I wrote yesterday about a parent who chose a school based on price rather than value who later regretted his choice. On a related note, I wrote a week ago about the risks of changing schools each time a parent sees what s/he thinks is a better option. Both posts prompt the question of how does a parent compare schools so that s/he can make the best decision for his/her child(ren) and family.
The answer is not too difficult, although unfortunately in my experience parents rarely follow this approach. What they should not do and what is wrong is to consider reputation and social status. What they should do is take an objective approach and look at data, and a later post will discuss an approach parents should take.
Reputation is useful but should not be a main or the main indicator. As an example, my city has a particularly wealthy area and possibly coincidentally, that area is also a school district. There are no poor families or disadvanted families in the neighborhood, and while the area is mixed racially, ethnically and in terms of religion, it is uniform in terms of wealth which can be easily seen in its million-dollar homes, the marques of the cars, the golf and tennis club and the private security company guards patrolling its streets.
This has two effects. One is that the students have all kinds of support and advantages at home such as books in the house, visits to museums, trips around the country and internationally. They have music lessons, private tutors and exude self-confidence. They know that the world is their oyster.
The second is that the schools are very, very well-resourced to the point of having extra buildings, extra teachers and smaller classes. School swimming pools. fields and stands, theaters and bands rival those of private colleges. The district is known locally as never meeting a tax increase, bond or override it will not pass.
Parents from this district, ie this neighborhood, are very and loudly positive about the district, extolling it at every possible opportunity as being the best in the state. They have to, they have invested so much in living there and in their schools, and they must maintain their property values which can only be done if new families want to move in.
Academically the district is only above average. While its state standardized test scores are high, a value-added study done on all districts in the county show that this district adds zero value, even before adjusting for socio-economic status. Students come in with certain measurable knowledge and skills for their age and leave with the same relative knowledge and skills. In value-added terms, the district ranked bottom in the county. (The district of course rejected the study promising to release its own. This was more than five years ago and no such study has been released which makes me wonder if their own study confirmed the result of the county study.)
When I was at high school, there was a selective public school which promoted itself based on its AP results. National rankings regularly placed it as one of the top schools in the country on this basis. As a result, there was considerable pressure on its entry tests and huge pride in having a child at the school. The reputation of the school brought many, most or possibly all of its parents and I doubt if there was a single parent without at least one bumper sticker, "Proud parent of a student at x High School".
The school taught to the test with constant chapter, unit and semester testing, It had no guidance counselor, only a college counselor, no regular councelors, no dean of students. While it did indeed do well in SATs and AP results, its students did not do well at university. Many of those who left for Ivy League or elite liberal arts colleges around the country transferred back to the city's state university after freshman year. Many others dropped out altogether, there were rumors of student suicides.
When the principal retired, the new principal published the results of a graduates' survey which made this information known. He wanted to make changes, to make the school more human and better fitted to the late 20th century, but he was facing considerable resistance to any "damage" to the school's reputation from former, current and prospective parents.
An interesting consequence - many of those parents went to a new public charter school which boasts a "traditional" curriculum and test scores. That school does indeed have high SAT and AP scores, but is regularly excoriated in the press for its 60% attrition rate; despite its entrance tests and selective policies, for every four AP 5s, it has six AP 0s. It also has no counselors, and a minimal extra-curricular program. (I wonder how its graduates fare once at college.)
My third example is of a school in anoher state where a former colleague taught. It had a reputation as an excellent school built up over more than 100 years and shown through its successful and wide-ranging alumni who feature at a national and international level - artists, athletes, entepreneurs, politicians. The city had grown and it could not operate or grow in its downtown location, so the school bought a large site on the outskirts which allowed for a pool, several fields, a track a theater etc.
Its community was still in the city accordingly based on its reputation, it began to attract families from its new neigborhood. This new population did not ascribe to the school's Mission, were not a part of its history, and did not contribute or participate in the same way. Its recent graduates are no longer the artists, athletes, entepreneurs, politicians of yore. Its reputation was not enough to keep it as it was although this is what was bringing in the new families.
A school's reputation is not a useful indicator of quality nor of appropriateness. While reputation might be helpful in terms of choosing schools to consider, a more objective and systematic approach is much better for parents and this will be discussed in a later post.
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