Considering Northampton and Lehigh I noticed the following:
- Allentown (23 schools and 17,521 students) and Bethlehem (24 schools and 14,984 students) were by far the largest districts with Parkland (10, 8827), Easton (9, 8728), and East Penn (11, 7348) rounding out the Big Five. No other district had more than 5700 and the smallest was Catasauqua (1743 students).
- Northern Lehigh topped everyone in dollars per $1000 of assessment at $56.82, followed by Saucon Valley $47.06 and Easton $42.91. Nazareth's rate was $38.34, 10th of 17 schools.
- Percent of housing that was owner occupied was led by Southern Lehigh (88.4%) and followed by Salisbury (87.3%), and Northampton (84.9%). Nazareth was 78.9% and Allentown was lowest at 53%, the only district that scored under 66%.
- Median Home Value and Average Price of an existing home sold were led by Southern Lehigh ($161,500 and $339,000) and Nazareth ($138,700 and $307,000). For Value, Nazareth trailed Northwestern Lehigh ($148,000, $287,000) and Parkland ($146,100, $274,000), but was the highest in both categories in Northampton County so I gave us the nod.
- The highest median rent was Parkland ($703). Again Nazareth led its county, but Northampton trailed Lehigh in this category as six Lehigh districts were higher than Nazareth.
- Of the 17 school districts I looked at Math and Reading, Advanced and Below basic for each and found Saucon Valley led every category in Northampton County, but was not the best overall in any category. Parkland has the highest percent of students in advanced Math and the lowest number below basic. In reading Southern Lehigh had the most and Salisbury the lowest below basic.
- Nazareth ranked 7th in % Math Advanced and in those lowest number of below basic. For reading, Nazareth was also 7th in % in Math Advanced and 6th in lowest number of below basic.
- Four Schools stood out from the others: Parkland, Southern Lehigh, Saucon Valley, and East Penn. These districts also shared a high median home value (between $130,300 and $161,500) and high avg. home sale price ($240,000 and $339,000). Percent of renters ranged from 12 to 22%, compared to 22 to 47% for those in the bottom tier (six schools with lowest scores across all categories).
- Nazareth and Northwestern Lehigh were the only other districts that met the home value, sale price, and % of renters of the big four, but neither achieved the big four's level of test score success.
6 comments:
Thanks for all the insights.
Anyway, is there concern over the whole housing bust, that we might be building a new overly expensive school , that in say 6-7-8 years might not even be half full?? overall in the country from what ive been reading, the mortgage situation is becoming a nightmare and it is really affecting the housing.. anyway just my 2 cents worth, id hate to see us throw 70 million away and be scratching our heads in a couple years...
There seem to be a lot of people who want to relate dollars spent per child directly to test scores. It is a lot more complicated than that. Spending more money doesn't automatically increase scores - it may help to a point (kids need up to date materials and classrooms), but there are a lot of other factors. Test scores track more reliably with SES (Socio Economic Status) of the students than it does with per-child dollars spent. It just happens to be that they trend together when you look at an entire district against another.
If you look within an individual school, you would see that a kid of a higher SES will (on average) score better. Both of these kids have had the same dollars spent on them, right?
Forgive me if I can't get too excited over which affluent community is in first and which one is in third or fourth. If my community's schools (Nazareth) aren't number one, that's ok with me. My kids are doing just fine in Nazareth, and I have been pleased with the education they are getting. If you just want to try to buy your way to #1, you are throwing tax dollars into the wind. And a good portion of the money won't end up being spent for what is important to education, anyway (see: million dollar pool).
What we should be looking at is how to help the schools that are at the bottom. Unfortunately, that has more to do with solving the problem of poverty, which is a bit of a tougher egg to crack...
lf
To Ryan, when the building was being discussed during the winter it was questioned on this site why a 7th & 8th grade only building because the size the building is being built to was twice what we could expect of any upcoming class sizes, whereas the HS was at its maximum (we seem to simply keep adding wings to it as temporary band-aids) and an elementary building could have allowed us to go back to k-6 and relieve the MS overcrowding (this option was never considered) at a much lower price point (Emmaus' new building is to be $21 million).
To lineflat, I think it is important not that our district strive to be number one, but at least in the top tier of schools. If you hear people talk and comment, many believe we are there, but our test results don't reflect that.
As you mention, the SES is often a good indicator (more at home resources, learning opps, etc at a younger age and moving forward) and using that it would seem that Nazareth and Northwestern Lehigh are under-performing. That too should raise a flag.
I'm not advocating that we spend more to get more, but at the budget hearings the Board and Admin acknowledged they can't balance the budget as it is, what will happen when the new MS costs come in higher than expected both from a building and operational standpoint? My guess is they will cut teachers, programs, and resources in combination with raising taxes.
Pay more, get less. That is my fear.
I guess I don't see the desire for Nazareth to be in the "big four". If my kids are straight A students, in the gifted program, and knocking the PSSAs out of the park, why should I be eager to put down more tax dollars for our school to be in some arbitrary club? The school is doing very well at providing my children with a safe environment to learn and the resources they need to succeed. But the work of being successful is up to them and me.
There are too many parents that do not set standards for their children that I set for mine, and expect the school to just do everything. Perhaps this is the result of the rapid growth of our community, or the large number of people who commute from our area but have no real connection to the community. "Here's more money, educate my kids while I'm gone, would you? And put in a big pool, too - they like to swim. Asto-turf? Love it. Do that too."
SES is one major factor, but not the only one. Parent involvement (real involvement, not financial or political involvement) is another.
We don't have much choice, I guess. We have to build new schools, and we have to keep class sizes down. It just seems to me we are spending lots of the tax dollars just for the sake of spending more money on the schools, expecting that it will somehow magically make the scores go up. I don't believe it will.
I think we're pretty close on this and maybe my closing comment "how we are able to keep up financially" wasn't clear and came out different than I'd intended.
I didn't mean to keep up with the Jones' (ie spend more to be like other schools), but I simply meant be able to balance budgets and provide quality education.
The issue isn't to spend more, for me it is to spend more wisely.
As I noted my further concern is that we've stretched ourselves and when it comes time to make cuts the argument is always we can't cut these things, but they can always find a program, cut a teacher to raise class size, etc.
I didn't agree with putting the nice new fencing around the turf field that eliminated the track forcing the need to build a new all weather track, just as I don't agree with the plan to convert the HS library into classrooms, turn the HS gym into a library, and build a new gym. If you need classrooms, build classrooms.
We are going to have less to spend and more sunk costs, this is my concern to keeping up financially.
I think we're on the same page on this one, I just didn't express it clearly enough originally.
In regard to grades, money won't necessarily improve them, but I'd bet a lack of money will lower them.
One disconnect that results in the perception of Nazareth being a top academic school comes from the honor roll. If anyone has seen the honor and high honor roll list you'd be impressed. It runs for what seems like pages in the US and Key.
Given that you have to wonder how our PSSA test scores aren't higher.
You can also understand why most people think our schools are better than than they are - the kids all get A's.
Now this is an over-generalization, some kids would earn those grades with higher standards and would do very well no matter how much they were challenged, but I'm sure there are others who wouldn't.
At the end of the day, if kids are getting A's and B's, parents are happy, and the schools are good despite the performance on PSSA's compared to other schools which show we are really mid-pack.
If I thought we should be mid-pack, I probably wouldn't care. When I think we should be a top-tier school, have the potential in both staff and student to be there, and are asked to annually pay more money to provide better education, and remain mid-pack it is a concern.
Thanks for the comments and sorry for any confusion with the original closing comment.
Well put. Agreed. Good conversation here by the way.
Grade inflation is a whole other topic, which I think we would agree on as well.
Yes, once the money drops below a certain level, surely the performance will follow. I don't think we are anywhere near that level.
I just get a little frustrated by all of the people screaming about the failure of the education system, when the roots of declining school performance are to a large degree outside the school. Of course, that's not a popular position for our representatives to take. It's much easier (and acceptable) to point at the school.
Having said all that, I think we share the same concerns about our current budget woes. If there is no real direction or plan for exactly how the dollars are supposed to influence performance, then we are just pi$$ing money away, and spending for the sake of spending.
Gotta get to work. Thanks for the conversation.
lf
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