Can anyone explain school ratings?! (Durham, Earl: house, neighborhood, magnet schools)

[lmbebo]

Hi

So found a house we like in the Durham area, but feeds into Southwest elementary. Its rated 3 out of 10, but 4/5 stars.

Like the house, but school ratings have me concerned. Couldn't afford to send our kids to private school unfortunately...

[goldenage1]

Originally Posted by lmbebo

So found a house we like in the Durham area, but feeds into Southwest elementary. Its rated 3 out of 10, but 4/5 stars.

If the rating comes from Greatschool.org, a 3 generally means the average student score was in the 30th percentile in some standardized achievement tests. That means that 70% of the schools in the state had students scoring better.

The 4/5 stars refer to parent comments. I read some of them on Greatschools, and it sound like there is a good Spanish Immersion program. However, other comments are more mixed. You might also look at Schooldigger.com which is easier to interpret. The stats indicate 64% of the students get a free or reduced lunch, which indicated a lower-income family. Example here: http://www.schooldigger.com/go/NC/sc...18/school.aspx

Perhaps you could talk to some of the families near the house you like. The school may be fine for some kids.

[lmbebo]

Thanks.

Seems like mixed reviews. Partly from mixing of the areas that feed into the school. Some gang issues or whatnot. But test scores dragged down by underachieving students.

Are schools like JD Clement Early college HS, magnet schools?

[pierretong1991]

If the parent reviews are high but the "rating" is low, it seems to be a school where there your child will get a great education but some students may be underperforming for whatever reason. I would only be worried if the parent ratings and GreatSchool rating were both low.

[annabanana123]

One thing worth noting is quite often the free/reduced lunch rate corresponds with the test scores. We found this to be sadly true when researching schools. IMO the best way to get a feel for the school is to tour it which may be hard in the summer unless it's year round. I would put much more stock in parent reviews than a greatschools rating. We found the schools to be quite different when we toured them even when the greatschools was the same. If you know anyone at that school ask them about it...if not you can also try to see if people in that neighborhood send their kids to the school or if more are in private or magnet options. A red flag for us was our old neighborhood had a TON of kids and only 2 families went to the base school.

I don't know Durham schools so I'm sorry I can't be of more help but hopefully some of the Durham folks will chime in.