calexander wrote:Great school ratings are nearly useless. People insert numbers that don't match the review, or worse, don't insert a number at all and GS does not clean it up.

oh i see you are in a bad schools, thanks for your input

I don't understand why some posters are saying to disregard things like test scores. Are low scores not indicative of the student performance and the level at which a teacher can teach?

It would be off the table for us.

Two of my kids are high performers, one highly gifted and one not gifted but very bright. The test scores that result in a great schools rating of 3 shows that the school does not have the rigor or a high enough peer group of strong students to be a good school for my kids.

My other kid is more about socializing than academics. If classmates are focused on achieving, he follows along because it is the social norm. If the classmates are not focused on achieving, he would likely trend in that direction too. Again, not a good fit for the learning style, strengtys and weaknesses of the kid.

Our bottom threshold is a great schools rating of 8.

I was at a volunteer training for my child's GS4 school last night and was inspired by the warm welcome we got from the principal and by the number of parents/community members who turned out wanting to volunteer. The school has already done two trainings and is scheduling a third to accommodate families with complicated schedules.

There's lots to a school beyond the ranking, and I would second the advice to talk to parents and the principal if you are considering a school. I know our school's principal is very open to parents coming in and looking around.

Do not allow a website such as great schools rating dictate your schools decision making.

Meet the principal. Speak with some of the teachers. Visit an in-session class. And the best: speak with parents of the students before or after school.

We are at a GS 2 school and love it. Test scores are low due to large recent immigrant/ESOL population and low-income population, but there are also kids from very involved middle class families that perform very well.

The school was also declared Title I, which will hopefully provide more resources to kids needing help. When you look at ratings and test scores you have to compare kids with similar demographics to your family to see how they perform.

Look behind the test scores of the particular school. My kids had a low GS rating based on the overall average test scores. We have a high population of non-English speakers. If you look at the subgroup breakdowns, the scores of the native English speakers are as high as or higher than those comparable students at better GS rated schools in the district.

Great school ratings are nearly useless. People insert numbers that don't match the review, or worse, don't insert a number at all and GS does not clean it up.

Anonymous wrote:absolutely not! Great schools is just a compilation of whomever happens to find the website and writes a review (very few people). A student at our school was expelled, and signed a non-disclosure agreement. He still posted on Great Schools.org a negative on our school but since it was clearly written by a child and matched another negative post on another site, the school got the only derogatory removed. Go visit yourself and run the name on this site through the archieves.

Um... this is not how Great Schools works. The numbered score is based on how well the students at the school perform on state tests. There is a section for parents, students, teachers, etc. to write a review and rate the school base don a 5-star system, but that does not factor into the number score GS gives the school.

http://www.greatschools.org/about/ratings.page

Anything 7 and above is acceptable

I was about to post this question. Our local ES is a 6 and I've been debating if we need to move. I really don't want to pay for private school anymore because it's really stretching our finances but I don't want to sacrifice our kid having the chance to get a quality education either.

Look beyond the ratings- many poorly rated schools have hired strong leadership and really push academics. Kids can really excel there if they have support at home (that others at the school don't have), and you can find out who the good teachers are and advocate to get them. It is more WORK, to get the experience you want, than it may be at a higher-rated school, but the results can pay off. A friend moved from our low-rated, high FARMS school to a much higher-rated school in the area, and says the kids at our school are reading and writing at a much higher level.

Our school pyramid is 10, 6, 6. From talking to all our neighbors, this seems to fine.

I cannot imagine a 3 for elementary. Sorry that would be a deal breaker for me.

Don't worry about GS rating so much. Mine is a 6 but I met with the principal a year before my child would have started K and also spoke with parents in the neighborhood. Turns out we have a large special Ed Center that neighboring special Ed kids are bused into and their scores are not separated out when it comes to testing. Plus all of the parents I spoke to had great things to say about the school so I felt perfectly comfortable enrolling my child.

Anonymous wrote:would be for me. i only consider 8 and above.

Ours was a 9 until it was suddenly a 7. Too late now.