From standardized test scores to student demographics and suspension rates, there’s a lot to consider when choosing a school.
LAist talked to parents, educators and researchers to better understand what different sources of information can tell you about your child’s school or one they might attend.
“You can look at all the information and you can analyze all the available data, but you still don't know how it’s going to play out for an individual kid,” said Los Angeles County educator and parent Andrea Schpok. “You gotta make the best choice given the information available.”
Though the simple appeal of a single number or star rating offered by some websites is tempting, the experts we interviewed say there is no one metric that defines a great school.
What is GreatSchools?
This story was prompted by parents who wanted to know if there was an alternative to the ranking site, GreatSchools.
The website aggregates publicly available data about schools. One prominent feature on each school’s page is a 1-10 rating. These scores also appear on home listings for several real estate websites.
Researchers have criticized GreatSchools and other school rating sites for oversimplifying what actually makes a school good and for steering families away from low-income schools that serve many Black and Latino students.
The basis of the criticism is that GreatSchools and similar sites rely in part on standardized test scores to calculate school ratings.
“The scores tell you something, but usually they are — across the whole country — highly correlated with socioeconomic status,” said Learning Policy Institute President Linda Darling-Hammond. “A lot of what they tell you is how well off economically are students in this school, rather than how much is the school contributing to their gains and growth.”
A brief, recent history of standardized testing
There are reams of studies (and opinions) about standardized testing and its place in education. The underlying idea: States create standards for what students should know at each grade level, and then test students for understanding. While its roots start much earlier, the last two decades have seen a lot of political activity around testing:
- 2002: President George W. Bush signs the bipartisan No Child Left Behind Act, which among many other things, required states to test students in reading and math.
- 2015: President Barack Obama signs the Every Student Succeeds Act into law. The law gives states more flexibility to create academic accountability goals. In California, students in grades three through eight and high school juniors start taking Smarter Balanced Assessments in English language arts and math.
Want to know more? Here's an explainer.
Part of the problem is that standardized tests in English language arts and math are one of the few widely administered and tracked metrics.
“We've never really invested in collecting data that is just much harder to get at than a simple test,” said Rebecca Jacobsen, who studies education, politics and policy at Michigan State University.
GreatSchools has changed how it calculates ratings over the years and now factors in how much scores increase year-to-year, college readiness, and an “equity” score that measures how students from disadvantaged backgrounds perform academically.
How can you figure out what’s a great school without using GreatSchools?
The nonprofit also offers schools the opportunity to provide information and a space for parents, educators, and alum to leave reviews.
“It's a continual process for us to find the right information to share with each parent,” said GreatSchools CEO Jon Deane.
Deane said the information on GreatSchools is meant to help parents start their school choice journey, not be the sole deciding factor.
“We want to make sure we can help people find what their version of great is,” Deane said.
How one parent saw past a school’s 4/10 rating
Before she studied education, Rebecca Jacobsen was a teacher.
“[I] really saw firsthand the way that my students performed [on standardized tests] did not always match what I thought their capability was,” Jacobsen said.
Despite a deep knowledge of the many factors that impact school quality, she remembered visiting a school with a four out of 10 ranking on the website GreatSchools with some apprehension.
“After two minutes in that building, I had no reservations anymore,” Jacobsen said.
The principal led her on a tour of the school.
“She really spoke to the ways that they were meeting different kids academically, socially, emotionally,” Jacobsen said. “The bulletin boards told me a lot. They were really vibrant, but they also showcased a range of work, which I really appreciated to see that everybody was valued.”
Where else can you go to find information about a school?
Individual school websites/social media
Many schools maintain their own websites and social media accounts. There is a wide range of quality in individual school websites. At their best, these platforms are a window into the school’s history, curriculum, current programs and events. On the other end of the spectrum, information can be sparse or outdated.
Look for:
- Events
- Tours
- Extracurricular activities and after- and before-school programs
- How to contact teachers and administrators
- Parent and family resources
Where does the data come from? Typically these websites are maintained by district and school staff.
Keep in mind: Parent groups might maintain their own websites and social media accounts that can give you additional insight into a specific school.
Los Angeles Unified School District open data
LAUSD leaders in 2018 voted to create a new website to present a variety of information about students and school sites.
Highlights:
- Attendance
- School demographics
- Budgets
- Suspensions
- Student and family surveys about safety and school climate
- Students with disabilities
- Progress of English Language Learners
Where does the data come from? District records, the California Department of Education, the College Board (which administers tests including AP exams) and The National Student Clearinghouse.
Keep in mind: There are several ways to navigate the website. If you want to search for schools in a specific area or compare multiple schools, use the “explorer” tool. There is also an option to view schools on a map.
California School Dashboard
A collection of data maintained by the California Department of Education available at the state, district, and individual school level intended to hold schools accountable for meeting standards.
Highlights:
- Chronic absenteeism
- English Language Learner progress
- Enrollment
- Demographics
- Suspension rates
- Graduation rate
- College/ career readiness as defined by a series of measures including meeting the requirements for state university admission or completing career and technical education classes.
Where does the data come from? The California Department of Education, districts, schools and County Offices of Education.
Keep in mind: The dashboard doesn’t assign schools a single score or rating. Many measures are assigned a color from red (worst) to blue (best) based on performance from the current year and growth from the prior year. You can also see how a school compares to the state overall.
DataQuest
Another collection of data maintained by the California Department of Education available at the state, county, district, and individual school level. This site includes some information not available through the California School Dashboard and in some cases, parses the data by grade level.
Highlights:
- Stability rate, the percentage of students that completed a full year of instruction at the same school.
- California Healthy Kids Survey results, which includes information on school climate and safety
- School staff demographic data
- Rate of high school graduates attending college
Where does the data come from? The California Department of Education, districts, schools and County Offices of Education.
Keep in mind: Not all data is available at the individual school level.
School Accountability Report Card (SARC)
An annual assessment that public K-12 schools are required to perform and submit to the state each year.
Highlights:
- Teacher qualifications
- Textbook updates
- School facility conditions
- Average class sizes
- Career and technical education classes available
- Average teacher salaries
- Student support staff on campus (librarian, nurse, psychologist, etc.)
Where does the data come from? Individual schools.
Keep in mind: The state’s website isn’t super user-friendly. Search for an individual school here and then click the button that says “view full sarc” to see all of the available information.
What do the experts look for?
Clear family values
These will vary, but education researcher Jack Schneider said defining what’s important to your family will help you sort through the data.
“ And if [test scores are] what folks value, there's nothing wrong with starting there,” said Schneider, who directs the Center for Education Policy at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. “But, people shouldn't stop there.”
For example, when Schneider and his wife, a teacher, started looking for a school for their child, they knew she’d have plenty of academic support at home.
“The top priority for us, when looking for a school, was actually that the school was a diverse one, that it served all different kinds of students coming from all different kinds of families,” Schneider said. “We knew that we could give her all kinds of academic advantages at home, but we couldn't give her that — we couldn't just inside our household teach her how to live in a diverse democracy.”
Schneider, who’s also written a book about measuring school quality beyond test scores, also looked at what resources were available to students and how long teachers had worked at the school.
Teacher quality and retention
"Having a stable set of qualified teachers is very important,” Darling-Hammond said. “If teachers want to stay in the school, that's a good sign for whether kids are being well taught and whether parents are going to be able to connect with experienced teachers who know a lot about how to make things work well.”
Where to find it:
- Check the school accountability report card. It shows the number and percentage of teachers who are credentialed to teach their assigned subject and class.
- Ask administrators about teacher retention. That data is not listed publicly. Instead you’ll have to ask the principal or other staff about turnover and the experience of educators on staff.
School climate
This is a broad, wonky educational term that can refer to a variety of factors that affect whether students feel safe and supported.
School climate data is less universal than other information like demographics or standardized test outcomes. One potential source of information is annual surveys to students and families.
“I think these are very high quality data sources that allow us to learn things that we would never learn from a standardized test score,” Schneider said.
Where to find it:
- DataQuest: This site links to the California Healthy Kids Survey results, which includes information on school climate and safety at the district and county level.
- The School Accountability Report Card (see up above) provides a school’s suspension and expulsion rates.
- In LAUSD’s open data profile there are several places to view school climate data.
- Select “Local Control Accountability Plan” from the dashboard view dropdown menu and “School Safety and Climate” from the metric sub groups to see survey results about whether:
- Students feel safe at and a part of their school
- Parents feel their child is safe on school grounds and welcome to participate at school
- Staff feel safe and supported at school
- The “Parent, Student, and Community Engagement” metric subgroup offers additional survey results from parents.
- Schools that are part of the Black Student Achievement Plan also collect additional survey data about:
- If you have the opportunity to talk to students or alumni you can ask, “Did you feel … “
- A sense of belonging?
- Connected to teachers and peers?
- Safe at school?
An emphasis on social and emotional learning
There are many non-academic skills that live under the social and emotional learning umbrella including understanding and managing feelings and building relationships.
“It means that students are learning how to get along with each other, how to solve their own problems, what to do with tough situations… and how to problem solve in good ways,” Darling-Hammond said.
Where to find it:
- There’s no dashboard to track social and emotional learning at individual schools. Investigate a school’s website, and talk to educators, administrators and other parents to understand how this type of instruction is prioritized.
School conditions and cleanliness
The quality of school facilities is linked to student achievement — it’s easier to learn in clean, climate-controlled, well-lit classrooms. Poorly maintained schools may even pose health risks to students and staff.
Where to find it:
- In the School Accountability Report Card (SARC): Look for the section that says “School Facility Conditions and Planned Improvements” to see self-reported information about the status of restrooms, heating, cooling and ventilation systems and overall maintenance. One caveat, the categories (poor, fair, and good) are broad and reflect the conditions of the school at a single point in time. For example, an inspection of the HVAC system in the winter may not reflect the potential for a breakdown in the midst of a heatwave.
- Ask your school or district about a Facilities Master Plan: This can help you better understand medium-to-long term plans for repairing and building school facilities.
The one thing everyone recommends
Your own observations. Touring schools is time-consuming, but researchers, parents and educators all said there’s no better way to evaluate a campus than by visiting in person, preferably while class is in session.
“The very best thing that people can do is go to the school and try to watch the way that educators interact with students, the way that students interact with each other, and the way that families are included or not in the life of a school,” Schneider said. “Once you do that, you really get a sense of what kind of place kids are going to school.”
Darling-Hammond looks for “joyful and respectful” interactions between adults and students.
“ I look to see if students work is on the walls,” Darling-Hammond said. “Because if it is, it says that this school values what students are doing and that that is the central idea of what's going on there.”
Set up a school tour:
- Every school is going to handle tours a bit differently. Start at the school’s website and call the front office for more information.
Questions to ask teachers/administrators:
- What opportunities are there for family involvement?
- What types of homework are students assigned?
- How are grades calculated?
- What extracurriculars are offered? How can students access those opportunities?
- Is there before or after school care?
- Is transportation provided?
- For younger students: What opportunities are there for play?
Questions to ask students:
- How do you feel about coming to school?
- What is interesting for you in school?
- What’s your favorite part of school?
- Do the children here get along with each other?
- Are teachers available when you have a problem?
Illustration: Olivia Hughes / LAist
