Might Be Moving to P'Burgh (Pittsburgh, Fox Chapel: credit, best schools, university)

[RogersParkTransplant]

Originally Posted by jay5835

If you don't quote him, those of us who have him on ignore will have neither the ability nor the desire to provoke him. If you put him on ignore, the benefits can be endless, for you and the rest of us.

Wait, what? Is there a way to make people invisible in here? I didn't know that...

[erieguy]

Originally Posted by Lobick

Do you know the answers to those questions? I doubt that you do because they don't support your contentions.

Many, including Eschaton, have addressed these questions and others of their ilk ad nauseum on this forum.

See below for just one example:
What would YOU do about Pittsburgh's schools?

Please, I beg you two to not ruin yet another thread with this nonsense.

Interesting as I was just one to agree. I totally understand that some have a disdain for certain areas, however, that disdain shouldn't permit the truth from being ignored when relevant information is given.

[erieguy]

Originally Posted by Merge

These guys pass up no opportunity to criticize city schools. It's an obvious agenda to virtually anyone reading the thread.

I haven't seen one post where one has criticized city schools. Only ones that show differences.

[RogersParkTransplant]

OMG this is bliss.

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by RogersParkTransplant

This is exactly what I meant when I said that discussing school districts is the fast track to picking a fight around here. There are two schools of thought: one is that a great school produces great kids; the other is that great families produce great kids, and that a high concentration of kids who are demographically predicted to succeed will make a school look great. Since we all feel very strongly about how we educate our own children, there's really no way to "win" this fight. We all just have to raise our kids as we see fit, and for many of us PPS is the right choice.

Yep. If it was any old person relocating to the city I wouldn't have brought it up, but given their desires in terms of a community, their budget, and their likely need to be in a place convenient to Oakland, I thought it was worth bringing up.

Originally Posted by erieguy

I'd wager that there's a better chance of Fox Chapel getting them into Yale and Yale making them a better Doctor than PPS getting them into Yale, and Case making them a better doctor. However, I'm sure that's not always the end result.

I'm not sure what you're getting at here, but it's pretty well known that the admissions departments at universities think that top students from major urban school systems are a bigger get than those from the suburbs. They probably fill some internal "diversity" quota as well.

Originally Posted by erieguy

If you mentioned a top suburban school vs a top PPS school, what would the majority look at as better?

All sorts of things have been popular, including Adam Sandler movies, the Eagles, and Bud Light.

Originally Posted by lettert

Your child is in a magnet program though. How good of a chance do students have of getting into this program? In addition, this is a skewed representation as it is made up of the high achievers in the city.

A few years back the Post Gazette posted an article showing the overall odds. I worked it out to an 85% chance of getting into one of my three choices for Kindergarten.

The magnet system is somewhat skewed, because you have to apply, meaning only those parents who care about education bother. But it's not merit based - entrance is a lottery. It's true that kids, if they are troublemakers, can get kicked back into the neighborhood schools. It happened to one kid in my daughter's Kindergarten - he didn't come back this year.

[erieguy]

Again, sounds like more opinion than anything, and hopes of getting into a magnet school.

[Paul2421]

Originally Posted by eschaton

A few years back the Post Gazette posted an article showing the overall odds. I worked it out to an 85% chance of getting into one of my three choices for Kindergarten.

The magnet system is somewhat skewed, because you have to apply, meaning only those parents who care about education bother. But it's not merit based - entrance is a lottery. It's true that kids, if they are troublemakers, can get kicked back into the neighborhood schools. It happened to one kid in my daughter's Kindergarten - he didn't come back this year.

Thank you for the answer! I was seriously curious and don't want to be lumped in with some other posters. Those are good odds, but I still think some people would be reluctant to set down roots even with the small chance that they will have to send their kid to an inferior school.

[Lobick]

Originally Posted by lettert

Thank you for the answer! I was seriously curious and don't want to be lumped in with some other posters. Those are good odds, but I still think some people would be reluctant to set down roots even with the small chance that they will have to send their kid to an inferior school.

Of course, it's not a one time lottery. You can continue to apply year after year.

[ferraris]

Originally Posted by Lobick

Of course, it's not a one time lottery. You can continue to apply year after year.

Do the odds hold steady at 85% at grades higher than Kindergarten? If so, that's a 2.25% (.15^2) chance of not getting in by 1st grade and a 0.3% (.15^3) chance of not getting in by 2nd.

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by ferraris

Do the odds hold steady at 85% at grades higher than Kindergarten? If so, that's a 2.25% (.15^2) chance of not getting in by 1st grade and a 0.3% (.15^3) chance of not getting in by 2nd.

I think it would be really hard to calculate. The only slots available are those which open up due to children leaving the schools. PPS doesn't even list open slots for the higher grades at the general magnet enrollment date (only later, when there the open enrollment period for magnet slots which weren't filled during the lottery). At the same time, relatively few parents bother to apply between kindergarten and 6th grade. The one case I'm aware of where a parent got her child into a magnet at a later time involved some sort of direct lobbying of the school.