GreatSchools makes segregation easy!

[Anonymous]

Now it used to be that if you asked around to find out which schools were the whitest, you would get some nasty accusations of racism. Not anymore! Check out GreatSchools, where ratings are nearly 100% correlated with race. The higher the number, the more white kids. The lower the number, the more black and Hispanic kids. It's that easy! And you can still tell your friends "We don't care what color the kids are. We just want the best schools." Everybody wins!


(Yes, of course I'm sarcastic. Not everybody wins. In fact, nearly all neighborhoods lose with such a targeted tool for white-flight. In the meantime, nobody learns anything about each school's principal, class size, facilities, discipline policy, philosophy, class offerings, etc. Just test scores. They're all that matters now. Am I bitter? You bet. People will say I'm just mad my school's rating dropped. Yes I am. This goddamn GreatSchools formula turns the fantastic kids at my local school into a liability -- little anchors weighing down property values. This is wrong.)

[Anonymous]

I agree with you, OP.

[Anonymous]

I agree also.

[Anonymous]

You're not wrong.

But I'm not sure there's really much to find out about "philosophy, discipline policy..."

And I'm NOT someone who was ever obsessed with Great Schools 10. As it turned out, I think we go from a 10 Elementary to a 5 MS to maybe a 6 or 7 HS. We're in the exurbs, in a county many people here would totally snicker at.

[Anonymous]

Great Schools has been tweaking their formulas to somehow accurately rate schools. They got a lot of criticism for just reflecting test scores. But they are not there yet. I don't even know the GS ranking of my son's school. I'm sure it's under 5. Who cares? The school in the town we left was a 4, and it was a fantastic school.

People just looking for a good school and not even bothering with the ethnic makeup might see the final ranking score and be segregating themselves without even realizing it. Unfortunately, far too many people look at these rankings and think they then know what the good schools are. I've seen too many lists in magazines of the "best" schools that are just lists of test scores. Test scores don't make a school good. In fact, if a school has hight test scores, it might be an indicator that it is mostly upper middle class white people and therefore the school might actually be bad at providing a diverse experience, or providing a proper education to people from different backgrounds than an upper middle class white majority.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Great Schools has been tweaking their formulas to somehow accurately rate schools. They got a lot of criticism for just reflecting test scores. But they are not there yet. I don't even know the GS ranking of my son's school. I'm sure it's under 5. Who cares? The school in the town we left was a 4, and it was a fantastic school.

People just looking for a good school and not even bothering with the ethnic makeup might see the final ranking score and be segregating themselves without even realizing it. Unfortunately, far too many people look at these rankings and think they then know what the good schools are. I've seen too many lists in magazines of the "best" schools that are just lists of test scores. Test scores don't make a school good. In fact, if a school has hight test scores, it might be an indicator that it is mostly upper middle class white people and therefore the school might actually be bad at providing a diverse experience, or providing a proper education to people from different backgrounds than an upper middle class white majority.

Interestingly, DCUM college discussions are frequently based on ratings---Harvard and similar vs state schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Test scores don't make a school good. In fact, if a school has hight test scores, it might be an indicator that it is mostly upper middle class white people and therefore the school might actually be bad at providing a diverse experience, or providing a proper education to people from different backgrounds than an upper middle class white majority.

Or it could be a school where most of the students show up "proficient", and aren't really given any further challenge while they're at school. I know many people who feel that way about Potomac Elementary, for example.

[Anonymous]

I couldn’t have said it better OP!

[Anonymous]

You're implying non whites and non Asians are dumber

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You're implying non whites and non Asians are dumber

The achievement gap is real, and talking about it isn't racist. https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/new-montgomery-superintendent-says-achievement-gap-is-top-priority/2016/07/21/ee9ab2ae-4d3a-11e6-a7d8-13d06b37f256_story.html?utm_term=.c2498f565229 But I have not and would never refer to any group collectively as dumb. Yes, that would be racist.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You're implying non whites and non Asians are dumber

I'll say that, as a group, Asians typically earn extremely high grades and standardized test scores.

[Anonymous]

That info is valuable to some people and that is why GS is popular.

[Anonymous]

Also, diversity never includes AAP/GT students directly. I'd like to see a demographic breakdown of these students.

[Anonymous]

My issue with the new methodology is that it doesn’t penalize low scores, it penalizes any achievement gap, even if it’s small. So a diverse school with whites scoring a 10 and minorities scoring a 7 will be penalized based on equity. But a nearly all white school scoring a 9 or an all-minority school scoring a 6 won’t have their equity scores affected.

[Anonymous]

Do people really check the school rating before they buy a house? Commute and safety are the main concerns. Student performance is correlated with parents' involvement. Smart and hardworking kids will do well regardless attending a school in Bethesda or Takoma Park.