GeoffM

I've been looking at the school scores and ratings on the greatschools.org website and it appears some of the reviews are really old. For example, the most recent one for "our" school is dated 2010, and there is only 1 review on average for each of the 7 years before that. In fact, all but one of the reviews are positive, averaging 4 out of 5. Yet the "Greatschools" rating is 3 out of 10. Randomly looking at various other schools show similarly dated reviews.

Anybody have thoughts on the ratings given by this website? I'm aware that any review website can be skewed by the people who rate them. FWIW the test scores for 2011 aren't great either really, compared to the school district and to California.

Rete

If you are speaking about public schooling, knowing the rating is useless as most school are attended by students without their catchment area. Here in my city, this is not the case, as we are mandated to intergrate our schools and the school board decides who goes where.

Michael

School ranking is probably more important than ratings. This California school performance map give a quick look at the rankings. You can click on the symbols to find more information.

http://schoolperformancemaps.com/ca/...9%2C11%2C1%2C2

GeoffM

When I've seen comments about eligibility, around here it seems to be kids within the boundary area first, then applications for kids outside the boundary area, using a lottery if the applications exceed available spaces. Maybe other criteria too but it seems if you live at a particular address then you're going to a specific school. I'm not keen on a lottery system for my son's education! So we need to move into the right catchment area.

Ah, that probably is more useful, thanks. For the same school it gives 5-6 as an API score which again is not great but slightly more palatable than the 3 GS rating.

Michael

Well, you are out in the middle of nowhere so a lot of the kids in the schools in that area probably have parents with maybe high school education. That doesn't mean that the schools are bad but that the bright genes aren't likely passed on to many of the kids. With both you and your wife as professionals, your kids will probably be the shinning stars in the schools instead of just another student in a rank 10 school. Besides they will be able to take some gifted classes.

Bayleaf_01

I use a website called www.schooldigger.com. The reviews can still be out of date, but the school results are posted as well as a lot of informatiom about the school and neighbourhood.

GeoffM

Victorville is where we live currently; we're moving "down the hill", Covina/Glendora/Walnut kind of areas.

Thanks, that's useful.

Rete

Whoa! Can't believe that you made this statement. Well liked are you?

Michael

But it is true. It is not only the genes but they help a lot but also the attitude of the parents towards education.

Genes definitely play a major role in a child's development. It is not as easy to identify as it is for sport figures where many children of sports legends frequently become sports legends in the same sport.

I guess I'm saying something similar to what "Jimmy the Greek" said on TV in the 1970's about black sports football players and was fired because people didn't want to admit that black players had strong genes for that sport and instead wanted to believe that it was all due to strong work.

Not everybody can become a doctor, artist, or an engineer no matter how hard they try or what schools they attend since it is not in their genes.

GeoffM

LOL, it is a bit of a generalisation - though for this particular area, probably fairly accurate! Except the "middle of nowhere bit".

Sally Redux

It can't all be genetic. My husband's parents are really thick, to be blunt, but he's very clever.

Michael

There are no absolutes but genes give a person an advantage.

Michael

Well, my kids were raised in Eureka and Vacaville and I also refer to those places as "the middle of nowhere".

GeoffM

Subjective and elastic then. Your Eureka is 1/8 the population of the Victorville/AV/Hesperia/Adelanto area (the four are pretty much contiguous), and 15mi is a lot closer than the scores of miles that Eureka is from the nearest large conurbation! Vacaville is "only" 1/3 the size and twice the distance.

Bob

It's a good starting point but I'd also say to give the results of these rating/ranking sites a pinch of salt.

Down my way, I know the local high school has pretty meh over all rankings, but it has also won statewide competitions in science and tech subjects and has done well in those national competitions.

The thing is, the academic subjects, not so much, but then a lot of the students come from families who don't speak English as a first language so the kids are often left alone to it as the parents can't help.

Also the schools are all inclusive, so they don't separate the kids with learning issues.

Then on the other side of things in some of the neighbouring towns which are more wealthy, with very highly rated schools. Those schools are good, but they also don't include the results for kids with learning issues, they either get taught separately or just excluded.