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Better schools have kids with parents that have higher income and education. Smart people breed smart kids. It's not because the teachers or administrators are better. If Chatham and Newark traded teachers and administrators, you'd see no difference in either school.
And school rankings are a scam. Higher rankings are achieved by schools that play the ranking game. My school plays it, we do things like allowing just about anyone with a pulse to take AP classes.
But having your kids be friends with smarter kids isn't a bad thing. Certainly better than them hanging out with dumb kids.
exactly. towns with excellent schools have parents that chose a town with excellent schools. those parents are different than the parents of kids who chose a town with "good" schools. the actual school isnt the difference.
so you have to decide what kind of a parent are you, a good school parent or an excellent school parent.
It's a question my wife and I discuss all the time. We do pretty well for ourselves, but in a town like Millburn or Tenafly we would be below average on the income scale. I know people who were the "poor" kids in towns like that and they were bullied for it. Do we really want to subject our children to that kind of environment? Not sure if it's worth it if they can get a good education in a town like Paramus, Wayne or Fair Lawn and not have to go through that...
It's a question my wife and I discuss all the time. We do pretty well for ourselves, but in a town like Millburn or Tenafly we would be below average on the income scale. I know people who were the "poor" kids in towns like that and they were bullied for it. Do we really want to subject our children to that kind of environment? Not sure if it's worth it if they can get a good education in a town like Paramus, Wayne or Fair Lawn and not have to go through that...
We are exactly in a similar situation. We make around $200k. While it is higher than the median, it is much less than the average. It does not matter to us, but we are worried about the fact that my son will face issues at school.
We are exactly in a similar situation. We make around $200k. While it is higher than the median, it is much less than the average. It does not matter to us, but we are worried about the fact that my son will face issues at school.
Finances aside, some of these districts can be cut-throat when it comes to academics. From parents demanding the curriculum in June to get a head-start for the following year, to ADHD "diagnoses" in order for the kids to get the boost the meds give. It's insane..
Finances aside, some of these districts can be cut-throat when it comes to academics. From parents demanding the curriculum in June to get a head-start for the following year, to ADHD "diagnoses" in order to get the boost the meds give. It's insane..
+1
Allow me to share the experience of a 30+ year school counselor in the decidedly-mediocre Woodbridge School District. The family of one of my counselees moved to academically-superior Edison immediately after the student's junior year. I assumed that they would be transferring to J.P. Stevens High School, because that altogether superior school would be the new "home school" for their son.
Instead, the family chose to pay more than $10k tuition per year for their son to remain in the Woodbridge School District. When I asked the boy's mother why she would pay that much money for her son to remain in a mediocre school, rather than transferring to one whose superiority was beyond compare, her response was something along the lines of... If he remains in your senior class, his class rank will continue to be within the top 3% of his graduating class. If we transfer him to J.P. Stevens HS, he will barely be in the top 15% of the class.
The take-away is that a fairly bright student can appear to be very impressive to a college admissions office if he comes from a lower-ranked school district, but if he transfers to a much more competitive school district, he will just appear to be... better than average.
Allow me to share the experience of a 30+ year school counselor in the decidedly-mediocre Woodbridge School District. The family of one of my counselees moved to academically-superior Edison immediately after the student's junior year. I assumed that they would be transferring to J.P. Stevens High School, because that altogether superior school would be the new "home school" for their son.
Instead, the family chose to pay more than $10k tuition per year for their son to remain in the Woodbridge School District. When I asked the boy's mother why she would pay that much money for her son to remain in a mediocre school, rather than transferring to one whose superiority was beyond compare, her response was something along the lines of... If he remains in your senior class, his class rank will continue to be within the top 3% of his graduating class. If we transfer him to J.P. Stevens HS, he will barely be in the top 15% of the class.
The take-away is that a fairly bright student can appear to be very impressive to a college admissions office if he comes from a lower-ranked school district, but if he transfers to a much more competitive school district, he will just appear to be... better than average.
It's a question my wife and I discuss all the time. We do pretty well for ourselves, but in a town like Millburn or Tenafly we would be below average on the income scale. I know people who were the "poor" kids in towns like that and they were bullied for it. Do we really want to subject our children to that kind of environment? Not sure if it's worth it if they can get a good education in a town like Paramus, Wayne or Fair Lawn and not have to go through that...
you witnessed this bullying for being poor? ive never seen that. i think a lot of people manufacture a lot of this bullying for false reasons.
people who buy and look in fair lawn dont look at tenafly for example. the prices for houses are totally different .
Not true for us. We're looking in markets with significantly different house prices, just like Tenafly and Fair Lawn. There's lots of different trade-offs with every market, especially when commutes are factored in. And not everyone feels compelled to spend their budget. If we can find a nice house in a decent town and come up 300-400k under budget, that's just a bonus. Perhaps not the most common approach, but I suspect others may at least consider it.
It's a question my wife and I discuss all the time. We do pretty well for ourselves, but in a town like Millburn or Tenafly we would be below average on the income scale. I know people who were the "poor" kids in towns like that and they were bullied for it. Do we really want to subject our children to that kind of environment? Not sure if it's worth it if they can get a good education in a town like Paramus, Wayne or Fair Lawn and not have to go through that...
In some of the ritzier NJ towns, not only do the poorer students get bullied, the teachers get bullied. My brother-in-law's sister taught for a year at Ramsey High School and was threatened by a student for not getting the grade he thought he deserved. He told her "you work for me" and said "his allowance was probably more than her salary". It was easy to tell the difference between the student parking lot and the teacher's lot. The student lot was full of new BMWs, Corvettes and Mercedes, while the teacher's lot was populated with 5-10 year old Camrys, Accords and Chevys. She decided not to return after the first year and found a lot less stressful job at Hewlett Packard. I asked her if she ever missed teaching. She replied "Hell No!"
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