Anybody else's high school like this?

That's true in most East Coast cities.

Where I'm from, however, you can buy houses starting at $5k (they're typically up for auction though, and sell for probably around $20k), but it'll be boarded up, the interior will look like a bomb went off, and it'll be located in a very violent neighborhood. You can buy quite nice houses for about $600k - but if you place the same house in the county it'll be worth more than $1 million because you pay half as much in property taxes and it'll never have to deal with crime.

I always recommend that if you are able to afford a quality private prep school, take advantage of it. I live in a high income area of Atlanta with, by most people's standards, some great public schools. However, the private schools here are much, much better. This is the case in most of the wealthier areas around the country. You don't have to deal with the issues caused by 20% of students/parents/faculty at public schools, the facilities are better, quality of education is better, more admin faculty, etc. Admin run the school like a business with students/parents as customers.

If you have the means, a quality private prep school is much better than a quality public school.

That is either TRUE, or BS.

Tell me where you are from, and I'll tell you which it is.

There are no private schools in the Atlanta area that are "much, much" better than the best public schools in the area. Sorry, but that's BS.

Do you know the quality of education of each private and public school in the nation? Lol

What area of Atlanta do you live in?

Home values are high (by Indiana standards) and poverty is extremely low / not existent in Carmel. The poors are priced out and what's left are the folks with solid jobs in Indianapolis who commute from Carmel. The combo of solid funding and virtually no poverty makes Carmel an exceptional school system.

The community also seems to embrace public schools. Virtually everyone I know thinks the Mayor is doing a good job. There's a communal "let's keep Carmel great" vibe. To be sure, I'd rather jump off a bridge than move there, but you can't deny the town's success.

I just Googled it, and Carmel's mayor has been there for 26 years. He must have been doing a good job.

I'm from Baltimore...

Obviously.

He has. There's quite a lot going on in Carmel as far as entertainment compared to 10 years ago. The city has been on the rise for a while as there is very high demand to move there.

One thing that I've read is that the city is in a ton of debt. This could pose a problem with rising interest rates and a declining economy. Property taxes are quite low in Carmel. I can see taxes getting jacked up here to compensate.

Then, you are correct enough that I will not dispute your claim, though there ARE a couple of school districts in the Baltimore area that are very very good. East Coast from Washington DC on up north have a different deal generally speaking with regard to private schools. That same reality though doesn't fit in pretty much ALL of the rest of the country.

Here are 2 examples: the first is in a warzone, while the second is in a very nice area but would be probably $5 million in DC

zillow.com

1831 Frederick Ave, Baltimore, MD 21223 | Zillow

Zillow, Inc.

Zestimate® Home Value: $5,000. This 0 square foot townhome home has 0 bedrooms and 0.0 bathrooms. It is located at 1831 Frederick Ave Baltimore, Maryland.

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zillow.com

900 W University Pkwy, Baltimore, MD 21210 | Zillow

Zillow, Inc.

900 W University Pkwy, Baltimore MD, is a Single Family home that contains 4840 sq ft and was built in 1919.It contains 5 bedrooms and 4 bathrooms.This home last sold for $888,550 in January 2023. The Zestimate for this Singl...

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What declining economy are you talking about? Have you ever lived during a bad economic time? Carmel is doing just fine...thriving even. It generates a lot of revenue with much higher than average salaries, and its job growth is projected to be outstanding

Nationally, we have ~two jobs available for every job seeker, and Americans feel so good about their job security that they are spending like mad.

I mean, huh?

That's true, but to a certain extent. Roland Park elementary / middle is the best public middle school, while Poly or City are the best publics, but they're not great at all. I believe RPEMS is around 60% proficiency in both math and reading, and about 25% of students are on free / reduced lunch. It also pulls from a few bad areas.

I agree that the rest of the country tends to be good. I had a lot of friends from Chicago (suburbs) in college, and they almost all went to public schools. However, they were from Naperville which has some of the best publics in the country - you'll get a great education there, so there's not a huge difference (mainly in college admissions to good colleges) compared going to the best private located in Chicago itself.

New York, though, is crazy. I could talk about that for years - the feeder preschools (I'm not making this up) have acceptance rates under 10%.

Again, where in Atlanta do you reside?

I was a little unclear. There's a small difference between Naperville public schools and elite Chicago private schools, but this virtually only manifests in college admissions to selective (<10% acceptance rate) colleges. However, I think those schools have a higher concentration of legacies, but I haven't had the time to dig into that deeply.

Doesn’t look like my school. Girls weren’t allowed to expose their belly.