School rankings - how accurate are they? (home, neighborhood)

[GoldenKiwi]

I find it fascinating how people are driven out into the suburbs (north county) and pay absurdly high HOA/Mello Roos fees on top of already high property taxes so they can get their kids into what are commonly viewed as the best schools which are given rankings from what my understanding are based only on test scores.

A friend who is a teacher (not in SD, Bay Area) was telling me there's a lot of politics involved and sometimes more "prestigious" schools funnel their special ed kids into other schools which bring down said schools rankings, and that a school ranked as a 7 isn't necessarily worse than a 9 or a 10.

I'm curious to hear from people who are more familiar with SD County's school systems as to how accurate these rankings actually are.

[LuvSouthOC]

The scores shown online are absolutely NOT accurate. Scores are designed to compare "like" districts (in the state), i.e. those cities that have similar demographics, and then adjust down for the percentage of children who receive free lunch. Only THEN are scores considered against these data.

For example, in my district, the demographics are similar to some of the highest income areas in the state. However, most people here are mainly upper middle class high income earners (and fewer upper class persons), we are not extraordinarily wealthy as is the case with areas with similar school demographics. In other words, it is skewed.

[TristramShandy]

I don't think there is a discernible difference between a 7 and a 9. Schools getting 2s and 3s are getting them for a reason, though. Better to look at it as broad swaths rather than 10 scientific tiers of schooling.

[Pedro2000]

I also don't really think "moving to the suburbs" is accurate for SD. Most of SD is pretty much a suburb or closer to a suburb than a city. So people don't really move to Carmel Valley over Downtown.

[Encinitan]

I'd say they're accurate, but misleading. Just like someone else said, the difference between a 10 and an 8 can be very small. Our school is the lowest ranked of the district, but we love it and our kids are learning what they should be and overall, state and nationwide, it's still well above average in terms of API, etc. It's just in a high performing district.
That said, if your home school is a 2, I'd so some checking.

[Pedro2000]

I also think people need to visit the school, sit in on classrooms, talk to other parents in the neighborhood, talk to teachers and education leaders, etc. There are some good school districts where the teacher to student ratio is 30:1. I find that the better schools, regardless of ranking, usually have fewer students to teachers. Or one school near me has 15-20 kids per 1 teacher plus assistant teachers in that same classroom.

I would look at student to teacher ratio, does the school have volunteers, does the school have money? How long have the teachers been at that school? Do other parents volunteer, get involved? Are there kids just left along all the time or do they have parents actively involved?

There are some schools that are good, but are in areas without all the wealthy people, can't afford to buy certain equipment. I know a few schools that are good schools, but have no budget to buy anything now. While there are other schools that give kids chromebooks or tablets or have new computer labs. Things like that matter more than some ranking.

I think people should do far more research on the school compared to just going by a ranking they found on a website.