Top 5 Elementary Schools (Joliet, Elgin, Waukegan: school districts, income, tax)

[MPowering1]

It's really not that difficult to use as a starting point and then drill down to the feeder schools. And if there are districts that have good elementary and middle schools, but fall short in the junior high school, at least you'll know if it had any impact on them at the high school level.

[holl1ngsworth]

Schools that draw from wealthy and highly-homogeneous populations typically produce good test takers, and they are the perennial favorites of the ranking organizations. But I think there is much more to the education of young child than math, reading and science.

Last spring, when my wife and I first set out to look for a place to live and raise our growing family, we too were concerned about our children being at a "top" elementary school. We focused on a lot of the high-performing areas -- and as such ended up looking at homes in the Hinsdale/Oak Brook, Deerfield/Northbrook and Western Springs/La Grange areas.

But we soon began to be weighed-upon by the fact that these areas lacked economic and racial diversity. Schools are places for formal education, yes, but they are also places for social education. They are places where our children develop their world views; where they learn empathy and interaction. And while performance should be the top priority, I think economic and racial diversity should be sought after as well.

So I dug into the Illinois Report Card website (what a great resource!) and tried to find an elementary school that delivered outstanding test scores, while also being diverse. That's when I came across Longfellow Elementary in Wheaton. Longfellow has 19% low-income enrollment and 25% minority enrollment, and still managed to have the 16th best ISAT score in the state, including magnet schools. Among non-low-income students, it's #1 in the state!

It is extremely important to do an apples-to-apples comparison of any schools you find yourself considering. The online Illinois Report Card system allows you to easily view ISAT scores of subgroups within any school, allowing you to compare them to other schools. Make a spreadsheet!

I would implore anyone to find a public elementary school that has higher ISAT scores among non-low-income students than Longfellow Elementary in Wheaton. I firmly believe it is the best elementary school in the state.

The rest of the Wheaton school district has an outstanding reputation and is loved locally by parents. The town itself is generally upper-class, but a wide variety of people from varying socio-economic backgrounds call Wheaton home.

Just my two cents.

Happy hunting!

[holl1ngsworth]

As a side note, Longfellow feeds into Wheaton North High School.

Among public high schools, Wheaton North has the 11th highest PSAE score for non-low-income students.

Only 1 point seperated Wheaton North from Glenbrook North in 2013 -- Glenbrook North being the high school associated with Greenbriar School, which the OP mentioned. That said, Wheaton North has 22% low-income enrollment and 27% minority enrollment. Compared to Glenbrook North's 8% and 20%, respectively.

Remember: apples-to-apples. You show me your non-low-income students and I'll show you mine!

;-)

[Threes-A-Charm]

Originally Posted by chet everett

Here is the link to the Illinois Honor Roll -- Illinois Honor Roll - Academic Excellence Awards 2013 List

Eliminating the selective admissions schools downstate (I'll circle back to Chicago ...) that leaves just SIX schools in the ENTIRE suburban region, and D103's Half Day School is the rare "grade center" that serves only 3& 4th graders so it is hard to justify as a "whole district" though in fairness the kids at Wright Jr high seem to be doing fine...

The bigger issue is the why these new "cut scores" skew the results, no doubt D53 in Oak Brook belongs in the "top 5" and it would be hard to argue that Avoca D37 (with both its schools also being on the Honor Roll...) is other than a "top 5" district but using the new cut scores makes even a mostly desirable distict like River Forest D90 NOT look so good -- despite Lincoln's exemplary 92.3% "meets /exceeds" the middle school in district only manages 85.7% and the other elementary school, Willard, and even less impressive 81.3%. The weird formula for the "continuous improvement" in actuality ends up PENALIZING otherwise stellar districts. D181's The Lane School stays on the Honor Roll with an 88.3% meets/exceeds while other schools in the district with better absolute numbers but no continous improvement fall off the list -- Walker in Clarendon Hills is at 90.1%, Oak in the most costly part of Hinsdale is at 93.4%, Elm which serves Hinsdale and Burr Ridge is at 89.9%, Madison also serving a very desirable part of south Hinsdale clocks in at 89.3%, Prospect at 86.9%, Clarendon Hills Middle School is at 87.8% and Hinsdale Middle School is at 89.5% -- hard to find another district with so many schools doing so well, and to those that point out the low percentages of low income students I can only point to the earlier post that highlighted this correlation...

CPS has some very impressive numbers at a handful of schools. The path into these schools is set up to winnow out any students that are not very talented, this is different than any of the suburban schools that admit anyone with proper residence. Nothing wrong with this, it is essentially what happens with many private schools too. The questions such a thing raises are more about public policy than anything else, and I suppose in the broadest sense this also touches on issues of equal access and racial politics too. If you need to live in Chicago there are a handful of elementary schools that probably are in parts of the city where "regular people" can afford to be close to a high performing school but the weirdest side effect of the whole magnet school thing is that there are now several neighborhoods where a single family detached home is every bit as costly as the nicest suburbs and when you factor in the smaller size of the city lots the cost per square ft exceeds that of but a handful of really really pricey suburbs. I am pretty sure that was NOT the intent of the selective admission programs, which were part of Chicago's response to school segregation that other cities addressed with busing,but it is the reality of how things have worked out...

The thing too is that looking around at all the suburban districts that have multiple schools and all of them in the 80%+ meets / exceeds categories, but with some many not posting "progress" over prior years it diminishes the value of the testing ethic. We truly do need better measures of how schools are performing and from what I've seen of PARCC & the whole mess of Common Core it is not at all clear this going to be a step in the right direction.

I often urge folks to do what I recommended long before there was "No Child Left Behind" or other assessments -- find the most affordable home in the most costly town. It is still the most surefire way to ensure access to the top districts.

Thanks so much for this great info, will take a closer look!!

[Threes-A-Charm]

Originally Posted by holl1ngsworth

As a side note, Longfellow feeds into Wheaton North High School.

Among public high schools, Wheaton North has the 11th highest PSAE score for non-low-income students.

Only 1 point seperated Wheaton North from Glenbrook North in 2013 -- Glenbrook North being the high school associated with Greenbriar School, which the OP mentioned. That said, Wheaton North has 22% low-income enrollment and 27% minority enrollment. Compared to Glenbrook North's 8% and 20%, respectively.

Remember: apples-to-apples. You show me your non-low-income students and I'll show you mine!

;-)

Thanks for your insight into these schools! How are the middle schools there?

[holl1ngsworth]

Longfellow feeds into Franklin Middle School. I never did a thorough investigation of Franklin or the other Wheaton middle schools, largely because I was so happy with the results I had looking at the early education schools and high schools.

That said, I would assert that Franklin is most likely in the top-25 of suburban public middle schools when comparing non-low-income students.

It really is unfortunate that ranking organizations take raw test scores, class size, and per-pupil expenditures as the measuring sticks for their rankings. We (and ranking organizations) should value diversity, and view test scores in light of diversity.

I'm sure a smart person(s) could come up with a metric that appropriately weighs diversity alongside the other measurables, but until then I think comparing non-low-income students (or the inverse) gives us a much more uniform way to measure the performance of schools.

Non-low-income students at Longfellow in Wheaton test better than the same students at any other elementary school. Students in Hinsdale, Winnetka, Kenilworth, Northbrook, etc. all test lower.

[kindrakindra]

Originally Posted by chet everett

Here is the link to the Illinois Honor Roll -- Illinois Honor Roll - Academic Excellence Awards 2013 List


The bigger issue is the why these new "cut scores" skew the results, no doubt D53 in Oak Brook belongs in the "top 5" and it would be hard to argue that Avoca D37 (with both its schools also being on the Honor Roll...) is other than a "top 5" district but using the new cut scores makes even a mostly desirable distict like River Forest D90 NOT look so good -- despite Lincoln's exemplary 92.3% "meets /exceeds" the middle school in district only manages 85.7% and the other elementary school, Willard, and even less impressive 81.3%.

You can't look at this data in a vacuum. Lincoln is bigger than Willard by 50 students. Willard houses the special education center for the entire district. So if you have a special needs child and live in Lincoln, your kid will go to Willard. This "hurts" Willard's score. There is no huge demographic difference between the two areas.

[holl1ngsworth]

Originally Posted by kindrakindra

You can't look at this data in a vacuum. Lincoln is bigger than Willard by 50 students. Willard houses the special education center for the entire district. So if you have a special needs child and live in Lincoln, your kid will go to Willard. This "hurts" Willard's score. There is no huge demographic difference between the two areas.

Great point! For Willard, IEP created a 7% drag on the total reading score and a 6% drag on the total math score. Big skews.

This hits at my previous point. It is very problematic to simply compare aggregate scores. Again, I think the Illinois Report Card website is an awesome and easy way to gain perspective on test scores!

To the OP: Make a list of towns that intersect all of your criteria -- noise, metra, safety, number of families, recreation, parks, nightlife, and of course great schools -- and then use the online report cards to really dig into the schools on that short list. That's what my wife and I did. We ended up in Wheaton and couldn't be happier.

[Lookout Kid]

Originally Posted by holl1ngsworth

I would implore anyone to find a public elementary school that has higher ISAT scores among non-low-income students than Longfellow Elementary in Wheaton. I firmly believe it is the best elementary school in the state.

For the baseline here, Longfellow in Wheaton has the following "meets or exceeds" scores for non-low income learners in the most recent year reported (2013 for reading and math, 2012 for science):

Reading: 97%
Math: 95%
Science: 95%

[holl1ngsworth]

Glad to see the challenge has been accepted! I think it's a great exercise and will help ppl learn the Report Cards. Plus it's an opportunity to shamelessly plug my local school.

Looking at 2012 science is OK, but the challenge only involves 2013 scores. Science was dropped and the meets/exceeds benchmark was raised for 2013.