How would you, as a parent, evaluate this school?

On edit: This is purely a hypothetical example, although the stats are real.

No responses needed...just take a moment and examine your first reaction to this.

Having just moved to the outskirts of up-and-coming area, you, the white parent of a 5-year old kid are looking to enroll him in a public elementary school. You recently bought a 1/2-million dollar home where the median home value is only $160K.

You are the product of a public school, so your first inclination is to explore that option. The elementary school that kids in your neighborhood go to has these stats:

-SOL Test Scores (Grade 5)
o Reading 66% (State Average 87%)
o Science 66% (State Average 85%)
o Math 56% (State Average 83%)
o Writing 75% (State Average 86%)

-Teacher Education Levels
o Bachelor Degree 64% (State Average 57%)
o Master's Degree 36% (State Average 42%)
o Doctoral Degree 0% (State Average <1%)

-Student Ethnicity
o Black 53% (State Average 27%)
o Hispanic 20% (State Average 7%)
o White 16% (State Average 60%)
o Asian 7% (State Average 5%)

-Student Economic Level
o Students eligible for free lunch 52% (State Average 33%)

Other than that, try Montessori.

it's probably the best option out there. However, due to their small size, when I went to highschool, socially I was slightly at a disadvantage

The one they attend is a good size, but you are absolutely right -- they are definitely at a disadvantage socially if we don't move them into public school sometime before middle school starts. We are actually having to face that decision with our oldest boy now. It's a tough one. Still, Montessori rocks!!!

The father in me would say, "Are you kidding me?" We are talking about my
child here not some sort of social project.

These numbers are meaningless without context.

On first glance, I'd say that those kids at a socioeconomic disadvantage (52% eligible for free lunch, it says) are probably "lowering" the averge scores of the standardized tests.

Standardized tests will not tell you the truth about a school, hell, these tests won't tell you the truth about anything except the test itself. They say nothing about the teachers, the administration, the parent community, or the students.

I'd recognize that standardized testing is a load of horseshit, the teacher education level seems fine, and I don't care about the racial mix up of my child's school, assuming it's not segregated obviously, and I'd hope other parents wouldn't either.

Am I missing something?

and higher scores. consistently i put the responsibility of learning on my children with me the advocate to ensure they are doing what they need to do to get all they can out of their education regardless of the school that they attend. the school in our district tended to these scores. i couldn't get kids in another public school thru transfer and had to get them out of the private school that they were attending. so i enrolled them in our public school. the teachers were excellent, the principal was on top of things and i made sure the teachers knew i was there to support them and whatever they needed for my children to have the best in education, i was going to make sure they got it. that is what it took. i do not believe that the public schools are the horror that so many like to chime. i believe the opportunity is there and thru the parent the child will get a good education, IF the parent is willing to be a participant and do the work and put in the time.

regardless of which school he goes to.

Looking over the statistics, my guess is that the school has a lot of young teachers just out of college working on their Master's and looking to beat feet to the suburbs ASAP>.

It's not often you find $500,000 homes in an area with so much poverty (52% free lunches). These stats don't mean that the school is a poor one. They do carry out the fact that poverty breeds despair and despair carries over into the classroom. The five year old will probably do very well in that school and could help bring up those scores.

I would be more concerned about class sizes and "extra classes". In many Portland (Oregon) area schools, "extras" are things like art, music, P.E. and library. I consider those part of a basic public school eductation.

If the class size is huge and the extras are lacking, then I'd call my Realtor. If the class sizes were small, then I'd probably chalk the test scores up to economically disadvantaged kids coming to school unprepared in Kindergarten and not enough programs in place to turn things around completely by 5th grade. The teacher's education levels of the school aren't necessarily bad. If it is an up-and-coming neighborhood, then the median house price is likely to move up as more parents move in and the test scores will go up. I'm basing that on the hypothetical $500k house purchase - the assumption is that the housing prices are going up so more financially solvent families are probably moving in.

The free lunch stat doesn't even register as a blip. It is half of the population of the school, which isn't really that high.

Another factor to consider is whether the test scores are increasing or decreasing each year. If they are increasing, then the school is trying to address the problem. If they are decreasing over a period of years, then the school isn't paying attention or trying to address problems.

I graduated near the top of my class and went on to college. Looking back, I don't think that the problems at the schools had any effect on my life. I have said this before and I will say it again, it's the parents, not the schools. If you are looking for an excuse for your failures you can always find one.

about the school my children attended when they were still in elementary. I don't know where to get the test scores, etc., but here is the ethnicity of the current student body:

Race Distribution
Percent Asian: 4%
Percent Black: 43%
Percent Hispanic: 32%
Percent Native American: 4%
Percent White/Other: 17%

When my children attended (it may still be the same) the majority of the teachers were black as was the principal. My children still consider this to be the best elementary school they attended and I feel that they got a very good education there.

I would advise that you visit the school and talk to the principal and to the teacher who would be teaching your child. The test scores are not the only measure of a school. Language might be part of the problem with the test scores that you quote.

I might also add that if your child attends a school where "white" is a minority, it really gives them a different outlook and attitude as far as race is concerned. My daughter actually worried that her children were at a disadvantage by attending a school that was predominately white that didn't give them an opportunity to make friends with children of other races and cultures.

Remember, the scores you see are akin to averages for the school: there may be high achieving students as well as students who are struggling. It's the type of programs and resources the school maintains to address the needs of each kind of student that matter. Visit and see what resources there are for individual attention for your particular student. So, say your child is reading above grade average: will they receive materials and lessons at their own level, or will they have to sit around while material they have already mastered is being explained?

My kids went to inner city public schools where there were wide ranges of incomes and abilities. They received excellent educations geared to their specific needs ... and at the same time learned to interact with peers from all backgrounds, races, income levels, and countries of origin.

I'd be more worried about buying a $500,000 house in a neighborhood where the avg. is $160,000. Unless planning to live a lifetime there, it may prove to be a poor investment, financiallly speaking.

organized way, the child will probably benefit from this particular learning environment. The only way to know is to visit the school and interview the principal and teachers. How responsive they are to this will tell you quite a bit. Doing a bit of research on school reform models will give you a perspective and some information with which to evaluate the school. Success for All and Direct Instruction, but only if professionally instituted, are two that have shown good results.

It seems pretty typical for a school with 50% free lunch, but so much depends on the attitude and feeling of the school. Is it a prison with grim-faced witches entirely focused on keeping the kids quiet? Or is it an innovative place that gives each kid the opportunity to excell while not obsessing too much about test scores?

I once worked in a school in a poor section of town that had a *stunning* range of teacher quality: two of the teachers were brilliant -- I'd kill to have my kids today in those classes. Two other teachers were among the worst ever. They had completely checked out years before.

In some of the less competetive schools parents can have a lot of say what classes their kids are in, too. And it takes about thirty seconds to get an approximate idea whether the teacher is a gem or a disaster.

It's good for kids to go to public school, imho -- unless the school is a nightmare.

if it doesn't work out think of another? As a parent you can help the school too?

We did it for a year at our school that had numbers worse than that. We are now homeschooling, but you know what? It wasn't the performance or the poverty that drove us from the school. From my perspective as my wife and I voluteer regularly (three times a week between us), that wasn't an issue for us, kindergarteners all over are the same regardless of their income level.

It was the school system's inisistance that every child regardless of handicap or diability be mainstreamed in a classroom without an aid. My son and 50 other kids sat there (sometimes for over an hour at a time) while the three teachers in this "team teach" environment chased four Behavoir and Emotionally Handicap (BEH) and Autistic kids around with notebooks documenting every move that they made and every time the BEH kids hit or beat up another kid.

But that's another issue for another day.

More time is taken up in these schools on crowd control than actually being able to teach the curriculum. I think schools need to address this. In my day they streamed the classes into A,B,C,D and S for special. It meant that special needs children were able to have devoted attention in the 3Rs without losing out on the more communal subjects like gym, art, which they shared with the other students in the same school.

That strikes me as a curious decision.

Anyway, if it is an elementary school, I'd probably send my kids there. And I would closely monitor their progress. Once they reach junior high/high school age, if the public schools have similar stats, I would be tempted to go the private school route.

But I also would've made that consideration before buying a home in that neighborhood.

Here's an interesting observation I've heard about up-and-coming areas (FWIW, I live in what would be considered an up-and-coming area right now, though the average home prices are not nearly as far apart as your example):

These areas are mostly urban, and attract mostly young, relatively affluent, childless or same-sex couples. Area schools are not a terribly high concern for them at the time of purchase, which broadens their choices in neighborhoods. Formerly undesirable neighborhoods begin to become popular, new businesses emerge and BAM...gentrification.