Boston Magazine 2020 High School rankings (Newton, Somerville: school districts, college, live)

[City Guy997S]

Originally Posted by BostonBornMassMade

The bottom 6 are all in Boston. 8 of the 10 worst are in Boston.

Chelsea is 7th worst and Lynn English is 8th worse.

Clearly isnt all tied to real estate values.

How? Chelsea and Lynn are terrible towns, hence terrible schools.

Let me guess, the W towns are always in the top 10 and coincidentally they are the best towns to live in also.

[Shrewsburried]

Originally Posted by jayrandom

As a parent, you choose good public districts to give yourself a higher floor. And whether that is important depends a lot more on your kids than anything. Some kids are going to perform in school independent of their peers, but a lot of kids are going to be influenced by their friends. If every other parent forces their kids to work hard and learn it's just that much easier to force your kid to work hard and learn. Not every kids needs to be cajoled into working hard, not every kid is going to deal with competitive peers by working harder, and not every kid needs to be pushed to do well in school.

The issue I see often, both on this board and in my personal life, is that people in under performing districts hold a deep faith their child will be the exceptional one ... above the mean. They very well could be correct in their assumptions, but I'd personally prefer an environment which statistically yields the best outcomes ... my opinion, of course.

As the first person in my family to have graduated university, I believe that I benefited greatly from attending a school district in which my immediate peers were the sons/daughters of U-Mass Med PhDs, successful business owners, ME/EEs, etc. The expectations were extremely high and this intangible 'coding' seems to have stuck with me throughout my career. There's no shortage of intelligence in my family, but there is ... or was ... a rather sticky blue collar identity which capped the high IQ family members who preceded me (arguably more intelligent than myself, but painfully lacking ambition/personal growth).

I do believe in balance and, given my own 'pedigree', I'm not sure my son would thrive in a Lexington. My hope is that he's somewhere north of the mean, but knowing my own origin story I'm inclined to be skeptical. As a result, my wife and I chose a solidly middle/upper-middle class district which has a good mix of skilled tradesmen, white collar, small biz owners, etc.

[semiurbanite]

Originally Posted by Shrewsburried

Their metrics are at least 'better' than Great Schools / Niche, which apply all sorts of weighting to obfuscate the obvious: buy in the highest income district you can afford which has a high percentage of two parent households.

Niche is more balanced than greatschools, greatschools measures test scores heavily and therefore is a better measure of average affluence and lack of diversity. This list seems to be driven by average MCAS with no factor for income level - pretty worthless.

[Lampert]

Originally Posted by semiurbanite

Niche is more balanced than greatschools, greatschools measures test scores heavily and therefore is a better measure of average affluence and lack of diversity.

So you are saying that diverse school = bad test school. So pretty much don't send your kids to a diverse school considering that test score do often matter when applying to higher ed.

[massnative71]

Originally Posted by semiurbanite

Niche is more balanced than greatschools, greatschools measures test scores heavily and therefore is a better measure of average affluence and lack of diversity. This list seems to be driven by average MCAS with no factor for income level - pretty worthless.

Let me guess, Niche is nicer to Somerville?

[Bridge781]

Originally Posted by Shrewsburried

The issue I see often, both on this board and in my personal life, is that people in under performing districts hold a deep faith their child will be the exceptional one ... above the mean. They very well could be correct in their assumptions, but I'd personally prefer an environment which statistically yields the best outcomes ... my opinion, of course.

As the first person in my family to have graduated university, I believe that I benefited greatly from attending a school district in which my immediate peers were the sons/daughters of U-Mass Med PhDs, successful business owners, ME/EEs, etc. The expectations were extremely high and this intangible 'coding' seems to have stuck with me throughout my career. There's no shortage of intelligence in my family, but there is ... or was ... a rather sticky blue collar identity which capped the high IQ family members who preceded me (arguably more intelligent than myself, but painfully lacking ambition/personal growth).

I do believe in balance and, given my own 'pedigree', I'm not sure my son would thrive in a Lexington. My hope is that he's somewhere north of the mean, but knowing my own origin story I'm inclined to be skeptical. As a result, my wife and I chose a solidly middle/upper-middle class district which has a good mix of skilled tradesmen, white collar, small biz owners, etc.

I know of people who have used public schools that aren’t great in the hopes that their kids will make them better. I think in JP there was a group of white professional parents who used bps hoping they’d start a trend. I know people who live in Somerville and use Somerville public because it’s diverse and their kid is already a genius and something schools won’t change that etc. you just never know what might happen. Plenty of people send their kids to private school and they don’t turn out to be successful. I had 3 or 4 people from my class of 100 ISL school die of overdoses. I also know of a few who’ve been arrested. Who cares as long as daddy’s money is always there though.

[Lampert]

Originally Posted by Bridge781

I know of people who have used public schools that aren’t great in the hopes that their kids will make them better. I think in JP there was a group of white professional parents who used bps hoping they’d start a trend. I know people who live in Somerville and use Somerville public because it’s diverse and their kid is already a genius and something schools won’t change that etc. you just never know what might happen. Plenty of people send their kids to private school and they don’t turn out to be successful. I had 3 or 4 people from my class of 100 ISL school die of overdoses. I also know of a few who’ve been arrested. Who cares as long as daddy’s money is always there though.

Nothing you do will ever guarantee your kids succeed. Neither the school you choose, nor how many extra-curricular activities they do, nor how much love you give them. But all these things increase the chances that your (probably average kid) will be better off than the (average) kid of the alcoholic parents that leave him alone watching reality TV all day long.

[airunxc]

Would you rather sit on the bench of a winner or play for a loser. Sports reference translated to schools.

[jayrandom]

Originally Posted by airunxc

Would you rather sit on the bench of a winner or play for a loser. Sports reference translated to schools.

That's not how schools work at all.

[Bridge781]

I also sometimes think parents believe that if they send their kids to a good school then there’s little else they need to do. They still should be involved in their kids lives.