I haven’t had a chance to explore this yet but Boston.com has on online tool called “Dreamtown Finder: Your personalized town search.”
What happens when you enter your preferences? Is Newton your “Dreamtown”?
by Greg Reibman | Apr 22, 2013 | Newton | 21 comments
I haven’t had a chance to explore this yet but Boston.com has on online tool called “Dreamtown Finder: Your personalized town search.”
What happens when you enter your preferences? Is Newton your “Dreamtown”?
September 13, 2023
Men's Crib September 13, 2023 5:20 am
There’s a very big problem with this (aside from the obvious of being oversimplistic). When it asks about location, it has no way to indicate whether distance from Boston is a factor, nor does it ask if public transit is important – which is it, extremely, for many of us.
“Location” has public transit as one of its factors.
First time through, I got Lexington, followed by Brookline then Newton (rated schools high, and real estate prices low) .
When I gave Location a higher score, I got Brookline followed by Newton.
When I drastically lowered the “Fun” score, Newton came out first. I’m not offended by that, but to be honest we used to live in Brookline and our idea of “fun” was leaving Brookline.
Boston was 172 for me, Brookline was 190 and Newton was 232. I better move:)
I find it interesting that Newton wasn’t amongst the Top 10 schools.
http://www.boston.com/yourtown/2013/04/20/bdc-towns-with-best-schools-massachusetts-gallery/8yuFvJhqvExqE1VUPpeNpJ/story.html
I find it amusing that Newton’s general fund expenditures per student are higher than Wayland, Acton and Boxborough yet those schools are rated higher and those districts MCAS scores are comparable or better than Newton’s.
@Joshua: You find it “amusing” ?
@Greg,
I find it amusing because on one hand, we had the entire city establishment recently pushing three tax hikes in order to put more money in the schools yet there are about a dozen or two school districts in the state that spend less than Newton while maintaining educational performance that is comparable or better than Newton.
I find it amusing because it disproves the consensus thesis that more money in the schools correlates to higher performance. I only hope that when the new teachers union contracts take effect on September 1, 2014, Newton reminds Michael Zilles and the Newton Teachers Association of that very fact. We are paying them premium pay and benefits yet Hingham and Belmont generate test scores that meet or exceed Newton’s while spending 36% to 48% less per student from the general fund.
The Newton Public Schools community believes that Newton Public Schools is the best system in the world. I would say to them that if Newton Public Schools wants to regain its reputation as a world-class educational system, I’d at least like them to catch up to Belmont first.
http://www.boston.com/news/special/education/mcas/scores12/results/belmont.html
Huh? I don’t believe I’ve ever heard anyone make this claim.
The Dreamtown Finder told me to go live in Provincetown. I can live with that. Resetting it to “Urban”, Newton came in at #4.
@Joshua– I understand your point. And my comment is not intended to challenge that point in any way. You expect the best results for the educational dollars spent by Newton, and so do I. However, I’d like to take this opportunity to remind you [and everyone else] that Newton will never “regain its reputation as a world-class educational system,” as long as MCAS dictates our curriculum. Even with that stated, I’d encourage you not to use MCAS as your measuring stick, and I’d implore you to look at Newton’s educators through a kinder lens. Having recently put three children through the Newton school system, and knowing a bit about it from having gone through the system myself-and having visited every school as a political candidate, I can state with complete conviction, our teachers are not paid too much… They are paid too little!
@Doug – I mean it doesn’t allow you to prioritize public transit as a single factor.
I got Cambridge. Newton was #4. Maybe I’ll move.
I’m clearly doing something wrong because after factoring everything in, I get
Ketchikan, Alaska.
I never do surveys like this one. The results are usually pretty shallow. I believe the real reason for any of these is that someone is doing a market study and voluntarily gets a huge amount of data correlating preferences with demographics, without paying anyone a cent. If they want this information from me, let them at least pay me for it.
Anyone in the business want to dispute what I said? Or confirm it?
Mike, I think Karen Nacht said it best when she said that my colleagues and I (who were previously part of Moving Newton Forward With Fiscal Responsibility) raised valid points ,well grounded in data and how she urged everyone who had all that data to amplify it and get out there when it can do the most good. Not when we are considering an override, but when our city is negotiating union contracts.
http://village14.com/netwon-ma/2013/03/watch-and-comment-on-the-overrides-results-right-here/#comment-22303
If we use the SAT as the measuring stick, Newton South slightly outperformed Belmont and Belmont slightly outperformed Newton North. That still doesn’t change the fact that Newton’s general fund appropriation per student is still 36% higher than Belmont’s.
As for the teachers being paid too low, it should be noted that only 56.5% of Newton Public Schools’ FTEs are teachers. The rest are administrators, aides, clerical etc. How much are they paid again? And don’t forget 84.3% of the school budget goes to fund compensation/benefits. 7% goes for out-of-district SPED. That leaves less than 9% remaining that goes… for the children.
Gail, I didn’t say that anyone said it specifically. That was my assessment of the mindset of people in the Newton Public Schools community. Then again, when you and Greg ran the Newton TAB, you guys endorsed David Cohen’s override.
For the record, Newton’s not currently negotiating union contracts but the city and the school department did recently release a budget for FY 2014.
As union contracts are expiring in FY 2014, I expect that the unions and the city administration will be spending a portion of FY 2014 focused on making sure that new contracts come in on or before June 30 (August 31 for the school contracts).
They put me in Wellfleet because of my age, but I didn’t have age in mind when I answered the category “people like you.” For me, “People like me” references the kinds of activities I’m involved in and some common attributes we share because we live here. I only said the price of housing wasn’t important because I don’t intend to move from here.
Looks like I’ve got to move back to Cambridge. I left there in 1974 for Newton. Hmmm.
I think I would find the ‘walkability’ index I read about somewhere, maybe it was back on the Tab Blog, a lot more useful. I like having things handy, I like being 10 minutes from the Y (so I can be with people like Bob Burke). I like being able to stop at Shaw’s or Trader Joe’s, or with a slight detour, Stop nShop or Russo’s or Schwartz Hardware, on the way home from the Y. I like being able to get to Logan by walking to the Green Line and not have to park at the airport when I travel. And being able to walk to two village centers. Whether the schools are #4 or #40, I’m not so concerned. I think how kids will do in life depends more on their parents.
To use SAT scores as the sole metric for the quality of the schools is pretty lame. Quality of the physical plant is a pretty important one too as those of us with kids in the system now can tell you. (If anyone would like to hear the saga of the Horace Mann faucets, just ask) Other considerations I consider important: How diverse is the school population? Are there neighborhood schools within a walkable distance or are children bussed to school? Do they offer free full day kindergarten? Do they offer world languages in elementary school and if so is it full immersion? What math curriculum do they use? What proportion of students take calculus? What fees are charged for extracurricular activities? What do survey results show about the proportion of children in middle and high school smoking, binge drinking and/or taking drugs?
That’s a start, I’m sure other could come up with many more.
@Julia. I’m touched. Thanks
The application and definitions are so broad and vague that- with a few slight changes- I was told that Provincetown, Lancaster and Cambridge were my dream towns! Another Boston.com gimmick to generate clicks.