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Old 02-06-2013, 07:43 PM
 
3 posts, read 6,314 times
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Wow! Thank you guys! I think only concern I have right now is the distance to interstate. I don't want to spend extra 20 min to get to the interstate every day! Btw we live in dtown bentwood girl. Again thank you..
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Old 02-10-2013, 08:11 PM
 
469 posts, read 970,214 times
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Originally Posted by movingtomemphis View Post
Wow! Thank you guys! I think only concern I have right now is the distance to interstate. I don't want to spend extra 20 min to get to the interstate every day! Btw we live in dtown bentwood girl. Again thank you..
From Lakeland or Eastern Bartlett the drive on I-40 to Downtown is less than 25 minutes on a light traffic day and maybe 35 or a little more in heavier traffic days, concidering you are very near the interstate.
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Old 02-10-2013, 10:54 PM
 
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I too will be moving to TN this summer and am wondering why it is that so many people choose private school as their option. Is the public school system so bad and underperforming that even with high rankings, people don't send their kids there or is it more that they want their children in a parochial setting? I have 3 kids and right now private school doesn't seem like it's going to be an option for us. We are looking at Lakeland and Arlington at the moment. Commuting isn't an issue for us as we currently live in Southern CA and used to drive 60miles each way for work before a career change.
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Old 02-10-2013, 11:27 PM
 
Location: Seattle
7,541 posts, read 17,230,694 times
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City of Memphis schools are pretty much chronically underperforming. There may be a few diamonds in the rough here or there, but you have to really hunt and/or know about them. Not sure what the future of public education is going to look like here, but it will take a while to get the city school system into shape. Lakeland and Arlington are both WAY out there, but if that's what you're looking for, they are fine communities.
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Old 02-11-2013, 09:29 AM
 
Location: East Memphis
845 posts, read 2,542,156 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by sportsfam5 View Post
I too will be moving to TN this summer and am wondering why it is that so many people choose private school as their option. Is the public school system so bad and underperforming that even with high rankings, people don't send their kids there or is it more that they want their children in a parochial setting? I have 3 kids and right now private school doesn't seem like it's going to be an option for us. We are looking at Lakeland and Arlington at the moment. Commuting isn't an issue for us as we currently live in Southern CA and used to drive 60miles each way for work before a career change.


The public school issues in Memphis and Shelby County go back to desegregation in the 1970's. Up to that point the City of Memphis had a very good school system. Once the feds told the local school board that they would have to desegregate the schools (and ruled on some pretty extreme bussing policies to do so), the white population in Memphis abandoned the school system (for the most part). The school system went from about 50% white in 1970 to about 25% white by 1985, to about 8% today. As white residents left the system, many middle class black residents were right behind them. These two groups landed in the county school system outside of Memphis (i.e. the suburbs) and in private schools. The perception today (and really for the past 20 years) has been that only those who have no other option attend Memphis City Schools. This has left the system full of poor, minority students who traditionally do not perform well on standardized test. This is what makes the system appear awful. As the poster above stated, there are some good schools in the system but the general perception is that the system is really bad. The perception is so bad that you have some neighborhoods in Memphis that are probably 80% white and mostly middle to upper middle class, with public schools that are 70% minority and poor to working class. The residents in those areas almost exclusively use private schools and refuse to send their kids to the public schools because MCS has such bad reputation. That is manly why the public school demographics do not more closely match the demographics of the whole city. The public schools in the suburbs are much better and should stay that way. The public schools in Arlington and Lakeland are great. You would not have any issues there.
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Old 02-11-2013, 10:47 AM
 
1,380 posts, read 2,397,529 times
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At this point, the "bad school" thing is a self-fulfilling prophesy. Everybody with the means avoids the Memphs City Schools (with a few exceptions; plenty of rich kids at White Station), so they are full of poor black kids. And it's not just test scores. I briefly worked with MCS. Lots of kids can barely read. So, there is little rigor in the coursework. Behavior/discipline issues are out of control in a lot of these schools too. With some exceptions, even the kids who are not actively hostile have zero interest in putting forth effort to learn. Attendance is awful. The population is pretty transient, so about a quarter of kids at the start of the year will not be in the same school by the end of the year. I take no pleasure in pointing out the problems in my hometown's schools, but we cannot fix these problems if we ignore them.
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Old 02-11-2013, 03:28 PM
 
2 posts, read 3,328 times
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Thank you very much Tiger and memphis guy. The schooling is what is going to help make my final decision on where to move and your replies have helped clear up quite a few questions I had about that. When I discuss moving to the Memphis area with people who live in TN they all tell me I'm crazy and that I should really reconsider but coming from a suburb with a population of 150k people, I have yet to find any major reason on why to avoid the Memphis area. I will definitely be flying out to check it out in the next month or two and am hopeful that I will fall in love with the Memphis area like so many people here have said I will. I'm sure I will have more questions in the coming weeks as I do more research.
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Old 02-13-2013, 09:19 AM
 
1,028 posts, read 2,338,190 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by sportsfam5 View Post
Thank you very much Tiger and memphis guy. The schooling is what is going to help make my final decision on where to move and your replies have helped clear up quite a few questions I had about that. When I discuss moving to the Memphis area with people who live in TN they all tell me I'm crazy and that I should really reconsider but coming from a suburb with a population of 150k people, I have yet to find any major reason on why to avoid the Memphis area. I will definitely be flying out to check it out in the next month or two and am hopeful that I will fall in love with the Memphis area like so many people here have said I will. I'm sure I will have more questions in the coming weeks as I do more research.
Memphis is not the caricature that the rest of state thinks it is. I just attended the everywhereelse.co conference. Pretty impressive entrepreneurs not only from the rest of the country, but from Memphis itself.
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Old 02-18-2013, 09:20 AM
 
7,108 posts, read 8,966,855 times
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Originally Posted by Kabluey View Post
Memphis is not the caricature that the rest of state thinks it is. I just attended the everywhereelse.co conference. Pretty impressive entrepreneurs not only from the rest of the country, but from Memphis itself.
As a person who did not get along with Memphis I would agree with what you said. If you like Nashville you can like Memphis. Find a good neighborhood and engage in activities that are conducive to you and your families needs. If you come looking for snowboarding, beaches or New York City I would say find another place. Otherwise you will be fine.
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