Anonymous
Post 08/25/2023 20:33     Subject: Great Schools new “grades”
No one with half a brain actually thinks Great Schools is rewarding schools with the special sauce for turning disadvantaged kids into cutting-edge young scholars. It’s just an algorithm, and not a particularly good one.
Anonymous
Post 08/25/2023 20:28     Subject: Great Schools new “grades”
https://www.greatschools.org/virginia/falls-church/594-Woodburn-Elementary-School/#Low-income_students*Test_scores*Overview

Woodburn ES

White: 10/10
Hispanic: 1/10

GS Rating 2
Anonymous
Post 08/25/2023 20:23     Subject: Great Schools new “grades”
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Our elementary school is now a 4. We are in a “good” pyramid but the elementary school has been a pretty terrible experience. I feel like a 4 is generous


Marshall Pyramid?


NP, but I'm at a 4 in the Marshall pyramid (yes, Shrevewood, of course) and the school has been great for my kid. Shrevewood is the perfect example of a school that has the top-line rating killed by the equity score. Test scores for Whites and Asians are 9/10, but are 1/10 for Hispanics because most of the Hispanics are English learners. So, an equity score of 1.


My kids are also at this school, and it’s actually a 7/10 for whites and 4/10
Asian.


I think you might be looking at Academic Progress.

https://www.greatschools.org/virginia/falls-church/567-Shrevewood-Elementary-School/#Race_ethnicity*Test_scores*Overview

Shrevewood Test Scores Overview

White: 9/10
Asian: 9/10
Hispanic: 1/10
Anonymous
Post 08/25/2023 19:46     Subject: Re:Great Schools new “grades”
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:The current GS ratings philosophy seems to be that white and Asian American students will do well in most public school systems. They are rating how well the public school serves their FARMS and URM communities in judging how successful schools are. So, schools where the discrepancy between white/Asian students and black/Hispanic students is lower scores higher. The ones where there is a bigger gap and/or the black and Hispanic students do not make any progress in rising to the level of the white and Asian students score lower.

If you only care about the test scores of the white and Asians, you can easily find that on the GS site. But GS is no longer interested in rating schools high when they are only doing a good job with the white and Asian students, but not working to improve the learning and performance of the black, Hispanic and FARMS students.


That seems pretty racist


The score cares about every group doing well and there not being disparities in growth among any sub-group. Same principle that guided Bush's initial "No Child Left Behind" ed policy that started all this standardized testing focus.

An issue that's a little tricky, is that they are shifting focus to "growth" which sounds good--but schools with lower scoring kids have more opportunities for growth. If a large percentage of kids at a school are already at Pass Advanced on tests, there's not going to be much growth even if they are sustaining that level for kids (which is what most people would think of as a "good school").
Anonymous
Post 08/25/2023 19:01     Subject: Re:Great Schools new “grades”
Anonymous wrote:The current GS ratings philosophy seems to be that white and Asian American students will do well in most public school systems. They are rating how well the public school serves their FARMS and URM communities in judging how successful schools are. So, schools where the discrepancy between white/Asian students and black/Hispanic students is lower scores higher. The ones where there is a bigger gap and/or the black and Hispanic students do not make any progress in rising to the level of the white and Asian students score lower.

If you only care about the test scores of the white and Asians, you can easily find that on the GS site. But GS is no longer interested in rating schools high when they are only doing a good job with the white and Asian students, but not working to improve the learning and performance of the black, Hispanic and FARMS students.


It sounds good in theory but as applied the schools with high ratings either have very few low-income Black and Hispanic kids or are relatively homogeneous in terms of family economics. So if it’s intended to reward schools for meeting the needs of poorer students or communities, it’s turned into a crude and rather ineffective means of doing so.
Anonymous
Post 08/25/2023 18:30     Subject: Great Schools new “grades”
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Now that my kids are in HS- I wish I had believed the GS ratings for our elementary school. We spent 9 years in a terrible school and were filled by the “great school ratings don’t mean anything.” It was a shock to attend a well rated school and see the difference. Adults in the building really do matter!


This is code for a high SES school btw. Wealthy white kids do fine in GS 4 schools and you know it.


DP. The thing is, that isn't true.
Anonymous
Post 08/25/2023 18:29     Subject: Re:Great Schools new “grades”
Anonymous wrote:The current GS ratings philosophy seems to be that white and Asian American students will do well in most public school systems. They are rating how well the public school serves their FARMS and URM communities in judging how successful schools are. So, schools where the discrepancy between white/Asian students and black/Hispanic students is lower scores higher. The ones where there is a bigger gap and/or the black and Hispanic students do not make any progress in rising to the level of the white and Asian students score lower.

If you only care about the test scores of the white and Asians, you can easily find that on the GS site. But GS is no longer interested in rating schools high when they are only doing a good job with the white and Asian students, but not working to improve the learning and performance of the black, Hispanic and FARMS students.


Take for example center schools. They may serve many URMs who are academically strong (got into AAP). That school will get a relatively high equity score but there's no reason to think it's the school.

And if URM students are making limited progress from one year to the next it could be related to parental involvement, not the school. URMs and low income students are not a homogeneous group and it's ignorant to assume their improvements are always due to the school whereas for Whites/Asians the school doesn't matter.
Anonymous
Post 08/25/2023 18:20     Subject: Re:Great Schools new “grades”
Anonymous wrote:The current GS ratings philosophy seems to be that white and Asian American students will do well in most public school systems. They are rating how well the public school serves their FARMS and URM communities in judging how successful schools are. So, schools where the discrepancy between white/Asian students and black/Hispanic students is lower scores higher. The ones where there is a bigger gap and/or the black and Hispanic students do not make any progress in rising to the level of the white and Asian students score lower.

If you only care about the test scores of the white and Asians, you can easily find that on the GS site. But GS is no longer interested in rating schools high when they are only doing a good job with the white and Asian students, but not working to improve the learning and performance of the black, Hispanic and FARMS students.


How does any one know if it's the school doing a "good job" with the students or the students themselves that are selecting in or out of particular schools?

Everyone can keep telling themselves it's about how good the school is doing, while patting themselves on the back for caring about diversity.

Also you cannot get all the relevant info about scores on the GS site. All you see is the percent passing in three subjects. There's much more to know than that that is not reported.
Anonymous
Post 08/25/2023 17:37     Subject: Re:Great Schools new “grades”
Anonymous wrote:The current GS ratings philosophy seems to be that white and Asian American students will do well in most public school systems. They are rating how well the public school serves their FARMS and URM communities in judging how successful schools are. So, schools where the discrepancy between white/Asian students and black/Hispanic students is lower scores higher. The ones where there is a bigger gap and/or the black and Hispanic students do not make any progress in rising to the level of the white and Asian students score lower.

If you only care about the test scores of the white and Asians, you can easily find that on the GS site. But GS is no longer interested in rating schools high when they are only doing a good job with the white and Asian students, but not working to improve the learning and performance of the black, Hispanic and FARMS students.


That seems pretty racist
Anonymous
Post 08/25/2023 17:29     Subject: Re:Great Schools new “grades”
The current GS ratings philosophy seems to be that white and Asian American students will do well in most public school systems. They are rating how well the public school serves their FARMS and URM communities in judging how successful schools are. So, schools where the discrepancy between white/Asian students and black/Hispanic students is lower scores higher. The ones where there is a bigger gap and/or the black and Hispanic students do not make any progress in rising to the level of the white and Asian students score lower.

If you only care about the test scores of the white and Asians, you can easily find that on the GS site. But GS is no longer interested in rating schools high when they are only doing a good job with the white and Asian students, but not working to improve the learning and performance of the black, Hispanic and FARMS students.
Anonymous
Post 08/25/2023 17:19     Subject: Great Schools new “grades”
Anonymous wrote:Now that my kids are in HS- I wish I had believed the GS ratings for our elementary school. We spent 9 years in a terrible school and were filled by the “great school ratings don’t mean anything.” It was a shock to attend a well rated school and see the difference. Adults in the building really do matter!


This is code for a high SES school btw. Wealthy white kids do fine in GS 4 schools and you know it.
Anonymous
Post 08/25/2023 17:00     Subject: Great Schools new “grades”
Anonymous wrote:Now that my kids are in HS- I wish I had believed the GS ratings for our elementary school. We spent 9 years in a terrible school and were filled by the “great school ratings don’t mean anything.” It was a shock to attend a well rated school and see the difference. Adults in the building really do matter!


I mean, they aren't completely meaningless but they are full of noise. You know what the ratings are based on. If that's something you care about, then take heed, otherwise ignore. The particular metric that GS is using does not reflect what most people are after when evaluating a school.
Anonymous
Post 08/25/2023 16:58     Subject: Great Schools new “grades”
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I am not sure why anyone would use rating systems like this. Just look at the data yourself. You can download it from the VA DOE and split it by various demographic categories.


Are you really not sure? Did you ever go house hunting? Do you know anyone who has ever been house hunting


Are you joking? Yes, I'm house hunting and I would never use those ratings, and I know many who take the ratings that are less objective with a big heap of salt. If you don't, then that's your poor judgment. I'll be worried about my investment when the schools' test scores are suffering across the board. I use the actual data that the ratings are based on and I can split the data in many ways. Niche, US News, Great Schools etc all have to find novel ways of creating their rankings and scores in order to turn a profit, but these may not align with what folks actually care about in evaluating schools. Use the actual data. You can build your own table here: https://p1pe.doe.virginia.gov/apex_captcha/home.do?apexTypeId=306#tagline

I would not worry about McLean and the other top pyramids because of some silly GS score that everyone can see is not assessing what people actually care about. Ditto for the others.
Anonymous
Post 08/25/2023 13:56     Subject: Great Schools new “grades”
Now that my kids are in HS- I wish I had believed the GS ratings for our elementary school. We spent 9 years in a terrible school and were filled by the “great school ratings don’t mean anything.” It was a shock to attend a well rated school and see the difference. Adults in the building really do matter!
Anonymous
Post 08/25/2023 13:03     Subject: Re:Great Schools new “grades”
Anonymous wrote:I would be very skeptical to buy a home with school ratings less than 6.

When we bought less than 10 years ago, every school in our pyramid was a 9 or 10. Now they're a 4 through 7. So good luck with that.