Summer is the time of year homebuyers with families often like making their moves. They find it less disruptive to the school activities of the kids.
Many of these homebuyers also believe it is essential to move to a high-income neighborhood in order to facilitate having great schools for children. However, that isn’t always true. Many of the very best schools in this country are located in communities within moderate home prices. The key is to find a community where parents and residents put high value on the education of children.
If a top priority on your home buying list is to find good schools when shopping for a home, then the following points could prove of value to you:
(1) It is important to put high value on elementary school education. While college is important, the die is often cast with children, in kindergarten through fifth grade.
(2) Consider visiting the schools in your search for a home. Schools with a high degree of parental involvement can often be superior to those that do not.
(3) What is the condition of the school? Is the paint peeling on the walls, is it well kept? Is there an indication of behavior problems? My pet peeve is seeing dilapidated schools in districts where the administration building looks like it has won architectural awards. They send the message that it’s not about the students, it’s about the adults.
(4) "Self-reported" school data may have been fluffed. There is increasingly high emphasis being placed on test scores, and other educational data, and school administrators can be quite "creative" in their interpretation and "cooking" of the numbers and data.
(5) "Pupil-to-teacher ratio" statistics and scores for standardized tests are important, but should be looked at with a skeptical eye. Sometimes school systems attempt to influence test score results by excluding whole categories of students - such as "economically disadvantaged" youngsters, from their averages.
(6) Consider obtaining independent "report cards" on schools or school systems. They track data on both private and public institutions throughout the country.
(7) SchoolMatch is a reporting company that can tailor your search of schools to the particular needs of your children. A link to their website is as follows: http://www.schoolmatch.com
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