In regards to the SAT scores, which have Marple Newtown High School looking well. I was told, when my son was applying to colleges last year, that the college only looks at the English and Math and NOT the Writing. The Writing component, would have made my son's SAT scores look much more respectable. He took the SAT 3 times and scored at the highest 975, without the Writing Score. He graduated from MNHS in June 2012, and quite frankly I would have hoped his English and Math would have been higher. We even had to hire a Math tutor for his freshman and sophmore year, due to having a poor Math Teacher from 7th, 8th and 9th grade.

Why does MN continue to have such sub-par SAT scores? Adjacent school districts- TE, Radnor, RTM have much better results from their students. This is a failure of leadership starting at the top of the administration. It's time the residents demand better leadership, better teaching, and better results. There is no excuse any more after all these years of under-performance.

Poeple need to hold the Principal, Superintendent and School Board accountable. Attend the meetings; let them know how dissatisfied you are with the continued downward sprial in perfromance at the high school that is driving down Marple Newtown's property value. This board thinks everthing fine even though SAT and PSSA score are down and we now rank in the bottom half of Delaware county, far behind neighboring Rose Tree Media, Havertown, Radnor, Springfield, and Swathmore/Wallingford. Please let your voice be heard. The next school board meeting is Tuesday, October 23 at 7:30 in the new adminstration building on Media Line Road. If you want to speak at the meeting make sure you register by 3:00 of the day of the meeting by calling Marple School District at 610-359-4200 or emailing Joe Driscoll at jdriscoll@mnsd.org.

Was out of town & just catching up on my "patch readings"..... Crazy to blame the current principal, superintendent & school board (as the children taking these tests currently started their education 12 years ago). Very easy blame people.... people/parents have to start looking in the mirror before placing blames!!! How is it that many, many children are success stories in the Marple Newtown School District? Huh, they must be getting their water elsewhere?

Middleman- if you took the time to check the PSSA scores for MN in the lower grades, you'd find the MN kids do very well in comparison with the surrounding school districts, in many cases surpassing them. However, when they get to the high school level, things nose dive, esp. regarding the SAT's. I don't think the parents all of a sudden don't care anymore. Something is causing that, and that needs to be addressed.

That's my point TickyDicky... the parents. It's today's society, but The Principal, Superintendent and School Board can't possibly visit every home within the district to make sure the kids are doing their homework. Adam is pointing fingers and wants to hold people "accountable".... very, very easy to do!!! Words are easy to lay out, it's actions that need to be taken, and that starts at home.

Not to ramble (as I do), but am a hypocrite, as I point fingers as well (which doesn't go over well @ family functions as we have many teachers in my family), but Superintendent should hold those accountable that are in direct contact with the students. We need a better way to evaluate teachers by paying the good and weeding out the bad with performance assessments and standards. Unfortunately those tenured ones feel protected by their tenure and teachers unions. As it stands now, every teacher gets the same raise whether they are great or below par.
The community needs to take a stand (like Chris Christie did in NJ). Get the bad teachers out and pay the good ones.