Which is more important in the end - a strong elementary school, middle, or high school?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:and I would argue that the ranking are BS. You can't have a good HS if the elementary are crap. Also what we consider "bad" isn't really all that bad nationally.

you can have one elementary school ranked lower than others that feed into one HS though. we have one elem school ranked significantly lower and i can tell you exactly why - its an area with a lot of apartment complexes. So there are likely lower income people and/or transient people. which may bring down test scores - but still doesn't mean the school is bad.

[Anonymous]

Elementary school hands down

Students are tracked in middle and high school and assuming your kid is actually smart they will be with the other smart kids and be fine

Also college admission people know about schools. As long as your kids has decent SATs GPA and is top 10% of class that's all that matters and since your high school isn't as "good" as somewhere else there is less competition for those tickets to the "good" college

Elementary school classes are random and if you are with poorly educated kids they will drag the pace of the entire class down including your special snowflake

[Anonymous]

I grew up in a terrible school district. My parents did everything they could to supplement my learning. I was top of my class. I went to a top 30 university. My DH grew up in a stellar school district and went to a fantastic high school. He was middle of the pack in his class and is way smarter than me. We met in college.

My point is- parents can help a child overcome a not so wonderful school.

All other things being equal- I would choose the better middle and high school. I think it will be much easier for you to supplement and support additional learning at the elementary age.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Middle school.

That is when major peer pressure first hits and when kids start to veer off track. Parent input matters so much less than peer input at that age, and kids really start to develop their own identities based off peer approval instead of teacher and parent approval.

If the middle school is strong and the kid identifies with a strong peer group, that is more likely to carry over to high school. Even average high schools can have a core group of strong students focused on college and achievement.

The top rich high schools are sometimes too pressure filled, or have large groupd of kids with too permissive parents and access to more ways to get in trouble.

I am in somewhat of agreement with this. Middle school matters the least academically but the most socially. This is when it started becoming apparent what path most of my classmates would follow. A few kids were late bloomers/burnouts in high school, but that was rare.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:High school. There's actually a lot of empirical research on this.

That's great . . .

However, if you have a shitty ES and MS, you won't have the skills to excel in HS.