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I look on this website and here in Virginia their ratings seem to be based on race more than anything. The whiter/Asian the school is, the better. This makes home value differ up to several hundred thousand dollars. I’m wondering if they take bribes or skew their statistics to continue economic segregation??
CD do not delete this post because you are scared of people being offended; honest dialogue needs to take place in order to affect change
I look on this website and here in Virginia their ratings seem to be based on race more than anything. The whiter/Asian the school is, the better. This makes home value differ up to several hundred thousand dollars. I’m wondering if they take bribes or skew their statistics to continue economic segregation??
CD do not delete this post because you are scared of people being offended; honest dialogue needs to take place in order to affect change
Think about what parents are going to be online putting in the ratings. That's who's deciding what school gets what ratings. Realtors are forbidden to give opinions about schools, that's why websites like greatschools exist.
My personal (and professional) advice when speaking to buyers is this. Do your research online, go to the school's facebook page and social media and see how involved they are. Schedule a visit at the school to meet the staff. Ask the people who live in the community you're interested in and they will be a good source of knowledge.
I don't think that greatschools, in itself, is responsible for steering people to a school or not. They are just collecting data. I think it's more about who's rating the schools.
Mothers and fathers always want the best school for their kid. I can tell you that myself, my kids, my wife, or most of my friends didn't go to any of the Top 5 schools in our area and I turned out okay. So did my kids, my wife and most of my friends. To me, a public education is a public education, regardless of how many golden carrots one school offers over the next.
Community ratings or test score ratings? The former is subjective while the latter is objective.
Quote:
Originally Posted by JGDlife
I look on this website and here in Virginia their ratings seem to be based on race more than anything. The whiter/Asian the school is, the better. This makes home value differ up to several hundred thousand dollars. I’m wondering if they take bribes or skew their statistics to continue economic segregation??
CD do not delete this post because you are scared of people being offended; honest dialogue needs to take place in order to affect change
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
44,585 posts, read 81,206,701 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by WiseManOnceSaid
Think about what parents are going to be online putting in the ratings. That's who's deciding what school gets what ratings. Realtors are forbidden to give opinions about schools, that's why websites like greatschools exist.
My personal (and professional) advice when speaking to buyers is this. Do your research online, go to the school's facebook page and social media and see how involved they are. Schedule a visit at the school to meet the staff. Ask the people who live in the community you're interested in and they will be a good source of knowledge.
I don't think that greatschools, in itself, is responsible for steering people to a school or not. They are just collecting data. I think it's more about who's rating the schools.
Mothers and fathers always want the best school for their kid. I can tell you that myself, my kids, my wife, or most of my friends didn't go to any of the Top 5 schools in our area and I turned out okay. So did my kids, my wife and most of my friends. To me, a public education is a public education, regardless of how many golden carrots one school offers over the next.
The data doesn't lie, the top schools are in the more affluent areas, and in some cases that means more white and Asian. It's economics, not race, though the result does reflect differences by race in many big cities. Look at places like the suburbs east of Seattle, where there are no Blacks to speak of, and you will still find the more affluent schools such as in Issaquah, Kirkland, Sammamish and Redmond to be rated far higher than the less affluent cities such as Kent, Auburn and Enumclaw.
I will add to your suggestions, WiseMan, that you could attend a school board meeting. When moving here with 3 kids in school, those board meetings helped me eliminate two school districts.
I look on this website and here in Virginia their ratings seem to be based on race more than anything. The whiter/Asian the school is, the better. This makes home value differ up to several hundred thousand dollars. I’m wondering if they take bribes or skew their statistics to continue economic segregation??
CD do not delete this post because you are scared of people being offended; honest dialogue needs to take place in order to affect change
Are you really looking for a honest dialogue? Your question is so loaded that it's almost as if you're looking to start an argument in order to be offended while simultaneously shaming other people.
The high Great Schools scores are schools with high academic scores based on testing metrics. Those are statewide tests. The states do not create tests with the specific goal of making minority students score lower while allowing white and Asian and South Asian students score highly (the highest scoring student demographics are indeed minority students, which is ironic when you think about it).
Income and educational performance are closely interrelated. It's always been the case that wealthy school districts have the high test scores. Highly educated people seek out better performing school districts. Highly educated people tend to have more money, so they buy more expensive houses and pay more property taxes to support local schools, which makes those schools desirable due to their amenities and high academic performance. It's a self-fueling phenomena.
Does it mean you can only get a "good" education at a highly rated Great Schools school? No. But the argument that Great Schools distorts a home's value is ridiculous. It merely reflects what already exists on the ground. You could ban GS but it wouldn't change anything. Parents still flock to the best school districts they can afford, they always have and they always will. They were doing it long before Great Schools came along. They were doing it long before the internet age.
I look on this website and here in Virginia their ratings seem to be based on race more than anything. The whiter/Asian the school is, the better. This makes home value differ up to several hundred thousand dollars. I’m wondering if they take bribes or skew their statistics to continue economic segregation??
CD do not delete this post because you are scared of people being offended; honest dialogue needs to take place in order to affect change
Test scores are actually more reflective of socioeconomic class, but that is very closely tied together with race. Schools with wealthy parents can afford to fund school shortfalls, raise more money with school fundraisers, etc. So those kids get more field trips, science labs, school materials, etc.
Parents can afford to pay for private tutors, SAT/ACT prep classes, as well so their scores will reflect not better teaching, but better access to support services for kids that don't do well on their own. This increases test scores. Kids in poor school districts are just as smart, but they lack the resources to thrive like their rich counterparts do.
There is no bribing going on to continue economic segregation. Redlining started a trend of homeowners and renters that pushed certain neighborhoods into the hands of landlords or homeowners. Once that cycle starts it is hard to change it as homeowner dynamics continue those neighborhood trends.
Test scores are actually more reflective of socioeconomic class, but that is very closely tied together with race. Schools with wealthy parents can afford to fund school shortfalls, raise more money with school fundraisers, etc. So those kids get more field trips, science labs, school materials, etc.
Parents can afford to pay for private tutors, SAT/ACT prep classes, as well so their scores will reflect not better teaching, but better access to support services for kids that don't do well on their own. This increases test scores. Kids in poor school districts are just as smart, but they lack the resources to thrive like their rich counterparts do.
There is no bribing going on to continue economic segregation. Redlining started a trend of homeowners and renters that pushed certain neighborhoods into the hands of landlords or homeowners. Once that cycle starts it is hard to change it as homeowner dynamics continue those neighborhood trends.
Redlining is a red herring. That argument hasn't been valid for decades. People latch on it as a convenient excuse that allows them to avoid accepting personal responsibility for their actions.
Certainly in the DC area there's been massive gentrification of formerly predominately African American neighborhoods with terrible GS scores. Meanwhile, any suburban shifts in demographics now long postdate redlining. How does redlining come into play for these areas? It really doesn't, despite being a fashionable argument among some people.
Are you really looking for a honest dialogue? Your question is so loaded that it's almost as if you're looking to start an argument in order to be offended while simultaneously shaming other people.
The high Great Schools scores are schools with high academic scores based on testing metrics. Those are statewide tests. The states do not create tests with the specific goal of making minority students score lower while allowing white and Asian and South Asian students score highly (the highest scoring student demographics are indeed minority students, which is ironic when you think about it).
Income and educational performance are closely interrelated. It's always been the case that wealthy school districts have the high test scores. Highly educated people seek out better performing school districts. Highly educated people tend to have more money, so they buy more expensive houses and pay more property taxes to support local schools, which makes those schools desirable due to their amenities and high academic performance. It's a self-fueling phenomena.
Does it mean you can only get a "good" education at a highly rated Great Schools school? No. But the argument that Great Schools distorts a home's value is ridiculous. It merely reflects what already exists on the ground. You could ban GS but it wouldn't change anything. Parents still flock to the best school districts they can afford, they always have and they always will. They were doing it long before Great Schools came along. They were doing it long before the internet age.
York County, VA and Newport News, VA. Cross one street and your school rating goes from a 2 to a 10. Demographics get reversed and the same house will sell for nearly double. Before school ratings and demographic data became common place, the home values were no where near as skewed as they are now.
Redlining is a red herring. That argument hasn't been valid for decades. People latch on it as a convenient excuse that allows them to avoid accepting personal responsibility for their actions.
Certainly in the DC area there's been massive gentrification of formerly predominately African American neighborhoods with terrible GS scores. Meanwhile, any suburban shifts in demographics now long postdate redlining. How does redlining come into play for these areas? It really doesn't, despite being a fashionable argument among some people.
I don't understand your comment. The argument that redlining didn't exist isn't valid? The argument that redlining didn't help to create pockets of wealthy neighborhoods isn't valid? That redlining didn't kick neighborhoods into a cycle that feeds on itself of rich and poor isn't valid? Responsibility for what?
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