Have you used school ratings websites to decide on a school district for your child(ren)?
I used to trust those ratings until I really looked at them. I went to a PTA meeting recently and parents were all up-in-arms because our elementary school dropped in the ratings. I wanted to know why because the school is completely dedicated to excellence and I was always very impressed with them.
Heres the thing. Children are given state tests in the 3rd grade (also 5th and I think 9th). The ratings are based on the scores that the children get on these exams.
The scores do not reflect how many children are “special needs” or learning disabled. Our elementary school has a large-ish population of such children. So while our special needs children fare better than the special needs children of other districts and our regular ed children also fare better…the aggregate score is lower because the scores are just averaged together. This is a top notch school for special ed students AND for regular ed students. Yet, its score is about the same as an inner-city school whose population is all poorly taught regular-ed kids.
VERY frustrating. If you have a special needs child, you cant figure out what schools are better. You also have no idea whether the scores reflect a larger population of special needs children or if its due to poor teaching.