I like to think of us as good, but not great (but not not-good),
. Truly, we are better than our local scores might suggest, and I'd absolutely take on one of the parents in the neighboring "better" district to stick up for what we have. "Good" is probably very subjective. We are NOT good by traditional standards, but we are good enough where it counts,
.
I guess I should add, in light of the above, that when I said that we live in an excellent school district, I did not mean that our students have high test scores. I guess I'm out of the schooling world enough that I didn't even realize that that is the traditional standard of measuring schools.
Instead, I meant that we have a very flexible school district, with a lot of different options, which is probably partially due to the very large number of ESL/ELL students (who are mostly the kids of our University's foreign students and visiting professors), and a lot of community support, which is probably due to the fact that we live in a small, highly-educated city.
I'm with Dottie. You have the right idea, no5no5.
The ways that most people judge what a "good" school is are often just kooky. The pressure in our school on the testing is crazy. I'm sure it's that way in many school systems, but I could honestly envision our district cheating if they had a bad year so they could hang on to the perception of being a "good" school. (To my knowledge they haven't cheated, but the pressure is *insane*.)
It's a financial issue. After all, property values drop if the reputation of the school system is damaged. The informal PR reps have worked overtime, and they have been very effective. You should see the shock expressed when I say that we're homeschooling: "But you're in the <blank> district! That's a
GOOD district!"
Yeah, yeah, yeah... *sigh* I just wish it had been good for my kids.
A truly good school system is flexible and supportive of all the kids, including the HG+ ones. Those school systems do exist. Thank goodness!
