API Scores

More Articles and Tidbits

We were out late last night, by the time the girls were put into bed and calmed down for the night I needed to unwind so my wife and I were reading the SF Chronicle and stumbled across some good articles on the API Scores and even some stories about School Option Choices in Oakland. Didn't see them in the morning but caught them before the end of the day.

One talks about the meaning of the API, the 'success' threshold of getting an 800 for a school and the ways in which the API scoring isn't necessarily a fair or just way to evaluate the teaching level of a school. Read it here.

Another article talks about the pressure for folks to move into neighborhoods were there are good public schools. Sounds great...sounds normal...yet the couples they talk about are looking at moving into million dollar + houses in Rockridge. An option that isn't an option for many of us. It goes on to talk about the reality that even if you get that coveted house in a neighborhood uniquely gifted with a good public school -you might not necessarily get into it because of the influx of families and the explosion of entering Kindergarten-aged children in OUSD in 2007. Maybe it's because of family planning, maybe real estate planning, or maybe it's more people choosing public school because private schools aren't an option because of the shackles of massive mortgages financed only by double middle-class salaries. The articles talks about over-enrollement problems at Hillcrest, which also happened in the neighborhood and school of the same name - Redwood Heights. You can read the article here.