Quote:
Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
The problem with Peninsula life is the high schools. Burlingame's good, San Mateo's okay; I'm not sure I have total confidence in any of the others, except Palo Alto, which rawks. Lots of people here making >$120K are planning to send their kids to private school, which can range from $8K to $25K a year.
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How much do schools, especially high schools, matter?
Genuine question. I went to a pretty bad high school by most measures (graduation rates, college admission rates, college attendance rates, average SATs), but it was a very diverse school, economically (both the richest and the poorest kids in town attended, and the entire spectrum was represented in pretty much the same ratio as the town). So while it had a 50% drop out rate, it also pretty consistently churned out a merit scholar or two every year.
Anyway, I seemed to do okay, as did most of my friends (admittedly, they were the smart and/or well off ones). I can fully understand that at a certain level a school can be so bad that education is impossible, but you're talking about exurbs here.
I'm just curious about this because so many people seem to make so much about the importance of good schools. Locally, houses in the districts of the two "best" schools command a 30-40% premium over surrounding schools, but I've been to the high school that my kids would go to if we still live here then and it's about the nicest public school I've seen, despite the occasional admonition from friends and co-workers that we really need to move before the baltspawn get to school age (the elementary school admittedly has had problems, but in the last five years has steadily risen in the rankings done by the state and was recently ranked in the exceptional category, due mainly to an incredible principal - not that anyone outside the area seems to have noticed).
Am I doing the baltspawn wrong? We could probably afford a house in the "best" district, but not as big (3/2 instead of 4/3.5), and it would mean significant cutbacks in other areas, probably including things like camp and travel (and, more selfishly, cars).
Rereading this, I see it rambles. sorry about that.
