schooldigger

[Anonymous]

Has anyone used schooldigger.com to evaluate and compare schools. We're moving to the area and trying to make heads or tails of the different web resources for picking elementary schools and getting rather confused. The general "reputation" of the Herndon/Reston area where we'll be moving is that all the elem. schools are great, but the test scores on fcps.edu vary wildly, as do the "stars" awarded on schooldigger. I've read other postings here about the socio-economic and esol effects on test scores so how reliable is any of this? If anyone has another more reliable web site to recommend (I've looked at Schoolranks.com as well and its just more test score info) I'm all ears.

[Anonymous]

you could try greatschools.org, too -- the ratings generally track what's on schooldigger.com, but there are parent/student comments that are sort of helpful, too. we're in a similar situation -- moved to NoVA recently and trying to figure out where to buy -- and i've been pouring over this stuff. schooldigger and greatschools both assign rankings based purely off of state standardized tests, so schools that have a larger percentage of lower income students or students who don't speak English as a first language score worse. [to be clear, not making any value judgments or political statements about any of this, but there seems to be a correlation.]

that said, it's possible that any individual student might do great at a school even if the overall test scores aren't the best. if your kid is smart and his/her schools have a great gifted program or lots of AP classes or an IB program, then it may not matter if a bunch of kids in the next classroom can't pass a standaridized test.

lots of schools have open houses, etc., but these are mostly in the spring and now over. go to the school websites and see if there are programs you're interested in, or set up a visit to the school if you can.