Best School District's in Houston Area??? (Sugar Land, Pearland: renting, buying, living in)

[LizzySWW]

Originally Posted by MommiePreMed

The poster asked which high schools, not which neighborhoods.

Magnet schools might have a large concentration of aspiring musicians, but I am sure that most schools with well rounded high achieving students have quality orchestras, that are free.

As for the swimming comment, any school with a swimming program will have year round access to a pool. At least mine did.

OMG. I gave 2 little seemingly helpful ideas & you didn't like them. Let it go! It's all good. Really.

[xavier1774]

I had to laugh...I think I was watching cops or something...earlier that could be used as proof too. So wrong...

Originally Posted by MommiePreMed

So only the affluent are able to swim on a competitve level and orchestra is only available to magnet school students?

I guess that black kids are good at track because the practice by running from the police?

[AprilVillage]

Originally Posted by kenoshakristy

Thanks for all the great info. I have been finding houses in The Woodlands, Spring and Katy that I like so far. My thought is that I should find a great High School then work down from there. Any thought on that??

In that case this ranking of area high schools may help you: 2009 hs rankings
For more information on the rankings go here (scroll down to the April 12, 2009 entry): School Zone: April 2009 Archives

I would consider any school in the top 25 a good to great school. "Best" is relative to what your or your children's needs are. The top three high schools on the list are HISD magnet schools. So is #8 Challenge Early High School. #7 YES preparatory is for low-income, at-risk students. You won't find anything zoned to #4 Memorial High for anything less than $500k, or anything zoned to Stratford for less than $200k (you might find something in the $200-250k range but most properties are above that). Those are the areas and schools I know the most about except Westside High (see below).

I also want to point out that Kerr HS in Alief ISD is #9. There was some debate about Alief schools earlier.

Originally Posted by theSUBlime

Yeah, I attended all Fine Arts magnet schools in HISD. Roberts ES, Pershing MS, Westside HS (Fine Arts/Integrated Technology)--all fine schools. I was zoned to some not so great schools like Sharpstown MS/HS. Granted my family moved to attend Westside, but great schools can be had, for the right price (and/or sacrifice)

I'm zoned to Westside, and I can assure you we did not pay a hefty price or make great sacrifices for our house. This is a very affordable area to live with many houses available for under $200k.

[usc619]

I think it's safe to say Cy-fair shouldn't be in this conversation when they can't even balance their books, Cy-fair is having major financial problems.

[DanceCandi]

Bellaire has member in the Texas All State Orchestra and their swimming team is good so i say bellaire

[Mr. Football]

Originally Posted by usc619

I think it's safe to say Cy-fair shouldn't be in this conversation when they can't even balance their books, Cy-fair is having major financial problems.

Yep, they're only the largest Recognized school district in the country.

Quit being an idiot, USC619...Seriously, give it up.

Best school districts in the Houston area are generally considered to be:

Cy-Fair
Klein
Friendswood
Spring Branch
Katy
Fort Bend
Conroe
Clear Creek

[Charles22]

I hope they teach apostrophes there.

[Callo]

Originally Posted by dweej

It seems to me to be pretty typical of a large metro area- the affordable areas closer to city center tend to have, on paper, schools that perform more poorly. Areas near city center that have highly ranked schools are in very affluent, expensive neighborhoods, and the affordable neighborhoods with high performing schools are further from city center. You'll see the same pattern if you use that map to look at Dallas, San Antonio, Los Angeles, San Diego....

Those scores are all very typical for schools that are 95+% nonwhite. It doesn't matter where in the country you look, that's what you'll find.

[crbcrbrgv]

Honestly, none of the school districts should be in the conversation. If Cy-Fair is so great, why are nearly 1 in 4 of their elementary schools 2 stars or less? If Spring Branch is so wonderful, why is there such a huge discrepancy between schools south of I-10 and north of I-10? The same scenario is found in all the districts around Houston.

The fact of the matter is school districts in Texas are run by school boards where the wealthiest of the communities run the show. The school board members make sure the schools of their children along with the schools of the wealthier kids get the best resources and teachers while the schools in the lower socio-economic areas get Teach for America teachers, ACP's older supplies etc.

It doesn't really matter what district you move to. It matters much more what school your child is zoned to. Do your homework.

[BBall Coach]

Originally Posted by crbcrbrgv

Honestly, none of the school districts should be in the conversation. If Cy-Fair is so great, why are nearly 1 in 4 of their elementary schools 2 stars or less? If Spring Branch is so wonderful, why is there such a huge discrepancy between schools south of I-10 and north of I-10? The same scenario is found in all the districts around Houston.

The fact of the matter is school districts in Texas are run by school boards where the wealthiest of the communities run the show. The school board members make sure the schools of their children along with the schools of the wealthier kids get the best resources and teachers while the schools in the lower socio-economic areas get Teach for America teachers, ACP's older supplies etc.

It doesn't really matter what district you move to. It matters much more what school your child is zoned to. Do your homework.

Rep points!

I do agree with your post for the most part, but there are school districts with better overall rankings and reputations than others and as a person looking to find out what districts those are, I would want specific names if I wasn't sure how to locate the information on my own. If for nothing else, it could serve as a good starting point. There are some districts out there that are notoriously inadequate across the board and as I parent, I'd definitely want to steer clear of any of those.

Unfortunately, the meat of your post rings too true about the best schools tending to be in the wealthiest areas and having advantages that the other schools don't have from quality of teachers/administrators to technology. Most of these schools we consider "bad" are dealing with many different issues and hurdles that the so called "good" ones could never fathom.

I'll reiterate that doing research on the schools zoned to where you're considering moving to is the best thing you can do. As I stated in an earlier post and many others have also mentioned, there are "good" and "bad" schools in most of the districts around here so the specific school is much more important than what district you're in.