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JCK
Joined: 15 Feb 2007
Posts: 559
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 Posted: Wed Apr 22, 2009 10:47 pm GMT Post subject: |
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| admin wrote: | | JCK wrote: |
OK admin, you win. There is some probability here that the information is useful. I'm saying that, as a practical matter, the probably is too low. If I can't draw any conclusions from the data (and here, I simply cannot), then I'd argue it tells you nothing.
How much weight would you give a presidential election poll that interviewed only eight people? |
I get and mostly agree with your point, but the presidential election analogy is a tad off. If you polled the same percentage of people for the presidential election as the percentage of Arlington homes that the 8 sales represent, you would need to poll 125,000 people (based on 19,411 houses in Arlington), and that actually does sound weighty. The question is, how many months and/or sales need to accumulate in Arlington before the result is useful in a practical sense? I don't know the answer. I need to study up on my probability and statistics.
- admin |
From my admittedly limited understanding of statistics, I understand that the error rate is determined not by the size of the population you're sampling, but by the size of the sample itself.
Thus, doing a simple ratio doesn't work. Polling 8 out of 1,000 people is not functionally the same as polling 8,000 of a million. The error rate is far lower in the second case, despite the percentages being the same. |
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JCK
Joined: 15 Feb 2007
Posts: 559
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| Posted: Wed Apr 22, 2009 10:50 pm GMT Post subject: |
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[quote="balor123"
With only 8 sales, the prices reflect microeconomics not macroeconomics. The only macroeconomic data that you can gather here is in the number 8, which is far less than it used to be.[/quote]
Agreed that the sales number is more significant the the price. But even that is highly variable. There were only 8 March sales in 2005 (Year of The Peak). But around 20 is much more typical.
There really only seven sales last month. But my previous points stand... |
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admin
Site Admin
Joined: 14 Jul 2005
Posts: 1826
Location: Greater Boston
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| Posted: Wed Apr 22, 2009 10:51 pm GMT Post subject: |
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| JCK wrote: |
From my admittedly limited understanding of statistics, I understand that the error rate is determined not by the size of the population you're sampling, but by the size of the sample itself.
Thus, doing a simple ratio doesn't work. Polling 8 out of 1,000 people is not functionally the same as polling 8,000 of a million. The error rate is far lower in the second case, despite the percentages being the same. |
Yes, you are absolutely right. I used the ratio because I did not remember how to calculate the error rate, and I should have said as much.
- admin |
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melonrightcoast
Joined: 22 Feb 2009
Posts: 236
Location: metrowest
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| Posted: Sat Apr 25, 2009 1:25 am GMT Post subject: schools |
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| balor123 wrote: | | How do you determine which schools are good? Word of mouth? That would be useful for me in the future as I don't think greatschools.net does a good job. |
I apologize in advance if this bores and/or irritates the heck out of anyone. This is what I have done:
Go to
http://profiles.doe.mass.edu/state_report/sat.aspx?mode=&orderBy=&year=2007&filterBy=
for SAT scores of high schools. Sort on either math, reading or writing (depending on what is most important to you). Write down the names of several towns that 1)have excellent SAT scores and 2)you would want to live in.
Then, go to
http://profiles.doe.mass.edu/
for MCAS scores for the elementary schools. There are two drop down boxes. In the "Select Organization Type" box, select "Public School". In the City/Town box, select the town that you are interested in. Click on "Search" and all the public schools in that town will be displayed. Click on one of the elementary schools and then click on the "Assessment" tab. Review the MCAS scores and decide if they are acceptable. Repeat for each elementary school in that town. Repeat the entire process for all the towns you are interested in.
Now for the "fuzzy" stuff, such as speaking with as many people that you can that have their kids in the schools and contacting the school district to find out if some of the schools in the district have specific or different teaching styles that may better suit your children.
_________________
melonrightcoast ... are you? |
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WestCoastXPlant
Guest
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| Posted: Sat Apr 25, 2009 3:37 pm GMT Post subject: |
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| balor123 wrote: | | That would be useful for me in the future as I don't think greatschools.net does a good job. |
Can you elaborate how so? Their ratings seem to be very much consistent with feedback we've gotten from friends. Granted there have been people who've liked the teachers/involvement at low rated schools...but we haven't run into discrepancies when the overall quality of academics is concerned (i.e. we've gotten a good feedback on teachers but the quality of the student body is low,making academic performance bad overall). The only thing I've noticed is that they don't seem to normalize for "special ed" classes, so I guess if you know that a school has a "special student" population you might want to dig into the details... |
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balor123
Joined: 08 Mar 2008
Posts: 1204
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| Posted: Sat Apr 25, 2009 10:49 pm GMT Post subject: |
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| I think those ratings are based entirely on test scores, which aren't necessarily accurate. They could reflect better students rather than better teachers. Some schools may teach towards the test to improve the scores while neglecting other responsibilities. Even if they were accurate measures it's not clear how much the results lag. Then there's the pairing issue: you need the right school for the right kid. That's hard to tell but I think it matters. The best way to tell I think is to ask someone in the field (a teacher) to help you make the decision. The next best bet would be to find teachers who've reviewed schools. There's probably a startup here if any of you are interested... |
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