If Greatschools isnt so great, what do you use?

[Anonymous]

House hunting right now and I am aware that the greatschools ratings are not worth much, but what are some other websites or resources to check? Im swimming/drowning in too much information (but also not enough?).

[Anonymous]

I don't think there's anywhere you can get a single score that will tell you what you need to know about various schools. There is good information in the greatschools site, but you need to read all of the data they provide on the schools and figure out how it relates to your personal situation. A school might have a mediocre score overall, but does great in some areas that are relevant to you and does poorly in other categories that aren't relevant to you. Or you might have a school that has a great overall score, but that's in part because there simply aren't enough students there who fit your child's profile (e.g., racial minority, low-income or student with a disability) for them even to report how those students do and whether there's a meaningfully difference between their performance and that of the rest of the student body (in which case their great score might be meaningless to you).

[Anonymous]

I would use schooldigger for test score information, and check out the reviews from parents on greatschools for more holistic information. I think the new changes on Greatschools make their current scoring irrelevant. Schooldigger is an objective test score measure.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:House hunting right now and I am aware that the greatschools ratings are not worth much, but what are some other websites or resources to check? Im swimming/drowning in too much information (but also not enough?).

School Digger, US News, Washington Post Challenge Index for top HS pyramids. Also look at SAT scores and department of education awards for MD and VA.

Great Schools has jumped the shark and Niche is worthless.

[Anonymous]

Ideally speaking with people but I know that's hard.

[Anonymous]

I would talk to people and check out the playgrounds after school and on weekends - ask around.. In my experience, schools with parental involvement tend to be ones where the principal is well liked, kids are happiest and where communities are strongest. Often these schools may not even have the highest test scores - but if you get involved, advocate for your child and support the principal and teachers as best you can your child will very likely have a good experience.

[Anonymous]

In DC, learndc.org.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would use schooldigger for test score information, and check out the reviews from parents on greatschools for more holistic information. I think the new changes on Greatschools make their current scoring irrelevant. Schooldigger is an objective test score measure.

Great schoolsnwas a great resource when it was objectively based off test scores.

You can still check the scores for your kids demographics to see how they score relative to the state and other students but you need to look beyond the ratings on the new system.

You can also go school by school on fcps website to get testing information, school size and demographics.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:House hunting right now and I am aware that the greatschools ratings are not worth much, but what are some other websites or resources to check? Im swimming/drowning in too much information (but also not enough?).

School Digger, US News, Washington Post Challenge Index for top HS pyramids. Also look at SAT scores and department of education awards for MD and VA.

Great Schools has jumped the shark and Niche is worthless.

Completely agree. I generally consider myself a left-of-center liberal leading moderate, but the machinations they've gone through with their recent changes boggles my mind. How they drop a school like Woodson where average scores put it in the top 10% of the state's high schools down to a 6/10 is beyond me and offends me as a math major, lol.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would use schooldigger for test score information, and check out the reviews from parents on greatschools for more holistic information. I think the new changes on Greatschools make their current scoring irrelevant. Schooldigger is an objective test score measure.

Great schoolsnwas a great resource when it was objectively based off test scores.

You can still check the scores for your kids demographics to see how they score relative to the state and other students but you need to look beyond the ratings on the new system.

You can also go school by school on fcps website to get testing information, school size and demographics.

Agreed. I'm sorry to say this, but my local schools are divided pretty equally between impoverished new immigrants and white middle class families. The white kids score on average 9/10 on testing and the Hispanic kids score on average 3/10. Do I wish it were otherwise? Of course. But for my white middle class kid, does it mean it's a bad school? No.

[Anonymous]

Great schools isn’t going anywhere and you better pay attention to it. It doesn’t matter about the school, but it does matter about your home value. Don’t purchase under an 8 if you can help it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Great schools isn’t going anywhere and you better pay attention to it. It doesn’t matter about the school, but it does matter about your home value. Don’t purchase under an 8 if you can help it.

Nah, people are learning that it’s worthless.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Great schools isn’t going anywhere and you better pay attention to it. It doesn’t matter about the school, but it does matter about your home value. Don’t purchase under an 8 if you can help it.

I think that advice applied before their recent changes. I'll be curious to see if they get pushback from realtors during this upcoming selling season.

[Anonymous]

Whoever bought in 8 or helped get to 8, will work really hard to get there or paid a lot. They have an incentive to keep it 8 and up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Whoever bought in 8 or helped get to 8, will work really hard to get there or paid a lot. They have an incentive to keep it 8 and up.

Digging in on the Greatschools thing, huh? People use other measures to judge the schools. I have absolutely no idea what the rating is for our neighborhood schools, nor did I when I bought my house this summer. But I still know that the schools are excellent. I don’t care what Greatschools has to say about them.