Great Schools -- no longer useful

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

You really think there is a significant difference between the curriculum and teachers at 6 school than there is at a 9 school? No, it's the students. The students and their familial backgrounds are what determine a school's test scores, not the school.

Keep telling yourself that all you want. I am glad I was able to afford a house in a more desirable neighborhood.

You, or your husband?

Hahahaha! Any success my husband has had is 50 percent attributable to me and vice versa. We're a team! Don't be envious - it's quite ugly and I doubt you need anything to make you look any more ugly than you already are.

[Anonymous]

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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

New poster here. Go shove your smug head up your ass. Not everyone who can afford a giant house in a lily white neighborhood wants to do that. Truly. Some people - myself and many of my neighbors - choose to live in a more diverse area. Not that housing is necessarily even cheaper than your bland suburb, but there are more options so you get some diversity. And WE LIKE IT. I know that must blow your mind.

Don't you have some Kumon Mom's Club meeting to attend?

Written like a parent without children in the schools yet. Diversity IS a nice idea, yes.

Sorry, 2 kids in a very diverse elementary school. Diverse and yet it's still one of the best public schools around.

Define "very diverse." Be sure to use definitions beyond skin color.

Children from many different countries, many languages, many different skin colors. Families live in a mix of housing - apts/condos/THs. Also, a mix of professions.

55% white
12% AA
20% asian
7% hispanic
7% mixed

19% FARM

Great Schools = 10

So, a majority white school, got it. Nearly 80% white and Asian. Got it. Wunderbar.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

You really think there is a significant difference between the curriculum and teachers at 6 school than there is at a 9 school? No, it's the students. The students and their familial backgrounds are what determine a school's test scores, not the school.

bingo.
proven a million times.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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

New poster here. Go shove your smug head up your ass. Not everyone who can afford a giant house in a lily white neighborhood wants to do that. Truly. Some people - myself and many of my neighbors - choose to live in a more diverse area. Not that housing is necessarily even cheaper than your bland suburb, but there are more options so you get some diversity. And WE LIKE IT. I know that must blow your mind.

Don't you have some Kumon Mom's Club meeting to attend?

Written like a parent without children in the schools yet. Diversity IS a nice idea, yes.

Sorry, 2 kids in a very diverse elementary school. Diverse and yet it's still one of the best public schools around.

Define "very diverse." Be sure to use definitions beyond skin color.

Children from many different countries, many languages, many different skin colors. Families live in a mix of housing - apts/condos/THs. Also, a mix of professions.

55% white
12% AA
20% asian
7% hispanic
7% mixed

19% FARM

Great Schools = 10

LOL at you think this is "diverse." Miniscule at-risk population there. 2% black and 7% Hispanic? Not a lot of Spanish in the halls, I'm guessing.

But, golf clap. I could see this meeting the "optimal" version of "diverse" to a high-income white family.

[Anonymous]

Can someone hit the reset button and explain the point of this thread? It just seems to be another thread where someone gets incredibly angry that someone else lives in a more expensive area with higher ranked schools. If that's not important to you, then arguing about school rankings ought to be pretty low on your list of priorities, no?

[Anonymous]

'Tis the season. And no season would be complete without a fight amongst the dc urbanmoms on greatschools ratings, race, and FARMs. I don't even know why I bother coming to this forum except for a good laugh.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Can someone hit the reset button and explain the point of this thread? It just seems to be another thread where someone gets incredibly angry that someone else lives in a more expensive area with higher ranked schools. If that's not important to you, then arguing about school rankings ought to be pretty low on your list of priorities, no?

Actually, it was a thread about less info. being available and then it turned ugly b/c someone felt smug about living in a district with a high score and insulted those who live in districts with medium scores. That's where this thread went into negativity. It wasn't from those who live in med/lower rent districts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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

New poster here. Go shove your smug head up your ass. Not everyone who can afford a giant house in a lily white neighborhood wants to do that. Truly. Some people - myself and many of my neighbors - choose to live in a more diverse area. Not that housing is necessarily even cheaper than your bland suburb, but there are more options so you get some diversity. And WE LIKE IT. I know that must blow your mind.

Don't you have some Kumon Mom's Club meeting to attend?

Written like a parent without children in the schools yet. Diversity IS a nice idea, yes.

Sorry, 2 kids in a very diverse elementary school. Diverse and yet it's still one of the best public schools around.

Define "very diverse." Be sure to use definitions beyond skin color.

Children from many different countries, many languages, many different skin colors. Families live in a mix of housing - apts/condos/THs. Also, a mix of professions.

55% white
12% AA
20% asian
7% hispanic
7% mixed

19% FARM

Great Schools = 10

LOL at you think this is "diverse." Miniscule at-risk population there. 2% black and 7% Hispanic? Not a lot of Spanish in the halls, I'm guessing.

But, golf clap. I could see this meeting the "optimal" version of "diverse" to a high-income white family.

So how would you define diverse? So if no single race were greater than 30% is that ideal? Do you know any schools actually like that around here? Compared to other options in our area it is relatively diverse. Last year, Nottingham had three AA kids in the whole school. Three kids, not even 3%.

Anyway, we like that there is a good mix of kids from all over the world with different experiences to share. We could live just about anywhere we want and chose this for our family.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can someone hit the reset button and explain the point of this thread? It just seems to be another thread where someone gets incredibly angry that someone else lives in a more expensive area with higher ranked schools. If that's not important to you, then arguing about school rankings ought to be pretty low on your list of priorities, no?

Actually, it was a thread about less info. being available and then it turned ugly b/c someone felt smug about living in a district with a high score and insulted those who live in districts with medium scores. That's where this thread went into negativity. It wasn't from those who live in med/lower rent districts.

yes - some troll is trying to stir up trouble

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can someone hit the reset button and explain the point of this thread? It just seems to be another thread where someone gets incredibly angry that someone else lives in a more expensive area with higher ranked schools. If that's not important to you, then arguing about school rankings ought to be pretty low on your list of priorities, no?

Actually, it was a thread about less info. being available and then it turned ugly b/c someone felt smug about living in a district with a high score and insulted those who live in districts with medium scores. That's where this thread went into negativity. It wasn't from those who live in med/lower rent districts.

yes - some troll is trying to stir up trouble

Confession is good for your soul?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can someone hit the reset button and explain the point of this thread? It just seems to be another thread where someone gets incredibly angry that someone else lives in a more expensive area with higher ranked schools. If that's not important to you, then arguing about school rankings ought to be pretty low on your list of priorities, no?

Actually, it was a thread about less info. being available and then it turned ugly b/c someone felt smug about living in a district with a high score and insulted those who live in districts with medium scores. That's where this thread went into negativity. It wasn't from those who live in med/lower rent districts.

Yup. Someone was complaining about great schools, because they limited info. Info which is important GIVEN that some schools are good at raising test scores, while others have high test scores because of their demographics.

[Anonymous]

I wonder if it's just temporary for GS to have curtailed the information they provide while they revamp the graphics or whether they made a policy decision that the overall number is really what's more important. There definitely has been a lot of "we don't care if the school is a 3 because my own group is an 8" over the years, and I doubt that's the dialogue those putting money into GS wanted to encourage.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can someone hit the reset button and explain the point of this thread? It just seems to be another thread where someone gets incredibly angry that someone else lives in a more expensive area with higher ranked schools. If that's not important to you, then arguing about school rankings ought to be pretty low on your list of priorities, no?

Actually, it was a thread about less info. being available and then it turned ugly b/c someone felt smug about living in a district with a high score and insulted those who live in districts with medium scores. That's where this thread went into negativity. It wasn't from those who live in med/lower rent districts.

Yup. Someone was complaining about great schools, because they limited info. Info which is important GIVEN that some schools are good at raising test scores, while others have high test scores because of their demographics.

Why is there a difference? The score is a the score.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I am not sure there are any expensive lilly white 99.999% white neighborhoods, maybe you are thinking about southern Virginia where there is less diversity? Every neighborhood in the DC area with a high great school rating tend to be at least 20-40% minority. Thanks for the uneducated stereotype.

In NoVa the idea is to live in a place that is 70% white, 30% asian, and 100% high SES, and to point to the asian percentage to show you are not a bigot, while hating and fearing blacks, most hispanics, and poor people of any color.

Don't be stupid, even the whitest school langley and madison still have 10-15% Hispanic or black. No school is 30% Asian.

WRONG!

Wootton HS - 34.7% Asian

http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/regulatoryaccountability/glance/currentyear/schools/04234.pdf

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I wonder if it's just temporary for GS to have curtailed the information they provide while they revamp the graphics or whether they made a policy decision that the overall number is really what's more important. There definitely has been a lot of "we don't care if the school is a 3 because my own group is an 8" over the years, and I doubt that's the dialogue those putting money into GS wanted to encourage.

No, GS says they can't provide the subcategory ratings b/c VA is not providing the data in a format like they used to provide it. It's not an intentional decision by Great Schools.