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"School choice is a very personal decision made based upon a variety of factors, usually based on what is best for the entire family, not just whether Mom and Dad can walk a block or two to have a latte"
I agree, but are you suggesting that the only benefit to having kids in an urban area is walking to get a latte? I look at the freedom, independence, and daily experiences that this kids in our neighborhood have, and only wish that I could have had the same as a child. Maybe I am generalizing, but our friends with kids in the suburbs just seem to get out far less frequently compared to our urban friends. When you can throw the kids in a double stroller, or walk, to so many things within 10 minutes, its easier and more enjoyable to get out, so families do it more. However, I think there are many families that don't think this is much of a benefit. Our suburban friends tend to make their lives more around their house, with a general presumption that what kids need is a big house, a big yard and a swing set. So like you said, its based on what is best for the entire family in the eyes of the parents.
Couldn't agree more. Many times in this forum, posters trivialize this concept (in bold above), kind of like this:
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Originally Posted by bg7
We did think about self-deluding excuses to stay in the city with red herrings such as walkability (she actually walks here), vague notions of "vibrancy" (noise and crime) and the blatant lie of "independence", but didn't go so far as to stay there and then find two half-baked articles, one not even relevant, and post them on C-D as some retrospective self-justification of our own reluctance to leave the city. And diversity didn't mean much since she is part of the diversity.
I realize there are many factors, and schools (including SES) are important, but many people consider it the end-all be-all.
"School choice is a very personal decision made based upon a variety of factors, usually based on what is best for the entire family, not just whether Mom and Dad can walk a block or two to have a latte"
I agree, but are you suggesting that the only benefit to having kids in an urban area is walking to get a latte? I look at the freedom, independence, and daily experiences that the kids in our neighborhood have, and only wish that I could have had the same as a child. Maybe I am generalizing, but our friends with kids in the suburbs just seem to get out far less frequently compared to our urban friends. When you can throw the kids in a double stroller, or walk, to so many things within 10 minutes, its easier and more enjoyable to get out, so families do it more. However, I think there are many families that don't think this is much of a benefit. Our suburban friends tend to make their lives more around their house, with a general presumption that what kids need is a big house, a big yard and a swing set. So like you said, its based on what is best for the entire family in the eyes of the parents.
Could you give some examples of "freedom, independence, and daily experiences that the kids in our neighborhood have" that suburban kids don't have? And could we please stay away from these "I had such an unhappy childhood, it was because of the suburbs" trains of thought?
"School choice is a very personal decision made based upon a variety of factors, usually based on what is best for the entire family, not just whether Mom and Dad can walk a block or two to have a latte"
I agree, but are you suggesting that the only benefit to having kids in an urban area is walking to get a latte? I look at the freedom, independence, and daily experiences that the kids in our neighborhood have, and only wish that I could have had the same as a child. Maybe I am generalizing, but our friends with kids in the suburbs just seem to get out far less frequently compared to our urban friends. When you can throw the kids in a double stroller, or walk, to so many things within 10 minutes, its easier and more enjoyable to get out, so families do it more.
I am curious what experiences you mean, not in a gotcha kind of way, but just curious. I live in a suburb and think my kids have a lot of freedom, independence, and daily experiences, but would like to understand what they are missing to augment their lives if it makes sense.
I am curious what experiences you mean, not in a gotcha kind of way, but just curious. I live in a suburb and think my kids have a lot of freedom, independence, and daily experiences, but would like to understand what they are missing to augment their lives if it makes sense.
I don't know if you have been in the urban planning forum for a long time, but there is this assumption by urbanist, that if you live in the suburbs, kids don't do anything but stay inside and play video games, and all kids living in the city, go to museums, art gallery openings, the opera, theatre everyday of the week.
"the only thing high test scores tell me is that my kids will be surrounded by students who smart, work hard, and have goals in life."
Well, technically what it tells you is that they are surrounded by kids of a similar SES, Thing is, in my experience this usually occurs in schools that lack diversity. Study after study shows that being surrounded by other high achievers doesn't really impact the scores of an individual student - only SES does.
No choice that we make as parents is a 100% guaranteed to work. I could send my kid to a private school and he can turn out to be a dumpster fire academicly, or I could send him to a low performing urban school and he can be awarded numerous academic scholarships. The only thing we can do as parents is put our kids in the best position we think possible. I think alot of parents who move to the suburbs because of schools do it because they want their kids to be in an environment where there alot of high academic achievers. Does it mean, their kid will be the same, no it doesn't, but all you can do is the best you can.
I don't feel like bothering to add more commentary; at this point this subject is a rehash of previous debates and I've said what I wanted to say as well as I could.
The only thing that impacts the score of an individual student is how hard they work.
But some students will do better even if the amount of work they do is the same. Some subjects just tend to click better with certain people. Or are just innately better students in general. Though this could open up a rather controversial topic.
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The school test scores have nothing to do with an individual student's score.
I'm not sure what you mean by that.
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There is a straight line correlation between school test scores and parental SES. So a school with high test scores has students (in general) of high parental SES. That does not necessarily mean the school is not "diverse".
The students at the first school I mentioned in this post I'm guessing did far better than expected for the SES of the residents. Insert stereotype here...
I don't feel like bothering to add more commentary; at this point this subject is a rehash of previous debates and I've said what I wanted to say as well as I could.
Lots of things we discuss have been covered before. Are we just supposed to accept as fact that urban kids have more "freedom, independence, and daily experiences" than suburban kids?
Quote:
Originally Posted by nei
But some students will do better even if the amount of work they do is the same. Some subjects just tend to click better with certain people. Or are just innately better students in general. Though this could open up a rather controversial topic.
I'm not sure what you mean by that.
The students at the first school I mentioned in this post I'm guessing did far better than expected for the SES of the residents. Insert stereotype here...
Par. 1-yes, this is true, but not what I was talking about.
Par. 2- What I mean by the school score has nothing to do with an individual student's score is this:
Suppose the average score on the 5th grade reading test (just picking stuff out of the air here) at "School A" is 95%. This does not mean that every child scores 95%, or that any one child will score 95%. It does not mean that if you send your child to School A, s/he will score 95% in reading.
Par 3-Pennsylvania has some category of schools that perform "better than expected". Among them is my old high school. Yes, it happens.
Could you give some examples of "freedom, independence, and daily experiences that the kids in our neighborhood have" that suburban kids don't have? And could we please stay away from these "I had such an unhappy childhood, it was because of the suburbs" trains of thought?
The squares around where we live often have festivals on weekends, for example last weekend was one called "Honk!" and many of the local kids were our enjoying the festival and watching the parade as went through town. These festivals are pretty common and are a great way to bring the community together.
Two farmers markets are walkable from our house.
Teens are free to walk to one of three local squares where they can go to restaurants, get ice cream, etc. Kid friendly restaurants abound and when you go to dinner for the early shift, the restaurants are full of kids of all ages. Teens are also free to jump on the train and go to others parts of the city, car free.
I realize some parts of suburbia are walkable, but lets face it 98%+ of the homes in suburbia are NOT walkable to much of anything. I think the main point here is that when things are right out your door you simply take advantage of them much more often, especially with kids in tow.
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