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Old 03-20-2022, 07:13 PM
 
8,976 posts, read 21,074,766 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Duderino View Post
That really isn't true. Regional rail is incredibly convenient and efficient; it's honestly very rare for the system to experience major issues. PATCO is a nice option but it's VERY limited compared to SEPTA in its coverage/accessibility in South Jersey, that's obvious.

And I don't think there's any set rule about discussing SJ Philly suburbs. They're often referenced on this forum.
PATCO is superior to Regional Rail in terms of frequency - except maybe for those who live near the Wayne Junction (yes in the city), Jenkintown, or Glenside stops - although the Market-Frankford El and Broad Street Subway are better comparisons to PATCO.

On the other hand, PATCO is only one line into which the buses and the RiverLine light rail must feed while the Regional Rail has several routes branching out into different parts of the PA burbs (plus Trenton!)

I think few people won't say that the South Jersey 'burbs don't have their pros. It ultimately depends on how a particular home and school district might appeal to the OP.
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Old 03-20-2022, 09:19 PM
 
Location: Germantown, Philadelphia
13,982 posts, read 8,850,806 times
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My ears are burning?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Flyers Girl View Post
Generally, I don't subscribe to the idea that kids will only do well in the very best of schools. Sure, you don't want one that's rated horribly or even poorly, but you don't need the #1 school either. If your kids are interested in school and participate, they will do well. Period.

Check out Haverford Township, which includes most of Havertown, some of Ardmore, and some of Bryn Mawr. Rose Tree-Media is decent, as is Marple-Newtown. All more affordable housing stock than most of the Main Line.
I basically agree but would go further — and did. I've met several parents who sent their children to schools that score poorly on GreatSchools or get mediocre grades on Niche, and their kids have turned out fine. Read on.

Quote:
Originally Posted by FrancesRW View Post
I agree we don't need to go to a #1 tippity top school, but when I see "C" or 5/10 ratings on school websites, I just feel like I can do better for them. I understand parental involvement makes a difference, but I don't want to take a gamble like that, neither of us have experience in teaching children. In Philly our local catchment is rated 1/10 even though we live in a nice area of the city (Fairmount). Haverford Township isn't out of the question, but it's a bit further out than we were hoping to be (we'd like a train ride of 30 mins or less, which I'm realizing has a price-tag associated with it).

As for parking - friends and colleagues of mine who live on the mainline have told me some stations fill up as early as 7/730!
With 2 kids and daycare/school drop-offs, I don't think that's realistic for us. 8 would even be tough. So I think it's going to be walking distance or bust for us
Sounds like you live in the Bache-Martin school catchment.

Pace what we're learning about this city's public schools from watching "Abbott Elementary," I still think the Bache-Martin parents I interviewed for this story — and the other (generally well-off) parents living elsewhere in the city included in it — may be able to cop you wise to a dirty little secret:

If your family is reasonably affluent, your kids will probably do quite well in a "bad" public school. That's the main thrust of the cover feature I wrote for the 2020 Schools Issue of Philadelphia:

Ignore the Rankings: Why The Best School For Your Kid Is Probably the One in Your Neighborhood | Philadelphia Magazine

Two (reasonably affluent, white) women who attend First Presbyterian Church in Germantown, which I also attend, planted the seed for this story in my head one Sunday when they buttonholed me at coffee hour after services to tell me how well their kids were doing at Anna Lingelbach Elementary, on the Germantown/West Mount Airy border (Niche grade: C+; GreatSchools score: 2/10).

In the two years between their pitch and my getting the go-ahead to write the story, the son of one of the women got into Masterman. ('Nuff said?)

I will acknowledge that puberty changes the dynamic at the high school level, but in grade school, most of the research I've read on the factors affecting school performance is that the strongest correlating factor with performance in school is the household income of the pupil's family. The kids of well-to-do parents will do well even in "bad" schools, IOW. If the teaching staff is at all competent, then a child of an affluent family doesn't really need "the best schools" to excel.

(My own mother didn't follow this advice, however. And I explain why at the end of the article. My neighborhood grade school was also seriously overcrowded, and starting in third grade, the city school district began busing kids from it to the school Mom had transferred me out of district to attend. I consider it karmic in retrospect that the school was named for the founder of The Kansas City Star.)

An organization that pushes much the same message to affluent white parents is Integrated Schools. One of the people I interviewed for the article serves on the organization's Parent Board.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Duderino View Post
That really isn't true. Regional rail is incredibly convenient and efficient; it's honestly very rare for the system to experience major issues. PATCO is a nice option but it's VERY limited compared to SEPTA in its coverage/accessibility in South Jersey, that's obvious.

And I don't think there's any set rule about discussing SJ Philly suburbs. They're often referenced on this forum.
Yes, PATCO is only one line, but it operates the way Regional Rail could operate if SEPTA and the mainline railroads could think outside the box. Trains run between Lindenwold and Center City 24/7, at 15- to 20-minute intervals from 6 a.m. to midnight weekdays. Compare this frequency with the hourly (or less frequent) service on most of the Regional Rail lines (Airport and Paoli/Thorndale run at half-hourly intervals, IIRC).

South Jersey may not have extensive rail transit coverage the way Southeastern Pennsylvania does, but the slice of it that does have it has better-quality service than SE Pa does.

There is a separate C-D forum now for the New Jersey Suburbs of Philadelphia, in the New Jersey forum. People with questions about South Jersey or who wish to discuss issues specific to it are directed to post there.
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Old 03-20-2022, 09:34 PM
 
Location: Germantown, Philadelphia
13,982 posts, read 8,850,806 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by cpomp View Post
^ I'd argue that Rose Tree Media School District is more than "decent".

My father used to commute into CC everyday, he would park at Rose Valley Station, most spots were gone by ~8/830ish. I assume the story is the same for most suburban stations. But I wouldn't limit myself to walking distance to a train station.
I don't know whether you were implying that Rose Valley lies within the Rose Tree Media School District, but if you were, it doesn't: Rose Valley kids attend Wallingford-Swarthmore schools. That district is as highly regarded as Rose Tree Media, though.

In addition to Media Borough, the Rose Tree Media district serves Edgmont, Middletown and Upper Providence townships. Wallingford is part of Nether Providence Township, which accounts for most of the territory served by the Wallingford-Swarthmore district, which also includes Rutledge Borough along with Rose Valley and Swarthmore boroughs.
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Old 03-21-2022, 05:32 AM
 
8,976 posts, read 21,074,766 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MarketStEl View Post

Yes, PATCO is only one line, but it operates the way Regional Rail could operate if SEPTA and the mainline railroads could think outside the box. Trains run between Lindenwold and Center City 24/7, at 15- to 20-minute intervals from 6 a.m. to midnight weekdays. Compare this frequency with the hourly (or less frequent) service on most of the Regional Rail lines (Airport and Paoli/Thorndale run at half-hourly intervals, IIRC).

South Jersey may not have extensive rail transit coverage the way Southeastern Pennsylvania does, but the slice of it that does have it has better-quality service than SE Pa does.

There is a separate C-D forum now for the New Jersey Suburbs of Philadelphia, in the New Jersey forum. People with questions about South Jersey or who wish to discuss issues specific to it are directed to post there.
From what I understand, enabling Regional Rail to run at subway/PATCO-like frequency would require a number of things: heavy federal subsidies that would not only allow SEPTA to run the increased service but allow people within the city to pay for it with the typical bus fare and/or expanding Transpass access to everyday rather than the weekends and holidays. I’m all for that as I can think of a number of bus routes, primarily in the city, whose overcrowding would be relieved. I’m not optimistic that most suburban commuters would be more excited about increased off-peak frequency as they would be expressing classist concerns about with whom they would be sharing their ride once entering the city limits. Then again, South Jersey folks on PATCO seem to have been socialized differently. Or perhaps they just grit their teeth through the Camden stops. So maybe I should have higher faith in how PA suburbanites would adjust.

BTW I meant to say in my last post that there are few who *wouldn’t” say living in South Jersey doesn’t have its pros. My wording came out awkwardly so I wanted to clarify.
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Old 03-21-2022, 07:45 AM
 
Location: New York City
9,347 posts, read 9,224,999 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MarketStEl View Post
I don't know whether you were implying that Rose Valley lies within the Rose Tree Media School District, but if you were, it doesn't: Rose Valley kids attend Wallingford-Swarthmore schools. That district is as highly regarded as Rose Tree Media, though.

In addition to Media Borough, the Rose Tree Media district serves Edgmont, Middletown and Upper Providence townships. Wallingford is part of Nether Providence Township, which accounts for most of the territory served by the Wallingford-Swarthmore district, which also includes Rutledge Borough along with Rose Valley and Swarthmore boroughs.
Sandy you know I'm aware of this.
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Old 03-21-2022, 01:23 PM
 
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Old 03-22-2022, 08:32 AM
 
Location: Montgomery County, PA
1,339 posts, read 2,471,535 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by FrancesRW View Post
I agree we don't need to go to a #1 tippity top school, but when I see "C" or 5/10 ratings on school websites, I just feel like I can do better for them. I understand parental involvement makes a difference, but I don't want to take a gamble like that, neither of us have experience in teaching children. In Philly our local catchment is rated 1/10 even though we live in a nice area of the city (Fairmount). Haverford Township isn't out of the question, but it's a bit further out than we were hoping to be (we'd like a train ride of 30 mins or less, which I'm realizing has a price-tag associated with it).

As for parking - friends and colleagues of mine who live on the mainline have told me some stations fill up as early as 7/730!
With 2 kids and daycare/school drop-offs, I don't think that's realistic for us. 8 would even be tough. So I think it's going to be walking distance or bust for us
I would strongly caution you from looking at some of the ratings sites in making your decision. Since some of them started building arbitrary "social justice" criteria into their rankings, they have become essentially meaningless. At least look at the criteria that they use.

Another area to consider is Fort Washington / Upper Dublin, within a reasonable drive from the Fort Washington Train Station. It has a large parking lot, and still has express trains at certain times (though fewer since Covid). It's about 30 minutes to Jefferson Station. Pre-Covid, the lot would fill up if you were going in after maybe 8:30am, but now I don't think it comes close to filling up at all. It's not cheap either, but probably a bit more affordable than Lower Merion.
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Old 03-22-2022, 10:37 AM
 
Location: Germantown, Philadelphia
13,982 posts, read 8,850,806 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Angus215 View Post
I would strongly caution you from looking at some of the ratings sites in making your decision. Since some of them started building arbitrary "social justice" criteria into their rankings, they have become essentially meaningless. At least look at the criteria that they use.

Another area to consider is Fort Washington / Upper Dublin, within a reasonable drive from the Fort Washington Train Station. It has a large parking lot, and still has express trains at certain times (though fewer since Covid). It's about 30 minutes to Jefferson Station. Pre-Covid, the lot would fill up if you were going in after maybe 8:30am, but now I don't think it comes close to filling up at all. It's not cheap either, but probably a bit more affordable than Lower Merion.
However, most of the rating sites have used student body diversity as a criterion for some time now, and — as I wrote in the lede of my 2020 Schools Issue feature — that seems to be the one thing that gets tossed out the window when parents get down to deciding where to send their children to school.

There are a few schools in this region — Philadelphia's Central High School, a college-prep-focused school that also happens to be one of two city public schools that rank among the state's 10 best high schools, is one of them — that get outstanding grades for both academics and diversity. However, given that decades of shortchanging on all fronts (including the socioeconomic one) leave many Black children at a distinct disadvantage when they enter school, schools where they make up a sizable chunk of the student body tend to score worse on the rating sites.

Yet both I and Integrated Schools maintain that these are precisely the schools better-off white parents should consider when making their decisions about where to send their children to school — and the reason why is roughly the mirror image of the reason why my own mother had me transferred out of my neighborhood public school in Kansas City the moment I was old enough to attend kindergarten.

She sent me away from my overcrowded neighborhood school because she — a woman who grew up in a Kansas town that was too small to segregate its schools, and thus attended majority-white schools for the entire period from kindergarten through college graduation — knew that I (and my brother, who came along nine years later) would be competing in a world where white folks pretty much wrote the rules. Best for me to learn those rules so I could compete on their terms, which I have done quite well at over the years.

We now live in a country where whites will cease to be a majority of the population in our kids' lifetimes. Both the growth of the Black middle class and immigration from abroad is turning the melting pot into a mosaic. Kids who grow up negotiating this more polyglot country will be at an advantage relative to their peers when they graduate. Racially and ethnically diverse schools will give them that knowledge.

As I pointed out, that white woman who told me how well her kids were learning at Anna Lingelbach got her son into Masterman — the single best high school in Pennsylvania and (according to U.S. News) one of the 50 best in the country. How can a school that allows that to happen be "bad", regardless how low GreatSchools ranks it or how mediocre a Niche grade it gets?
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Old 03-22-2022, 06:31 PM
 
Location: North by Northwest
9,316 posts, read 12,923,301 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by FrancesRW View Post
Hi,
The kicker - my husband and I both work in Center City, so I'm pretty sure that we need to be within walking distance to a train station (since parking at train stations is very limited, and driving into the city every day is not an option for us. If we can't park, we can't get to work!).
You may have a long wait to get a monthly permit (even post-COVID), but daily parking isn’t that packed at most of the Paoli Thorndale stations. I haven’t parked at all of them, so your mileage may vary, but I recall pre-COVID if you got to Merion or Narberth by 8, you were usually fine. Overbook is tighter.

What’s your budget? What kind of house are you looking for?
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Old 03-29-2022, 11:14 AM
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MarketStEl View Post
Two (reasonably affluent, white) women who attend First Presbyterian Church in Germantown, which I also attend, planted the seed for this story in my head one Sunday when they buttonholed me at coffee hour after services to tell me how well their kids were doing at Anna Lingelbach Elementary, on the Germantown/West Mount Airy border (Niche grade: C+; GreatSchools score: 2/10).

In the two years between their pitch and my getting the go-ahead to write the story, the son of one of the women got into Masterman. ('Nuff said?)
This is an interesting perspective. However, I feel like a lot of this perspective is anecdotal, and sending my kids to a lower-rated school still feels like a "risk" to me. I wish I could shake that, but I can't! That's awesome that her son got into Masterman, but I feel like that's a very rare occurance and it's just not encouraging or reassuring enough for me. What gets me are the test scores at lower-ranking schools. I know test scores aren't everything, but they are a major factor in considering kids for magnet schools and beyond (logically so -- without them, how can schools compare thousands of kids for admission)? And also the quality of teachers. What if you kid just doesn't have a quality teacher? I feel quality teachers are more of a given in a highly-rated school. All in all, I feel a higher-rated school is a safer bet for their education, less of a "gamble" per-se. That's just my opinion, not truly based on facts or data.

Our school district is Robert Morris, which is ranked as low as it gets (1/10). We could apply to Bache, but there's no guarantee we'll get in (I know of a parent who applied and didn't make it - it happens. They had to move since they couldn't afford private school, and were incredibly unhappy at Robert Morris).
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