Useful tool for comparing school districts (Naperville, Wheaton: appointed, college, property tax)

[InformedConsent]

The Daily Herald has published a chart of suburban school districts, showing the percentage of graduating high school seniors who are academically prepared to succeed in first year college courses.

Information is listed by county, with the elementary district listed first follwed by the high school district in parentheses. For Unit districts, only the Unit district is listed. The last column displays the districts' percentage of graduating seniors prepared to succeed in first year college level courses. As a side note, you can also see what the final cost was for educating each student for 11 years.
Daily Herald | A decade of school funding (http://www.dailyherald.com/packages/2007/schoollfinance/chapter10.htm - broken link)

Excel file version for those of you who like to play around with data and sort by variables:
http://www.dailyherald.com/packages/2007/schoollfinance/chapter10excel.xls (broken link)

[ahava]

I don't understand why they bother to include the elementary district when all of the data other than the student cost is from the high school district. This is misleading. If they incorporated the ISAT scores from the elementary districts the chart could show which elementary districts better prepared the students, instead of just the high schools - this would be more useful.

[InformedConsent]

Originally Posted by ahava

I don't understand why they bother to include the elementary district when all of the data other than the student cost is from the high school district. This is misleading. If they incorporated the ISAT scores from the elementary districts the chart could show which elementary districts better prepared the students, instead of just the high schools - this would be more useful.

True. But, at least you can see the end result and narrow choices down to particular high school districts. It would take more research to investigate the feeder elementary districts - they're not all equal, as you already know.

Another thing I was disappointed with is that some districts' information is not included (Hinsdale and New Trier, I think?). I asked the Daily Herald about that and I was told that some districts didn't return FOIA requests in time to meet the publishing deadline. They haven't updated the chart; I don't think they ever will.

I'm sure someone could get that info if they asked via FOIA request.

[InformedConsent]

Here's a link to the article that accompanied the chart to provide context for which data was included and why. The crux of the article is that only 27% (overall) of suburban public school graduates are adequately prepared for first year college-level courses. That figure is 21% statewide.
Daily Herald | Chapter 10: Only 1 in 5 high school graduates are ready for college

[InformedConsent]

...adding school district debt information. School district debt impacts your property tax bill. Debt per student is listed in the last column.
Daily Herald | A decade of school funding (http://www.dailyherald.com/packages/2007/schoollfinance/chapter9.htm - broken link)


Excel file if you want to sort by variable:
http://www.dailyherald.com/packages/2007/schoollfinance/chapter9excel.xls (broken link)

[nanannie]

Certainly more helpful then "greatschools.com".

[emmi605]

Just a quick overview seems to say that the higher cost yielded a higher percentage that were ready for college. I didn't take the time to do serious analysis, but there is a trend there. That goes against the argument that I keep hearing and reading about spending more money does NOT yield better results. This seems to show that it does! A good question would be where are they spending that money, on educational supplies, technology, or teachers? This would all be in the educational fund so I don't know how this could be answered.

[InformedConsent]

Originally Posted by emmi605

Just a quick overview seems to say that the higher cost yielded a higher percentage that were ready for college. I didn't take the time to do serious analysis, but there is a trend there. That goes against the argument that I keep hearing and reading about spending more money does NOT yield better results. This seems to show that it does! A good question would be where are they spending that money, on educational supplies, technology, or teachers? This would all be in the educational fund so I don't know how this could be answered.

Look a little more carefully. It's easier to see what's going on if you download the Excel files and sort by cost per student and then see what the college readiness percentage is. The results are all over the place.

Examples...

Wheaton-Warrenville 200 and Naperville 204 rank 61 and 63 respectively for amount of money spent per student for 11 years out of the 78 districts listed, but their college readiness percentages place them at 9th and 4th highest (respectively).

There are huge differences in the 11 year cost per student among the top 10 districts (ranked by percentage of college-ready graduates). In these top 10, the span separating the lowest to the highest 11 year cost per student is $154,000.

Top 10:

Lake - Lincolnshire 103 (125) - $138,841 - 53
Lake - Long Grove 96 (125) - $132,942 - 53
Lake - Aptakisic-Tripp 102 (125) - $130,887 - 53
DuPage - Naperville 203 - $101,057 - 51
Lake - Rondout 72 (128) - $255,072 - 44
Lake - Hawthorn 73 (128) - $151,139 - 44
Lake - Oak Grove 68 (128) - $148,457 - 44
Lake - Libertyville 70 (128) - $146,203 - 44
DuPage - Wheaton-Warrenville 200 - $101,406 - 41
Lake - Barrington 220 - $127,587 - 40

[cohdane]

This is an enormously helpful thread. THANKS to the OP and everybody else who is helping to analyze the info.

[emmi605]

Thanks for taking the time needed to actually see that there is not an obvious trend. This is very interesting and should be valuable to all tax payers. Thanks for starting the thread.