Alpharetta Real Estate Homes for Sale

Last week the 2007 SAT scores were released by The College Board. I look at the SAT scores for the North Fulton High Schools and I say, “Great, six of the top ten high schools, as measured by SAT score, are in North Fulton.” Then I say, “Gee, that seems good, but Georgia is only ranked 46^th in the nation. Who cares if you are the best, if what you’re being measured against isn’t very good to begin with?” The release of SAT scores last week in Georgia quickly disintegrated into ad hominem, circumstantial and anecdotal arguments about why Georgia ranks so low (46^th) in national SAT rankings. Some observers are distressed that the media focuses on the negative – that Georgia is 46^th in the nation – while other observers can’t help but dwell on the negative and profess their shame at living in Georgia (or certain counties in Georgia). I can help those people sell their homes if they want to leave ;->. One thing is true about the SAT scores…every one has an axe to grind and the scores provide the perfect whet stone. First a sample of the rhetoric for you ambulance chasers before we get to my conclusion.

• Georgia’s low scores are the result of “the illegal population”.
• Private schools have drained all the “talent” from the public schools resulting in lower public school scores.
• Public school administrators are overpaid with no accountability while the teachers are underpaid. Include in that that the Governor just throws lottery money at the problem and doesn’t have a clue. No leadership is the consensus; cleaning Perot-esque house is the proposed remedy.
• It is the fault of the education bureaucracy, including the teacher unions.
• The test was harder this year – and longer – and the students simply got tired.
• The parents are ultimately to blame for not devoting the time and attention to helping their children and instead chasing materialistic ends. Parental greed is leaving the children’s educational - and homelife – needs unattended.
• Blacks scores lower on the SAT and Georgia has a higher proportion of blacks. Same argument with Hispanics.
• We don’t hold teachers accountable and parents don’t care.
• All Georgia students must take the SAT compared to other states where participation is not as broad.
• The federal No Child Left Behind program has drained resources from the top students to feed “the bottom dwellers.”
• Southerners are just stupid: the worst school in New York is better than the best school in Georgia.
• The reality isn’t so bad. The biggest problem public education faces is negative attitudes and perceptions, mainly fostered by local media.
• The culprit for low SAT scores in Georgia is that we need more school days and longer hours – look at what other countries do compared to us.
• Poverty is the biggest indicator: the schools with the higher percentages of free school lunches score lower.

These comments on the SAT demonstrate why it is so hard to solve social problems in a democracy! Everyone has an opinion that is rooted in some personal experience or ideology and with the exception of the outright race baiting, many of the opinions have some basis in truth. Surely there are some overpaid, empty suit, bureaucrats in the system. Clearly the more involved the parents are in their children’s education the better the outcome. Clearly socio-economic status of the student population has something to do with educational attainment. The one irrefutable fact, though, is that everyone will spin the SAT test results to their political advantage. The governor took Georgia’s five point fall as a positive because relative to the national average, Georgia actually improved, although remaining in 46^th place. State Superintendent Cox highlighted that Georgia held its own and that minority students faired better in Georgia than the national averages. Fulton County Schools focused on having six high schools in the Georgia top ten, a nine point increase over last year and seventy-eight point lead on the national average. Other observers can’t help but fixate on the 46^th place state ranking, which brings me back to the original question: If Georgia is ranked 46^th in the nation in SAT scores, does it matter that North Fulton has the best schools in the state? I mean, who cares if you are the best in a poorly achieving state? What about the person who claimed that the best school in Georgia is worse than the worst in New York? Why is Georgia ranked 46^th nationaly in SAT performance? The reality of the matter is that comparing SAT scores across states is a joke. Even The School Board, who administers the test, says that using the SAT to compare and rank states is invalid. The biggest reason that it is invalid to compare SAT scores is that states have a huge difference in the so-call participation rate, that is, the percentage of seniors (they don’t even have to be college bound) who take the test. Some states mandate the test; others make it optional; and still others depend more on the ACT than the SAT because that is the test of choice by the major in-state schools. In some states, a small percentage of college-bound seniors take the SAT because they are trying to qualify for a specific scholarship or apply to a selective out-of-state university. These students score higher than the average student. The greater the participation rate the lower the state average score. I did a simple correlation test on the two variables across all states and they have a correlation coefficient of .88, which in social science is extremely reliable. Georgia’s participation rate is 69%, 13th highest in the country. The average is 48%. Iowa has the highest SAT scores, but its participation rate is only 4%. Seventeen of the top twenty states in SAT score had participation rates below 10%. If you compare Georgia’s 1472 score to other middle participation states like Pennsylvania (1474), Delaware (1479), North Carolina (1486), Florida (1472) and Indiana (1487) our scores aren’t so far out of norm. [Note: Virginia and Vermont are both middle participation states and both have averages over 1500 at 1520 and 1542 respectively.] So if I were the Governor, the Leader of the House, the State Superintendent of Education or the Editor of the Atlanta Journal Constitution, I’d give the SAT a rest already. It is an irrelevant statistic when used to compare states and dwelling on it, spinning it or reporting on it doesn’t help anyone and only perpetuates a belief that Georgia is a state of low achievement. The Best High Schools in Georgia. What analyzing the SAT scores can tell you is the relative strength of the high schools within Georgia. Like last year’s data and the year before that, clearly the Georgia-400 corridor, North Fulton and East Cobb have the strongest collection of high schools. Ten of the top thirteen schools in the state are in North Fulton or East Cobb. This is the single, number one reason, that people want to live in North Fulton. Whether it is someone relocating to Alpharetta from Texas or from Norcross, they want to be here first and foremost for the schools.

Top Ranked Georgia High Schools
Davidson Magnet (Richmond)	1710
Northview (Fulton)	1702
Walton (Cobb)	1697
Chamblee (DeKalb)	1690
Roswell (Fulton)	1689
Columbus (Muscogee)	1659
Chattahoochee (Fulton)	1654
North Springs (Fulton)	1649
Alpharetta (Fulton)	1647
Milton (Fulton)	1641

If you were to attempt to determine why the schools in North Fulton do better than the rest, you have to look no further than socioeconomic measures: percentage of free school lunches; median home value; median income. It is no surprise that the swath of real estate five miles east and west of GA-400 running north from I-285 to the Forsyth/Dawson county line represents half of the property tax paid IN THE ENTIRE STATE. That is where the best schools are – or at least where the best test takers are. Now, for that lady who claimed that the best school in Georgia was worse than the worst in New York, I did a little research on the web, but couldn’t find the 2007 SAT scores for New York broken down by school like I can for Georgia. However, if anyone has that data, I’m happy to do the comparison. If true, I’ll root for the Yankees to win the World Series.

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