Three Unexpected Data Points Describe Elementary School Quality

garthsundem writes with a link to his story in Wired, according to which "Test scores and student/teacher ratio are nearly meaningless. But three new numbers do describe school quality: 1. (Test Scores/Parent Education): How do scores outpace expectations? 2. Test Score Growth: Any single score can be socioeconomics, but growth is due to the school. 3. (Teacher Salary*%Highly Qualified/Teacher Age): The best teachers will become highly qualified early, and will gravitate toward the best paying jobs." These factors seem to be at least interesting starting points; if you've shopped around for elementary schools, what else did you consider?

Comments

Re:There is never a magic bullet

[Ihmhi]

Your best bet when shopping for schools is to find out what the average property tax paid in the area was last year. That's really the only way to find out if the school is worth it or not -- how well it's funded.

hahahahahahaha. My home city of Newark, NJ is closing 7 schools for underperforming. Severely.

Our schools are falling apart across the board, too. Wilson Avenue school, for instance, had to be closed because it was flooded with water laced with benzene.

We spend just shy of $17,000 per student. So no, funding alone is not a good indicator at all.