Reply to Greatschools 8 vs. Greatschools 10 for elementary school

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I don't put any stock whatsoever into what Great Schools says. It's not a reliable arbiter of school quality and I don't know anyone who thinks it is.[/quote]

Well... you do know that it's based strictly on the test scores of the students (as a group) compared to other schools in that state, right?  I don't know how that isn't a measure of something.  It typically correlates quite strongly with the SES and racial breakdown of the school.  Your whiter/asian schools tend to be higher.

There really isn't anything wrong with being in a "5" school -- it means it's right in the middle of the pack when compared to ALL schools (of that level --ES, MS, HS) in that state.  A lot of times, a "5" school has a mix of high performing kids and lower achieving kids and when added together --- it puts that school "in the middle."  That's just the way averaging works.  You used to be able to see on GS how each sub-group was performing -- i.e. White kids vs. black kids vs. kids with a disability vs economically disadvantaged.  Each subgroup was given a "rating" based on all kids in that state.  So, you could tell if a certain group was really low or high and then compare that to your own family situation.

It's not really a fair comparison to say school "A" is good (when it has almost no kids on free meals and little diversity -- like 80% white kids) and school "B" is "bad" when it has 20% of the kids on free meals and 40% white kids.  You aren't comparing the same sets of kids... that doesn't mean the teaching is bad at school B.  It means school B is working with different set of variables and that will affect the composite score. Compare the subgroups in school B with the subgroups in school A.... THEN make your decision.  [/quote]

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