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If you ask someone in Westchester County, with children, you would probably find more than one person who moved here for the schools. It makes sense for a parent to want what’s best for their child. I began to ponder recently if there is any connection with wealthy towns and good schools, since most affluent towns have schools that are ranked high.
This led me to wonder even more things;
1. Correlation with good schools and towns. Which was first? A wealthy town with a good school district? We’re towns that are wealthy always been?
2. Can good schools in good towns lower their ranking? What determines this?
3. Part of question #2, if you look at the highly ranked schools, some of them have 500 students, while others have 1000 if not more. What sort of statistics go into ranking status?
4. Towns that are not wealthy, working class and not necessarily poor, why don’t they have good schools?
As someone who has completed the education system, I wish every school district would have the right resources for student success.
It seems the other way found , the better schools attract demand and drive up housing , drives up taxes and then the better schools seem to correlate to more expensive areas
Wealth/income is strongly correlated with better educational outcomes everywhere in the US. Access to tutors, less need to take part-time employment, better technology, etc., all help these kids. You can see this effect the most in good districts that are especially small, like Rye Neck. Rye Neck High School has spent time as one of the best school districts and one of the worst in lower Westchester over the years, and you can trace that to class cycles where the wealthier families are sending their children to private schools. Some cycles have very few eligible kids in private schools, while some have a lot. The latter cycle always sees lower test scores and lower school rankings as a result.
Everybody always thinks good schools are correlated with wealth, but that's not even true. Or at least, it's not that simple.
First, there's a gigantic counter-example: performance of first generation Asian immigrants, who (at least in New York City) are the poorest racial group, yet have among the best test scores.
Second -- in New York City, the highest test scores of course come from the gifted schools; but have you seen the test scores of the Success Academy charter schools? Those schools are lottery based so they are open to both rich and poor; but most of them are located in poorer neighborhoods and the majority of their enrollment is minority, and their test scores actually outperform nearly all of the "rich" schools in NYC (including most privates). Success Academy claims the secret is their rigorous methods; and critics claim the secret is that even though their admission is free and lottery based, they make applicants jump through hoops of attending multiple orientation meetings (which weeds out anyone who isn't super invested in their kids education). But either way, the key isn't wealth.
Or -- Scarsdale is well known for being rich and for having great schools. But then look at the Edgewood neighborhood (not Edgemont, which is a separate school district. I mean the Edgewood neighborhood of Scarsdale). That area is definitely not poor, but it's not particularly rich, or at least no richer than other nearby towns like Eastchester or New Rochelle. Yet the Edgewood elementary school has some of the highest test scores in Scarsdale.
The key to great schools isn't wealth, it's parent involvement and families who value education and expect their kids to do well in school. Wealthier families do usually have that; so there is a correlation, but it is not a causation.
That said, though -- to answer your question, yes, the town gets a reputation for having good schools and then more wealthy people move to that area for precisely the "good schools" reason, and it becomes a reinforcing cycle. That's why my family moved to our current suburb, at least.
That said, though -- to answer your question, yes, the town gets a reputation for having good schools and then more wealthy people move to that area for precisely the "good schools" reason, and it becomes a reinforcing cycle. That's why my family moved to our current suburb, at least.
Exactly. And it goes both ways. Right or wrong, places like New Rochelle and White Plains get the reputation for having "bad" schools, and upper middle class types choose to settle in other school districts, thereby further weakening the "bad" schools and adding money and education-focused parents/families into the "good" districts.
N.B. not every upper middle class or wealthy family that is education-focused necessarily wants the very "best" districts in terms of rankings and test scores. For various reasons we picked the Larchmont Mamaroneck district over Scarsdale, Rye Brook, etc. which districts have better school statistics/rankings. But we also picked Larchmont/Mamaroneck over White Plains and did not even consider New Rochelle, principally because of the schools. Totally a personal preference, but I wanted to clarify that not every family with money is trying to move to the absolute highest ranked districts.
School rankings are way overrated. The teaching quality does not differ between good and elite public schools. Troubled school districts may be another story.
What differs is the elite districts will have 90%+ of the families placing high expectations on their children and prioritize education above all other competing priorities. When those are the demographics, test scores will consistently be high and school rankings will reflect that.
We see this in wealthy school districts as most parents are college educated and perpetuate a culture of prioritizing education. We also see this is plenty of working class communities. Just look at the demographics of who succeeds through the NYC G&T system. It's all about the culture at home.
The family environment determines your child's success way more than the school district.
Some of this depends on factors like if the urban school offers an educational program that may not be offered at suburban or other areas schools. For instance, only a select amount of high schools have an International Baccalaureate program and out of the three in Westchester County that has it, Port Chester and Yonkers Middle/High School are two of the three(Somers is the other one). I’ve seen this Upstate where some solidly to upper middle class families go with some urban high schools for this reason, as it is a program that is internationally recognized by institutions of higher learning. So, there may be other reasons why families pick or go with certain schools.
Some of this depends on factors like if the urban school offers an educational program that may not be offered at suburban or other areas schools. For instance, only a select amount of high schools have an International Baccalaureate program and out of the three in Westchester County that has it, Port Chester and Yonkers Middle/High School are two of the three(Somers is the other one). I’ve seen this Upstate where some solidly to upper middle class families go with some urban high schools for this reason, as it is a program that is internationally recognized by institutions of higher learning. So, there may be other reasons why families pick or go with certain schools.
Harrison has the IB at the high school level. They are currently in the process of getting certified to teach the Primary Years Program as well. I'm not sure about the middle school level currently, but they are aiming to be IB from K-12.
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