In the local paper this morning, a detailed website showing how schools and school districts compare with each other in student performance and other factors in all 50 sates and the District of Columbia SchoolMatters.com.


"The site will provide a great deal of authoritative data for people trying to identify which shools and districts are not doing a good job and which ones are succeeding.

The site not only shows how schools' and districts' test scores compare with their neighbors, but it gives results for particular minority groups and illustrates the different ways that districts spend tax dollars. One part of the website allows residents concerned about how money is spent to see what portion of new revenue coming into each district is spent on instruction and what portion is not."

By Kernkate on Wednesday, March 30, 2005 - 07:59 am:

Thats very interesting. Lots of info even for our small town school. Thanks

By Mrsheidi on Wednesday, March 30, 2005 - 09:15 am:

As a teacher, I always cringe when I see these websites. When you look at class size, I would always add "10" to it if your child is in regular education classes. They count special needs classes in this average and it drives me nuts. I wish class sizes were lower...I had at least 30-32 kids in each of my science classes and on this website it said that that school has 20. It REALLY does matter. That's why I'm going to ttry to send my kids to private school. Lower class size helps tremendously.

I wish they could show growth of the community too. Sometimes schools have a hard time keeping up with the growth and you have kids taking classes in the lunchroom with other classes and sitting in hallways. Ugh.

There's at least one good thing about this website though...it allows you to compare one school to another. I REALLY like that!

By Boxzgrl on Wednesday, March 30, 2005 - 10:27 am:

The high school I graduated from is above average in all the graphs posted. Thats neat. We had an average class size of 25-30.


El Modena

By Paulas on Wednesday, March 30, 2005 - 11:47 am:

I just checked a school in Maine out of curiousity since I am in Canada and none of our schools are rated. It was Baldwin school and I choose it b/c of it's low scores. The problem with these type of reports is that people tend to look only at the scores. In this school there are a number of economically disadvantaged children, class sizes are higher, average family income is lower..the list goes on.

Please take these results with a grain of salt. They also only indicate how a student performed on a given day. Let me give an example:

One year the speech path came in to my grade one classroom, 3 Mondays in a row to complete a test with them. Each testing period was about 1 1/2 to 2 hours long, which in my opinion is WAAAAY too long for 6-7 year olds. Anyway, Sally was my top student. On Monday #1 she wrote the test and did well. On Monday #2 she again did well. After writing the test on Monday #2 she went home to learn that her Grandmother whom she was extremely close to had passed away after a long battle with cancer. Sally missed the entire week of school. She returned to school on MOnday #3 and wrote the test. She did horribly. The speech path, not knowing the situation, red flagged her as having reading difficulties and sent her name in to the board office. I was livid! She was a great student and no one had consulted me before submitting her name to see why she might have done well on other components of the test but not on the third one.

Anyway...enough of my ranting. Just be careful when reading results of state testing.

By Lauram on Wednesday, March 30, 2005 - 12:12 pm:

Ditto the "be careful" reminder.

By Breann on Wednesday, March 30, 2005 - 02:01 pm:

Ours was accurate as far as class size. It says 23 students. My dd's class has 21.

Thanks for sharing the website. I find it interesting

By Melanie on Wednesday, March 30, 2005 - 07:22 pm:

Ours says 27.7 students per class. We have no special education classes to throw the numbers off. But our lower grades have 20 students and the upper grades have 30. My second grader is in a class of 20 and my third grader is in a class of 19.

I definitely agree with the "be careful" sentiment. Numbers only tell part of the story. You don't get a full picture of any school without seeing it.

I know a pretty high number of parents opt out of having their children tested at our school, which means the scores they give may not give a true picture of the school.

By Paulas on Wednesday, March 30, 2005 - 11:43 pm:

Wow...I can't believe parents have the "opt out" option where you are. The only students allowed to miss the test or have modifications in our area are those that are coded special needs.

By Melanie on Thursday, March 31, 2005 - 09:46 am:

LOL, Paula. I am in California. Is it really that surprising? ;) Parents seem to freak out over the test. The principal is working hard to get the message out that not having kids test actually hurts the school because you need a certain percentage or your funding is affected. With only 160 kids in the entire school, it doesn't take many opting out to hurt everyone.

By Pamt on Thursday, March 31, 2005 - 04:08 pm:

You know, kust this year I though about "opting out." I HATE standardized tests and I HATE that teachers teach to the test nowadays. When I was in school we were given standardized tests (like the CA Achievement Test) every few years and it was no big deal. No preparation for the test and just a few days of testing. My kids take a standardized test (the Stanford Achievement Test) every year and they spend at least 2-3 weeks preparing and then one full week test-taking. They are usually finished testing by lunch each day and then they WATCH MOVIES the remainder of the school day. It drives me crazy. I thought that my 8 y/o was going to have an ulcer this year because of worry from stress the teachers were putting on him. We put no stress on the kids, told them that while they should do their best we didn't care what they made because we already knew that they are smart, and reminded them that at least with testing they got no homework.

I really think that next year we may take a family vacation during testing week. DH and I both strongly disagree with annual testing (wouldn't mind so much if it were every 3 years or something). Our children make straight As and always score in the 90th+ percentile on standardized tests, they aren't "worth" anything to us personally (not like the SAT or ACT in high school), they create unncessary stress, and a family vacation would be much more educational than a boring week of testing and watching mindless movies. My kids go to a private school so I can't imagine that there is much they can do to "force" my kids to be tested.

BTW, as anticipated Louisiana schools ranked well below the national average. That's why my kids HAVE to go to private school. What I was amazed by though was how in a variety of states I checked in all regions of the US so few people (generally <25%) have a college degree. I really would have thought it would have been higher than that---not so much in the south, but esp. the northeast.

By Elizabeth704 on Thursday, March 31, 2005 - 05:52 pm:

LOVE this site!! Thanks Karen