" you try to give them. It just means you'll spend more money and have roughly similar life outcomes.
You raise some very strong points. But even taking them all into account, I still think it's a reasonable choice to want to have your child in that top ranked district just to give them the best possible odds, even if the difference is marginal. At that point it becomes a matter of degrees, like how much house are you sacrificing and how much school edge are you gaining, and it would be a case-by-case judgment.
OP seems to have the notion that the blue chip SDs of the county are out of his/her budget from the get to, and it's worth pointing out that that probably is not true.
Some friends of ours did the "cheapest house in an expensive school district" thing and... all it did was put their kids in amongst peers who are of a waaaay higher socio-economic class and guess what? Kids are total jerks about stuff like that. And, as it turned out, so are a lot of adults. Diversity isn't just a buzzword. It's an important educational experience for children, to be surrounded by lots of different sorts of people of different walks of life. Otherwise, they grow up thinking that getting a new car for one's 16th birthday is normal.
You raise some very strong points. But even taking them all into account, I still think it's a reasonable choice to want to have your child in that top ranked district just to give them the best possible odds, even if the difference is marginal. At that point it becomes a matter of degrees, like how much house are you sacrificing and how much school edge are you gaining, and it would be a case-by-case judgment.
Perhaps. But I'd argue if you have a choice between a more expensive house in a "top rated" district, or a less expensive house in a "mediocre" one, you'll provide for your child better by being in the less expensive house, investing the money, and ensuring they have a trust fund to supplement their income in adulthood.
Quote:
Originally Posted by chris1219
OP seems to have the notion that the blue chip SDs of the county are out of his/her budget from the get to, and it's worth pointing out that that probably is not true.
This is undoubtedly true. But again, often the "deals" are in part because they are the part of the district where the poor(er) kids live, which means it's not like they'll be in a "great school" immediately. Even though Quaker Valley in general is good, I'm guessing that if you buy a house in Leetsdale, many of the kids at the local elementary school will not be high performing.
Quote:
Originally Posted by theta_sigma
Some friends of ours did the "cheapest house in an expensive school district" thing and... all it did was put their kids in amongst peers who are of a waaaay higher socio-economic class and guess what? Kids are total jerks about stuff like that. And, as it turned out, so are a lot of adults. Diversity isn't just a buzzword. It's an important educational experience for children, to be surrounded by lots of different sorts of people of different walks of life. Otherwise, they grow up thinking that getting a new car for one's 16th birthday is normal.
I know someone who grew up in Iowa who had this happen to her. Her parents bought in a top school district, in an affordable neighborhood down by the railway tracks. The kids called her a "junction rat" all the way through to the end of high school. She wished she went somewhere more normal in retrospect.
Some friends of ours did the "cheapest house in an expensive school district" thing and... all it did was put their kids in amongst peers who are of a waaaay higher socio-economic class and guess what? Kids are total jerks about stuff like that. And, as it turned out, so are a lot of adults. Diversity isn't just a buzzword. It's an important educational experience for children, to be surrounded by lots of different sorts of people of different walks of life. Otherwise, they grow up thinking that getting a new car for one's 16th birthday is normal.
Yes, I will grant you that.
Of course, I came from the other extreme -- being the "rich" kid in a relatively poor school district. That was no picnic, either.
And yet, I got a solid education in my Beaver County school district, managing to climb to the top of one of the most competitive industries in the world.
Would things have been different for me had I gone to Sewickley Academy or North Allegheny? Probably. Would they have been "better"? That's hard to say.
Regardless, 65% of a child's eduction comes from the HOME, not inside the school during classroom hours. If what the kid learns in school is not reinforced at home, even the smartest kid with virtually unlimited potential will not succeed (and I've met a LOT of these kids -- high school dropouts in the inner cities who are sharp as spark plugs and would have gone quite far, if they'd been given just a little positive reinforcement at home).
Not falling into a gang (or at the very least, a "bad crowd") is also a major factor. That also comes from reinforcement at home.
Schools and teachers can do only so much. And frankly I find it patently unfair that "lower" performing schools are essentially set up to fail, no matter how talented the teachers may be, simply because the deck is stacked against them, with classrooms loaded full of kids from bad homes who aren't getting positive educational reinforcement at home (if they're getting ANYTHING at home, including a hot meal and even a modicum of supervision, let alone discipline).
It's easy to point to test results from wealthy schools and employ the failed logic that the difference in funding is responsible. I don't care how many smart boards, laptops, high tech gadgetry, or talented teachers a school has; if the vast majority of students come from homes where education is valued and reinforced, they will succeed, regardless of how much money is thrown at the school. I've seen this first-hand in some of the poorest, roughest neighborhoods in the country (Harlem and Brooklyn) where high-perfoming magnet and charter schools culling children from the very same neighborhoods are outperforming the so-called "bad" schools.
Some friends of ours did the "cheapest house in an expensive school district" thing and... all it did was put their kids in amongst peers who are of a waaaay higher socio-economic class and guess what? Kids are total jerks about stuff like that. And, as it turned out, so are a lot of adults. Diversity isn't just a buzzword. It's an important educational experience for children, to be surrounded by lots of different sorts of people of different walks of life. Otherwise, they grow up thinking that getting a new car for one's 16th birthday is normal.
As it turns out, I am an example of that. I went to a highly ranked public school district in the North Hills where I was pretty low on the ranks of how much money my parents had. My parents didn't plan it that way, because the district didn't actually ascend high into the rankings until years later, when a lot of new money came in. And you are right kids are jerks, and some parents are often even bigger jerks than the kids. It is a real issue because you don't want your kid to develop an inferiority complex.
However, I wouldn't change anything, because I think it made me have higher standards in life based on what my peers had, and subsequently, the drive and motivation to achieve and maintain that. It gave me a strong incentive to stay out of trouble. I think it helped me.
What would you consider reasonable? My son (1st grade) has 16 kids in his class. I can't imagine that a city school would have a ratio even close to that.
Some friends of ours did the "cheapest house in an expensive school district" thing and... all it did was put their kids in amongst peers who are of a waaaay higher socio-economic class and guess what? Kids are total jerks about stuff like that. And, as it turned out, so are a lot of adults. Diversity isn't just a buzzword. It's an important educational experience for children, to be surrounded by lots of different sorts of people of different walks of life. Otherwise, they grow up thinking that getting a new car for one's 16th birthday is normal.
I think it all depends on the how cheap the house is comparison to the other houses in the district. Using the Sharspburg example, Sharpsburg is so cheap that you probably wouldn't be cross shopping houses in average districts. You may actually be cross shopping houses in crappy districts. The question then is whether or not your kid is better off being dirt poor in an affluent district or going to school in a lousy district where there are other kids who come from a similar background.
The question then is whether or not your kid is better off being dirt poor in an affluent district or going to school in a lousy district where there are other kids who come from a similar background.
Well when you phrase the question like that, the answer seems pretty obvious.
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