We’ve been talking about how the quality of schools are critical to the homebuying equation. Here are the local public high schools, sorted by their totals of four scores from www.greatschools.net:
| School Name | GS Rating | ’08 API | ’09 API | Parents Rating (# out of 5) | Total |
| Canyon Crest | |||||
| Torrey Pines | |||||
| Poway | |||||
| Westview | |||||
| Rcho Bernardo | |||||
| Mt. Carmel | |||||
| San Dieguito | |||||
| LC Canyon | |||||
| Carlsbad | |||||
| San Marcos |
While it used to be that Torrey Pines had an edge on others around the county, it is remarkable how similar the scores are among the top five schools. I think you also have to hand it to San Marcos HS for making the strides they’ve made too.
With the scores bunching together, how else do you decide? The greatschools website has remarks from parents and students, but you never know what agenda they might be pushing.
P.S. Catholic schools do the same testing, but refuse to release their scores – but the website has testimonials on CCHS, and not all are flattering.
You forgot La Jolla High …
La Jolla High SchoolSchool
Overview GreatSchools
Ratings Parent
Reviews Test
Scores School
Environment District
Overview Compare
Schools
Print |Email |Add to del.icio.us
LEARN ABOUT THIS SCHOOL’S:
API Results
CST Results
CST Results By Subgroup
CAHSEE Results
CAHSEE Results By Subgroup
ACT Results
API Results
API Growth (2008-2009)
832 (2009 Growth)
818 (2008 Base)
Look at Lowell High School in San Fran. Makes Carmel Valley look like the ghetto. Oh yeah, 70% Chinese…
API Growth (2008-2009)
949 (2009 Growth)
Jim has done a good job verifying that CV prices have stayed roughly flat to down 10% while surrounding neighborhoods have fallen 25-40%. This means the CV price premium has risen. If this premium has driven young, high income, well educated families to buy in adjacent communities that hold similar characteristics as CV (but are cheaper), then schools in those neighborhoods should benefit as the children of those families enroll in the school system.
4S Ranch is a case: new construction, close to high-tech job centers, culdesacs, young families, close to shopping, parks, hiking trails (as OC Renter pointed out earlier). If you agree with the hypothesis, then elementary school API scores would be the leading indicator, not high school. In fact, 4S ranch API scores are now mid-900’s (from the 800’s) vs. 965 for Carmel Valley equivalents. As I pointed out in the earlier discussion, what happens to CV price immunity when the education gap closes further?
Prices are set by the marginal buyer, so how will the marginal buyer view the CV 1.4m house vs. the 900k 4S ranch house when API is roughly the same?
duncbdunc,
I’d guess the premium would then be based on ocean proximity, traffic, & commute. Also, CV utility bills in the summer are going to be much lower than in RB/4S.
Whether the premium will be 30%+, remains to be seen.
Jeeman
So back to the historical premium then? If so, then CV home owners should be concerned.
I don’t think the historical premium b/c of the I-56 commute. SV was always a big employment center, and thus I-56 would have increased the 4S value while CV stayed the same. Now, RB and Scripps-Poway are growing employment centers, rivalling SV. I-56 enables CV residents to get to these areas quickly. I think the historical premium is history, but the current premium is too high. I’d look for something in between, but closer to the current premium.
Also, if I remember correctly, 4S has a huge issue with radon gas.
The historical premium was lower, now it is higher.
Lowell is a magnet school where kids take a test to get in. It’s also the only decent public high school in the city
Right. I remember some sales that somebody compared on another thread showing the CV premium was around 5%. Now it’s about 30%. I think it may settle to around 15-20%.
I base this on being a RE-bear who would be willing to pay 20% more to live in CV than to live in 4S, and also on the factors I listed before.
A 5% premium is probably too low. I’d agree with that. There is the high MR/HOA issue in 4S that should also be considered.
Is this a real change in the quality of the schools or are all schools getting better at having students test better?
API scores are a good starting point but I am more impressed by high SAT scores and high percentage of students taking the SAT test. San Marcos High SAT scores and percentage of students taking it shows a larger disparity than the API scores indicate.
Is this a real change in the quality of the schools or are all schools getting better at having students test better?
looking | March 10th, 2010 at 12:24 pm
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As a former educator, I’d say it has far more to do with the new families that are moving in vs. testing strategies or improved teaching methods.
What all teachers know, but cannot say (because it’s not “politically correct”) is that the FAMILIES who feed into the school make the school.
Oftentimes, the very best teachers are working in the lower-end schools, but when you get kids who enter the system without *any* exposure to books or academic subjects, there is very little you can do to bring them up to the level of children who come from highly-educated, highly intelligent, well-funded (they can hire tutors and usually have their kids attend enrichment activities) families. Not to mention the extreme differences between cultures regarding education…there is a vast chasm between cultural attitudes toward education.
Exactly, no one wants to say it but the best schools tend to have an influx of asian parents who chose the district for its school. It’s not genetic at all, it’s just self fulfilling prophecy. Happened in all the top schools in LA county, though no one wanted to say it.
I’m sure there are plenty of asian parents with dumb kids, but they’re spread everywhere else. But when the community decides one or two areas are “the place” to go, of course test scores there are going to rise.
That’s not to say those schools aren’t good schools either. A good school is also a positive environment where your peers are hard working and serious about their education. That’s about the main thing I got out of going to one of these “top schools” as a kid.
Absolutely agree, sdbri.
CA renter,
I agree. at the beginning of the kindergarden year, my daughter’s teacher told the class of parents what was expected. we were expected to help with writing of letters, reading, help with homework, and sound out letters and words and do “kid spelling.” every week there’s something new like numbers or colors or words that the kidnergardener will need to memorize and pass before he/she move on to the next task.
It seemed a little overwhelming especially for kindergarden! that night I told my wife, “can you imagine this same teacher giving the same instruction to a group of less educated/lower class parents?”
by the way, within 6 months the entire kindergarden class is reading and writing.
“I’m sure there are plenty of asian parents with dumb kids, but they’re spread everywhere else. But when the community decides one or two areas are “the place” to go, of course test scores there are going to rise.”
yes, but the dumb kids are tutored and pressed hard and pushed some more and come college time a lot of them squeeze through and manage to make it into the lower UCs.
4S Ranch 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009
Monterey Rdg – – 892 894 930
Stone Rnch 881 886 917 920 940
Average 881 886 905 907 935
Carmel Valley
Sage Canyon 963 965 967 964 976
Ocean Air – – – 953 962
Ashley Falls 943 956 949 943 955
Average 953 961 958 953 969
4S Ranch Deficit (72) (75) (41) (33) (29)
I couldn’t figure out how to format so I appologize if it was hard to read. I looked up annual API score for 4S ranch vs. CV out of curiosity and to answer poster #11’s question. The conclusion is that 4S Ranch has been closing the gap.
yet even thought the gap is closing, because 4S is post bubble burst and CV has not had a price drop, the CV premium has increased over the last 5 years.
I think universities strongly weigh which high school you attend. My graduating year, San Dieguito (this was before LCC) sent 9 people to UCLA vs Torrey Penis which sent 20+ students there. SD had two students accepted to Stanford, while TP sent 10. Cal had similar ratios. SD sent 20+ to UCSB, Davis, and Cal Poly SLO each – all VERY good schools, but not the same cache as the others. I don’t think TP’s scores were that much better than SD’s, and they’re even in the same district. I’m certain top universities have their favorite high schools, and that alone is reason enough to want a child to go to TPHS.
Comparing test scores is great, but where are the graduates going afterward?
Those are good points Blur. I’m just testing a hypothesis, that’s all. Elementary school should be a leading indicator and API score is the only way to measure it. I would suspect that high school graduation would reflect decisions made by families (who value education) moving to the school district 5,10 years earlier. So look for 4S ranch high schools to benefit from the high earning, well educated young families that are moving there for the good schools (and the other features as discussed earlier) at a more attractive price.
duncbdunc, I agree with you 100%. The families of the children who make up the school play a huge part in the quality of education. Test scores or stats on which universities high school graduates attend can’t alone tell the whole story. I just think there’s more to a school’s story than test scores. For all I know, today TP and LCC are neck and neck in sending graduates to top universities.
BTW, while I would want my child (don’t have one) to attend TPHS, there’s no way I’d pay a $3-400k premium for it. I think if you want your child to be successful, be a good parent.
A friend of mine did her PHD exactly on the subject of what factors best influence success in school. Family ranked far and away #1.
If you’re really concerned about school quality, then these single numbers are extremely weak indicators.
Outcomes are much better, and the college destinations of graduates are probably the most important. The problem with that is that income makes a big difference. More students are likely to matriculate once accepted in UC schools from a high income school like Torrey Pines because UC schools are more expensive. When I was in HS, a lot of students chose Cal State campuses over UC simply because of the money. Ethnicity comes into play here to whatever extent some are more likely to break the bank for a college education.
I also wouldn’t be so sure about “favorite schools” in the UC system. It could be true here and there, but my info on their admissions is that they have actual mechanisms for avoiding that. Private schools, sure, but there is potential for huge, embarrassing and expensive backlash if CA public universities showed such favoritism.
Choose schools based on what they offer, how your kid is suited to what they offer, and where the students go after they graduate. The idea that this can be distilled into a simple numerical index is a fool’s errand.
a fool’s errand? I resent that.
With the scores looking similar, I asked for other ways to choose a HS.
Last I checked (5+ years ago), Lowell also had an allocation of students by ethnic group. I don’t know if that still exists but if it does, then the API score could be higher if it were removed!
Other top schools not in SD are Palos Verdes (LA area) and Cupertino (Bay Area). You’d be shocked at the premium to live in Cupertino. And yes, it is 100% the schools; everyone I knew who moved there had that as the main reason.
So, Asians bring stable home prices and better scores at schools? Or is it the other way around?
So, Asians bring stable home prices and better scores at schools? Or is it the other way around?
gaswalla | March 10th, 2010 at 9:13 pm
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Yes, Asians bring stable home prices and better scores in the public schools…which makes more high-performing Asian families risk everything to get their kids into those schools. 🙂
Blissful ignoramus, admit it. You overpaid to get into the CV school district and are lashing out at anyone who suggests there just might be other alternatives. We are talking elementary schools and the idea that highly educated, motivated young families are ramping up the qualities of the schools in adjacent communities through self-selection bias. If this is the case, and these schools close the quality gap (which they are) then what does that say about the 30-40% premium in CV? Is it justified? Why should it be higher than it was 2yrs ago, 5yrs ago, 10yrs ago? By the way, according to Sandag CV is 19% Asian while Stone Ranch Elementary in 4S ranch is 27%. Maybe the demographic wave is already shifting to this newly built community. Remember, prices are set by the marginal buyer and price tends to have an effect on behavior, especially when you’re dealing with commodities like square stucco boxes. We’ll see if CV can hold up at these peak prices. I highly doubt it, but just one opinion.
Here’s the average SAT rankings for the top 15 high schools in San Diego:
1. Julian Charter 1782
2. Torrey Pines High 1771
3. La Jolla High 1739
4. San Dieguito High Academy 1689
5. Rancho Bernardo High 1663
6. Coronado High 1662
7. Westview High 1654
8. Poway High 1652
9. Ramona Community 1620
10. La Costa Canyon High 1619
11. Escondido Charter High 1617
12. River Valley Charter 1617
13. Mt. Carmel High 1615
14. Scripps Ranch High 1608
15. Grossmont High 1586
and some of the other north county rankings:
17. Carlsbad High 1578
19. El Camino High 1573
20. San Pasqual High 1565
29. San Marcos High 1527
34. Vista High 1508
39. Escondido High 1486
46. Mira Mesa High 1449
This post is in regards to how things change..
My parents moved me during elementary school from Huntington Beach (Marina High or OceanView if i remember correctly) the Main Line Philadelphia area, Marple Newtown school district. School wasnt the driver. That was in the mid 80s and we lived in a rather remote area of a town called Berwyn. Closest highway was quite a distance, 25 minutes.
Today, that area is now filled with 1 million plus mcmansions on massive lots. A farm area that was owned by the Dupont family was sold off after Mr Dupont executed a US Team Wrestler on his property in the late 90s. One of the best private schools on the main line relocated their campus to the area.
The point of all of this is that things can change in time, school systems that are horrible can stay horrible or improve as new areas are built with new families. Some of the newer areas in san diego county currently feed bad high schools (Eastern carlsbad/ SEH, newer build areas of escondido and vista). These areas have been filled with younger families for the most part and if their kids are toddler/ elementary aged, high schools are not on their rader, therefore time is on their side to change things. If there is enough demand and land is available, a new school could even be built (Like the new high school in 4s).
4s should be a nice case study on this subject, lots of families with young kids that moved in so lots of time to build up the new high school. I will be interested to see the effects on the surrounding high schools that housed these kids.
I know this article is about Kansas City and not San Diego, but with our current budget deficits, I think there’s at least some risk that we might see this sort of thing happen here:
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/US/03/11/missouri.school.closings/index.html?eref=rss_topstories&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rss%2Fcnn_topstories+%28RSS%3A+Top+Stories%29&utm_content=My+Yahoo
All this talk about Chinese makes me hungry. I’m getting mu fu pork for lunch today.
No good chinese restaurants in CV
SAT scores were previously posted, but not the percentage of students taking the test. Torrey Pines has around 80% of students taking the SAT. San Marcos High has only around 33% taking the SAT. Many schools are in between these percentages.
However, who the parents are (education, income, etc) is still the primary indicator. The original Freakonomics book covered this conclusion very well in one of its chapters.
WOW. Thanks for posting the SAT scores. I was very surprised to see El Camino High in Oceanside scored only 5 points behind Carlsbad.
4S ranch will feed into a brand new High School that is modeled after Westview. I think it opens up soon (maybe it already has). So no legacy issues in terms of bad perception from older communities feeding into it. I think this strengthens the case for young families who are looking for good schools in new communities with similar features as CV at a much more affordable price relative to the historical relationship.
“SAT scores were previously posted, but not the percentage of students taking the test. Torrey Pines has around 80% of students taking the SAT. San Marcos High has only around 33% taking the SAT. Many schools are in between these percentages.”
wow. that is a huge difference and very telling.
I’d like to know the number of students taking the SAT at El Camino in Oceanside vs Carlsbad. Where do you find that information?
Just tossing in my local school – it fits in below the top 15, but above Carlsbad High…
University City HS – 1584
(source:
http://projects.latimes.com/schools/sat-scores/ranking/page/1/ )
El Camino had 33% and Carlsbad had 52% taking the SAT exam.
You can check various test scores and SAT percentages at:
data1.cde.ca.gov/dataquest
a fool’s errand? I resent that.
With the scores looking similar, I asked for other ways to choose a HS.
It wasn’t aimed toward you. It’s aimed toward the people who use these numbers as a primary indicator, and moreso to those who sell the snake oil.
Blissful ignoramus, admit it. You overpaid to get into the CV school district and are lashing out at anyone who suggests there just might be other alternatives.
lol! I’m just an educator (professor at a major university in the northeast US who has also taught at the secondary level). I am a native Californian but have never lived in SD county. I have no dog in the fight for CV or any other school district. I’m just saying that the lure of simplistic numerical indicators to characterize extremely complex things is irresistible to too many people, right up there with get-rich real estate schemes and pills that make your penis larger.
No good chinese food in 4S either. So we can be sure people are not deciding where to live based on good chinese food.
That percentage taking the SAT is less of an indicator than you’d like to think… I graduated Carlsbad high, and I can tell you as a fact everyone took the SAT. Didn’t matter if you were going to shovel sh!t for a living, you took that test. I primarily attribute this to peer pressure, both on the kids and on the parents to claim their kids were “going to college”. No one in Carlsbad is going to admit for 10 seconds that their kid isn’t going to college.
“that the lure of simplistic numerical indicators to characterize extremely complex things is irresistible to too many people”
Thanks for the lecture, Professor. If you have better data then put it out there. Are you in the camp that believes the “Asian” argument will sustain CV peak home prices? Talk about a robust analysis. I think this is a weak argument, and that is what I was responding too – constructively. I believe that over time, rational participants will choose to exploit the price anomaly presented to them in adjacent neighborhoods, areas that offer great schools at a much more affordable price relative to the historical relationship. The API test was just one way to measure whether this demographic shift might be occuring rather than simply providing personal anecdotes (I have many). No one is stating the hypothesis as fact, its just one measurable data series to consider. Certainly more robust than the alternative argument being presented in earlier strings.
Instead of stating the obvious, which is intellectually lazy, it would be more constructive if you could have presented several factors that would explain the rising API scores besides the self selection argument that some of us were postulating, or to present a more robust data set from which we can analyze. Otherwise, I’ll just view your comments as a self congratulatory post that serves no value in furthering the discussion other than making yourself feel important.
sorry, the last post was me (46).
Did I say that the self-selection argument was wrong? I didn’t postulate or attempt to debunk any explanations for the observed trends in these numbers. My argument is that the numbers themselves aren’t worth anything near what they are sold to mean in terms of things that actually matter.
Unfotunately, I didn’t get a chance to read the U-T until this morning, but if schools are a factor in your decision (and I think we’ve established that they are) then you’ll want to know these:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2010/mar/11/school-districts-pull-belts-tighter/
http://www.employmentspectator.com/2010/03/oceanside-school-district-cutting-117-teaching-positions/
I also came across a report the indicated that the school systems in Southern California were under budget pressure before the recession even started which was a bit of an eye-popper.
My thinking is that if you’re in North County and send your kids to public school, expect to be donating some money to keep the teacher to student ratio where it is.