Great Schools new “grades”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At some point there needs to be a concerted effort to have redfin drop these terrible ratings. Unless and until that happens they have impact and very negative impacts across the board (including increasing self segregation).

But that's the only information keeping families from making disastrous decisions in places like Alexandria where there are terrible schools in rich neighborhoods. There is no other way to determine if you are buying in a public school district that will actually educate your child.

This process just results in fewer acceptable schools. Clearly people are already avoiding the low rated schools, but other people avoid middle rated schools. These middle rated schools then start to slip until they are low rated .it is a self fulfilling cycle.

You're defining "low rated schools" as schools with a GS score of 4 or lower (or 5 or lower or 3 or lower). As GS changes their scoring system to reduce the number of low scoring schools and incrase the number of middle rated schools, the self-segregation that has been increasing over the past two decades, fueled almost entirely by GS ratings, will decrease.

For those who are too young to remember, self-segregation of neighborhoods and schools was less of an issue in the golden age of the US, the late 80s and 90s, when things were improving for everyone, not just for the upper class.

Some define low as less than 5, but others will not tolerate anything less than a 7, others nothing less than a 9.

I think even if the Great School scores were to even out more, people still have tools available to figure out how to self segregate. Kind of sad really. FCPS was much more balanced in the 80s.

This. What they should do is tier the schools and leave it as that. Otherwise it just leads to self segregation

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:At some point there needs to be a concerted effort to have redfin drop these terrible ratings. Unless and until that happens they have impact and very negative impacts across the board (including increasing self segregation).

Great Schools pays Redfin for the advertising. I doubt RedFin will give up the ad revenue it gets from them.

[Anonymous]

Other areas of the country haven't changed as much

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At some point there needs to be a concerted effort to have redfin drop these terrible ratings. Unless and until that happens they have impact and very negative impacts across the board (including increasing self segregation).

But that's the only information keeping families from making disastrous decisions in places like Alexandria where there are terrible schools in rich neighborhoods. There is no other way to determine if you are buying in a public school district that will actually educate your child.

That information is provided by looking at state scores which doesn’t require GS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our elementary school is now a 4. We are in a “good” pyramid but the elementary school has been a pretty terrible experience. I feel like a 4 is generous

Marshall Pyramid?

NP, but I'm at a 4 in the Marshall pyramid (yes, Shrevewood, of course) and the school has been great for my kid. Shrevewood is the perfect example of a school that has the top-line rating killed by the equity score. Test scores for Whites and Asians are 9/10, but are 1/10 for Hispanics because most of the Hispanics are English learners. So, an equity score of 1.

My kids are also at this school, and it’s actually a 7/10 for whites and 4/10
Asian.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At some point there needs to be a concerted effort to have redfin drop these terrible ratings. Unless and until that happens they have impact and very negative impacts across the board (including increasing self segregation).

But that's the only information keeping families from making disastrous decisions in places like Alexandria where there are terrible schools in rich neighborhoods. There is no other way to determine if you are buying in a public school district that will actually educate your child.

This process just results in fewer acceptable schools. Clearly people are already avoiding the low rated schools, but other people avoid middle rated schools. These middle rated schools then start to slip until they are low rated .it is a self fulfilling cycle.

You're defining "low rated schools" as schools with a GS score of 4 or lower (or 5 or lower or 3 or lower). As GS changes their scoring system to reduce the number of low scoring schools and incrase the number of middle rated schools, the self-segregation that has been increasing over the past two decades, fueled almost entirely by GS ratings, will decrease.

For those who are too young to remember, self-segregation of neighborhoods and schools was less of an issue in the golden age of the US, the late 80s and 90s, when things were improving for everyone, not just for the upper class.

Some define low as less than 5, but others will not tolerate anything less than a 7, others nothing less than a 9.

I think even if the Great School scores were to even out more, people still have tools available to figure out how to self segregate. Kind of sad really. FCPS was much more balanced in the 80s.

1) Fairfax was much more homogenous in the 1980s.
2) There was no standardized test data so people just went by word of mouth.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our elementary school is now a 4. We are in a “good” pyramid but the elementary school has been a pretty terrible experience. I feel like a 4 is generous

Marshall Pyramid?

NP, but I'm at a 4 in the Marshall pyramid (yes, Shrevewood, of course) and the school has been great for my kid. Shrevewood is the perfect example of a school that has the top-line rating killed by the equity score. Test scores for Whites and Asians are 9/10, but are 1/10 for Hispanics because most of the Hispanics are English learners. So, an equity score of 1.

My kids are also at this school, and it’s actually a 7/10 for whites and 4/10
Asian.

The wealthy white families at Shrevewood are so insular that they have no idea what the demographics are of the non-white families. There's literally two non-white moms on the PTA and both of them are wealthy Americans (e.g. not immigrants and there are a ton of immigrant families at Shrevewood).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our elementary school is now a 4. We are in a “good” pyramid but the elementary school has been a pretty terrible experience. I feel like a 4 is generous

Marshall Pyramid?

NP, but I'm at a 4 in the Marshall pyramid (yes, Shrevewood, of course) and the school has been great for my kid. Shrevewood is the perfect example of a school that has the top-line rating killed by the equity score. Test scores for Whites and Asians are 9/10, but are 1/10 for Hispanics because most of the Hispanics are English learners. So, an equity score of 1.

My kids are also at this school, and it’s actually a 7/10 for whites and 4/10
Asian.

The wealthy white families at Shrevewood are so insular that they have no idea what the demographics are of the non-white families. There's literally two non-white moms on the PTA and both of them are wealthy Americans (e.g. not immigrants and there are a ton of immigrant families at Shrevewood).

Curious how you know they’re wealthy? There are plenty of white folks in the area that are not wealthy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our elementary school is now a 4. We are in a “good” pyramid but the elementary school has been a pretty terrible experience. I feel like a 4 is generous

Marshall Pyramid?

NP, but I'm at a 4 in the Marshall pyramid (yes, Shrevewood, of course) and the school has been great for my kid. Shrevewood is the perfect example of a school that has the top-line rating killed by the equity score. Test scores for Whites and Asians are 9/10, but are 1/10 for Hispanics because most of the Hispanics are English learners. So, an equity score of 1.

My kids are also at this school, and it’s actually a 7/10 for whites and 4/10
Asian.

The wealthy white families at Shrevewood are so insular that they have no idea what the demographics are of the non-white families. There's literally two non-white moms on the PTA and both of them are wealthy Americans (e.g. not immigrants and there are a ton of immigrant families at Shrevewood).

It’s fantastic that you have people volunteering for the thankless job of being on the PTA. What does it matter if they’re nonwhite immigrants, not immigrants, etc.?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our elementary school is now a 4. We are in a “good” pyramid but the elementary school has been a pretty terrible experience. I feel like a 4 is generous

Marshall Pyramid?

NP, but I'm at a 4 in the Marshall pyramid (yes, Shrevewood, of course) and the school has been great for my kid. Shrevewood is the perfect example of a school that has the top-line rating killed by the equity score. Test scores for Whites and Asians are 9/10, but are 1/10 for Hispanics because most of the Hispanics are English learners. So, an equity score of 1.

My kids are also at this school, and it’s actually a 7/10 for whites and 4/10
Asian.

The wealthy white families at Shrevewood are so insular that they have no idea what the demographics are of the non-white families. There's literally two non-white moms on the PTA and both of them are wealthy Americans (e.g. not immigrants and there are a ton of immigrant families at Shrevewood).

Curious how you know they’re wealthy? There are plenty of white folks in the area that are not wealthy.

Because I'm one of them. They are my children's friends' parents.

[Anonymous]

I am not sure why anyone would use rating systems like this. Just look at the data yourself. You can download it from the VA DOE and split it by various demographic categories.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am not sure why anyone would use rating systems like this. Just look at the data yourself. You can download it from the VA DOE and split it by various demographic categories.

Are you really not sure? Did you ever go house hunting? Do you know anyone who has ever been house hunting

[Anonymous]

I would be very skeptical to buy a home with school ratings less than 6.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our elementary school is now a 4. We are in a “good” pyramid but the elementary school has been a pretty terrible experience. I feel like a 4 is generous

Marshall Pyramid?

NP, but I'm at a 4 in the Marshall pyramid (yes, Shrevewood, of course) and the school has been great for my kid. Shrevewood is the perfect example of a school that has the top-line rating killed by the equity score. Test scores for Whites and Asians are 9/10, but are 1/10 for Hispanics because most of the Hispanics are English learners. So, an equity score of 1.

My kids are also at this school, and it’s actually a 7/10 for whites and 4/10
Asian.

The wealthy white families at Shrevewood are so insular that they have no idea what the demographics are of the non-white families. There's literally two non-white moms on the PTA and both of them are wealthy Americans (e.g. not immigrants and there are a ton of immigrant families at Shrevewood).

Curious how you know they’re wealthy? There are plenty of white folks in the area that are not wealthy.

Because I'm one of them. They are my children's friends' parents.

According to another thread, I thought many of those families left the school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would be very skeptical to buy a home with school ratings less than 6.

You contribute the problems.