If your child is a science nut, the school may be mediocre but have a good science curriculum. Parents can play a huge role in the reform of a mediocre or poor high school and improve the whole school system. Go to the school meetings. Parents for Public Schools, a Mississippi group, conducted site visits and pored over budgets to figure out why one high school was bursting at the seams while the other one just across the street had empty classrooms. They came up with a plan to redistrict the city and to have site monitors.
Today there is less crowding.
Discipline is better. You don't have to buy what the downtown office is selling. But sometimes you have to be the instigator of change. But I'm worried about the impact it might have on his college acceptance prospects. What I can tell you is that colleges look for students who stand out from the crowd.