I use Greatschools to eye ball things, US News, and even just looking at Wikipedia to see what percent of households in a town have kids under 18.
I consider the whole pyramid too.

There are some anomalies that great schools doesn’t factor in, at least where I live. For example, I have a kid at the AAP center which is a 9 on great schools and a kid at our base school which is 5 on great schools. I really don’t think one school is better than the other - I think it’s 6 of one, 1/2 dozen of the other. They each have pros and cons.

It’s probably not “fair” that my son’s two 3rd grade advanced pass SOLs were attributed to the Center - even though I thought he got a great 3rd grade education - I’m sure his K-2 education at the base helped somewhat with that score and the base gets no credit. I think the test scores at AAP center schools can be inflated due to the fact there was a test based entrance process to attend!

Furthermore our base is an intellectual disability “center” which I think is extremely important for the community yet the school gets no “credit” for that under great schools, and may even get a “penalty” for it, but I don’t know enough about the scoring to know for sure.

Anonymous wrote:Use Greatschools. Everyone does.

No, everyone does not, and OP is clearly smart enough to know that.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:US News for high schools will get you in the ball park though it has some weaknesses.

If you're deciding between states/counties, you definitely don't want to use GS because they are readjusted by location, based on different tests etc.

Better to decide based on other factors: jobs, quality of life, community, costs. THEN once you've narrowed, look at high schools. Then narrow down and look at school profiles below high school. In all these assume that there's no perfect measure and that the differences are not all that meaningful (e.g., ANY ranked high school on US News is a pretty good high school--doesn't matter if it's 20--600--it's a national sample -- and little quirks like offering AP vs IB, or wider variety of SES can impact scores in big ways. Your main aim is to avoid problems. Then once you've found some good places to live that don't have a school with major obvious problems, you can drill down and become more nuanced.

Not even close... Their list is kind of a joke.

All rankings are flawed in some way. When you look at different rankings, you start to understand where the measurement biases are.

Anonymous wrote:US News for high schools will get you in the ball park though it has some weaknesses.

If you're deciding between states/counties, you definitely don't want to use GS because they are readjusted by location, based on different tests etc.

Better to decide based on other factors: jobs, quality of life, community, costs. THEN once you've narrowed, look at high schools. Then narrow down and look at school profiles below high school. In all these assume that there's no perfect measure and that the differences are not all that meaningful (e.g., ANY ranked high school on US News is a pretty good high school--doesn't matter if it's 20--600--it's a national sample -- and little quirks like offering AP vs IB, or wider variety of SES can impact scores in big ways. Your main aim is to avoid problems. Then once you've found some good places to live that don't have a school with major obvious problems, you can drill down and become more nuanced.

Not even close... Their list is kind of a joke.

Anonymous wrote:Use Greatschools. Everyone does.

This is not true. Especially since the wonkiness of great schools started working against the schools that anyone with any knowledge of the communities--including real estate agents-- knew were far better schools than higher rated schools. One month a school is a 8, they change their formula and it's now a 4. But still anyone who knows the area, knows it's the good school in the region. Once that happened, I think everyone finally pushed away from trusting GreatSchools. We bought a house in 2009 and while there were some murmurs against GS then it was still sort of accepted practice for folks if they didn't have more inside knowledge and people would say 'don't blindly trust it, but it's useful.' When we were looking in 2018--everyone told us to just ignore it and that it was worse than useless--it steered you wrong.

Use Greatschools. Everyone does.

State department of education statistics on enrollment and achivement. schooldigger.com

US News for high schools will get you in the ball park though it has some weaknesses.

If you're deciding between states/counties, you definitely don't want to use GS because they are readjusted by location, based on different tests etc.

Better to decide based on other factors: jobs, quality of life, community, costs. THEN once you've narrowed, look at high schools. Then narrow down and look at school profiles below high school. In all these assume that there's no perfect measure and that the differences are not all that meaningful (e.g., ANY ranked high school on US News is a pretty good high school--doesn't matter if it's 20--600--it's a national sample -- and little quirks like offering AP vs IB, or wider variety of SES can impact scores in big ways. Your main aim is to avoid problems. Then once you've found some good places to live that don't have a school with major obvious problems, you can drill down and become more nuanced.

Niche, US News for high schools, Polaris for college admissions to elite schools.

Anonymous wrote:I would focus on Great Schools test scores and not the comparison or equity ranking.

I'd look at test scores factoring for FARMs up to a point Niche does an okay job. Once you narrow down the list there's no substitute for visiting in person.

Plenty of schools have good test scores and low Greatschools Ratings. That's what people are upset about.

Anonymous wrote:Combination of looking up published test scores and checking out the school’s online presence, visiting the school in person if possible. Talking to people who have had kids there if possible.

Sorry, I didn’t fully answer your question. Step one for me would be checking out test scores and eliminating schools that have significant problems there. Then on to the other steps after narrowing down the list.

I would focus on Great Schools test scores and not the comparison or equity ranking.

Combination of looking up published test scores and checking out the school’s online presence, visiting the school in person if possible. Talking to people who have had kids there if possible.

We have a young child and are looking into what area we'd like to buy a home. Public schools are important to our family and we will not send our kids to private. I see a lot of criticiscm of Greatschool ratings, but I'm not sure how else to rule out certain geographic locations without doing a deep dive on every school pyramid in the area. We haven't narrowed down what state we want to be in. What do folks use if not greatschools?