Lake Oswego, OR neighborhood advice

[Nell Plotts]

Choosing a home based on school test scores is problematic. For example, Cleveland HS in Portland has high test scores but that is because they offer an International Bacalorate program. Students not enrolled in that program run the gamut academically.

What is important is a child's peer group. If the parents of the students emphasize academics students will receive tutoring if they fall behind and are pressured to do well. Not all students (even parents) in any school are angelic and many may use drugs (drug dealers go where youth have spending money).

The other issue is the availability of after-school programs, particularly those parents lead. For example speech and debate, constitution competition. Look for sports activities either offered by the school or close-by athletic leagues.

[ejisme]

Originally Posted by texasdiver

Not when you are talking about school kids. No kids in Lake Oswego or anywhere else have any income yet unless they have a lemonade stand or do baby sitting. So it is the parent income we are talking about not the kids.

Yes, of course, really bright people like Bill Gates and Elon Musk tend to have higher incomes. But that isn't relevant when talking about things like standardized test scores and why wealthy districts perform better on these metrics than poorer districts.

I would say it often has to do with a healthy and stable home life. That is more likely the higher the income of the parents. Yes the rich divorce fairly often, but there is usually money to continue to support he childrens' home life.

[Racer46]

Originally Posted by ejisme

I would say it often has to do with a healthy and stable home life. That is more likely the higher the income of the parents. Yes the rich divorce fairly often, but there is usually money to continue to support he childrens' home life.

Divorces can be as harmful or more harmful than loss of money. mentally it can be devastating. Stupid self centered parents.

[texasdiver]

Originally Posted by ejisme

I would say it often has to do with a healthy and stable home life. That is more likely the higher the income of the parents. Yes the rich divorce fairly often, but there is usually money to continue to support he childrens' home life.

That is one reason, but it is a whole lot of reasons.

Another one is student mobility. In poorer school districts there is much greater student mobility. In other words, students are coming and going at a much higher rate and when schools do standardized tests in say the 11th grade they are testing MUCH MUCH higher percentages of students who moved in and out of the district, who a year earlier might have been in an entirely different country.

So when a wealthy stable district like Lake Oswego does testing they are mostly testing kids who have grown up in the district. When a poorer and more diverse urban district does standardized testing they have a mélange of kids from all over and a much lower percentage who have been in their care since elementary school.

So it isn't even close to an apples to apples comparison.