Do the teachers seem happy, or is there a high staff turnover? How diverse is the student body? How caring and compassionate are the student-to-student and teacher-to-student relationships? We can't totally dismiss school ratings—nor should we. They can provide valuable information to state and federal leaders working to improve education for all students.
They can be just as beneficial for families, but parents need to do their own research to understand how the ratings they look at are assembled. Wallin wants all parents to remember: "A single ranking can't tell you everything they need to know about a school. By Sarah Bradley September 17, Save Pin FB More. And, at the end of the day, don't forget to put on your critical thinking cap. Be the first to comment! No comments yet. Close this dialog window Add a comment. Add your comment Financial contributions from our readers are a critical part of supporting our resource-intensive work and help us keep our journalism free for all.
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By choosing I Accept , you consent to our use of cookies and other tracking technologies. How online ratings make good schools look bad. Reddit Pocket Flipboard Email. Sparks reports it was partially in response to advocates who were concerned about equity.
This preliminary paper , by Sharique Hasan and Anuj Kumar, shows that the GreatSchools score might actually make segregation worse.
Another study — by Peter Bergman, Eric Chan, and Adam Kapor — found that when GreatSchools scores were made available to families with housing vouchers, they chose neighborhoods with schools that had a tiny bit better GreatSchools rating.
It increased average school quality by a few tenths on their 1 to 10 rating scale. A recent investigation by the news organization Chalkbeat suggests that the equity score has had some effect in reducing the correlation between GreatSchools ratings and school demographics, but the highest-rated schools still tend to have more white and Asian students, and fewer students eligible for free or reduced-price lunches.
The site has partnered with a researcher at Columbia University, Peter Bergman, who has found that families with housing vouchers who are given GreatSchools information were more likely to choose neighborhoods with higher-rated schools. Jose Arenas, the vice president of organizating for Innovate Public Schools in California, works directly with low and moderate-income families in Los Angeles and the Bay Area.
GreatSchools is one of several data sources that the organization uses with parents in order to help them as advocates, as well as to make better informed decisions for their own children. And these are families just as capable of making nuanced decisions as any other family, he added. GreatSchools argues that it needs better data from states in order to make its own ratings more nuanced. He has spoken out in support of his educator colleagues in the elementary and junior high schools that feed into his high school.
All Topics. About Us. Group Subscriptions. Recruitment Advertising. Events and Webinars. Leaders to Learn From. Current Issue. Special Reports. EdWeek Research Center. EdWeek Top School Jobs. EdWeek Market Brief. Menu Search. Sign In Subscribe. Reset Search. The average GreatSchools rating for schools with the most low-income and most black and Hispanic students is 4 to 6 points lower than the average score for schools with the fewest black and Hispanic students and fewest low-income students.
New York City was a notable exception. There, a relatively large number of predominantly black and Hispanic schools — particularly charter schools and especially Success Academy schools — earned above-average ratings.
Chalkbeat focused on metro areas because families tend to choose schools and homes locally. GreatSchools argues that only statewide comparisons are appropriate; in six states where GreatSchools provided data, a substantial connection between student poverty and school ratings remained — though in some cases it was smaller than the connection in the metro area Chalkbeat focused on in the same state.
Differences by race and income persist, though, and they are quite large. Probably in part because many schools serving low-income students of color are genuinely struggling. But it remains difficult even for seemingly successful schools serving many low-income black and Hispanic students to score well, too.
Educators there describe Knapp as a collaborative place where they are respected and asked to push themselves to help students, nearly two thirds of whom are learning English as a second language.
Knapp has won statewide accolades for its ability to help its students improve on state tests. On real estate websites featuring GreatSchools, users encounter the overall score, not the details.
The schools that do show up are in a different Denver ZIP code and in most cases have whiter, more affluent student bodies.
Knapp fares poorly on two other, less widely used third-party rating sites too. SchoolDigger gives the school 2 of 5 stars, while Niche awards it a C. The low ratings frustrate Knight, who worries families who might help integrate the school will overlook it.
But Knapp is too homogenous — racially and economically segregated — for an equity rating to be calculated, GreatSchools explains. Carrie Goux, a spokesperson for GreatSchools, said about one in 10 schools nationally receive such adjusted equity ratings.
In a sense, GreatSchools penalizes Knapp for being segregated, even as GreatSchools ratings could make it more difficult for the school to attract a diverse student body. Knapp is not alone in the Denver area.
That likely reflects the fact that low-income students of color arrive to school with lower achievement levels due to numerous factors, including the effects of poverty and racism. Some argue that proficiency should be a major factor in school ratings, as it is now in the GreatSchools formula, to hold all students to high standards.
Goux, the GreatSchools spokesperson, said the organization works to ensure all facets of school performance are visible. Finally, she pointed to six schools in other cities that have a high share of low-income students and also earn high ratings. Most of these examples, though, are atypical in that they require at least some students to perform at a certain academic level to enter or remain enrolled. The school was rated a 5, whereas many other schools in the area scored only a 1, she said, and her son is doing well after the switch.
Other research has shown that GreatSchools ratings can affect where families who receive housing vouchers choose to live — an indicator that low-income families are using the scores to pick schools, too. Families offered GreatSchools ratings ended up in areas where schools earned an average rating of 4, as opposed to 3.
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