Lower key Boston suburbs with decent schools? (Lowell, Newton: high school, income)

[gf2020]

Lynnfield is a 20 minute drive to Oak Grove and then a 20 minute Orange line ride to State. It's your best bet for accessibility, quality schools and under a $1 million price tag. You won't find much diversity, however.

[brainbree]

Originally Posted by panchilly

Of those, the only towns that have decent schools are Milton, Natick, and Melrose. I believe they are all 7 or 8.

Rest are 4 or 5.

7 or 8 according to what? In any case, according to the MCAS scores, they're all pretty much the same. Per the title, all of the districts I listed have "decent" schools. Pretty much all rankings are not controlled for socioeconomic status. Given a status any school above a certain threshold, one the schools I listed pass, will have more or less the same outcome for students.

[panchilly]

Originally Posted by brainbree

7 or 8 according to what? In any case, according to the MCAS scores, they're all pretty much the same. Per the title, all of the districts I listed have "decent" schools. Pretty much all rankings are not controlled for socioeconomic status. Given a status any school above a certain threshold, one the schools I listed pass, will have more or less the same outcome for students.

If the only thing that matters is the socioeconomic status of the parents then why not move to Lowell or Laurence? Get a house for real cheap there!

[mwj119]

Melrose, Arlington, Reading, Natick, Milton

[Boston_Burbs]

Swampscott

[supawest]

Wife and I went through this a couple of years ago moving to Boston and we decided on Milton- Schools are a bit more diverse than most suburbs and they are all ranked 8 and above out of 10. We love it here.

[brainbree]

Originally Posted by panchilly

If the only thing that matters is the socioeconomic status of the parents then why not move to Lowell or Laurence? Get a house for real cheap there!

Why not? There are expensive houses there as well as people who go on to Ivy League schools from the local public school system. There are also people who don't attend college who go to Milton schools. I guess if someone's a sheep and needs validation they can use useless rankings as their bible. People's elitism here is really amusing.

Again, if you go to the government site for MCAS scores you can see most schools are basically the same when you control for socioeconomic status.

[scorpio516]

Right on the edge - Ashland or Hopkinton

[semiurbanite]

Originally Posted by panchilly

If the only thing that matters is the socioeconomic status of the parents then why not move to Lowell or Laurence? Get a house for real cheap there!

You certainly could. For example, the Morey school in Lowell is as good or better than every single school in Natick when you control for SES. 87% of the 4th graders passed the Math MCAS at Morey, while not a single Natick school is above 80% pass rate and most are BELOW 70%. Kind of amazing when you actually look at data subjectively eh?

[wolfgang239]

Originally Posted by semiurbanite

You certainly could. For example, the Morey school in Lowell is as good or better than every single school in Natick when you control for SES. 87% of the 4th graders passed the Math MCAS at Morey, while not a single Natick school is above 80% pass rate and most are BELOW 70%. Kind of amazing when you actually look at data subjectively eh?

Unfortunately you can't things like data gang activity, or students bringing knives to school out of the equation as recently happened in my city.