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?

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 [nj.com] 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 [go.com].

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

Science education

[Anonymous Coward]

if you've shopped around for elementary schools, what else did you consider?

Homeschooling?

For decent science and math education, homeschooling may be the only choice. And no, it's not all the Bible thumpers' fault.

Re:There is never a magic bullet

[g0bshiTe]

I can attest to this. My child was going in a Title III elementary school. We moved to another district with a higher socioeconomic ratio the school was Title I. Within 2 months she got put into AP classes. Fast forward to today, she's in High School in the Academy program. Had we still let her continue at the Title III school I've no doubt she would be in normal classes and at best an average student. At least 4 times during her time at the Tittle III school she was referred to the AP program of her school but due to funding/teachers leaving she never got accepted. Most of the time the AP teachers were leaving the school. The turn over for AP teachers was 1 per year. All the while this school pushed teaching the kids what they needed to know to keep the score of the school up during SOL's so they could keep their funding next year. As a result my daughter never learned to write in cursive, so we have been teaching her for the last few years.

This is why I'm firmly against basing a school on a standardized test. They will create a curriculum based around it and the tests questions vs teaching the kids anything of actual value.

Re:The Obvious Answer

[garthsundem]

I would agree completely if it weren't for this: despite the fact that I write about the science of education and my wife is a former spectacular teacher, our kids learn better from teachers other than us. For example, we started skiing this year -- my wife and I had our 5yo in a ski harness. Two lessons later with the "Eldorables" program and he's snowplowing independently like a bowling ball on stilts. The same is true of writing -- my wife and I would set up spectacularly fun writing and drawing projects that wouldn't go anywhere -- then in kindergarten, Leif loves the basic assignments they give. Of course we love reading and playing card games with the kids, but in terms of education, I think the culture of school promotes learning in a way we can't mimic at home.

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