So what is so special about Cupertino CA schools?

[samv]

Seeing lots of references elsewhere about Cupertino, CA schools like these,

Not all schools in India are you mentioned nor are all schools abroad like Cupertino,CA.

yes, not all school are like Cupertino, CA, that is why I did not say "schools in U.S."

So I can't resist asking what's so special about Cupertino? I know those schools have high API, but that is purely a function of the high number of Indian/Asian/Chinese kids in the class. (e.g. The asian API score in my son's non SFBA school is 995 but the other races not that extreme high. So if that school had 70-80% asian population, instead of 30%, its API would be in 990s too instead of 970s.)

What I am wondering is if you ignore API, is there anything else special about Cupertino? For example can someone say XYZ activity/facility/classes happen in Cupertino but does not happen elsewhere.

Forgive my ignorance because I do not live in BA. Just curious.



P.S.: Some time last year, for fun, I was searching for the highest API high school in the state of CA, pretty sure that it will be one of the bay area schools. Actually last year it happened to be Whitney high School Cerritos with an API of 988 (quite amazing for a high school). Of course, it is a bit cheating because Whitney high school accepts only "good" students based on their performance in 6th grade - not quite unlike our Indian schools.

The highest ranking Bay Area high school if I recall correctly was a charter high school in Oakland.

[Rajram]

Then entire world uses products from Cupertino. The iphones, ipods, ipads the entire world is raving about are designed in Cupertino. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Ive

It is the Apple city. But cupertino schools do not mean the schools are actually in Cupertino. There are Cupertino school district schools which are actually in Sunnyvale.

A lot of bright people live around here and so are the schools :)

[vij_mahesh]

Then entire world uses products from Cupertino. The iphones, ipods, ipads the entire world is raving about are designed in Cupertino. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Ive

It is the Apple city. But cupertino schools do not mean the schools are actually in Cupertino. There are Cupertino school district schools which are actually in Sunnyvale.

A lot of bright people live around here and so are the schools :)

You did not add up any info to OP's post. OP has already said that Cupertino schools API is good due to a lot of Asians mostly high tech engineers.


OP, I agree fully with you. Cupertino schools' result are good due to good quality students, nothing else. Students from similar backgrounds are producing similar results irrespective of schools. Infact in my friend circle (all high tech engineers), kids are having better results in non-Cupertino schools than Cupertino schools. I think, it is largely happening due to parents taking a little extra care if their kids are not going to Cupertino schools. Parents' guilt works as magic :)

[Rajram]

You did not add up any info to OP's post. OP has already said that Cupertino schools API is good due to a lot of Asians mostly high tech engineers.


OP, I agree fully with you. Cupertino schools' result are good due to good quality students, nothing else. Students from similar backgrounds are producing similar results irrespective of schools. Infact in my friend circle (all high tech engineers), kids are having better results in non-Cupertino schools than Cupertino schools. I think, it is largely happening due to parents taking a little extra care if their kids are not going to Cupertino schools. Parents' guilt works as magic :)

I disagree that cupertino school ratings are related to high number of Indians and Asians. The neighboring santa clara and sunnyvale districts also have high number, probably more, Indian and Asian kids but they are not even close to the CUSD. May be it's the high standards set by the district leadership. I don't think curriculam vastly differs between districts. http://cupertino.ca.campusgrid.net/home/Instruction/CORE+Curriculum+Highlights+Intro

There are exception schools in many districts with API above 950. But I have seen many districts have only a few high ranking schools and majority are average and there will be a rush to have kids enrolled in that one or two high ranking schools and if there is no space in the one-off schools, kids will be put up in one of the other low ranking ones. However with cupertino school district there is consistency and overall all except one school has an API over 900. What does that mean? If the school decides to split the class during a new acadamic year if they run out of space and your kid ends up going to another school during the year within the district, chances are he or she will still end up in a school with a high API. This is not true even with the neighboring santa clara school district. There are schools with 900+ APIs in santa clara, my kid was going to one, however they decided to map my street address to a different school with a much lower API and I had to move to a new place which was under the CUSD. All except one school in CUSD have a greatschools rating of 10, so I am not worried about the possibility my kid getting moved to another school next year, though unlikely to happen.

Same with Fremont school district which has many high API schools. In terms of extra curricular activities, all these schools are severely budget constrained and I do not think any offer significant extra curricular activities. All extra curricular activities, tutors are available all over bay area from kumon to taekwando, so I don't think Cupertino has anything special to offer in this regard as a place or school district, except the pride and consistent performance of a majority of schools in the district. Cupertino schools partly offset the budget constraints by seeking small donations of $150 - $200 per kid each year.

Does that answer your (and OP's) question? :)

Regarding parents guilt driving kids to perform etc, that's all your conjecture (I like this word used by Desi all the time) and I don't there is any objectivity in those statements. :)

[M V]

My post is quoted in first post, so: I don't think there is anything so special other than consistent performance. In some discussion on bringing up kids and kids' education, I remember OS2 mentioning Cupertino schools, so I referred to it there, that's all.

What Rajram said in post before this is mostly true. But at the same time, I don't think it is worth living in a 40+ years old 1600 sq feet house just for the school district. There are some enthusiastic folks who raze the old house and build new. Hats off to them : )

For those interested, Cupertino schools were discussed in detail in another thread - ahirman, layman, MINF and others had posted on the topic.

[vij_mahesh]

I disagree that cupertino school ratings are related to high number of Indians and Asians. The neighboring santa clara and sunnyvale districts also have high number, probably more, Indian and Asian kids but they are not even close to the CUSD.

This is completely wrong statement.
Cupertino School District has 70.5% of Asian students while Santa Clara has 22.3% and Sunnyvale has 22.4%. If this big difference is not visible to you by your naked eyes, probably all of your analysis/oservations belong to trash.

Source: http://star.cde.ca.gov/star2011/SearchPanel.aspx (apply right filters and you will right number of students). It is official website from CA govt.

[Old-Spice2]

This is completely wrong statement.
Cupertino School District has 70.5% of Asian students while Santa Clara has 22.3% and Sunnyvale has 22.4%. If this big difference is not visible to you by your naked eyes, probably all of your analysis/oservations belong to trash.

Source: http://star.cde.ca.gov/star2011/SearchPanel.aspx (apply right filters and you will right number of students). It is official website from CA govt.

My kids studied in Cupertino schools. I find them not that great. For 9th grade onwards, send your kid to Harker or any private school. Due to budget constraint, teachers give homework but do not correct them. Go, get a job in AAPL, GOOG or rob a bank to pay for Harker. Better learn how to play BJ from Desi and head to Vegas :)

[Rajram]

This is completely wrong statement.
Cupertino School District has 70.5% of Asian students while Santa Clara has 22.3% and Sunnyvale has 22.4%. If this big difference is not visible to you by your naked eyes, probably all of your analysis/oservations belong to trash.

Source: http://star.cde.ca.gov/star2011/SearchPanel.aspx (apply right filters and you will right number of students). It is official website from CA govt.

Thanks for the link. You can also get these stats from greatschools.org. The bias may be because of more hispanic demographics in the other districts, which I probably did not consider. I am willing to toss my first few statements disagreeing with your claim on asian percentages to trash, however the attitude of your previous post can be a good company to those statements.

Sorry my naked eyes did not look into every class room of the other districts or do an ethnic profiling before enrolling in the cupertino school district.

Rest of my post relates to my own experience dealing with the other school district not just analysis :)

[layman]

Seeing lots of references elsewhere about Cupertino, CA schools like these,





So I can't resist asking what's so special about Cupertino? I know those schools have high API, but that is purely a function of the high number of Indian/Asian/Chinese kids in the class. (e.g. The asian API score in my son's non SFBA school is 995 but the other races not that extreme high. So if that school had 70-80% asian population, instead of 30%, its API would be in 990s too instead of 970s.)

What I am wondering is if you ignore API, is there anything else special about Cupertino? For example can someone say XYZ activity/facility/classes happen in Cupertino but does not happen elsewhere.

Forgive my ignorance because I do not live in BA. Just curious.

No. There is nothing special in Cupertino, CA. It is just the demographics. Majority of the parents are educated Chinese/Indians that give importance to the education and hence the scores are high.

But, it is not as simple as this because the above phenomenon causes a feedback effect
(1) Because the students are good, teachers use time more effectively in teaching which otherwise could have been spent with extra time on troubled kids(for eg. a school in harlem where the teacher has to spend extra time to help the kid of a felon)
(2) There is a network effect. In a competitive environment, the kids will study well to compete.

Otherwise, the curriculum, teaching methods are the same as other CA schools.

[layman]

For 9th grade onwards, send your kid to Harker or any private school. Due to budget constraint, teachers give homework but do not correct them. Go, get a job in AAPL, GOOG or rob a bank to pay for Harker. Better learn how to play BJ from Desi and head to Vegas :)

This is overdone. We had this discussion already in another thread. Sure, Harker will have better education than public schools. For that matter one can find private schools better than public schools in any part of the world. But, the qn is whether the students attending public schools in Cupertino, CA are in dire straits. Statistics shows otherwise. Check the stats below.

101 got into UCBerkeley, 41 in UCLA and students joined every reputed college such as MIT, Stanford, Harward from Lynbrook
http://lynbrook.schoolloop.com/file/1211910068934/1226194406437/1245094856709697687.pdf

For Monta Vista, the individual numbers are not available but students got into reputed college Stanford, Harward, Yale etc. 38% got into UC.
http://www.mvhs.fuhsd.org/schoolprofile