Neighborhoods close to NYC, good schools and SFR

[HudsonCoNJ]

Originally Posted by 46H

You can take SAT scores with a healthy grain of salt, too. Wealthier towns have more money for SAT tutors and instruction. Also, some high schools encourage every student to take the SATs (lowering scores) and others are less encouraging when they know students are not headed to college therefore raising scores

All it takes is a few high scoring or low scoring students to move in or out a school system and skew the results higher or lower. There are even score differences between classes in the same school. My son's high school class had high test scores while the class 1 year older and the class 1 year younger had lower test scores that where beyond the normal variance. These 3 classes all had basically the same learning experience.

FYI - 6 of the top scoring high schools on that NJ SAT list are highly selective county schools that students have to apply and test to get into. The rest of the top 15 are mostly wealthy towns or wealthy regional districts.

Yep, I've argued this exact point before regarding wealthier towns essentially paying for tutors. I don't think anyone really believes that any of these top schools have teachers that are vastly more skilled or talented than lesser performing schools. But, there is something to be said about being surrounded by peers with a strong focus on education and being successful. There will be bad apples in any group but I'd prefer my kids to learn in an environment with like-minded people.

EDIT: My point in posting that link was pretty much to say that you can pick any school district in that top 100, maybe even top 120 and not have to worry about your child receiving a bad education or be surrounded by bad influences. I think that's a better approach than trying to find outliers in Great Schools.

[Nmc400]

Originally Posted by HudsonCoNJ

I’ve never seen Union City and Millburn on the same list before. I think you need to remove those first two on the list and do some more research.

Lol, was going to say, this list seems randomly generated.

[jerseygrammer]

Originally Posted by HudsonCoNJ

Yep, I've argued this exact point before regarding wealthier towns essentially paying for tutors. I don't think anyone really believes that any of these top schools have teachers that are vastly more skilled or talented than lesser performing schools. But, there is something to be said about being surrounded by peers with a strong focus on education and being successful. There will be bad apples in any group but I'd prefer my kids to learn in an environment with like-minded people.

EDIT: My point in posting that link was pretty much to say that you can pick any school district in that top 100, maybe even top 120 and not have to worry about your child receiving a bad education or be surrounded by bad influences. I think that's a better approach than trying to find outliers in Great Schools.

Have you seen the movie "Waiting for Superman"?
It's a documentary about the realities of the US school system. It's eye-opening and may change your vies about wealthier towns having better schools or teachers being more/less talented, and even more importantly, complaccent in various schools regardless of the town. They show some of the wealthiest cities in the country having great amenities but poor education in terms of performance.