Best resource for school ratings? (Chicago, Wheaton: 2014, credit, home)
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Which site is the best resource for school ratings? I looked up a few different schools on greatschools.org and they were rated different than the rate on the zillow app. Which site is the most up to date? And do the sites tell you previous years so you can tell if the ratings are trending up or down over time?
...the folks that run Zillow have known for a long long time that they very often get things VERY wrong when it comes to important things like school attendance boundaries. This can lead to literally dangerous cross comparisions for folks that do not follow up with more accurate resources. I cannot recommend strongly enough how important it is to NOT USE Zillow for any such purpose.
Similarly the confusing way that some firms like greatschools allows any smoe with an axe to grind or an apple to polish to either trash or praise a school diminishes its value to provide objective data.
For folks contemplating relocation the most consisently useful resource for school ranking is US News & World Reportt. The methodology they use is strongly based on the performance of kind as predictor of college success. The data from tests including IB and AP results is the biggest component in how they rank schools. They used to put more emphasis on "tiers" like gold / silver / bronze. That was smart becuase from year to year schools might move up a down a bit but the tiers give a more meaningful comparision of which schools are in the top / next highest tier. Search Illinois High Schools | US News
Finding well regarded elementary / middle schools is a lot harder, there is no consistent evaluation across states at this point in time. Soon the results of PARCC might serve such a purpose but there is still too much inconsistentcy with implementing Common Core.
What I can suggest is using the data from the high schools and then cross correlating this with the data from the feeder middle schools to see which groups of students do best on the weak ISAT tests as required of the Illinois State Board of Education. That same strategy usually works to also back correlate to the best performing elementary schools that feed into a high performing middle school. Not ideal, but as good as is possible under current standards... The newer interface hides lots of useful data, the classic gives access to important way to look at the financial health of schools and contrast performance of subgroups -- IIRC: Home
...the folks that run Zillow have known for a long long time that they very often get things VERY wrong when it comes to important things like school attendance boundaries. This can lead to literally dangerous cross comparisions for folks that do not follow up with more accurate resources. I cannot recommend strongly enough how important it is to NOT USE Zillow for any such purpose.
Similarly the confusing way that some firms like greatschools allows any smoe with an axe to grind or an apple to polish to either trash or praise a school diminishes its value to provide objective data.
[/url]
Finding well regarded elementary / middle schools is a lot harder, there is no consistent evaluation across states at this point in time. Soon the results of PARCC might serve such a purpose but there is still too much inconsistentcy with implementing Common Core.
What I can suggest is using the data from the high schools and then cross correlating this with the data from the feeder middle schools to see which groups of students do best on the weak ISAT tests as required of the Illinois State Board of Education. That same strategy usually works to also back correlate to the best performing elementary schools that feed into a high performing middle school. Not ideal, but as good as is possible under current standards... The newer interface hides lots of useful data, the classic gives access to important way to look at the financial health of schools and contrast performance of subgroups -- IIRC: Home
I agree with Chet on the Zillow ratings. Supposedly Zillow pulls their school ratings directly from Great Schools, but Zillow has some very serious issues and many of the ratings Zillow "pulls" are terribly wrong. Don't even look at Zillow school ratings.
I highly disagree with Chet on the US News high school rankings. US News rankings are based almost entirely on how many people sit for AP/IB exams. Many schools realized this long ago and now juice their scores by coaxing students into sitting for exams -- or perhaps even blatantly lying about how many students sat, because the stat is 100% self-reported. The crookedness is especially evident among CPS high schools. Case and point: Morgan Park High School is ranked #60 in Illinois and #1495 in the nation. A great ranking you might say, must be a wonderful school! Well, what percentage of students are considered to be proficient in math at Morgan Park? Just 33%! How in the world did they get a #60 rating when there are literally dozens if not hundreds of schools with a higher proficiency? Administrators had (or said they had) 65% of students sit for an AP/IB exam! And viola, US News delivers unto them a shiny silver medal. The 65%, if true, means that the same number of students sat for AP/IB exams at Morgan Park as did at Deerfield High, the perennial top-performing high school in Illinois. The US News rankings are littered with these kinds of bogus ratings. Again, they are mostly CPS schools, but I'm sure some suburban schools are guilty of juicing too. Beware!
When I was picking a town/school district last year I spent a lot of time on the new Illinois Report Card website, which displays the same raw data that the ratings organizations use. I made my own Excel-based lists using on a whole host of statistics easily readable from the site.
Last edited by holl1ngsworth; 09-02-2014 at 03:39 PM..
I agree with Chet on the Zillow ratings. Supposedly Zillow pulls their school ratings directly from Great Schools, but Zillow has some very serious issues and many of the ratings Zillow "pulls" are terribly wrong. Don't even look at Zillow school ratings.
I highly disagree with Chet on the US News high school rankings. US News rankings are based almost entirely on how many people sit for AP/IB exams. Many schools realized this long ago and now juice their scores by coaxing students into sitting for exams -- or perhaps even blatantly lying about how many students sat, because the stat is 100% self-reported. The crookedness is especially evident among CPS high schools. Case and point: Morgan Park High School is ranked #60 in Illinois and #1495 in the nation. A great ranking you might say, must be a wonderful school! Well, what percentage of students are considered to be proficient in math at Morgan Park? Just 33%! How in the world did they get a #60 rating when there are literally dozens if not hundreds of schools with a higher proficiency? Administrators had (or said they had) 65% of students sit for an AP/IB exam! And viola, US News delivers unto them a shiny silver medal. The 65%, if true, means that the same number of students sat for AP/IB exams at Morgan Park as did at Deerfield High, the perennial top-performing high school in Illinois. The US News rankings are littered with these kinds of bogus ratings. Again, they are mostly CPS schools, but I'm sure some suburban schools are guilty of juicing too. Beware!
When I was picking a town/school district last year I spent a lot of time on the new Illinois Report Card website, which displays the same raw data that the ratings organizations use. I made my own Excel-based lists using on a whole host of statistics easily readable from the site.
We had another thread where I also slammed the US News rankings as nonsense. And they are. Huge highly subjective factors are included that generate results that are utter nonsense in many cases.
If one is to use US News, they should ignore the rankings and focus on, as you point out, the proficiency ratings only. That tells the story far more accurately and purges out all of the subjective nonsense. There was a Chicago school ranked 11th in the state by US News where 75% of students could not read. I don't care what anyone says about the methodology, a result like that tells me that the methodology is profoundly flawed. Anyone following that ranking would be in DEEP trouble.
I know you push Wheaton (sometimes a bit too much IMHO) but US News has schools everyone knows are struggling, like Wheeling, Rolling Meadows, and Elk Grove ranked ahead of WWS and Wheaton North. That is crazy. Plus of course, some of the city schools where a majority of students cannot read or do math.
I agree with your use of the IL report card. I also think looking at the test score rankings put out by the Daily Herald to be far more indicative of school quality than US News.
The links I posted earlier to both the ranking that US News does as well as their methodology are quite easy to understand.
I agree that there are some issues that one runs into with the current US News "weighting" and that is highlighted by the example of a very small school being ranked higher than it should be. That said the chart clearly shows which schools do have a high percentage of AP test takers earning college credit. I personally have a hard time really endorsing a high school where the "pass rate" for AP is not at least 50% but I also acknowledge that there is value in having a some bar to motivate students stuck in traditionally low performing schools ...
I do agree to a very limited extent with wjj's criticsm of the US News ranking also having some schools in the suburbs with less than stellar raw performance being essentially rewarded for performance that beats the expected value based a the mix of lower income students. Now without getting either all political or even saying that is good thing / bad thing the FACT is this all SPELLED OUT IN THE CHART, so if you have even the reading ability of an actual middle schooler there is nothing to complain about.
In contrast the good folks at local newspapers that allegedly cover suburban Chicago, like the Daily Herald, do not specify what schools / town they are evaluating NOR why / how they picked the ones they do list in their little ranking so I find such things of no real help whatsoever.
I would suggest that to a large extent meaningful data is NOW very limited. Common Core has been rolling out and it is for many schools a game changer. I would suggest your first stop is to determine how you feel about Common Core and how it is or is not being implemented in your state and local school district. In some areas parents are opposing common core, if that is important to you then I would suggest that is far more relevant then historic school data that does not reflect a dramatic shift in school educational objectives.
Here is an example of a website of people opposed to common core. The Quick Overview of Concerns has some interesting videos on the topic):
That being stated, one useful historic thing to do is contact the community college and see what the rate of remedial classes is for students from the local schools.
Lastly I'll suggest you simply sign up to observe classes in the district you are interested in. Nothing gives you a better feel for what your children will experience better than being in the classrooom.
Good luck and I commend you for caring enough to look.
There is no mechanism that I know of for Community Colleges to report on how many students from a particular high school are enrolled in a remedial course, though that might be an interesting statistic.
With concerns over safety and student privacy I doubt many schools would be eager to have strangers sit in on classes and even if one did sit in enough classes to avoid any off days I don't know how useful these largely subjective opinions would be to really ranking schools.
There is no mechanism that I know of for Community Colleges to report on how many students from a particular high school are enrolled in a remedial course, though that might be an interesting statistic.
With concerns over safety and student privacy I doubt many schools would be eager to have strangers sit in on classes and even if one did sit in enough classes to avoid any off days I don't know how useful these largely subjective opinions would be to really ranking schools.
Of course our local home schooler is petrified about Common Core. And his link is utter garbage. Opposition to Common Core is becoming the new "anti vaccine" or "anti fluoridated water" cause for wing nuts.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Zillow is worse than useless...
The crookedness is especially evident among CPS high schools. Case and point: Morgan Park High School is ranked #60 in Illinois and #1495 in the nation. A great ranking you might say, must be a wonderful school! Well, what percentage of students are considered to be proficient in math at Morgan Park? Just 33%! How in the world did they get a #60 rating when there are literally dozens if not hundreds of schools with a higher proficiency? 
Administrators had (or said they had) 65% of students sit for an AP/IB exam! And viola, US News delivers unto them a shiny silver medal. The 65%, if true, means that the same number of students sat for AP/IB exams at Morgan Park as did at Deerfield High, the perennial top-performing high school in Illinois. 
The US News rankings are littered with these kinds of bogus ratings. Again, they are mostly CPS schools, but I'm sure some suburban schools are guilty of juicing too. Beware!
