Word of mouth, property prices, professional desi concentration (:D), are all some general ways of finding a good school district and a good school for your child. There are also many websites that shows comparisions betweens schools and districts based on demographics, scores, etc.
Please share your valuable suggestions that could help parents in determining where to send their kidos.
Re: Finding good schools
My dad's a lecturer and he's always reading up on schools and he says that Primary schools arent too much of an issue, but you should be concerned about which Highschool to send your kids to.
When choosing a highschool you really need to do proper research. For example, read up statistics on the last 5 years of schools you are interested in. You should look out for, what percentage of kids finish college (we have VCE/HSC here) and what percentage actually get university offers. That's usually a very good indication. Also, what percentage of students scored higher than 90 in their ENTER (the score you get to get into Uni/Tafe)
So, yeah a few things to look out for.
Im just trying to find a good school for my daughter. The area we're building in is very new.. so the schools are going to be new with new facilites. Which is a good thing.. bad thing is they wont have any rating.
I've seen a school, but its a Catholic school... it looks good and ive read the reviews.. but should i be concerned about sending her to a catholic school? I dont care at all... there is an islamic college down the road... but the reviews arent so good about that.
So much to think about
Re: Finding good schools
You can find the grade of the school online....an A-grade school means that the kids do well on end of the year standardized tests which reflect student achievement in math, reading comprehension, science, and writing skills. If the student population, overall, is doing well on these tests....that means the teachers in general are doing a good job teaching.....and if the performance on these tests is good......schools get funding from the government for text books, technological resources, building maintenance, and extra curricular programs.
You can also find the average gains made by the student population on these tests. In the state of Florida, this test is administrated in almost all grades, is mandatory, and is called the FCAT. In other states, it may be known as something else. I'm a teacher...so this is the little bit of knowledge that I have :)