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TR is part of Greenville County Schools which is all of Greenville County. That was the one thing I figured might be a drawback for you as I know TR doesn't tend to rank as high. To be honest, I am not very familiar with TRHS so I wouldnt be able to give any good insights on that school but overall Greenville County School District is very strong and has some phenomenal schools so if there is any school choice opportunity, you might be able to go to a better HS.
Like I said, not too sure about TR, it may be a good school and ranks poorly...anyone else on here know more about TR?
Very true. Could be a great school but ranks poorly. My school district now is 2 for elementary, 4 for MS and 5 for HS. the majority of the issue here is poverty. It's a cycle that happens for generations. Many people on SSI and public assistance. Free/reduced lunch at about 45% graduation rate-76% (I actually thought it was lower to be honest). High Teen pregnancy rate because there's absolutely nothing to do
Teachers are great but they have to deal with a lot of kids with behavior problems because a lot of parents are just absent. I feel like my daughter is very safe. The school is so accommodating to her (she has diabetes and they give her a 1:1 RN)
I know it all starts at home but I don't want to add to the list of poor outside influences. I'm thinking, let's face it, probably half her friends will drop.out
Wilson High school has the IB program that any parent/student can apply to, including students not living in the areas zoned for the school.
The schools offer AP courses starting in the 11th grade, and these include math and science courses. This is STEM preparation unless you want to argue that college level science and math courses that are credits in STEM majors is not a STEM program.
I and others were able to get into good colleges, colleges ranked much higher than FMU, and colleges that offer more STEM majors. Many of us graduated with degrees in STEM related fields. I think this refutes your premise that our schools don't stack up based on some kind of STEM funding/program comparison. I know Carver Elementary has a STEM based curriculum. If a school offers math, science classes, that is STEM. So it comes down to how good the teachers and textbooks are, and you can't talk about the teachers and textbooks.
The schools in FLorence are not underfunded. Physicians, etc would not send their kids to an underfunded school. The schools in Columbia are generally much larger, west florence is a small school. Schools with more students have a larger heat load, which requires more AC to offset, and AC costs are the biggest expense for any building. You have to look at funding in terms of costs to run a school and costs to run a school are not related to number of students in a linear relationship.
Comparing schools with a focus on the student body stats without talking about teachers and textbooks is like comparing Target and Walmart in terms of the success of the customers in life rather than in terms of the customer service, prices, cleanliness at the two stores.
Teacher and textbooks are the thing, along with the extracurricular activites, and the offering of AP coures and an IB program. There are also special needs programs and other programs like REACH. all of this requires funding and it is funded.
Do you think the schools in Columbia with the 3, 2, 1 school scores are adequately funded? Your premise seems to be the schools in the smaller cities are underfunded, yet there are larger schools in the urban areas of the bigger cities that have lower school scores than many rural and small city schools. i don't think there are many students at those schools who are going to college especially in a STEM program, yet the schools are not underfunded.
it seems like every time I have posted something positive about the schools in Florence in response to questions about them, you show up to say Columbia schools are better. It is almost like an algorithm is in place in which a comparison between Florence and Columbia schools must be made but it does not include any discussion of teachers, and student / parent experiences with the schools, and what the students do post-graduation. if the students who apply themselves while in the schools can get into good colleges and then obtain good jobs, the school has accomplished it mission. it doesn't make sense to use the unmotivated students and the students who struggle to learn at a school to grade a school in comparison to another. they don't teach the courses.
I would not tout a school if I did not think they are good schools, simply because I went to them. i am not getting paid for this.
if you are saying things like Windsor Forest backs up to Darlington street when it doesn't back up to Darlington street, I think people should take what you say about Florence with a grain of salt. Being a college kid in town for 4 years gives a person a limited perspective on a city vs long term residents who went to the schools or have kids who went to the schools. i think that your claim that the west florence suburbs, which you claim are not suburbs, has higher crime than the Irmo area is baseless. it has a much lower population and population density, which means less criminals and less probability of interacting with criminals. The suburbs are an adequate distance from the high crime areas downtown.
a few years ago, a young woman attending USC was shot by a drug addict in Five Points in Columbia's downtown and there is a gas station in that area that closes at dusk because of the crime issues.
I meant to add that students in the advanced and intermediate courses at schools in any city are not in the same classrooms with the failing students who tend to be the most disruptive. and if you didn't attend a school, you cannot say with certainity there is a significant amount of disruption by students in the school simply by looking at student body data. a consistently disruptive student will be kicked out of the school.
i've spent too much time responding to a person who referred to me as 'Champ'.
Clearly I have spent too much time responding to someone making pure anecdotal assumptions on what he/she wants to perceive as the truth despite what can be factually shown.
I have time and again thrown out facts and information you have chosen to ignore because you are unable to develop a response and you have still yet to throw out any sort of factual evidence to defend any of your points. Furthermore, you go on about completely irrelevant information that to try and defend your point because you know that you are making an assumption that has no legitimacy or facts to back it up.
We have just addressed the how the teachers stack up, and I have proven you wrong on that front. It wasn't what you wanted to hear so you ignored it and tried to continue on that I have not addressed it.
You continue to point out that some WF students went to way better schools than FMU and I have yet to disagree with you, but you have no information or data to prove that and I have furthermore pointed out based on Dept of Education data that a lower percentage of WF seniors went to a four year college and also pointed out that a large percentage of those who did, in fact did go to FMU. I have never said WF seniors did not go to other schools, I know several that did, but you somehow think that makes WF comporable to the other high schools I have mentioned simply because I went to FMU. The truth of the matter is I was not one at the top of my class in HS and one of 4 who went to FMU, the large majority of our senior class went to Clemson, as was the same for Chapin, Lexington, and Irmo. Chapin, Lexington, and Dutch Fork are consistently among the top 10 feeder high schools to both Clemson and USC while West Florence is no where to be found.
Despite what you think, this was not a personal attack against WF, which is why at no point throughout this whole debate have I once said WF is a bad school because it is not but, when schools are a very important part of someone's decision on where to live in South Carolina and they are looking for the best schools in the state, I am going to direct them to the best schools in the state. WF, though not a bad school, is not one of the best schools in the state, no matter how much you would like to believe it is.
Furthermore, you have provide absolutely no facts or statistics to back up your claims on Irmo has higher crime than WF "suburbs". Look at any crime rate index and tell me that Irmo has more crime...sorry, you will not be able to do so. Also, your argument that higher density automatically means more crime is perhaps the most ridiculous argument I have ever heard...places like Dillon and Bennetsville have some of the highest crime rates in the state, so based off of your logic, they are the most dense? No, they are not. Population density can play a role in crime rates i'll give you that, but it does not automatically equal higher crime rates and in many cases (like what we are talking about), it doesn't. Also you keep throwing out these other schools and areas in Columbia to somehow defend your point against Irmo having crime or somehow these schools have an effect on Irmo...totally different areas and school systems and I agree those areas have crime and bad schools as well. But see, Irmo is an actual suburb, its like someone saying oh Wilson HS is bad like it would affect Hartsville High, or Florence has high crime as a slight to prove Darlington has high crime. You wouldnt do that would you? Nope.
Finally, I will concede the only point you got right and that is my saying Windsor Forest backs up to Darlington Street. After looking at the map, I realized I did mix up Sumter and Darlington Streets and even though Windsor Forest is still a mile from Darlington Street, I was wrong to say it backs up to it!
Colaclemsonfan11, it's hard when you are used to discussing facts and data to deal with some who believes their anecdotes are fact. I just don't bother anymore.
I went to the best public university in the state. you went to one of the lowest ranked colleges in the state and in the country.
I say the Florence schools are as good as any school in Columbia, as a person who went to a higher ranked college than you, and who also attended the Florence schools.
You don't know anything about the teachers at West Florence. I'll say that one last time. You are talking about good school and bad schools without talking about teachers, and you are making assertions like schools are underfunded, without even knowng the costs of the school. You talk about certain programs that you say are important but you don't really know the actually curriculum of the schools in Florence. The whole STEM thing is really just a marketing thing. Science and math classes by defaut are STEM based, you don't need to call it that. They offer AP class in science and math, college level courses.
Bigger schools do send more students to Clemson and other good schools because they have more students in general. This seems kind of obvous. They also have a great number of bad students compared to a small high school like west florence.
There was no way a smaller school like Chapin (a school you touted as much better that has a school score of 6) sent more students than West Florence though.
My class had like 25 or more students at CU. Obvously other students went to other good schools, and much better than FMU, if we go by student body stats alone.
it is funny to me you spend all this time researching public schools in Florence but you didn't seem to care about that when you were applying to colleges. FMU doesn't stack up to other colleges so by your own logic you received a lesser education in college even if you got the best in high school.
Windsor Forest is near a part of Darlington Street that has offices on it, as I have already noted. It is not near high crime areas. west florence does not have more crimes than Irmo and larger population suburbs in Columbia and elswhere. It seems like you want to paint a false picture.
I doubt you mixed it up with Sumter street given there isn't a lot of traffic on that road and you didn't live in west Florence.
Last edited by ClemVegas; 06-21-2016 at 11:03 AM..
Colaclemsonfan11, it's hard when you are used to discussing facts and data to deal with some who believes their anecdotes are fact. I just don't bother anymore.
you don't discuss facts. you act like you are an expert on everything, even on cities that you have never lived in. you follow me around on here trying to do gotcha. Only reason you are talking about this topic is because I am. You grew up in Landrum, which is almost NC. why don't you talk about Landrum? You don't because you are here to do gotcha on me.
How are you an expert on schools that you never attended. you argue by assertion. I went to the highest ranked public university in the state and a top 20, 21, in the country per the US News, so if you care so much about rankings, student body stats, it seems odd that you want to say that I don't know what I am talking about, if this raw data about schools is what is most important. I can brag all day about stats if that is what you two want to do.
I haven't used anecdotes. Personal knowledge of schools is not anecdotes. If students have gone to good colleges and obtained jobs in challenging professions, that must prove the schools are good. This is a logical proof.
You also cannot prove the teachers at these schools are not good teachers.
you guys don't talk about the teachers, and education stems from the teachers. Education is not competition between the student bodies of schools. The student body of a school does not collectively apply to colleges or apply for a job. Academic stats at the individual level is what is important as far as getting into good colleges and jobs.
In my view, a school cannot be defined by the number of students who are unmotivated or not good at academics. It is fine if that is your definition. It isn't my definition. I think it defined by the teachers. There are physicians, lawyers, engineers who send their kids to the florence schools, surely you two are not smarter than all of them. Maybe they know something about schools that they are invested in and you are not. These are people who can afford to send their kids to private schools in the area but they don't.
I say, the schools in Florence are fine, and two people not from Florence decide that they need to try to refute that and say other schools are better and the Florence schools don't stack up. why does everything on here have to be compared and it turned into a competition.
i believe that I at the very least stack up to both of you and I went to these schools. it is possible i was able to overcome a lesser education than you two. but more plausible that I received a good K-12 education.
i can tell you that i don't think anybody in west Florence thinks Columbia is a lower crime area. the Irmo area is not far from the St Andrews area. My parents, brother, and like 7 uncles/aunts live in Columbia, and I lived there for 2.5 years and I am aware of the crime issues there.
you would think Columbia is Martha's Vineyard or something, the way it is portrayed by ColaClemsonFan.
Last edited by ClemVegas; 06-21-2016 at 11:09 AM..
Don't know if there are any new rankings, but Clemson university is ranked at #61 nationally.
FMU is ranked #76 regionally. This is per the 2015-2016 rankings. Link is below:
I said it is no. 20 or 21 public university. you have to look at their list of public universities. the private schools that are ranked above in the overall list are smaller schools, and their rankings reward selectivity and the smaller a college the more selective it can be, if it also has a good academic reputation.
A public school has to take a certain number of state students so they can't be quite as selective a smaller school that has no requirement to take a certain number of state students.
FMU is a regional school which means a school with few graduate programs and generally no PhD programs. It is largely a commuter school for average and below average students who graduated from schools in the Pee Dee area, schools that some on here claim don't stack up to Columbia and Charleston schools. It is basically little different from a community college, except it focuses more on liberal arts / business, and there are athletic programs.
It offers less majors than a large public university, and no architecture, engineering and other programs that fall under the STEM category.
I have nothing against FMU, and I am not commenting on the quality of the education there given I have no direct knowledge and experience with the professors and university. I am surprised that a person who thinks student body statistics are important and states that the schools he went to are among the best in the state because of the student body statistics would go to a college like FMU, which is ranked 76 in regional category because the academic stats of their entering freshmen are lower than than the students attending other colleges with higher rankings.
There are also a good bit more poorer kids attending FMU than most colleges, but his definition of good schools at the K-12 level appears to be schools that have a smaller number of poor kids relative to other schools. That is why I say that by his own logic regarding K-12 schools, the college he attended is a bad college. I am saying that approach is not fair to the schools and their teachers who could be great teachers.
Last edited by ClemVegas; 06-21-2016 at 12:09 PM..
I went to the best public university in the state. you went to one of the lowest ranked colleges in the state and in the country.
I say the Florence schools are as good as any school in Columbia, as a person who went to a higher ranked college than you, and who also attended the Florence schools.
You don't know anything about the teachers at West Florence. I'll say that one last time. You are talking about good school and bad schools without talking about teachers, and you are making assertions like schools are underfunded, without even knowng the costs of the school. You talk about certain programs that you say are important but you don't really know the actually curriculum of the schools in Florence. The whole STEM thing is really just a marketing thing. Science and math classes by defaut are STEM based, you don't need to call it that. They offer AP class in science and math, college level courses.
Bigger schools do send more students to Clemson and other good schools because they have more students in general. This seems kind of obvous. They also have a great number of bad students compared to a small high school like west florence.
There was no way a smaller school like Chapin (a school you touted as much better that has a school score of 6) sent more students than West Florence though.
My class had like 25 or more students at CU. Obvously other students went to other good schools, and much better than FMU, if we go by student body stats alone.
it is funny to me you spend all this time researching public schools in Florence but you didn't seem to care about that when you were applying to colleges. FMU doesn't stack up to other colleges so by your own logic you received a lesser education in college even if you got the best in high school.
Windsor Forest is near a part of Darlington Street that has offices on it, as I have already noted. It is not near high crime areas. west florence does not have more crimes than Irmo and larger population suburbs in Columbia and elswhere. It seems like you want to paint a false picture.
I doubt you mixed it up with Sumter street given there isn't a lot of traffic on that road and you didn't live in west Florence.
You know, I was just going to call it a day and quit responding so you can save a little face but I am starting to enjoy watching you hang yourself...plus its a slow day in the office. Also you tend to think I am researching all this just to prove you wrong, please don't flatter yourself, this is all information that terrible education at FMU got me (it also got me into a master's program at the best college in the state).
So lets start with your claim that there is no way Chapin sends more kids to Clemson than WF does because its smaller. Welp, the Commission on Higher Education says thats not true in their enrollment data for incoming freshman, actually, it appears Chapin sends anywhere from 23-25 per year and West Florence sends somewhere between 15-17 a year. For USC, Chapin sends about 43 per year and WF sends only 30. Now, if they were the same size school this would be pretty underwhelming, but as you pointed out, Chapin is much smaller than WF, so this is pretty substantial if you ask me. Now, apparently more of your WF seniors didn't seem to care much about researching where to go to college either because WF sends more students to FMU than any other college...gah if WF is a good as you say it is and FMU is as bad as you say it is, this just doesn't seem to make sense...hmmm.
Also, just to note because as you said, schools like DF, Irmo, Lexington, are much much bigger than WF so this doesn't matter but they are consistently in the top 10 feeder high schools for Clemson. But, like you said, they are much larger than WF so of course they send more students but hey, why leave out a good story?
Now on to your little rant about WF and Irmo in the crime category, or sorry I mean "Suburban West Florence" and Irmo. Well, as I have continued to note, WF is not even separated enough from downtown to be in a different zip code which makes it a bit more challenging because because the only way to really measure crime stats are by zip because that indicates different areas...like in Columbia, Irmo is 29063, the Columbiana Mall area is 29212, Chapin is 29036, but lets just focus on Irmo and Columbiana Mall for now. 29501 has a crime index of 119, 29212 (Columbiana Centre/Harbison) has a crime rate of 111 and 29063 (Irmo/Dutch Fork/Ballentine) has a crime rate of 107. Now, I know what you're about to say "but that includes downtown Florence and not just the far out burbs of West Florence" but because WF is not its own town, suburb, and is more just a part of Florence (again, a mere 4 miles from the far side of downtown), its just not big enough to measure on its own, plus lets be honest, sure, the "office" side of Darlington Street is closest to Windsor Forest but just on the other side of those offices is The Bottom, so bad that's what police call it. I'm sure you're familiar with it, probably went to HS with a few folks from there. Windsor Forest is a nice area, not denying that, its just around other areas that are not so nice.
Just remember, that lesser education is what got me into Grad School at the same place you got your undergrad...
Last edited by ColaClemsonFan11; 06-21-2016 at 12:58 PM..
i will just close by saying again you have no personal knowledge of the Florence schools because you did not go to them, and you have never lived in West Florence. You lived over near Irby street, closer to the high crime areas and went to a small college that is 10 miles to the east of town, which is like 20 miles or more from west Florence suburbs.
if somebody wants to believe that you know more about Florence than a long term resident who went to the schools, that's cool with me. i personally would like to hear from insiders who attended the schools and lived in the burbs being discussed. anybody can look up the 'raw data' about schools if you did.
it seems like every time i see you post about Florence, you run it down and say it is not as good as Columbia. that is so weird in my view. this is so important to you that you have done a deep dive into 'raw data' about Florence schools. i don't understand your motivation for it but i will put you on my ignore list and try not to peek at any responses you make. You definitely rub me the wrong way.
i would think you went to MIT or Harvard or one of the 'elite' schools given how much bragging you have done about Columbia schools in comparson to Florence schools. Never would have thought a person saying the things you do about K-12 would have gone to FMU for college.
No school is sending a certain number of students to a specific college every year, and there are other good colleges in the state and outside the states. Number of students going to a certain college doesn't tell you anything about the teachers. you want to talk about everything but the teachers.
Getting into a college isn't the accomplishment. Graduating from it is. A lot of people who get into CU and other good colleges had to drop out.
Last edited by ClemVegas; 06-21-2016 at 01:07 PM..
i will just close by saying again you have no personal knowledge of the Florence schools because you did not go to them, and you have never lived in West Florence. You lived over near Irby street, closer to the high crime areas and went to a small college that is 10 miles to the east of town, which is like 20 miles or more from west Florence suburbs.
if somebody wants to believe that you know more about Florence than a long term resident who went to the schools, that's cool with me. i personally would like to hear from insiders who attended the schools and lived in the burbs being discussed. anybody can look up the 'raw data' about schools if you did.
it seems like every time i see you post about Florence, you run it down and say it is not as good as Columbia. that is so weird in my view. this is so important to you that you have done a deep dive into 'raw data' about Florence schools. i don't understand your motivation for it but i will put you on my ignore list and try not to peek at any responses you make. You definitely rub me the wrong way.
No school is sending a certain number of students to a specific college every year, and there are other good colleges in the state and outside the states. Number of students going to a certain college doesn't tell you anything about the teachers. you want to talk about everything but the teachers.
Funny thing, I didnt have to do a deep dive, thats all data I studied in college and continue to study for my masters and for a living, this is not something that I have had to go to great lengths or any lengths to look up.
I'm glad we can bring this to a close as I would like to close by referring you to the thread about downtown Florence, where I comment and speak upon the wonderful growth and development taking place there. Its awesome and I look forward to enjoying it the next time I am in town, visiting my friends, who still live in the house I used to live in, in West Florence. (not Irby).
Good day sir.
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