by Gwen Jimmere
They say babies are expensive. For me, my son, himself, isn’t what’s expensive. It’s all the big ticket items we have to purchase to accommodate him that’s expensive. Case in point: Prior to his arrival, we owned two Ford Mustangs. Realizing there was no way his rear-facing car seat was going to fit comfortably into my beloved electric blue “˜Stang, we took on a more expensive car note and increased gas fees to cop an SUV (I refused to be rolling in a minivan).
Additionally, a good sized chunk of our monthly income now goes in to his college savings program. I figure we have 18 years for the interest to compound, let’s get started now and maybe”...just maybe”...we’ll have saved enough to cover at least half of his degree. (I joke, but don’t get me started on tuition prices.) Prior to him, that dough was allocated to my shoe fetish fund.
Now we are in the process of house hunting. When we moved to Michigan from Ohio, we knew that we’d rent for about two years before buying. And here we are at a year and a half in. Before my son arrived, we were pretty much thinking about looking anywhere that had an awesome house we could see ourselves in for about five to seven years. Now, we’re looking in only the “˜burbs with superior school systems and a great house we could see ourselves in at least until he graduates high school.
We all know how it typically goes: the better the school system, the more expensive the cost of living in that area. My priorities have changed so much since lil man arrived, so it is what it is. I am willing to settle for a great (rather than awesome) house if it means he will receive a world-class education. In my eyes, Caiden is a little black boy and he is going to need every possible opportunity he can get. I have rejected putting in offers on absolute dream homes because the school system is mediocre. Sure, I could send him to private school, but the cost is crazily expensive. My nephew attends a $40,000-a-year private school in Ohio. Luckily he is on scholarship, but just think about all the kids who aren’t. Their parents are forking over two car notes a year for schooling. I’d prefer to live in a district with wonderful schools that my son can attend as a tuition-free resident.
So now I am trying to balance it all: find a superb school system, in an area that we love and a house that we adore. However, I am willing to forgo a little of the latter two in order to achieve the first requirement if necessary.
I have done the research and found out that the number one rated public school system in the state is a mere 13 minutes from where we live now. Their high school has been on U.S. News and World Report’s “Top Ten High Schools in America” list for the past 10 years and the district has a long standing partnership with Harvard. They have a 99% graduation rate and a 98.9% college attendance rate. 90% of students are accepted to their first choice college or university. Now that’s what I’m talking about.
These kids have the common football, baseball, soccer and basketball as sports, but they also have equestrian, lacrosse and figure skating. I didn’t even know figure skating was offered as a sport in schools! Each school in the district is a certified “green” school; the district also owns a full fledged farm where k-12 students can work, raise farm animals, and rent horses to ride and individual plots of land to grow plants and fresh vegetables. And their 40 acre-spanning nature center, includes fresh water rivers and natural wildlife for k-12 students to explore. Even their school lunch offerings are some of the healthiest I have ever seen. They even start teaching children Mandarin Chinese in Pre-K! (In comparison, I was first offered a foreign language in seventh grade and Chinese wasn’t even on the list of options.)
Even on a basic level””their website is more thorough than any other district I have checked out to date. I truly feel Caiden would receive a phenomenal education and have incredible opportunities here. Thus, I have informed our realtor that we want to search exclusively in this area. Pray for me that we can find something here. Just the thought of him attending these schools gets me giddy.
Upon watching Waiting For Superman, my bias toward excellent schools has become even more solidified. Our black children are often getting the shaft when it comes to educational opportunities. It really is unfair. Every child should have the same opportunity to excel. But since that’s not the world we live in, we parents have to find ways to give our kids the best we can.
I have been told that all I need to focus on is the elementary schools right now because he is so young. I find this to be incredibly “in the now”; it is imperative we think toward the future. No child will be in elementary school all their life and I feel I would be doing a disservice to my son by focusing solely on elementary schools and not taking into account the level at which the middle and high schools are performing and have been performing over time.
Another school of thought is not to worry about elementary because middle and high school is where he will have more difficult subjects. This doesn’t work for me either. Elementary school is where the first foundations are laid.
His future lies in the hands of my husband and I and it is our duty to give him the best education we possibly can. Education is the key to success and I will do whatever it takes to ensure our son’s future is not stifled.
Gwen Jimmere is an award-winning and nationally syndicated editor who authored the relationship manual for young women, If It Walks Like a Duck”...and Other Truths My Mother Taught Me. She blogs about relationships, dating, marriage and parenting at The Duck Walk and works in social media/digital marketing.
Your post is quite timely for me. When my husband and I got married, we moved into a cute 1 bedroom condo in the ‘burbs, we could afford. We planned on staying a couple years and then look around for a house. Fast forward five years, and 2 babies, and we are terrified to move. Turns out our cute 1 bedroom is in one of the best school districts in the state, with a 98% graduation rate and 90% college entrance rate. The elementary school and middle schools are also top notch. We cannot afford to buy or even rent a house in this area. So, we have sacrificed comfort for our childrens’ schooling, for now.
I’m glad this is posted because I find black people in America incredibly ignorant as parents of the aggression and ambition they need to have on behalf of their kids to ensure a successful educational experience. They seem to think sitting in the hood waiting on an A-class school to fall in their lap is their God-given right. Um no, find where the good schools are and get in the zone. Next set of ignorance are the ones that don’t even know what a good school looks like. Don’t know how to analyze the data, don’t know that schools will game the system to get an A rating and as you said it’s about looking at how the school has performed over the years, not just the last year or two. I would say since schools now game the ratings, be specific and look at what PERCENT of their students are passing the reading, writing, math, and science state-wide standardized testing at or above grade level. Most of the answers to that should be 90% and above. If a school falls below 80% minimum in any of these areas…they are not an A school! Our children can’t produce 70% on something and get an A, 70% is a C, so grade the schools accordingly. Most of the black schools in the last county I analyzed, were in the 50% to 60% range…and lower. That huge chunk of kids NOT learning, what are they doing? Being a menace to the rest of the class and a bad influence on MY child. Um, no. I’ll pass. Because one of the biggest problems is not weapons in schools but BEHAVIOURS in schools. And I have seen enough of some of these parents to know where they get it from. I have friends who are teachers who are getting told by the kid that his parent will “whip her ass” and when she calls the parent, the parent is saying the same thing! Excuse me? If all the teacher’s energy is drained controlling/raising problem children like that, there is nothing left over to truly teach and instill or reinforce a love of learning in children who are brought up much better than that.
Black people need to get over waiting on the government to solve all their problems and get SMART. In a more technical and fast paced world it is going to take SMARTER more INTELLIGENT parents to get these kids ahead…and unfortunately a lot of parents are dumb and raising kids dumber.
I’m glad this is posted because I find black people in America incredibly ignorant as parents of the aggression and ambition they need to have on behalf of their kids to ensure a successful educational experience. They seem to think sitting in the hood waiting on an A-class school to fall in their lap is their God-given right. Um no, find where the good schools are and get in the zone. Next set of ignorance are the ones that don’t even know what a good school looks like. Don’t know how to analyze the data, don’t know that schools will game the system to get an A rating and as you said it’s about looking at how the school has performed over the years, not just the last year or two. I would say since schools now game the ratings, be specific and look at what PERCENT of their students are passing the reading, writing, math, and science state-wide standardized testing at or above grade level. Most of the answers to that should be 90% and above. If a school falls below 80% minimum in any of these areas…they are not an A school! Our children can’t produce 70% on something and get an A, 70% is a C, so grade the schools accordingly. Most of the black schools in the last county I analyzed, were in the 50% to 60% range…and lower. That huge chunk of kids NOT learning, what are they doing? Being a menace to the rest of the class and a bad influence on MY child. Um, no. I’ll pass. Because one of the biggest problems is not weapons in schools but BEHAVIOURS in schools. And I have seen enough of some of these parents to know where they get it from. I have friends who are teachers who are getting told by the kid that his parent will “whip her ass” and when she calls the parent, the parent is saying the same thing! Excuse me? If all the teacher’s energy is drained controlling/raising problem children like that, there is nothing left over to truly teach and instill or reinforce a love of learning in children who are brought up much better than that.
Black people need to get over waiting on the government to solve all their problems and get SMART. In a more technical and fast paced world it is going to take SMARTER more INTELLIGENT parents to get these kids ahead…and unfortunately a lot of parents are dumb and raising kids dumber.
I so agree with this! Me and my husband have 4 children and we live in PG county Maryland and there is absolutely no way we would send them to the schools in this county. As a result my kids (10th grade, 8th, 5th and 3rd) are in and have been in private school all their lives. In all honesty if we had thought things out better we would have realized that it would have been more cost effective to just move to an area with a better school system and paid a little more for housing, then to fund private school for the duration of schooling for 4 children. Duh, lol! Now we are stuck with a house we can’t sell do to the decline in the area and unnecessary tuition bills becasue sending them to public school here is out of the question. If I could redo things I would have just moved to neighboring Montgomery or Howard County, but now we are stuck……Make sure you do your research first if you plan on having kids! Great article!
Hey, hey, hey Yana this site is run by a PG County High School grad so watch it! But on the other hand I probably wouldn’t let my kids go to school there either. LOL When we lived in the area our kids went to Charles County schools which were better.
I too am from MD but I am in Baltimore City (now)… Now to speak of PG County schools my (not quite yet) step-son was taken out of Severn Elementary School (a very good school in AA County) and placed in the worse PG County school in that area he stays in with his mother… And she did it because of “convinence” to her… Anywhoo that’s a different story but his father was furious of it and he is definitely ahead of all the children in that class at that school. Now my children 2 of them are in the Baltimore City school system but before that my kids went to Baltimore County schools and one of the best until they found out that I am now living in the city. Was using my mother’s address who lives in the county still. But they actually were going to a good elementary school in the city but when my oldest graduated from the school the middle school that he is suppose to attend is not in the standard that I would like it to be where it would be challanging enough for him. Because I can’t afford to move to another county being single mom with just my income and 3 children, he goes to an excellent Charter school. There are still disruptive kids there and my son does think that he can play and be silly and not do what he is suppose to but I will show up in school without notice and set things straight. Now alot of these parents out here don’t care but one thing that myself and my SO care much about is education. Until I can afford to move some place else which I really would like to do I make sure I look into the schools and the curriculum before sending any of my children there… But honestly Baltimore City schools is the worst. The sad thing is they don’t have textbooks and barely and computer labs for the students… They continuously cutting the city school system budget like children no longer get the education that’s needed… It’s sad and this is sad times with what the government are doing to their educations.
We live in an OK house in a solid school district and a stable feeder pattern. I. Don’t. Play. We can’t afford private school so finding the biggest educational bang for our buck was critical. Eloquence stated it correctly when saying black people need take the reins in securing good educations for our children. And the situations described…my husband live it everyday as a middle school teacher, so we are even more selective.
It almost sounds as if I wrote this article myself! I live in Philadelphia, PA where we have a very large public school district, large archidiocese school district, many charter, private, and religious schools. I live across the street from a K-8 with a 5-8 magnet program(special admission only) and less than 2 blocks from the local high school, however my children will NEVER attend these schools! Because of the magnet program at the K-8 school people assume that the school itself is a good school and it is not, only 1-2 students from there are selected to go into the magnet program and the children from the magnet program tend to go to magnet high schools. My children have attended a charter school about 20-30 mins drive from our home since Pre-K which has an alliance with the Mastery School System(they were awarded $1 mil from Oprah at the beginning of this academic year) and they are taking over most of the failing schools in the district. My oldest daughter is ranked #2 at her campus and I believe #5 out of all campuses.
We take education very seriously in our household, it is the key to a promising future. I know a number of families that have moved to the neighboring ‘burbs in search of a better education for their children but they aren’t doing enough research because they are moving to the cheaper areas that are no different if not worse than the Philly school district. My children are aging daily and I can not wait for the school district to fix the problems. I know of a student who is scoring low on the city/statewide testing and the benchmark testing(this tests the last 6 weeks of subject matter) yet is an A student…I can not wrap my mind around how this is even possible, no amount of extra credit can do this from a 27%!!! As parents we need to do better and demand more from the schools while we work with our children at home. We can not expect the schools to do it all…
It almost sounds as if I wrote this article myself! I live in Philadelphia, PA where we have a very large public school district, large archidiocese school district, many charter, private, and religious schools. I live across the street from a K-8 with a 5-8 magnet program(special admission only) and less than 2 blocks from the local high school, however my children will NEVER attend these schools! Because of the magnet program at the K-8 school people assume that the school itself is a good school and it is not, only 1-2 students from there are selected to go into the magnet program and the children from the magnet program tend to go to magnet high schools. My children have attended a charter school about 20-30 mins drive from our home since Pre-K which has an alliance with the Mastery School System(they were awarded $1 mil from Oprah at the beginning of this academic year) and they are taking over most of the failing schools in the district. My oldest daughter is ranked #2 at her campus and I believe #5 out of all campuses.
We take education very seriously in our household, it is the key to a promising future. I know a number of families that have moved to the neighboring ‘burbs in search of a better education for their children but they aren’t doing enough research because they are moving to the cheaper areas that are no different if not worse than the Philly school district. My children are aging daily and I can not wait for the school district to fix the problems. I know of a student who is scoring low on the city/statewide testing and the benchmark testing(this tests the last 6 weeks of subject matter) yet is an A student…I can not wrap my mind around how this is even possible, no amount of extra credit can do this from a 27%!!! As parents we need to do better and demand more from the schools while we work with our children at home. We can not expect the schools to do it all…
It almost sounds as if I wrote this article myself! I live in Philadelphia, PA where we have a very large public school district, large archidiocese school district, many charter, private, and religious schools. I live across the street from a K-8 with a 5-8 magnet program(special admission only) and less than 2 blocks from the local high school, however my children will NEVER attend these schools! Because of the magnet program at the K-8 school people assume that the school itself is a good school and it is not, only 1-2 students from there are selected to go into the magnet program and the children from the magnet program tend to go to magnet high schools. My children have attended a charter school about 20-30 mins drive from our home since Pre-K which has an alliance with the Mastery School System(they were awarded $1 mil from Oprah at the beginning of this academic year) and they are taking over most of the failing schools in the district. My oldest daughter is ranked #2 at her campus and I believe #5 out of all campuses.
We take education very seriously in our household, it is the key to a promising future. I know a number of families that have moved to the neighboring ‘burbs in search of a better education for their children but they aren’t doing enough research because they are moving to the cheaper areas that are no different if not worse than the Philly school district. My children are aging daily and I can not wait for the school district to fix the problems. I know of a student who is scoring low on the city/statewide testing and the benchmark testing(this tests the last 6 weeks of subject matter) yet is an A student…I can not wrap my mind around how this is even possible, no amount of extra credit can do this from a 27%!!! As parents we need to do better and demand more from the schools while we work with our children at home. We can not expect the schools to do it all…
Another point is that parents have to look at the school their child(ren) will be attending IN the school system and try to live within the attendace zone of the best ones. Most cities have more than one elementary school, for example. Out of, say, three elemetary schools in the district, one might perform better than the other two, even if the district overall is fantastic and all the schools get A’s. One could have a 100% state test passing rate, which another may have 93%. They are both A’s but 100% of kids passing is a heck of a lot better than 93% passing.
I’ve reseached the elementary, middle and high school path my son would take should we move in a specific attendance zone in the school district we are looking at now. As a result, I’ve deliberitly put in an offer on a house in that specific zone, so he will attend the best schools in this already great school district. It really is a strategic move. We’ve got to get smart about this stuff. Our kids are our future. Teach them well and let them lead the way. (lol)
^^Yes! This!
We did this, bought our 1st home in an area with the perfect elementary, middle & high schools.
Our two kids are 6 years apart and right after our oldest finished middle school, they re-zoned our neighborhood and put it in the attendance zone of the 2nd worst middle school in our city. The other two schools stayed the same. We applied and reapplied for the in-district transfer and the grandfather clause (since our older child had attended the better middle school) and kept getting denied.
We ended up buying a home in another neighborhood that had the schools we wanted and moved. Our 1st home sat on the market for over a year before we finally just rented it out.
Some people thought we were nuts to take on another mortgage just before our son went off to college…just so our daughter could get be at better middle school. Hmmmph! We say it has been more than worth it! Our oldest is about to finish college and our youngest is excelling in high school as an honors student and on her way to college also.
I live in Ohio too and while I don’t have children yet, my husband and I are thinking the exact same way. Right now, are living in a small house in a so-so area to save up money for a down payment to buy a house in a much better school district. We’re already planning this even though we won’t likely have to worry about school districts for at least six years.
The absolute best school district near us is in a city that has a reputation for being very hostile to non-whites, but the one a few minutes down the road is probably the second-best in this metro area and has a much better reputation for being open to non-white children, and many black and Asian professionals settle in this area.
So that’s what we’re aiming for, and we hope to close on a house there next summer. I totally agree with the importance of being strategic for our kids and setting them up for success from the beginning — even before they’re born!
I’m in Ohio too. What section of the state are you in?
I’m in Ohio too. What section of the state are you in?
Hi Tara! I’m in the Dayton area.
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