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In addition to looking at breakdowns by race and socioeconomic status, you can look at children with registered disabilities. I was just poking around and noticed that the rates (in the Athens-Clarke County GA school system as a whole) for white children who are autistic are almost exactly the same as for black children who are "emotionally or behaviorally disturbed," and that there are almost no white children who are emotionally or behaviorally disturbed and almost no black children who are autistic.

Differential diagnoses, anyone?
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These are the public schools in Athens that are in the areas we're looking at houses (mostly, the areas clustered around UGA/downtown). The public schools are set up in a Zone system, so you can apply to any school in your zone, but people living within a half-mile of the school have priority. I have to call and ask some questions, since some addresses don;t fall within a half-mile of any zone. It's also unclear to me if the schools fill up, or have wait lists; the application process is in March and clearly we are coming in late.

Thanks to the GA Dept. of Education, I can get profiles of the schools. Here are some key (to me) stats for the schools (2006-2007) that are near where we're thinking about living:

*Oglethorpe: 453 kids, 95% econ. dis., AYP, ADEQ, 7% white, 52% black, 36% hispanic, has preK
*Chase: 226 kids, 94% econ dis., AYP, ADEQ, 4% white, 42% black, 50% hispanic, has preK
*Barrow: 369 kids, 26% econ dis., AYP, DIST, 68% white, 16% black, 7% asian, 5% hispanic, has preK
*Fourth: 335 kids, 94% econ. dis, AYP, NI-AYP, 3% white, 56% black, 39% hispanic, has preK
*Gaines: 520 kids, 90% econ. dis., no AYP, ADEQ-DNM, 7% white, 76% black, 13% hispanic
*Barnett Shoals: 570 kids, 67% econ. dis, no AYP, ADEQ_DNM, 29% white, 56% black, 5% hispanic
*Whit Davis: 573 kids, 48% econ. dis, AYP, ADEQ, 41% white, 46% black, 3% hispanic

Notice that the two schools that are mostly white kids and mostly not-poor kids are the most successful.
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I've been having little email to-and-fro with my father - I sent him the realtor listing for the house two blocks down from where he grew up, and he pointed out (as I had already discovered) that it isn't in the Mariemont district, but in the city proper, and the local elementary is rated "emergency" by the state.

So he rambled on about school and real estate matters, and then dropped this:
"Our house is probably worth a little more than twice what we bought it for in 1993. We would not be
able to afford to buy it now, even were I still working."

Now, Zillow.com is placing his house at $282K right now. Which I think is overpriced - it is 2400 square feet, but poorly laid out and thoroughly lacking in charm. It gets a bump due to size and the school district.

But, people, my father is a 61 year old (retired) doctor! He was a family practice doctor, so a fairly low-paying specialty - median income for family practice doctors in 2002 was 'only' $150K a year. I would imagine that by the time he retired in 2004 he was making rather more than that, since he had many many years of experience. If your annual income is $200K a year - or even if it's only $150! - you can generally afford to buy a $280K house if you want to. I mean, right? A conservative mortgage is 3 times annual income, right?

To sum up: my father = totally out of touch with reality, financially-speaking (other ways also, but we don't have time for them tonight). It is probably not worth the effort of pointing this out to him. But if I am guilty of being cheap, at least I come by it honestly.

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