Parkland Has South Florida’s Best Schools For Your Real Estate Bucks
BY BUDDY NEVINS
Parkland has the best schools for your real estate dollars in South Florida, according to a new nationwide survey by GreatSchools featured in Forbes magazine.
The City of Parkland landed in the top 10 nationwide and first in the category of towns with homes costing between $400,000 to $599,999.
The median home price in Parkland is $426,390.
But St. Johns, a small upscale town in northeast Florida, had the same education quality score as Parkland with much cheaper housing. The median home price in St. Johns is $181,700.
Forbes described its rankings as the places in America where your “housing dollar will go the furthest in getting your children a great education.”
The top-rated Parkland public schools included Heron Heights Elementary, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High, Park Trails Elementary, Riverglades Elementary and Westglades Elementary.
GreatSchools analyzed 17,589 cities from 49 states and the District of Columbia, using a combination of the most recently available K-12 public school student enrollment and test score data, along with 2010 median home price and population data. The list was narrowed by eliminating cities with populations under 10,000, fewer than five K-12 public schools, and unemployment rates higher than the state average.
The remaining cities were divided into five median home price categories and then ranked based on state standardized test scores and the most recent National Assessment for Educational Progress data (the only test that is given to a randomly-selected group of students in every state). NAEP data offers a good way to compare cities in one state to those in another  even though state standards differ.
GreatSchools is a leading source of information on school performance and also operates school programs.
May 2nd, 2011 at 4:35 am
I think this is great for Parkland, however, pretty sad when Tamarac’s City Manager won’t live in his own city because his kids will go to better schools in Parkland.
May 2nd, 2011 at 8:16 am
Parkland has its schools at the expense of the rest of the county. Stephanie Kraft and Darla Carter kept building new schools in Parkland because their richest supporters lived there. Every dollar spent in Parkland was taken away from others who needed it.