Philadelphia Class Room

Moving can be a challenge, but choosing a new school for your children doesn’t have to be.

By Carmel Archdekin and Tamer Abouras

Relocation always involves more than just a change of address. For families who have or are planning to have children, moving into a neighborhood with a strong school system is a primary concern. How do the local public schools perform on federally mandated standardized tests? Are there charter schools nearby as an alternative?

For those who have the means and/or inclination, private schools within the city (or beyond) are also potential options. While the return on investment for a private school partially relies on how highly you prioritize the value of a great education, it can also depend on how those in your area compare to their public counterparts.

Using this as a primer of sorts, your family can make a more informed decision about choosing a public, private, or charter school in Philadelphia, how the best schools in the city are measured, and how to find out what catchment zone your prospective address is located in.

Public, Private, or Charter – The Great Debate

Although private schooling has been perceived traditionally as superior to public education, there’s obviously no hard and fast rule to suggest that is always the case. What’s more, those not receiving substantial scholarships are spending thousands of dollars for their child’s private school, regardless of whether or not it’s preparing them for Harvard.

Since we understand that there are always costs associated with private education, the benefits can be tricky to gauge. Quantitative measures such as safety (or number of incidents), smaller class sizes, and standardized test scores are a more objective way of evaluating and comparing schools.

Though private schools are not required to subject their students to standardized testing (thus making some more difficult to assess), there is one popular, emerging type of school that is: charter.

GreatPhillySchools.org [http://greatphillyschools.org/pages/en/user-guides/choosing-a-public-charter-school] has a very informative breakdown of how they operate but essentially:

  • Charters are public schools with greater freedom to design classes and hire/fire teachers

  • They often have longer school days and can have longer scholastic years

  • Many have uniforms or dress codes

The majority of charters admit students via a lottery system, but there are others, called Renaissance Schools, that must admit any and all students living within specified boundaries. Like public schools, there cannot be minimum grades or test scores for admission; like private schools, the educational approach and emphasis of given schools can vary substantially and cater to more specific student interests, such as technology, environmental science, or African studies.

Charters certainly attempt to take the most appealing elements of privatized education and strip them of their major cost obstacle. With that being said, determining which school offers the “best” for your children can be inherently subjective, but a closer look at comprehensive standardized test scores can at least help to provide one empirical point of reference.

Numbers (Almost) Never Lie

Standardized tests have always had their detractors, from in and out of the field of education, but it’s hard to argue that the old saying “where there’s smoke, there’s fire” doesn’t apply; you’ll seldom find an entire school of exceptionally good or bad test takers.

GreatSchools.org [http://www.greatschools.org/], a Silicon Valley based nonprofit, effectively organizes, compares, and rates schools across the state based upon standardized test scores. In addition, there are parent submitted reviews and both gender and racial diversity breakdowns of each school, which helps to add some illustration to the raw data.

Using the Great Schools rating system, we can see how public schools stack up within a particular catchment. Please note though that most private schools do not take standardized tests because they are not required by law to do so. Great Schools can only rate private schools based on any voluntary data they have been able to obtain or from parent reviews.

Great Schools uses a star system for private schools versus the 1-10 rating used for public and charter schools.

An example of well-regarded private schools just outside the city, such as Conshohocken’s Miquon School [http://miquon.org/], also comes in unrated. As you can see, a number of public schools have their struggles while private and some charters often come in unrated.

The important thing to take into account is that even in places where the annual median incomes are healthy, such as Greenfield catchment (which encompasses Rittenhouse Square and its $67,424), there is no guarantee that the public schools are enjoying the same level of prosperity or success. Remember: the socioeconomic fortunes of your neighborhood are no predictor of a bad school turning around; don’t bank your children’s educational welfare on future prospects.

Dude, Where’s My Catchment?

Actually, your first question might very well be “what is a catchment?” In layman’s terms, they’re specifically drawn geographic areas within the city of Philadelphia that determine which public school your children will be assigned to.

As a prospective homebuyer and resident of the city, it can be helpful to figure out exactly which of these catchments your potential address or addresses are located in. This handy tool [https://webapps.philasd.org/school_finder/] from The School District of Philadelphia requires only the typing in said addresses to find your catchment and the schools therein.

 

The City of Brotherly Love can be a wonderful place to reside and raise your family if you find the home and neighborhood that are right for you. Here’s hoping this cheat sheet helps to make the process of finding that perfect place just a little bit easier.