Best websites for schools and school district rankings (real estate, 2015)

[Cassy Fae]

Hi all,

I know there are a few of them like great schools and niche, but I don't know how accurate they are.

What do you use?

[semiurbanite]

Originally Posted by Cassy Fae

Hi all,

I know there are a few of them like great schools and niche, but I don't know how accurate they are.

What do you use?

Depends in your criteria, greatschools is more driven my test scores so places wealthy homogenous districts at the top, and niche has more well rounded criteria. the MA DOE website "accountability" data is another decent source to see how a school meets it's goals for sub-groups of students.

[alidmc]

I don't put too much stock in the rankings sites. Rankings are a point in time, are based on independently developed methodology (in some cases, the methodology is not terribly transparent).
When I was looking at school district quality for my most recent move, I looked at district Web sites, school committee agendas, news articles, and town budget info. This gave me a decent picture of the school community and the health of the schools.

[CaseyB]

I'd mostly look at the test scores, graduation rates. Look at the Mass. DOE site. Anything else is mostly subjective. Go in to the schools and see what they are like, if you can. Don't rely on real estate agents, LOL. I remember asking mine what the schools were like and she said "Well MY kids have always done well". Means nothing.

[bugelrex]

This is a totally UN-PC answer:

Some people consider the "percentage of kids on subsidized/free school lunch" as a major factor.

[semiurbanite]

Originally Posted by CaseyB

"Well MY kids have always done well". Means nothing.

Means alot actually - especially if your kids come from a similar background. No better way to assess a school than to talk to actual parents. Although a realtor may be trying to sway you to buy.

Originally Posted by bugelrex

This is a totally UN-PC answer:

Some people consider the "percentage of kids on subsidized/free school lunch" as a major factor.

That's the racist answer if you want your kids to be in a school that lacks diversity. Yes some racist people consider this.

[Boston_Burbs]

Niche is the best website.

Mass doe has ratings as well. Overall then they break out categories by race and special needs

[bugelrex]

Originally Posted by semiurbanite

That's the racist answer if you want your kids to be in a school that lacks diversity. Yes some racist people consider this.

If you consider the "subsidized lunch" as a "USA" wide statistic, it has "nothing" to do with race. I believe "white Americans" are the largest recipients of food stamps and welfare.

Infact, if you to look up stats for a school in Chinatown NYC, the "subsidized lunch" will be shockingly high due to poor hard working immigrants who value education. Those particular schools would be extremely popular and coveted.

Its not a racist answer. Its only racist if you want to find racism in it.....

Who Gets Food Stamps? White People, Mostly | The Huffington Post

[Peabody99]

Originally Posted by semiurbanite

Means alot actually - especially if your kids come from a similar background. No better way to assess a school than to talk to actual parents. Although a realtor may be trying to sway you to buy.



That's the racist answer if you want your kids to be in a school that lacks diversity. Yes some racist people consider this.

Are you the type to see racism everywhere? It's all people, including kids talk about. It's a great way to rate a school and has nothing to do with race. Lots of white people in poor areas.

[SalamanderSmile]

When we lived in MA I was very concerned with my town's schools as we got to age 4. I found that the Mass DOE website allowed me to filter populations and look at test results of different towns/populations. As I am a native english speaker I filtered out and looked only at results of native english speaking populations in the schools. Trying see if the "bad" schools weren't actually "bad" but burdened with a higher population of non-native speakers who may fare worse on these tests, esp. in elementary. As MA gets more and more expensive the data will get parsed further and further by buyers in hopes of finding some hidden gem or pocket of value. Turned out my town's schools were just bad for everyone, so we moved.