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I agree to a point as well, provided that the school is safe enough. However, I also agree with the poster above that the environment in the school can certainly influence children. Really, they are there 6-7 hours a day, so how can it not? If a child ends up a school with an overwhelmingly negative environment, it certainly can have an effect.
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To me, the answer to all these complicated caveats is so simple. If you are raised properly despite other bad conditions, you will excel. You will be able to discern what should and should not be done. This would explain AP/Honors students at a school like the one you just described.
I agree that there will always be children who can excel despite terrible conditions at school, but I would venture to guess that there are plenty of other children who are unable to overcome these negative influences, and who might have excelled at a better school.
I agree to a point as well, provided that the school is safe enough. However, I also agree with the poster above that the environment in the school can certainly influence children. Really, they are there 6-7 hours a day, so how can it not? If a child ends up a school with an overwhelmingly negative environment, it certainly can have an effect.
I think your missing the point. Sure if you are comparing a Top 10 (West Windsor) to a bottom 10 (Irvington) there are going to be SUBSTANTIAL negative influences. But have you been on this board long? Do you see how ridiculous some posters are who come here with a post along the lines of the following,
OP: I am looking for a recommendation for a town to move to, I am considering the Princeton Area, where should I move to?
Reply 1: Move to West Windsor they have the best school system. Your kid will be president of they go there.
Reply 2: Try checking out South Brunswick, North Brunswick and East Brunswick in the area for slightly cheaper homes.
Reply 1: Oh no, all the Brunswicks are terrible. Brown people go to school there. My cousins sisters brother says they have a gang problem. Did you read about the 1 break in they had last year? South Brunswick is ranked 89 in NJ Monthly, East Brunswick is ranked 79, and North is ranked 133. Your kid will be destined to grow up a loser. West Windsor is Number 8. My brothers sisters kids go there and are solid middle of the pack there.
OP: zOMG, thanks for the recommendations. I found a 3 bed 1 bath crap shack for 450k that needs a gut renovation and is on the intersection of a major highway, backing up to train tracks, but thats cool, becuase we're in a top 10 school district.
I think your missing the point. Sure if you are comparing a Top 10 (West Windsor) to a bottom 10 (Irvington) there are going to be SUBSTANTIAL negative influences. But have you been on this board long? Do you see how ridiculous some posters are who come here with a post along the lines of the following,
OP: I am looking for a recommendation for a town to move to, I am considering the Princeton Area, where should I move to?
Reply 1: Move to West Windsor they have the best school system. Your kid will be president of they go there.
Reply 2: Try checking out South Brunswick, North Brunswick and East Brunswick in the area for slightly cheaper homes.
Reply 1: Oh no, all the Brunswicks are terrible. Brown people go to school there. My cousins sisters brother says they have a gang problem. Did you read about the 1 break in they had last year? South Brunswick is ranked 89 in NJ Monthly, East Brunswick is ranked 79, and North is ranked 133. Your kid will be destined to grow up a loser. West Windsor is Number 8. My brothers sisters kids go there and are solid middle of the pack there.
OP: zOMG, thanks for the recommendations. I found a 3 bed 1 bath crap shack for 450k that needs a gut renovation and is on the intersection of a major highway, backing up to train tracks, but thats cool, becuase we're in a top 10 school district.
I dont have time to search, but there are plenty of posts here bickering back and forth about the quailty of education in Edison North (JP Stevens) vs Edison SOuth, there was a post about East Brunswick schools going down hill, you see posts regularly about how Cranford and Fanwood being WAY worse than Westfield, the list goes on and on. The way people bicker back and forth about these things would leave you to believe that the actual delta in received education for a kid is the same as the delta between Irvington and a Top 10, its comical.
The worst part, folks that know NOTHING about NJ taking the advise and recommendations to heart and actually making life decisions based on the opinions given here.
I don't know, there is certainly probably too much emphasis put on school district rankings compared to the other factors, but I do see it as one of the deciding factors that needs to be considered when buying. There are plenty of towns, at least in South Jersey, where you can have very similar housing prices, taxes, access and amenities, but one has a school system that has traditionally been a notch or two higher then the other. In that case, if education is important and everything else is realtively equal, why not choose the town that has a better school system, even if just in perception?
Now, where I think it gets crazy is the "moving into the shack" in the ritzy town just so you can say you're in a top 10 district, when you could have had a much better home in say a top 100 which are relatively similar. The other, is arguing and slamming towns over a few points on the ranking lists, oh my town is ranked 96, that town is 115, that means my town is better.
If you actually look at the data points on things like the NJ Monthly rankings you'll realize two things:
1. Most school systems are separated by what amounts to a fraction of a difference. I believe one of the ones last year, school number 50 through 150 had less than a 3 point spread and some schools all received the same score, so there was something like 10 schools in a row that were all basically the same, but ranked differently.
2. The criteria they use and the weight they give to those numbers doesn't always make a lot of sense. For instance, there are schools where all academic measures are equal to top-100 schools, but they get ranked in the 200's do to average class size and student:teacher ratio. So, they are getting penalized for having large classes even though it doesn't really seem to impact their academics in the least.
Overall, I think they can be a useful tool once you have considered all of the more pressing factors when it comes to choosing a place to live. I don't think anyone with a choice would actively choose a poor school system, but the definition of "poor" doesn't really apply to the vast majority of schools in the state. Ultimately your childs success is dependent on you.
I dont have time to search, but there are plenty of posts here bickering back and forth about the quailty of education in Edison North (JP Stevens) vs Edison SOuth, there was a post about East Brunswick schools going down hill, you see posts regularly about how Cranford and Fanwood being WAY worse than Westfield, the list goes on and on. The way people bicker back and forth about these things would leave you to believe that the actual delta in received education for a kid is the same as the delta between Irvington and a Top 10, its comical.
The worst part, folks that know NOTHING about NJ taking the advise and recommendations to heart and actually making life decisions based on the opinions given here.
please. if it's as pervasive as you portray, you could've found 10 links in the time it took you to respond to my query.
This fascination with "only the best" schools seems to be a recent phenomenon in the last 10-15 years for the new generation of ultra coddled children. I'm still scratching my head as to how this all took hold.
I'm not even an old timey curmudgeon, I'm 32, and even the difference between my generation and the current generation is stark. When I was going to school the thinking among parents seemed to be to find a decent suburb that you could afford and send your kids to the public school. It wasn't this feeling that you are somehow entitled to only have the best for your precious children.
It's all about what happens at home and how you are raised and how you are disciplined. If you're raised right you'll do fine in an average school. I grew up in upstate NY and the school I went to had the highest teen pregnancy rate outside of the NYC metro. We had on-site police, etc. Yet somehow myself and those in my circle have all ended up doing just fine. Many make six figures and we are engineers, lawyers, programmers, teachers, accountants, etc. The way parents talk these days make it seem like if you don't go to the best schools you're dooooooomed. How did my generation and those before us ever manage when going to average or even below average schools? We were raised properly.
Unfortunately this habit of searching for the best is a self perpetuating cycle that begets higher and higher real estate prices as those buying need to consider the fact that everyone else also believes they need to have only the best for little Tucker and Madeline.
Remember there will ALWAYS be an average. Not everyone or everything can be above average.
This fascination with "only the best" schools seems to be a recent phenomenon in the last 10-15 years for the new generation of ultra coddled children. I'm still scratching my head as to how this all took hold.
I'm not even an old timey curmudgeon, I'm 32, and even the difference between my generation and the current generation is stark. When I was going to school the thinking among parents seemed to be to find a decent suburb that you could afford and send your kids to the public school. It wasn't this feeling that you are somehow entitled to only have the best for your precious children.
It's all about what happens at home and how you are raised and how you are disciplined. If you're raised right you'll do fine in an average school. I grew up in upstate NY and the school I went to had the highest teen pregnancy rate outside of the NYC metro. We had on-site police, etc. Yet somehow myself and those in my circle have all ended up doing just fine. Many make six figures and we are engineers, lawyers, programmers, teachers, accountants, etc. The way parents talk these days make it seem like if you don't go to the best schools you're dooooooomed. How did my generation and those before us ever manage when going to average or even below average schools? We were raised properly.
Unfortunately this habit of searching for the best is a self perpetuating cycle that begets higher and higher real estate prices as those buying need to consider the fact that everyone else also believes they need to have only the best for little Tucker and Madeline.
Remember there will ALWAYS be an average. Not everyone or everything can be above average.
Just curious, all else being equal, would you purposefully choose to live and raise your kids in a traditionally "below average" district or a traditionally "above average" district?
Just curious, all else being equal, would you purposefully choose to live and raise your kids in a traditionally "below average" district or a traditionally "above average" district?
It all depends on what I could afford. If I could afford to purchase a house in the best area with the best schools then I would do so. It's a wise investment. However, I'm bemoaning what posts typically look like on city-data and it's usually something along the lines of "I have a budget of $400k and I'm looking for a top ten school district, 3 beds/2 baths, within one hour door-to-door of my husband's office in midtown". You should live where you can afford and expect the school districts to fall in line. If you have an average budget, expect average schools.
I have friends who work for schools in the Bronx, for example. They are constantly being confronted by parents who believe their kids are not being properly served by the schools there. No offense, but if you live in the south Bronx you should not expect your children to receive the same high quality education that they'd receive in Summit, NJ. Sure, it's a nice idea that schools everywhere would be great but that's not the reality and it never will be.
FWIW, I don't intend to ever have children so it's mostly moot.
Just curious, all else being equal, would you purposefully choose to live and raise your kids in a traditionally "below average" district or a traditionally "above average" district?
Thats not the question that is being posed here. Obviously, the answer to your question would be, the "above average" over the "below average"
The problem that being addressed here is the folks that rave and beat the drum that their "above average" school district is BETTER than another "above average school district.
Recommending folks to buy a house that is a worse value in one district vs the house that presents the better value in another.
Don't get me wrong, their are many factors when choosing a house, schools are definitely one of them. There are others, size, commute, neighborhood, age etc. There is some equation one has in mind, when its satisfied, they will purchase the house.
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