Politics/religion in Parker, Colorado

[formercalifornian]

Originally Posted by pittnurse70

You can get Colorado data from the Colorado Dept of Ed website. However, there is no easily accessible list of national data, so to say the public schools are some of the best in the state and nation is a bit of a stretch.

Re: the LCMS vis a vis Lutheran High, I think their thinking on the women not having dominion over men issue is subject to interpretation so that they can justify having women high school teachers and maybe even administrators, if men can't be found. (I used to be a member of the LCMS.) Not to turn this into a religion forum, just interesting information, IMO.

I'm another Lutheran, but ELCA. I did take a look at the school website and saw that they had several female teachers, so obviously they do "interpret" the dominion issue. Although I disagree vigorously with the LCMS position on female ordination, I wouldn't hesitate to send my kids to an LCMS school. Regardless of synod affiliation, Lutherans generally do education very well.

[tfox]

Originally Posted by Charles

I guess ACT scores and SAT scores would be the only normalized data for national comparison purposes.

ACT/SAT scores would be next to useless for comparing schools. Most students on the east coast have never even heard of the ACT, so very few to any of them will have taken the ACT. Here, SAT is only taken by students who are planning on studying in an east coast college or university.

Colorado requires students to take the ACT in the 11th grade -- this is very unusual. So that means that even students who are not college bound are taking the ACT, and presumably getting low scores doing it. Some of these students are probably not even trying to pass the ACT, throwing scores even lower.

What I think you'd find is that Colorado's ACT scores are much lower than average (if not the absolute lowest) in the country, due to the fact that everyone takes it. SAT scores would probably look fairly good, due to the small fraction of students who take the SAT -- a group that would self-select for higher scores.

[Charles]

Originally Posted by tfox

ACT/SAT scores would be next to useless for comparing schools. Most students on the east coast have never even heard of the ACT, so very few to any of them will have taken the ACT. Here, SAT is only taken by students who are planning on studying in an east coast college or university.

Colorado requires students to take the ACT in the 11th grade -- this is very unusual. So that means that even students who are not college bound are taking the ACT, and presumably getting low scores doing it. Some of these students are probably not even trying to pass the ACT, throwing scores even lower.

What I think you'd find is that Colorado's ACT scores are much lower than average (if not the absolute lowest) in the country, due to the fact that everyone takes it. SAT scores would probably look fairly good, due to the small fraction of students who take the SAT -- a group that would self-select for higher scores.

I didn't know that. Good points.

[Katarina Witt]

Originally Posted by formercalifornian

I'm another Lutheran, but ELCA. I did take a look at the school website and saw that they had several female teachers, so obviously they do "interpret" the dominion issue. Although I disagree vigorously with the LCMS position on female ordination, I wouldn't hesitate to send my kids to an LCMS school. Regardless of synod affiliation, Lutherans generally do education very well.

I am now an ELCA Lutheran. I agree. I have friends who went to the old Lutheran High in Denver (still operating). They have a long history of doing k-12 education, which a lot of Fundamentalist Christians do not.

Most students on the east coast have never even heard of the ACT, so very few to any of them will have taken the ACT. Here, SAT is only taken by students who are planning on studying in an east coast college or university.

California schools also use the SAT extensively. Some colleges will take either/both/whichever you did better on.