While I understand that test scores would be the only possible way to rate schools before people review schools, I think Greatschools needs to look at more once feedback has started. Test scores rarely tell the whole story about what goes on in a school. Plus states have the ability to play with testing procedures to make their schools look better. I live in Missouri and we have one of the highest rankings of standards of accountability in the country - so, of course, most of the schools in our state are not meeting AYP - our school and our district are above the state average - so we should be successful but we are not met - but we also have 10 subgroups and there are very few schools in our state with more than 6 - we are diverse, but it only takes one subgroup to knock out a whole school which hurts the greatschools rating.

kjdmom, unfortunately, you can't always trust that "parent ratings" are actually made by parents, or that they're representative of everyone's opinions: community.greatschools.net/groups/11530/discussion/388450

I didn't say that parent reviews should be the only criteria either. I'm just saying that there is a lot more to schools than test scores. I grew up in an all white district and we had the one of the highest rated school systems in the state at that time (way before the internet even existed) - but I wasn't even close to being prepared for college because I never had to study in primary or secondary school and I was never challenged - overall I would say I did not get a very good education - from a highly rated school based on test scores, even back then. I am saying that looking at test scores alone can be deceiving - I have found through my experiences that schools with a lot of diversity tend to work harder with ALL students to help everyone do their personal best - and do not necessarily pat themselves on the back because they can get kids who have advantages to perform well on tests. I understand that I could go in and review the heck out of my schools and make them look great - but that wouldn't give a true picture either. I didn't join this community because I was looking for a new school or I had something to complain about - honestly, I happened upon it when I did a local yahoo search and thought it would be a good place to talk about issues affecting kids today. But it still bugs me that the schools neighboring me that only have to teach advantaged white kids get ranked higher than we do when if you compare the "white" scores between the individual schools - ours are generally higher than most of those elementary schools - and I have checked because I was trying to help my principal find another school in our state with similar demographics to ours that is meeting AYP with all of the subgroups and could not find a single one - most usually knocked out by one newly added subgroup. So no, tests don't show the whole picture - but if someone is looking for a new school and they come to greatschools to look - they could find this post and take other things into consideration.

kjdmom, I agree completely. I know that neither test scores nor a limited number of "parent" (or student) reviews can give an accurate assessment of any school. From year to year, things can change dramatically (especially in cases where districts are rezoned, or administrators such as principals and superintendents are replaced.)
I hope most parents do take the time to visit individual schools and make informed decisions, not just base their opinions on a single number or comment.

I would hope most parents would not be that narrow-minded either - I just think it is really sad that people from out of state might kick a district out of consideration based on a lower rating when they have no idea what things are really like. I have read a lot of posts on this site that I find incredibly disturbing about how public schools in some areas are run (or more accurately from the description - not run) I have never experienced first, second or third hand what some of these parents have gone through as far as lack of discipline, lack of quality staff, dangerous schools, etc - and I am supposed to be in a rough district -but I think part of that comes from neighboring an affluent district that has people in it that have more pull with the local media - so I get a little overprotective when it comes to things like this.

I think healthy11 hits the nail on the head that informed decisions shouldn't be based on a single number or comment... I've had experience sending children to both a "desirable" school district and a "not-so-desirable" district. Sometimes, it depends on the student and their motivation/needs. It's best to see those ratings as a guideline, not a guarantee that a particular school is right or wrong for your child.

Think about how much better shape our entire country would be in today if we all took the time to collect all the information necessary to make a truly informed decision - rather than believing what interest groups want us to with eloquent catch-phrases and fear tactics.

Comparing GS Ratings to Newsweek rankings is a bit like comparing apples to oranges. The GS Rating is like a school receiving a grade of 1-10, while ranking lists the “top” schools in order. It is important to understand the difference because the top 50 ranked schools could all receive the same GS rating, so what looks like a big gap between schools on a ranking system my not be a big gap on a rating system.

That being said, every organization that ranks or grades schools does so in a different way and rarely will two match up exactly. This is because there are countless factors that can go into determining what constitutes a quality school. However, regardless what factors are used, rankings and ratings do not provide a complete view of a school and should be used along with other evaluation tools.

At GreatSchools we have worked to develop a Rating system that is as simple and transparent. In a nutshell, we take all the public schools in a state that have test scores reported for them, break them into 10 groups and assign each a rating, ten being the highest and one the lowest. A GS Rating of 10 has better test scores than 90% of the schools in that state. A rating of 9 means better than 80%, a rating of 8 means 70%, etc. Sunny Hills has significantly higher test scores than Marshall across the board, so it makes sense we gave them a rating of 9 versus a rating of 5 for Marshall. The GS Rating each school received is similar to the Statewide API rank CA gave them.

There are of course other factors that can be included, for instance Marshall has a high percentage of low income students and matches up very well, test score wise, with other schools with similar socioeconomic make ups. While the GreatSchools rating does factor in the percentage of each type of student passing tests it does not weight them, therefore a school with a higher percentage of low income students does not receive a higher score because of the number of those students. It appears the Newsweek ranking system does factor in the number of low income students at the school and has ranked them higher despite lower test scores. In addition Marshall is a secondary school and has grades 6-12, while Sunny Hills has grades 9-12 and GS ratings account for all grades when creating ratings. Because Newsweek was ranking high schools they may have ignored the test scores of grades 6-8, which were quite low. Newsweek may have also included other factors in their ranking, but without knowing their exact methodology I cannot say for sure. I hope this clears up some of the differences between the two systems and at very least sheds some light on the GreatSchools Ratings.

enewton, are you a Greatschools employee? (If so, why is your GS encircled logo missing from next to your name?)

I'll answer for enewton- Yes, he is a GreatSchools employee and is part of our Data Team. He doesn't have a badge because, if you look at his profile, this was his first post. I asked him to take a look at this thread and offer some feedback.

Just wondering; thanks for clarifying.