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Old 01-02-2013, 11:53 PM
 
366 posts, read 490,003 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by BrendanRabbitt View Post
... We were looking for homes in the Cowherd Middle School area, what's the review of the area. Predominant ethnicity? I'm in High School, so I'll be attending East.
The area is predominately is Hispanic, it use to be African American but the gangs pushed the African Americans to the west and south a bit.

The gang violence is intense in the area, if you go to the immediate west from Farnsworth cars are routinely shot at with pellet guns (the game being to break the windows).

I was shot and stabbed about 1 mile west from there back in the early 80s, and that was before the area was considered dangerous.


Let me explain a little about Aurora, there are huge differences in property taxes between district 129 and 131 (131 is where you are looking at) and the difference is due to the difference in the school districts. Your tax bill will likely be 1250-2000 cheaper in 131 than 129. There is a reason I mention this, since you are from Wisconsin let me turn you on to the only good thing I can say about IL, Illinois is very, very friendly to homeschoolers. You might want to look at the cost of home schooling as an alternative for getting a superior educational experience. There are many options including on-line highschool education from the state and also from private companies. We home schooled and had no regrets. Additionally if you are bright you can simply start college early by issuing yourself a degree equivalent. Our son started college when he was 14 as a result.

People worry about socialization with home schoolers but you are likely to live a longer an healthier life by not socializing with the students at east High.

My point is, since on-line virtual accredited high schools exist and have proven success in graduation (unlike East High) one very attractive strategy is to find nice affordable housing on the east side and use the property tax savings to pay for on line education or most of your community college education.

Fro example A-Beka (Christian curriculum) has a very good on-line experience for about 750-1100 a year - A Beka Academy :: Homeschool Distance Learning

Good luck in your quest.
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Old 01-03-2013, 01:52 PM
 
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Homeschooling takes a great deal of effort to implement effectively. I personally know people who are missing fundamental academic skills because they received a flawed home school education. The tragic part is that they were raised in an above average school district.

Quote:
Originally Posted by usagisan
People worry about socialization with home schoolers but you are likely to live a longer an healthier life by not socializing with the students at east High.
Yes, you're better off keeping to yourself than associating with a destructive crowd. But then you won't start to learn relatively basic social skills until you get to an environment where it's safe to be outgoing. Worse, the real world is often not too tolerant of adults who don't have the social skills they were expected to learn as teenagers.

It's much better to be in a healthy social environment as a teenager where social skills can be learned by positive example, and where it's safe to learn by trial and error.
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Old 01-03-2013, 03:03 PM
 
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I don't wanna get into a debate about the value of homeschooling but I think it is important to note that in parlance of homeschooling the term "friendly" basically means "there are no standards to follow / we could care less what happens with your kids if they don't show up school" -- HSLDA | Home School Laws , now I am darned near 100% sure that this is because Illinois is so broke it cannot even begin to figure out how it would actually pay for traunt officiers, but saying that you are better off living in the cheapest town you can stomach does not exactly sound like good advice for building the kind of communities that most people want...
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Old 01-05-2013, 12:07 AM
 
366 posts, read 490,003 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by IAmEverywhere View Post
Homeschooling takes a great deal of effort to implement effectively. I personally know people who are missing fundamental academic skills because they received a flawed home school education. The tragic part is that they were raised in an above average school district.



Yes, you're better off keeping to yourself than associating with a destructive crowd. But then you won't start to learn relatively basic social skills until you get to an environment where it's safe to be outgoing. Worse, the real world is often not too tolerant of adults who don't have the social skills they were expected to learn as teenagers.

It's much better to be in a healthy social environment as a teenager where social skills can be learned by positive example, and where it's safe to learn by trial and error.
It is interesting how you state conjecture as fact. Have you ever home schooled? We did. A great deal of effort, that is subjective at best. Generally I find people who make statements akin to yours don't know of what they speak. Your entire commentary is incongruent with our experience as homeschoolers and those we know who homeschooled. I cannot speak for the people you know who home schooled other than our experience is very different.



In addition the link I gave was for a remote school, which is accredited and not a home school. There are also virtual schools etc, in other words many options that go beyond traditional brick and mortar classroom based instruction.



The point of my initial commentary in this thread is simple, the schools district does not matter if you are going to be home school or attend private school. And in Aurora the difference in property taxes due to the 6 different school districts you could belong to, may pay the differential between home schooling, remote schools, an on line virtual school, and a private school.
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Old 01-05-2013, 12:22 AM
 
366 posts, read 490,003 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by chet everett View Post
I don't wanna get into a debate about the value of homeschooling but I think it is important to note that in parlance of homeschooling the term "friendly" basically means "there are no standards to follow / we could care less what happens with your kids if they don't show up school" -- HSLDA | Home School Laws , now I am darned near 100% sure that this is because Illinois is so broke it cannot even begin to figure out how it would actually pay for traunt officiers, but saying that you are better off living in the cheapest town you can stomach does not exactly sound like good advice for building the kind of communities that most people want...
LOL. Not even close. In Illinois, a home school is legislatively a school - period. I doubt you get the significance but IL homeschoolers understand it fully and fight to keep those laws in place. Judging by your cocksure "tone" you don;t care to become educated on the topic. So I'll just leave you to wallow in your "near 100% sureness of ignorance.

Secondly, District 131 is what Coward is in. Coward is in a generally very undesirable area, but several areas of 131 are quite nice and quaint neighborhoods. In those locations you can benefit from the fact that 131 is a low tax district especially if you do not have to factor in the quality of the schools.
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Old 01-06-2013, 09:12 AM
 
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Default Clarification?

Quote:
Originally Posted by usagisan View Post
LOL. Not even close. In Illinois, a home school is legislatively a school - period. ...
In Illinois schools that serve low income students get a significant portion of their operating expenses from the State, thus the decisions of some districts to allow charter schools that intend to serve primarly low-income students results in opposition from the those who advocate that those funds are used "district wide" instead of "following the child".

Are you saying that legislatively Illinois treats homeschools the same as charter schools? Do you anything to support this assertion?
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Old 01-06-2013, 03:39 PM
 
366 posts, read 490,003 times
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Hi Chet (I prefer this conversational tone - it is nice)

Quote:
Are you saying that legislatively Illinois treats homeschools the same as charter schools? Do you anything to support this assertion?
No I am not making a comparison with charter schools. Let me try it this way. In IL a school is a designation, once you get that designation, in theory, you meet the state's requirements for a school. A home school is immediately given the designation of a school, ergo it is not actually reviewed as it is assumed to have already met the state's requirements.

In large part that is why IL is considered relatively home schooler friendly. And it precisely why truancy laws do not apply to home schoolers nor oversight.

But my real point was, you have several options for education outside the local brick and mortar public school that I would think parents would at least consider. For one IL has its own virtual school system. It runs in tandem or as an adjunct of your own local school. Around and in the Aurora area there are several private schools, such as Montessori, Aurora Christian. Rosary, Holy Angels etc, some are faith based others are not. You also have on-line virtual schools that are accredited that your children can attend (anyone can). The link I gave for ABeka was just one of many. There are also many options under home schooling, which has a plethora of choices.

The overall point is, when you consider an education for your children there are many viable options. In District 131 they routinely vote down referendums to increase local school funding, as a result they have a significantly lower property tax rate. If you have school age children and live in 131 you may find out that the tax rate differential allows you to educate your children through alternate means essentially for free.

Please note I did not try and list all the benefits of home schooling or other methods, I am just pointing out there are alternatives. In Aurora in particular, more advanced or intelligent children are put at a disadvantage because the majority of a school’s resources are dedicated to raising children who are below the average up and those who are above the average tend to languish on their own or are dumbed down to the average. The preceding is not absolute but a general observation. And yes, I heard, experienced their advanced programs and found them wanting. That problem is not so prevalent in some Naperville schools for example.

Regards…
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Old 01-06-2013, 05:58 PM
 
Location: Chicago
207 posts, read 698,611 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by usagisan View Post
People worry about socialization with home schoolers but you are likely to live a longer an healthier life by not socializing with the students at east High. Good luck in your quest.
What do you mean by not socializing?
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Old 01-06-2013, 06:02 PM
 
Location: Chicago
207 posts, read 698,611 times
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I completely forgot about this forum for a while. But anyway, I recently visited the neighborhood; I realized that many of the things said on here are true (before seeing this forum again). I heard a little english but it was broken and hard to understand. It clearly catters to Spanish speakers, as there was so many grocery's and stores for them, along with a Taco Bell on Farnsworth (an odd location). I can see why people are/were telling us to avoid the area, as a parking space at the McDonalds was for "Police Only/Policia solo".
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Old 01-08-2013, 01:27 AM
 
366 posts, read 490,003 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by BrendanRabbitt View Post
What do you mean by not socializing?
In the past few years there have been a couple of drivebys, that apparently were gang initiations rather than retaliatory gang strikes. The chose studetns jsut hanging out who were likely to be unarmed. Interstingly on two occasions the same off duty aurroa policeman was involved in retrunign fire and saving lives(as I recall). The point is, just socializing as East High can be dangerous to your health at times. Sad, but true. By the way that part of Farnsworth you mention is very tame compared to where Cowherd is. If you go North or South of that area and west a block or so the real trouble starts.

The McDonald and Taco Bell area on Farnsworth is pretty safe.
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