Great school rankings: School Ratings & Reviews for Public & Private Schools: GreatSchools

What Makes a Great School?

Perspectives + Opinions

Deconstructing the school-quality rankings that parents rely on — and finding a way to measure what matters

By:

Jack Schneider

Posted: October 23, 2017

What are the signs that a school is succeeding?

Try asking someone. Chances are, they’ll say something about the impact a school makes on the young people who attend it. Do students feel safe and cared for? Are they being challenged? Do they have opportunities to play and create? Are they happy?

If you’re a parent, getting this kind of information entails a great deal of effort — walking the hallways, looking in on classrooms, talking with teachers and students, chatting with parents, and watching kids interact on the playground.

Since most of us don’t have the time or the wherewithal to run our own school-quality reconnaissance missions, we rely on rumor and anecdote, hunches and heuristics, and, increasingly, the Internet.

So what’s out there on the web? Are our pressing questions about schools being answered by crowdsourced knowledge and big data sets?

As it turns out, no.

There’s information, certainly. But mostly it doesn’t align with what we really want to know about how schools are doing. Instead, most of what we learn about schools online — on the websites of magazines, on school rating sites, and even on real estate listings — comes from student standardized test scores. Some may include demographic information or class size ratios. But the ratings are derived primarily from state-mandated high stakes tests.

One consequence of such limited and distorting data is an impoverished public conversation about school quality. We talk about schools as if they are uniformly good or bad, as if we have complete knowledge of them, and as if there is agreement about the practices and outcomes of most value. 

The first problem with this state of affairs is that test scores don’t tell us a tremendous amount about what students are learning in school. As research has demonstrated, school factors explain only about 20 percent of achievement scores — about one-third of what student and family background characteristics explain. Consequently, test scores often indicate much more about demography than about schools.

Even if scores did reflect what students were learning in school, they’d still fail to address the full range of what schools actually do. Multiple-choice tests communicate nothing about school climate, student engagement, the development of citizenship skills, student social and emotional health, or critical thinking. School quality is multidimensional. And just because a school is strong in one area does not mean that it is equally strong in another. In fact, my research team has found that high standardized test score growth can be correlated with low levels of student engagement. Standardized tests, in short, tell us very little about what we actually value in schools.

One consequence of such limited and distorting data is an impoverished public conversation about school quality. We talk about schools as if they are uniformly good or bad, as if we have complete knowledge of them, and as if there is agreement about the practices and outcomes of most value.

Another consequence is that we can make unenlightened decisions about where to live and send our children to school. Schools with more affluent student bodies tend to produce high test scores. Perceived as “good,” they become the objects of desire for well-resourced and quality-conscious parents. Conversely, schools with more diverse student bodies are dismissed as bad.

GreatSchools.org gives my daughter’s school — a highly diverse K–8 school — a 6 on its 10-point scale. The state of Massachusetts labels it a “Level 2” school in its five-tier test score-based accountability system. SchoolDigger.com rates it 456th out of 927 Massachusetts elementary schools.

How does that align with reality? My daughter is excited to go to school each day and is strongly attached to her current and former teachers. A second-grader, she reads a book a week, loves math, and increasingly self-identifies as an artist and a scientist. She trusts her classmates and hugs her principal when she sees him. She is often breathlessly excited about gym. None of this is currently measured by those purporting to gauge school quality.

Better measures aren’t a panacea. But so much might be accomplished if we had a shared understanding of what we want our schools to do, clear language for articulating our aims, and more honest metrics for tracking our progress.

Of course, I’m a professor of education and my wife is a teacher. Our daughter is predisposed to like school. So what might be said objectively about the school as a whole? Over the past two years, suspensions have declined to one-fifth of the previous figure, thanks in part to a restorative justice program and an emphasis on positive school culture. The school has adopted a mindfulness program that helps students cope with stress and develop the skill of self-reflection. A new maker space is being used to bring hands-on science, technology, engineering, and math into classrooms. The school’s drama club, offered free after school twice a week, now has almost 100 students involved.

The inventory of achievements that don’t count is almost too long to list.

So if the information we want about schools is too hard to get, and the information we have is often misleading, what’s a parent to do?

Four years ago, my research team set out to build a more holistic measure of school quality. Beginning first in the city of Somerville, Massachusetts, and then expanding to become a statewide initiative — the Massachusetts Consortium for Innovative Education Assessment — we asked stakeholders what they actually care about in K–12 education. The result is a clear, organized, and comprehensive framework for school quality that establishes common ground for richer discussions and recognizes the multi-dimensionality of schools.

Only after establishing shared values did we seek out measurement tools. Our aim, after all, was to begin measuring what we value, rather than to place new values on what is already measured.

For some components of the framework, we turned to districts, which often gather much more information than ends up being reported. For many other components, we employed carefully designed surveys of students and teachers — the people who know schools best. And though we currently include test score growth, we are moving away from multiple-choice tests and toward curriculum-embedded performance assessments designed and rated by educators rather than by machines.

Better measures aren’t a panacea. Segregation by race and income continues to menace our public schools, as does inequitable allocation of resources. More accurate and comprehensive data systems won’t wash those afflictions away. But so much might be accomplished if we had a shared understanding of what we want our schools to do, clear and common language for articulating our aims, and more honest metrics for tracking our progress.

Illustration: Wilhelmina Peragine

More on Testing

About the Author

Jack Schneider

Jack Schneider is an associate professor of leadership in education at the University of Massachusetts Lowell and the director of research for the Massachusetts Consortium for Innovative Education Assessment. His latest book is Beyond Test Scores: A Better Way to Measure School Quality (Harvard University Press). Follow him on Twitter @Edu_Historian.

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Which school rating system do you think is the best?

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Sebastian DeGregorio

Sebastian DeGregorio

Supply Chain & Logistics Director at Allura™ Fiber Cement Products

Published Dec 20, 2016

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School ratings, empirical or perceived, hold a lot of power. They have the power to draw more families to an area, which can increase demand for housing and drive up property values in an area, ultimately filtering back to the school in funding via property taxes. Kind of a virtuous cycle of sorts. So, which are the best schools? Who decides? What criteria do they use to measure ‘good’ versus ‘bad’?

Do a quick search of the internet for ‘public school ratings’ or ‘best public schools’ and you will see just a handful of organizations that try to provide a report card for districts and individual schools. The major player is each individual state’s department of education, which I lump together because they all follow the same basic system – report on state standardized testing. State testing (a topic and discussion all its own) has its virtues and notable shortcomings. Nonetheless, it’s a ‘something-better-than-nothing’ starting point. 

The other two major organizations are Great!Schools (greatschools.org) and Niche K-12 School Rating (k12. niche.com). They both go a step beyond state required testing to each fold in other factors likely correlated with identifying good schools. Both use a weighted scale, which means they use a math equation with variables representing different data they believe make up a ‘good school’. Then they assign a percentage weight based upon the importance of that variable in identifying ‘good’ from ‘bad’. So let’s take a look at each and then you make the call.

Great!Schools.org

Arguably the most well know. Great!Schools looks at three factors: 

1. Student Achievement (SA) – this is the state required testing component.
2. Student Growth (SG) – year-over-year change in standardized testing performance. The idea here I believe is to reward schools that are improving, not simply penalize for low state test scores.
3. College Readiness (CR) – high school graduation rates and performance/participation on college entrance exams (SAT, ACT). It would make sense that a school that is doing its job well would graduate the overwhelming majority of its students and properly prepare them for life, college or otherwise.

To calculate the rating, Great!Schools apply equal weight (33%) to the three factors. For elementary and middle schools, College Readiness data wouldn’t be gathered, so GS assigns 50% to SA (standardized testing scores) and 50% to SG. There is some more nuance, but what I’ve presented are the base cases. You can read more about the Great!Schools rating here: http://www.greatschools.org/gk/ratings/ 

All in all, not bad. It’s no doubt better than just the state testing scores. I will criticize the fact that when College Readiness data is absent you merely get a rating that is solely based off state-administered standardized tests. The rating system then is not as useful, even after ranking a school by percentile against other schools in its geography. Most states already do this and provide that data. Also, apart from granularity provided by the state on testing or user generated comments, there is not much more detail about the school other than its physical location.

So, to summarize: 

RATING = 33%(SA) + 33%(SG) + 33%(CR)

Niche.com

A very robust calculation for ratings, they use state and school-reported information and capture data through surveying parents and the student body. They calculate via 8 factors:

1. Academics (A) – state test scores AND SAT/ACT AND survey responses on academics from students and parents, which I’m guessing is self-reporting on grades. Very similar to Great!Schools, but capturing two data points in one weighted variable.
2. Culture & Diversity (CD) – Racial and economic diversity
3. Health & Saftey (HS) – Based on chronic student absenteeism, suspensions/expulsions, and survey responses about the school environment from students and parents. This one is very interesting and can help describe the atmosphere of a school.
4. Parent/Student Survey on Overall Experience (ES) – they capture this data from users on their website.
5. Teachers (T) – based on teacher salary, teacher absenteeism, state test results, and survey responses about teachers from students and parents.
6. Resources & Facilities (RF) – based on expenses per student and survey
7. Clubs & Activities (CA) – based on expenses per student and survey
8. Sports (S) – based on number of sports available, participation, and facilities

Here is their methodology: https://k12.niche.com/rankings/public-school-districts/best-overall/methodology/

Wow. Thorough. But is it better?

From a data perspective, it could be that many of the attributes overlap each other and do not necessarily help to identify what the composition of a good school is. That’s to say that this model may not be that much more accurate at identifying a good school in comparison to Great!Schools. It may be only slightly better. One could argue that school atmosphere criteria, like facilities, clubs, teachers, all filter through and are expressed in school grades, test scores, and graduation rates. That’s to say that academics is a sum total of a student’s experiences with the entire environment. Therefore, these variables are just noise and don’t make the model better overall.

Conversely, I do think this model has virtuous in its complexity. In other words, when you drill down it can tell you something more specific than Great!Schools. Its hards hard to identify the cause and effects of grades and a school’s ability to graduate productive people. Nonetheless, I think the extra data provided by Niche helps paint that story better. 

But, to summarize: 

RATING = 50%(A) + 10%(CD) + 10%(HS) + 10%(ES)+ 10%(T) + 5%(RF) + 2.5%(CA) + 2.5%(S)

There is a 50/50 split between academic and non-academic variables. I think there is merit to this assumption.

So, what do you think?

I hope I’ve done a good job presenting the facts. Now you decide. Which one do you think is better? Which one would you trust more?

Use this Twitter Poll to vote

or, just leave your comments below.

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rating of the top 12 brands of backpacks for boys and girls

On the first of September, thousands of children go to “the first time in the first class. ” And every day they will have to carry on their shoulders a serious load of textbooks, notebooks, removable shoes, and so on and so forth. The best school backpacks of 2023 will help ease the road to knowledge.

Poor-quality duffel bag is not only heavy, but can cause real harm to children’s health. But the best school backpacks make their lives much easier.

Top 5 best school backpacks for girls

1. Mag Taller Cat

Mag Taller Cat. Photo: yandex.market.ru

The Finnish brand enjoys well-deserved popularity in the Russian Federation, as its products are constantly being improved. The back of the backpack is rigid and fully corresponds to the natural shape of the spine. The bottom is also rigid, made of EVA material, resistant to moisture and wear. The adjustable shoulder straps are padded with elastic foam to reduce pressure on the shoulders. The A4 size main compartment has a divider and an organizer for small items. Velcro front pocket, zipped side pockets. The backpack is made of polyester with water-repellent impregnation. There is no frame, but the material is quite rigid and keeps its shape. There are reflective stripes on the front and sides.

2. BIT4ALL School

BIT4ALL School. Photo: yandex.market.ru

The model was developed by British orthopedists taking into account the peculiarities of children’s anatomy. The backpack is available in 25 colors. The material is water-repellent polyester, the bottom is hard. The back seems flat, but, in contact with the back, takes on its shape. The main volume is divided into several compartments that can be used for various purposes. There are several zippered pockets on the front and sides. The workmanship is very high, all seams are doubled. Lots of reflective elements. The length of the straps is adjustable, there is a chest strap and an additional carrying handle on top.

Herlitz ULTRALIGHT PLUS Butterfly. Photo: yandex.market.ru

These backpacks are characterized by bright colors with an abundance of pink. The design and construction are designed for girls, so the size of the model is small. The material is high quality water repellent polyester. The top flap closes with a latch, the side flaps with Velcro. The straps are padded and ventilated. The organization of the internal space is well thought out, not only textbooks are placed there, but also many necessary little things. Comes with a pencil case, under the front flap there is a transparent pocket for the lesson schedule. Reflective elements are not only on the outer surfaces of the backpack, but also on the straps.

Backpacks of this model range are known for their orthopedic back with additional inserts in the lumbar region and side restraints – this design prevents spine diseases. Inside there are three compartments with mounts for books, notebooks and study materials. Included is a pencil case for stationery and a bag for shoes. The polyester fabric can be printed in different styles, such as space or animation, and with many reflective elements. 9PIXEL BAG. Photo: yandex.market.ru

An innovative backpack with a built-in LED display is a sensation in the world of school accessories. Its hard case with a volume of 20 liters fits not only a smartphone, but also a laptop, from which you can install animation, a picture or text on an external screen with a special program. To power it, you need a separate power bank, a pocket for it is provided inside the main satchel. The display can be easily removed from its nest, after which the backpack can be cleaned and even washed. Diagonal zipper allows wide opening of the satchel. The back is orthopedic, the straps are wide and adjustable in length.

Display software not always compatible with existing smartphone, additional power bank required

Top 6 best school backpacks for boys

1. Belmil Mini Fit Spider Red and Black

Belmil Mini Fit Spider Red and Black. Photo: yandex.market.ru

The model is designed specifically for primary school students up to 116 cm tall. Available in two colors: red and black. It is completed with a pencil case, a cosmetic bag and a bag for interchangeable or sports shoes. The back is rigid, orthopedic with lateral support. Gasket material is ventilated. Wide padded straps do not cut into the shoulders. Their length regulators are located below, the height of the chest strap is also adjustable. The backpack is made of polyester with a water-repellent impregnation, wiping with a damp cloth is sufficient to clean it.

Aleksey Kozlovsky , head of the Lifestyle category at Avito, told Komsomolskaya Pravda about the rules for choosing a school backpack.

Frequently Asked Questions

School backpack or satchel: what to choose?

Before choosing a backpack or satchel for a child, it is worth understanding what characteristics they differ in. The backpack is a shoulder bag, does not have a rigid frame and does not hold its shape well. The backpack is more rigid, its solid walls retain their shape, so the weight of its contents is distributed evenly.

Which backpack should I choose for a first grader?

For a first-grader, a satchel is best, as with it the load on the spine will be minimal. But if the choice still fell on a backpack, then it is worth considering orthopedic models with a large number of hard elements and soft pads on the back, resembling the letter “X”. In addition, the weight of the product should not exceed 1.5 kg, in accordance with sanitary standards.

The size of the product itself depends on the height of the child. The height of the back of a backpack for a child in grades 1-2 is on average 34-38 cm. It is important that the upper part of the backpack does not rest against the back of the head, and the lower edge runs at waist level. Too big backpacks are bad for the student’s back.

Shoulder straps must be adjustable. Their optimal width is 5-8 cm, and the thickness of the soft insert should be about 1 cm. Such straps should not put pressure on the shoulders and will help to properly fix the backpack on the back.

Particular attention should be paid to reflective inserts, they should be on any children’s backpack. These elements are perfectly visible in the headlights and reduce the risk of getting hit by the wheels.

Which backpack is suitable for middle and high school students?

For middle and high school students, it is better to choose a backpack with a back height of 40 to 50 cm. The average weight of an empty product should not exceed 2.5 kg for grades 5-6, 3.5 kg for grades 7-8 and 4 kg for 9-11 class. Despite the strengthened spine and bones and the already formed posture, it is better to purchase a model with an anatomical back to minimize the negative impact.

What is the best material for school backpacks?

When choosing a material, you should focus on strength, lightness and water resistance. Most often, backpacks are made from synthetic materials, such as polyester. This material is additionally treated with a polyurethane coating for moisture resistance, so that the notebooks and books lying in the backpack are not afraid of rain.

Models made of nylon are durable and resistant to cold, and they practically do not fade in the sun. They are easy to clean with a sponge and soap and dry.

For little first graders, a backpack made from EVA, an environmentally friendly foamed rubber material, is perfect. The EVA material is very light, but elastic and resilient, thanks to which the orthopedic functions of the product are preserved. Due to the relief structure of the foamed rubber, normal air exchange is ensured, so the child’s back does not sweat in the heat.

Best school bags, top 10 rating of good backpacks

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