Great Schools -- no longer useful

[Anonymous]

In the past (before the revamp), you could click directly on the big circle rating and you could get ratings for subgroups broken out by race, gender, economically disadvantage, english learners, etc., etc. So, even if the school as a whole was a 5, you might see that certain groups relevant to your own family were much higher or much lower. No longer available for VA. Other than anecdotal reviews, there is essentially no useful info. on the site.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In the past (before the revamp), you could click directly on the big circle rating and you could get ratings for subgroups broken out by race, gender, economically disadvantage, english learners, etc., etc. So, even if the school as a whole was a 5, you might see that certain groups relevant to your own family were much higher or much lower. No longer available for VA. Other than anecdotal reviews, there is essentially no useful info. on the site.

Probably better because the whole broken down by race thing didn't make sense. The score is the score. Glad to know that the DCUM bad chool boosters don't get to use that excuse anymore.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In the past (before the revamp), you could click directly on the big circle rating and you could get ratings for subgroups broken out by race, gender, economically disadvantage, english learners, etc., etc. So, even if the school as a whole was a 5, you might see that certain groups relevant to your own family were much higher or much lower. No longer available for VA. Other than anecdotal reviews, there is essentially no useful info. on the site.

Probably better because the whole broken down by race thing didn't make sense. The score is the score. Glad to know that the DCUM bad chool boosters don't get to use that excuse anymore.

Agreed. Any school ranked lower than a 9 is simply a bad school. Enough said.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In the past (before the revamp), you could click directly on the big circle rating and you could get ratings for subgroups broken out by race, gender, economically disadvantage, english learners, etc., etc. So, even if the school as a whole was a 5, you might see that certain groups relevant to your own family were much higher or much lower. No longer available for VA. Other than anecdotal reviews, there is essentially no useful info. on the site.

Probably better because the whole broken down by race thing didn't make sense. The score is the score. Glad to know that the DCUM bad chool boosters don't get to use that excuse anymore.

Agreed. Any school ranked lower than a 9 is simply a bad school. Enough said.

Yes. Because "9" and "bad" tell you everything you need to know about a school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In the past (before the revamp), you could click directly on the big circle rating and you could get ratings for subgroups broken out by race, gender, economically disadvantage, english learners, etc., etc. So, even if the school as a whole was a 5, you might see that certain groups relevant to your own family were much higher or much lower. No longer available for VA. Other than anecdotal reviews, there is essentially no useful info. on the site.

It was never useful. I laugh at people who thought it was a good tool for evaluating school quality. But some people seem to believe if they read something on the Internet, it must be true.

[Anonymous]

I found it very useful. Our hs is a 6, but that's just a reflection of the mixture of kids at this school. Kids like mine pass their tests at a higher rate than other kids at the school. That data helps me assess whether I want to send my kids there. If kids from non-disadvantaged backgrounds are doing well, then I'm ok with it even if the overall score is not as high. The schools with high overall scores usually don't have many disadvantaged kids in their data pool...so of course the overall score is going to be higher than schools that have a mix of kids. If our "6" hs didn't have the disadvantaged kids, it'd be an 8 too.

[Anonymous]

You can just get the actual pass rates from the state and see how it breaks down by the different groups you're talking about.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In the past (before the revamp), you could click directly on the big circle rating and you could get ratings for subgroups broken out by race, gender, economically disadvantage, english learners, etc., etc. So, even if the school as a whole was a 5, you might see that certain groups relevant to your own family were much higher or much lower. No longer available for VA. Other than anecdotal reviews, there is essentially no useful info. on the site.

Probably better because the whole broken down by race thing didn't make sense. The score is the score. Glad to know that the DCUM bad chool boosters don't get to use that excuse anymore.

Agreed. Any school ranked lower than a 9 is simply a bad school. Enough said.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I found it very useful. Our hs is a 6, but that's just a reflection of the mixture of kids at this school. Kids like mine pass their tests at a higher rate than other kids at the school. That data helps me assess whether I want to send my kids there. If kids from non-disadvantaged backgrounds are doing well, then I'm ok with it even if the overall score is not as high. The schools with high overall scores usually don't have many disadvantaged kids in their data pool...so of course the overall score is going to be higher than schools that have a mix of kids. If our "6" hs didn't have the disadvantaged kids, it'd be an 8 too.

The only people who care about the score are the those that are worried about education for their children. I doubt the FARM families look at the GS score.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I found it very useful. Our hs is a 6, but that's just a reflection of the mixture of kids at this school. Kids like mine pass their tests at a higher rate than other kids at the school. That data helps me assess whether I want to send my kids there. If kids from non-disadvantaged backgrounds are doing well, then I'm ok with it even if the overall score is not as high. The schools with high overall scores usually don't have many disadvantaged kids in their data pool...so of course the overall score is going to be higher than schools that have a mix of kids. If our "6" hs didn't have the disadvantaged kids, it'd be an 8 too.

The only people who care about the score are the those that are worried about education for their children, but not too worried, so they just want to look for one data point on the internet and then sit around being smug.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I found it very useful. Our hs is a 6, but that's just a reflection of the mixture of kids at this school. Kids like mine pass their tests at a higher rate than other kids at the school. That data helps me assess whether I want to send my kids there. If kids from non-disadvantaged backgrounds are doing well, then I'm ok with it even if the overall score is not as high. The schools with high overall scores usually don't have many disadvantaged kids in their data pool...so of course the overall score is going to be higher than schools that have a mix of kids. If our "6" hs didn't have the disadvantaged kids, it'd be an 8 too.

The only people who care about the score are the those that are worried about education for their children, but not too worried, so they just want to look for one data point on the internet and then sit around being smug.

No, we just don't want to pay an inflated price for housing just so our kids are in a lily white school (or school where 10 percent asians counts as the "diversity"). We don't like to follow the crowds for a crappy house and an unnecessarily high mortgage.

[Anonymous]

Schooldigger.com gives you the ethnic breakdown of any school, as well as the FARMS rate. These are all useful in determining schools likely to be "good" and not so much, regardless of the the DC-area PC police will tell you or admit to.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I found it very useful. Our hs is a 6, but that's just a reflection of the mixture of kids at this school. Kids like mine pass their tests at a higher rate than other kids at the school. That data helps me assess whether I want to send my kids there. If kids from non-disadvantaged backgrounds are doing well, then I'm ok with it even if the overall score is not as high. The schools with high overall scores usually don't have many disadvantaged kids in their data pool...so of course the overall score is going to be higher than schools that have a mix of kids. If our "6" hs didn't have the disadvantaged kids, it'd be an 8 too.

The only people who care about the score are the those that are worried about education for their children, but not too worried, so they just want to look for one data point on the internet and then sit around being smug.

No, we just don't want to pay an inflated price for housing just so our kids are in a lily white school (or school where 10 percent asians counts as the "diversity"). We don't like to follow the crowds for a crappy house and an unnecessarily high mortgage.

LOL, yeah right it's can't pay.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I found it very useful. Our hs is a 6, but that's just a reflection of the mixture of kids at this school. Kids like mine pass their tests at a higher rate than other kids at the school. That data helps me assess whether I want to send my kids there. If kids from non-disadvantaged backgrounds are doing well, then I'm ok with it even if the overall score is not as high. The schools with high overall scores usually don't have many disadvantaged kids in their data pool...so of course the overall score is going to be higher than schools that have a mix of kids. If our "6" hs didn't have the disadvantaged kids, it'd be an 8 too.

The only people who care about the score are the those that are worried about education for their children, but not too worried, so they just want to look for one data point on the internet and then sit around being smug.

No, we just don't want to pay an inflated price for housing just so our kids are in a lily white school (or school where 10 percent asians counts as the "diversity"). We don't like to follow the crowds for a crappy house and an unnecessarily high mortgage.

LOL, yeah right it's can't pay.

No, -- we just don't want smug neighbors like you -- talk about making the case for staying away from certain areas!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I found it very useful. Our hs is a 6, but that's just a reflection of the mixture of kids at this school. Kids like mine pass their tests at a higher rate than other kids at the school. That data helps me assess whether I want to send my kids there. If kids from non-disadvantaged backgrounds are doing well, then I'm ok with it even if the overall score is not as high. The schools with high overall scores usually don't have many disadvantaged kids in their data pool...so of course the overall score is going to be higher than schools that have a mix of kids. If our "6" hs didn't have the disadvantaged kids, it'd be an 8 too.

The only people who care about the score are the those that are worried about education for their children, but not too worried, so they just want to look for one data point on the internet and then sit around being smug.

No, we just don't want to pay an inflated price for housing just so our kids are in a lily white school (or school where 10 percent asians counts as the "diversity"). We don't like to follow the crowds for a crappy house and an unnecessarily high mortgage.

LOL, yeah right it's can't pay.

No, -- we just don't want smug neighbors like you -- talk about making the case for staying away from certain areas!

Right, completely believable