Tulsa area middle schools - rigorous academics or gifted programming (Broken Arrow: neighborhood, buying)

[Pepses]

We're considering a move to Tulsa from Minneapolis and are trying to get information about the middle schools. We're looking for a middle school (and then high school) with rigorous academics and things like ability grouping, pre-AP classes, etc. Could you let me know your experiences with academics in the Tulsa area schools -- both good and bad? We would prefer public (because of cost of private) but would consider private schools, too. Thanks in advance!

[flyingcat2k]

We live in the Edison MS/HS district and it is in the #5 public HS according to the Washington Post/Kaplan rankings. Booker T. Washington is #3 in the rankings. Both schools are "magnet" schools so these schools tend to have more advanced classes and students than other Tulsa PS HS's.

Booker T and Carver MS are difficult to get in to and on the north side of town. They are the cream of the academic crop in Tulsa. The campuses are very safe but the area surrounding them is on the sketchy side. There are specific places held for neighborhood residents on the north side of town if they can meet the academic requirements. I don't know much about them other than that.

Edison MS/HS are on a single campus in midtown Tulsa. There is a community trac and a magnet trac in the school and the teachers do overlap between the two tracs. It reminds me of smaller cities where HS teachers have one or two AP classes and then teach regular classes the rest of the day. It can be frustrating in the MS setting as there are no separate classes for Magnet students but the Magnet students just get assigned additional work inside the regular classes. This means the lecture part of class is more geared towards them than the community trac student. I am fine with this but with two special needs kids, we wind up communicating a lot with the teachers. Midtown Tulsa is safe and has areas that rank highly on walk ability scales, which is rare in Oklahoma.

Other locations to consider are Owasso and Jenks. Jenks is #6 on the list but Owasso did not make the list. They do well on some of the other Tulsa World studies so I would recommend considering it. Jenks and Owasso are safer cities than Tulsa but, particularly Jenks, are ruled by the athletic department. If that's for you, look at those school districts.

The private schools, for their worth, are pretty safe and do a good job of educating students from the reports I have seen in the paper. Are they worth 20k+ a year in tuition compared to just buying in a good area of town? No. I hope that OK's public education system will change after the election as we have a TERRIBLE State Superintendent and TERRIBLE base pay system. For example, a new grad elementary teacher in Conway, AR can make more than a 15-year special Ed teacher with an MS in Broken Arrow.

If you want more information on Edison or Midtown or Downtown Tulsa, PM me.

[Klguess]

I would suggest you go private if you are going to relocate. I was born in Ok and educated in OK, but when we looked into the public/private system over the last 2 years ... nothing compared to the Texas education my older girls received. We ended up moving back to Texas primarily because I couldn't stomach educating my child in the OK system. Good privates to consider:
Casia; Holland Hall (most expensive option); Marquette; Regents. All of these are based on various church affiliates - I don't know of a non-denom in Tulsa. The person talking about Edison and Booker T is correct they have good schools (for OK) but not if you compare standardized norms for the rest of the country. That stands for private as well. There is a reason SAT scores are lower on ave in Ok and why you can be national merit in OK with lower PSATs. The rest of the country has seen how terribly funded and underserved OK school kids are.

[swake]

Originally Posted by Klguess

I would suggest you go private if you are going to relocate. I was born in Ok and educated in OK, but when we looked into the public/private system over the last 2 years ... nothing compared to the Texas education my older girls received. We ended up moving back to Texas primarily because I couldn't stomach educating my child in the OK system. Good privates to consider:
Casia; Holland Hall (most expensive option); Marquette; Regents. All of these are based on various church affiliates - I don't know of a non-denom in Tulsa. The person talking about Edison and Booker T is correct they have good schools (for OK) but not if you compare standardized norms for the rest of the country. That stands for private as well. There is a reason SAT scores are lower on ave in Ok and why you can be national merit in OK with lower PSATs. The rest of the country has seen how terribly funded and underserved OK school kids are.

Funny you say that. Oklahoma's average SAT score last year was 1680, ranked 17th while Texas' score was 1434 ranked 47th.

Texas does beat Oklahoma on the ACT but only slightly 20.8 vs 20.7

Oklahoma schools are not great but Texas schools are terrible. Good Oklahoma schools certainly should stand up to good Texas schools.

Commonwealth Foundation - SAT Scores by State 2012

[Klguess]

True, unless you look at the percent of students who actually take the test. It's difficult to make an apples-to-apples comparison between states simply by ranking them on mean SAT score. Some states have a high SAT participation rate, which means a larger percentage of the student population—and more lower-achieving students—take the test. Okla only had 5% of students statewide taking the SAT. Texas had 62%.

[swake]

Originally Posted by Klguess

True, unless you look at the percent of students who actually take the test. It's difficult to make an apples-to-apples comparison between states simply by ranking them on mean SAT score. Some states have a high SAT participation rate, which means a larger percentage of the student population—and more lower-achieving students—take the test. Okla only had 5% of students statewide taking the SAT. Texas had 62%.

Thus I mentioned the ACT score, in which the inverse is true. Texas schools are terrible.

[hey teach]

Are that Tulsa schools infested with what we in North Alabama call the "Pearson Virus"? Do at least some of the schools use Pearson Digital Curriculum? Anyone with any experience with this I would love to hear your evaluations.

[jdmiller71]

We just moved here from West Des Moines, Iowa. We came with the intent of public school....but after two months of research and study, we chose to live in Owasso (I love the smaller town feel and close to the city, I work in S Tulsa) and Rejoice Christian Academy, which is a phenomenal school (ranking in top 10% of all schools, public or private, nationwide as related to their scoring). We looked at Broken Arrow, Union and Jenks...as someone said, they are dominated by football. There is no way that these schools should all be one high school...BA has 15K enrollment in district and just one HS! It's beyond stupid. I am not saying your child can't get a solid education there, but there are better options and those are considered the best in Tulsa.

As is Bixby, but I have friends there who just moved here last year and they are pulling their kids and sending to another school because quite frankly they were not challenged from the education.

Oklahoma is a great place to live...the people are great. The public educational system and municipal infrastructure? It will be less than what you are used to.