How to find school rankings?

[Anonymous]

We are renting in Arlington and have a toddler. We'll likely buy a house in the next couple years in one of the VA suburbs, and would like to consider school quality in deciding where to focus our housing search (although our housing budget is not unlimited so we will probably have to move farther outside DC). How do we learn more about individual public schools in different nearby cities, how they rank, etc.? I know Northern Virginia public schools are generally considered good, but how do I go about finding more information about specific schools, and how they compare to each other? I am a complete newbie and didn't grow up in this area. Any advice?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We are renting in Arlington and have a toddler. We'll likely buy a house in the next couple years in one of the VA suburbs, and would like to consider school quality in deciding where to focus our housing search (although our housing budget is not unlimited so we will probably have to move farther outside DC). How do we learn more about individual public schools in different nearby cities, how they rank, etc.? I know Northern Virginia public schools are generally considered good, but how do I go about finding more information about specific schools, and how they compare to each other? I am a complete newbie and didn't grow up in this area. Any advice?

My advice is you need to know your criteria. What do you want to rank by? Test scores? Graduation rates? FARM ratio?

Generally and dispassionately speaking the best schools are in the McLean part of Fairfax County and North Arlington. They decline in terms of the numbers and anecdotes as you get into South Arlington and Alexandria City. The Alexandria section of Fairfax County falls somewhere in the middle. But even in the "lesser" schools you'll find strident supporters of their neighborhood schools.

[Anonymous]

http://www.greatschools.org/

[Anonymous]

http://www.city-data.com/forum/northern-virginia/1474454-how-much-do-you-trust-greatschools.html

[Anonymous]

Test scores are easy to find for Fairfax, Arlington and Falls Church. I easily found demographics for Arlington and Fairfax. For me, the decision was about more than the schools - I took the list of school rankings and trimmed it down to places I actually wanted to live, i.e. places that would be a good commute to DC. Then I compared those schools to each other, looked at the various neighborhoods and made a decision. Also remember that the school districts around here are in general very good, so even a middling school in a great school district is probably a good choice if you like the neighborhood.