That said, I know several people who have gotten their kids into Pittsburgh charter schools and seem to be happy with that.
If we go the public school route for high school, my kids would feed into Allderdice, and I hear their advanced program is outstanding, with many kids going into Ivies from there.
"The Pittsburgh Promise scholarship is a big idea and a real commitment: if you live in the city and attend Pittsburgh Public schools from 9th grade on, up to a $40,000 Promise scholarship will be waiting for you at graduation."
Only applies to PA schools, but still, an impressive program.
Allderdice is one of the consistently better high schools in the city, assuming your kids get into the advanced program. Personally, I'm a product of Central Catholic, but many of my friends (who went on to Ivies) came out of Allderdice.
Frustratingly, when I think "high variance," Allerdice is precisely what comes to mind.
I volunteer for the FIRST Robotics program in Pittsburgh. A couple of years ago, I was chatting with some of the students from Allerdice who also volunteer and were away from school that day due to their team being in the competition---at about the same time that a few miles away, the police were breaking up a large-group fight in Allerdice itself.
Allerdice (last time I checked) is a good school with some real problems. But it's a good school.
They are decent, but there's some high variance. It's worth doing your homework.
Anecdotally, some of my coworkers moved here expressly to raise their families; they liked the school system options here better than the larger cities they came from. I don't have children of my own, so I haven't done the research.
School districts in the South Hills suburbs are fairly good and rank highly in the state (Mt. Lebanon, Upper St. Clair, Bethel Park, ...). If working in the city, you can take the "T" (light rail) into town from the South Hills.
