Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I moved to the West Cary area a couple of years ago and I am noticing a consistent and widespread decline in the greatschools.org score, which primarily depends on the state wide EOG test results, of schools in West Cary. For example, when I move here Green Hope Elementary had a score of 10 based on the 2008 EOG test results. Then it went down to 9 based on the 2009 results and now it has gone down to 8 based on the 2010 results. The same has happened to Carpenter and Apex Elementary schools. Highcorft, Turner and Salem have gone down to 9 this year from 10. Both Greenhope High and Davis Drive Middle have gone down to 9 this year. What is happening ? Among the elementary schools, I noticed that only Morrisville, Davis and Mills Park have consistently held onto 10. What are these schools doing better than their neighboring schools ?
The other mysteries are the magnet schools. I hear that people living in areas where their assigned elementary schools are considered to be good are sending their kids to magnet schools with an hour or more bus drive. But when I look at the test results in these magnet schools, they are much worse than the West Wake schools. Are those people looking for some specialized curriculum other than the basic elementary school material ?
Yes, magnet schools usually have a special focus... ie: arts, languages, engineering etc.
Be careful when you look at test scores only. Test scores are kind of like bikinis: they show you a lot, but they leave out the most important details.
Overall, I don't think this indicates any type of true downward trend in most of those schools, but there could be a number of reasons for the fairly insignificant (IMO) decline. When those schools were built, there were not many other people living there and it was a fairly homogeneous area. Now some of them deal with with some crowding issues, larger class sizes than previously, more diverse populations as the area has continued to grow and experienced some minor busing of lower SES kids to those schools (although most of those schools never much of it). If they were all going from a 10 to a 5, then yeah, I'd say something was up...But going from a 10 to a 9, is just not a big deal and in my opinion, somewhat expected with continued rate high growth in the area.
I also think that great schools is not really the best way to measure a successful school. I don't really much stock in their analysis.
Dave, you are missing the point about busing. There are plenty of kids who don't live in West Cary who are bused in from poorer neighborhoods. The goal is to make the schools more diverse. The kids with less family support, esp in the first 5 years of life, can have a dampening effect on the overall school achievement scores. This is by no means an indication that the schools themselves are not good.
In the case of the magnet schools, the reverse happens, they offer interesting curriculum to entice kids to come in from overpopulated schools to fill seats in underutilized buildings. There are no academic requirements so that won't necessarily impact test scores for the better. Not all kids in a magnet school are magnet kids...some of them are just kids from the neighborhood with the normal range of academic abilities.
I agree the decline is pretty insignificant. I will also say that I cannot even believe the overhype of the EOGs. The kids have as much time as they need to take them, can re-take if they fail and I believe passing is 52%. I'm in one of the schools you mention that has kept their 10, and it means nothing to me - the focus is almost solely on the EOGs. To the point of ridicuousness.
I moved here from LI where people split hairs like this constantly. SHould I spent $500K to live in a school district that "only" scores in the lows 90% of state testing when I can spend $200K more and live in a school district where the scores are consistently over 95%? At some point it is like pulling your hair out because your baby walked at 12 months while your neighbor's kids walked at 11 months.
Thanks for the replies. sandycat and lamishra, I agree with you that test scores should not be the only criteria to measure schools but, for better or for worse, that is what our school system uses to get an objective, albeit partial, measure of performance. After I posted, I dug a bit into the test scores of some schools and found that in fact the scores of some of the schools that are degraded in 2010 have actually improved in 2010 as compared to 2009. For example, Greenhope and Panther Creek have in fact improved upon their already spectacular results. So, I am suspecting that something has gone wrong with greatschools' score calculation or someone is playing some dirty game there.
librarySue, I understand the main idea for the magnet system but I was wondering why some parents in west Cary would voluntarily have their child ride a bus for more than 2 hrs a day to a magnet school, particularly for elementary school kids.
Well, my first thought is that there is NOTHING in the Davis Drive district that could be "affordable" on a moderate income except for the tiny handful of nodes of kids who are bused in. I looked for a friend who wanted a rental under $1400 and we have never been able to find one unless they live far away in the "bused" zones. So chances are the vast majority of the kids there are from well-off families who can afford (in terms of time and money) to really nurture their kids' test performances with things like preschool and lots of time at home working on schooling.
My kids are at Carpenter and their "great schools" test score 3 years ago was an 8. Last time I checked it was a 10. Sounds like you're checked it more recently. But let me tell you, the quality of the school has neither skyrocketed nor plummeted since my kids started there. It's really about the leadership and PTA anyway.
Well, my first thought is that there is NOTHING in the Davis Drive district that could be "affordable" on a moderate income except for the tiny handful of nodes of kids who are bused in. I looked for a friend who wanted a rental under $1400 and we have never been able to find one unless they live far away in the "bused" zones. So chances are the vast majority of the kids there are from well-off families who can afford (in terms of time and money) to really nurture their kids' test performances with things like preschool and lots of time at home working on schooling.
My kids are at Carpenter and their "great schools" test score 3 years ago was an 8. Last time I checked it was a 10. Sounds like you're checked it more recently. But let me tell you, the quality of the school has neither skyrocketed nor plummeted since my kids started there. It's really about the leadership and PTA anyway.
MacArthur Park is Davis Drive.
I'd call some of the homes over that way "moderate."
I think the focus on scores and achievement has gotten way out of hand. When did childrearing become a competition?
People go on and on about how other countries are producing smarter kids. You know how they do that? By instilling in them the drive to succeed and make their families proud.
It's not by teaching them more or less math, or more or less reading. (Though I would argue that we don't teach nearly enough science and social studies here).
I have seen kids that were friends with my eldest child who were in high school (he went to Green Hope, btw) with 5.0 GPAs (why did we have to move beyond 4.0 in high school?) and they were all spending their 4 years there stressed out about grades, colleges, doing better than one another. It was kinda sad.
When you go to graduation and every kid there is wearing an honor sash, you have to start wondering if they're really all that brilliant, or did we just norm things right up to "honor" status?
I went to a magnet high school. At my graduation, we probably had about 10% of the students wearing an honor sash (if that). Might've been about 5%. No joke. Seemed reasonable to me.
Not everyone can be a superstar. Doesn't mean that the people without the sashes didn't have excellent GPAs, mind you. Back then, you could get into a great college with a 3.5, though.
Weird times.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
