How online ratings make good schools look bad
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- Опубліковано 4 гру 2019
- GreatSchools is America’s biggest school ratings website. But what do its scores actually measure?
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When parents are researching where to move, they typically look at the quality of a neighborhood's schools. But good data on that is hard to find. That's where a website called GreatSchools has thrived. GreatSchools rates almost every public school in America on a scale of 1 to 10. But when we analyzed those ratings, we found that they almost never give high scores to schools in poor neighborhoods - even though data from their own website shows that many of those schools do a good job teaching students.
This video is a collaboration with Chalkbeat, an education news site. To read more about GreatSchools' ratings, read their story here: www.chalkbeat.org/posts/us/20...
EdWeek reported on how GreatSchools changed its ratings system in 2017: www.edweek.org/ew/articles/20...
And recently, researchers have found that the GreatSchools ratings may even have an effect on housing prices, locking poor people out of more affluent neighborhoods: www.chalkbeat.org/wp-content/...
Vox.com is a news website that helps you cut through the noise and understand what's really driving the events in the headlines. Check out www.vox.com.
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One very important detail that this video is missing: In the USA, Public School funding is based on the surrounding community's Property Tax. Which means that School in poor neighborhoods will get less funding, while Schools in wealthier neighborhoods will get more funding. And Ya'll know the consequences of that by this point.
Is that really? Even if they have the same Municipality they won't get the same funding? Sorry just curious as I'm not familiar with it.
Wait, wut? How is that fair?
America sure loves to widen the wealth gap in every aspect they could, huh?
Mostly yes but school funding is often more complicated than that and depends on where you live. Here in California for example schools are funded by local, state, and federal taxes but most of that funding is money from the state which equalizes district spending. The federal government also gives states grants that total around 14 billion dollars to improve schools for low income students. This is arguably not enough but I wouldn't want people to write off a school because it is in a poor neighborhood. Depending on where you are it could still be well funded and have great teachers!
@@FieryRedmond and counties are funded by... Property taxes.
Starts video: It's going to be about money and race, right?
2 minutes in: Yep.
No kidding.
Skip6235 everyone knows this is a problem but nobody wants to do nothing about it
@@nvtri1206 facts
I literally thought the same thing!
Most things in American society are about money and race. Even in countries with pretty homogeneous populations if you replace race with class the statement remains true.
Goodhart's Law - "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure."
Well that's just not true, but you do have to be careful that your measure actually represents the target.
@@Suedocode You've missed the point. Even if a measure starts out representing the target, it will be "gamed" to the point that it no longer does.
@@Suedocode The problem is the word "represents". Any proxy can be gamed. You don't want a measure that represents the target, you want to measure the target directly.
@@deadeaded I don't know if you read my previous message, but that's essentially what I was trying to say.
@@Suedocode There is a distinction to be made between representing a property and the property itself. In the context of education, the property in question is a student's intelligence, knowledge, etc. Standardized exam scores simply represent intelligence/knowledge. However, when the exam scores themselves become a target (rather than knowledge and whatnot), the numbers can be gamed without a corresponding improvement to the students.
there is also the issue of the fact that the better prepared a student is for school, the harder proportionally it is to get them to improve on test scores. going from 20 to 50% is easier than going from 85-95% but is a vastly higher jump. there should be work done one this by trained statisticians to devise a metric that takes into account all the possible confounding factors, instead of one crude metric
Totally agree. That’s why you should divide the increase by the difference between the initial score and 100%. So going to from 85% to 95% is better than the 20% to 50%.
That was exactly what I was thinking about commenting, but I decided checking if someone else had found this huge flaw on their logic before me.
Maybe there isn't a good way to measure how good a school is for every single kid because different schools/teaching methods are going to be better for individual students depending on their background.
In acdemic context there's a normalisation of teacher value added of course (similar to growth score) which takes that issue into account
Statisical tendency is appeared when 'Above-averge growth factor' is applied as analysis metric. This youtube video does shows just how rasing score starting from low baseline is easy. Just another example of reversed cause and result.
Growth scores alone don't help either !The way you frame the info here is not accurate, they need to include growth and proficiency. If you are at level 1 it's easier to go up levels than a level 20 going to 21. You can't fairly compare them.
At one school they might be great at getting illiterate children to a strong average level, so a high growth score however they might not support advanced children.
In contrast another school might not grow a lot on paper maybe only learning a few extra skills but if those skills are very complex it's still more valuable....and it's unclear how those at lower levels would do in the same environment. I.e you can't start uni without doing an Alevel.
Although you're right that it alone doesn't help either (as any score should take multiple factors into it), I still have a few counter points you may want to consider. Many public schools regardless of their finances can still send their students to "gifted" programs within the district in order to help more advance students learn. However, issues with the "gifted" programs include: Not seeing potential candidates in "advanced" (as you stated and for lack of a better term) students from varying ethnicities, often holding unusual requirements for students that can involve financial demands (transportation, costly dress code, etc.), as well as bullying is far more severe for students who don't fit in (If your child is "gifted" but also has a learning or behavioral disability, they will possibly have a worse time trying to get friends but a better time in school.). Since most people aren't raising "advanced" students though that shouldn't be too big of a consideration for them unless their kid starts to exhibit problem behavior related to boredom in class and is known to be smarter than they seem (this is the problem I personally experienced and was deemed suitable for testing for, as well as what I've noticed many ethnic students to be instead reprimanded for rather than looked further into.)
My personal consideration is that instances of bullying, violence, and similar issues to also be considered in the scores, as my child will definitely be able to learn their basic math and language (I can teach them these things if I notice they're struggling)--but if they're in an environment where people are constantly berating each other, insulting each other or even actively hurting each other I can't as easily fix and teach them otherwise on that.However, including thati n the ratings would incite schools to not handle the situations better, so possibly statistics on how the school handles reprimands and the reasons for it might be better (I'd rather my kid go to a school that has higher violent instances but better repremindations for such than a school that has lower violence but would suspend you for wearing a hat in class.)
Sorry if this is worded weird at any point, I just woke up and I haven't gotten quite woken up yet.
It's an extremely complex subject. As a media psychologist i am well aware with the issues that arise when any complex subject is condensed into a simple scoring system. There are just too many variables for it ever to be fully reliable.
In short it is never an easy decision for parents to choose where to send their children to school but most of the time it is not a choice, it is merely down to where their level of income allows them to buy.
As this is (as far as i'm aware) a free service with no gov funding, it isn't possible for all the information to be provided. But better that we have access to both current factors rather than reducing the info available.
And even if schools are really heavily vetted first it doesn't guarantee that the school will remain at that level over the course of 6 yrs (or however long the child attends). Once parents have moved to a location, enrolled their child(ren) and settled it is unlikely they will relocate should the school massively decline within the first year.
I don't think they ever once said growth scores alone are the answer. I got the impression from this video that they're making the argument that growth scores carry less weight than they should when assessing the quality of education a school provides. Also, moving from level 1 to level 2 or 5 isn't necessarily easier than going from 20 to 21. If the more affluent schools have greater resources then they should be able to make the transition from 20 to 21 as "easily" as the transition from 1 to 2 in a school with fewer resources. Under-resourced schools struggle at every level. They don't have an easier time going from level 1 to 2 because their students have further to go. If anything it's more challenging.
that`s the point I wanted to mention, thank you! I am from Europe, but based on the video I told myself the same as you.
Oskar winters why are you mentioning A Levels specifically? The US’ system is different
Once a school reaches a certain proficiency lets say 80% its difficult to grow from there. A 0% growth to this school is still good since 80% of students are proficient.
If a school started with 20% proficiency then the scope for growth is huge and even a growth of 20%-30% isnt great since still half the school is not proficient. You cant rely on both factors alone since they are both deceptive however a hybrid of the 2 and you may make a fair system
Which is literally what GreatSchools does
@@cheeseman0125 my whole comment is to defend the site in question. I dont think Vox are giving it enough credit
@@siddkumar8032 No I think they are. It appears like they are just pointing out that no matter what GreatSchools does, there will never be a perfect solution. I am not really sure, but it was not a negative attack on GreatSchools.
you have to actually go to the school to really find out
People are too lazy to do that
@@vinny9868 it's not that they're lazy but it's inefficient. You're not going to go to every school just to see which school to go in.
Remember when kids just went to the closet schools? This whole thing is sounding like college admissions.
The Fresh Squid you still have to go to a school you live by, but many people buy houses based on what school it’s districted to. When my dad was in the military, every time we had to move he got a few options and he would pick where we went based on the schools we were districted to. Websites like great schools made sure me and my brother got to go to a great school when we had to move across the country and couldn’t go to each state we had as options and check
The Fresh Squid I to go too a closet school it’s pretty dark in their
Well, if my school grade went from 20% to 50%, yeah sure this means more improvement than jumping from 80% to 90%.
But anyone have attended any form of standardized tests, knows most of those tests have "easy" questions geared towards helping students pass the course, so jumping from 20% to 50% is wayyy easier than from 80% to 90%
If to jump from 20% to 50% only required prepping for "easy" questions, why aren't proficiency scores always 50% or higher? According to you, the teacher's mandate would be easy. Maybe it's not so easy.
Tbh I’d rather send my kids to a school full of more prepared students...
IStillLikeIke in general that’s what you should do unless your kid is an absolute brick then maybe choose a high growth. More prepared students offer better networking opporunity and better peer pressure. When everyone turns in their homework and you’re empty handed it guilt trips you. When you go to a bad school and half the kids don’t turn something in then you don’t feel so bad and continue to do it.
Those prepared students get private tutors and parents who know trigonometry to help with homework. Those students are prepared but most of the preparation came from the parents
Then there's also the point about how harder it is to grow scores from 90 to 95 than it is to grow 45 to 50.
Exactly..
Lol, didnt see that coming
Loc Nguyen it wouldn’t be based around minute changes. 5 points isn’t too incredibly significant, I agree tho
@Loc, something tells me you didn't take statistics. You can normalize it such that each extra point at 90 carries the same weight in scoring as 5.5 points at 45. That would effectively make it a percentage-based measure. You could also normalize it based on where it is on a curve. So if a school improves from 92 to 94 but statistics show that a 2-pt improvement at 92 is in the 5th decile, that gives it greater weight in scoring.
@@lozoft9 : A school that scored 92 or 94 would be an outlier: a case more than one standard deviation from the mean. It would probably be a small school with students skewed by factors little affected by teacher credentials or classroom amenities. Very likely, the kids' parents are rich, highly educated, often genius professionals or entrepreneurs, often from elite Asian origins. It would not be a reliable basis to score the school, per se. On the other hand, a school whose third graders score 20, but whose sixth graders score 50, would be quite a feat.
Why does this not address the fact that there is a lot less room for improvement in the affluent schools that are already performing well compared to the low income ones that are struggling.
This is just moving the goal post without addressing the core issue and that is underfunded school districts.
Also stress in kids - if a kid is stressed they're gonna have a harder time learning.
And you know what kids are most stressed?
The ones who live in poverty.
oh muy white bad black good
@@lyxivia if that's what you took away, then you really, really need to listen more lol
Maybe because Vox advances a particular political agenda that would cause this idea to either never even occurred to them or be deliberately burried...
Shut up, loser.
if you have a quarter and you find a dollar you have a growth of 400% if you have a million dollars and you find 500 thousand dollars you have a growth of 50%
You comment is a very underrated comment and pretty much sums it all up.
Growth is largely an arithmetic measure rather than a proportional measure though.
Parents also want their children to have friends with good grades. Between a school that will improve my children's grade better and another one that has more children with good grades, parents may choose the later.
The school that improves your children's grade will ideally improve their friend's grades too
Van T it’s better to choose the latter as long as your kid won’t feel completely out of place socially. When everyone hands in their work and gets decent grades it’s positive peer pressure on someone who otherwise slacks off. The slacker gets guilt tripped.
Yes. When classmates are all at a high level, the teacher can cover more academic ground more quickly. It's not about race, it's about competing at the highest level. A "leave no one behind" strategy brings the level of teaching down to the weakest student.
@@spelunkerd That's the point of magnet schools. They allow segregation by ability which is what you seem to want. But the status quo is segregation by race and class.
This video starts from a faulted standpoint: a single score cannot define an entire school. There should be a range of scores, clearly distinguished and explained, and the parents themselves should be using this data to judge, not the website aggregating it into a single score, arbitrarily weighted.
I wish this was what I saw more people saying. Schools are complex and a one or two scores of academic progress alone are not enough. Behavior data, suspension rates, attendance rates, class sizes, staff turnover rate, etc.
Courtney High And Greatschools has all of those things rated along with the overall rating they give to the school. So IDK what they’re getting worked up over
hazleslife some scores do indirectly affect the other variables as there is so much to do with the human mind
The scores are broken down and clearly weighted.
@@courtneyhigh3442 Suspension rates and absenteeism are intrinsically higher at under-performing schools for the same reasons they have low test scores: impoverished students, often ones with language problems. Class size and teacher turnover don't vary much. One could probably teach larger classes in places the students were not unruly or fail to come to class or do assignments.
But it is usually harder to see growth in already high achieveing students as compared to low achieving students. If a student was already getting the best grade before and after joining the school then basically there is no growth, but if a low scoring student even gets a marginal increase then it'll be seen as high growth. Also the best teachers prefer to teach smart kids who will take up their challenges. Which means that the old system still is the better one rather than this new system
Mrudul Jain I agree they needed to be divided into different groups for the growth analysis.
Math can still account for that.
in fact, if a student comes in 80% proficient, seeing 0% growth score still indicates that this is a good school since it remains proficient as opposed to a school seeing 30% growth in students 30% proficient where the growth score did not help achieve proficiency
Only "reporters" without kids could think parents would choose a school based on the condition of the playground and not on how well the school does at educating the students on fundamental subjects.
glad I went to a 10/10 school. look at me now.
lol
Cyranek you went to quail summit?
am i tripping or does this have 6 likes
I think your implicit assertion that you should be ranking school based on simply on their growth score is also somewhat problematic though just by the mathematics.
Let's say we have School A where students that takes students who were getting scores of 80/100 and gets them to 90/100 and School B that takes students from 60/100 and gets them to 80/100.
Under GreatSchools rating School A would be ranked higher because their absolute score is higher (which granted is not fair), under your growth rate system School B would be ranked higher because they achieved 20 points of improvement versus only 10 for School A.
However this glosses over the fact that as you get closer to perfect scores it gets more difficult to improve, and therefore equally good teaching gets lower growth scores. I think a more nuanced rating system would rate the schools based on the percentage of total growth achieved. This method prioritizes growth, while still admitting that as you get closer to perfection growth takes more effort.
Looking at the two example schools again School A has a potential growth of 20 and an achieved growth of 10, so their total score would be 50% of potential. School B has a potential growth of 40 and an achieved growth of 20, which is also 50%. This allows us to see that both schools are improving students equally rather than one school having an advantage over the other.
This, i can agree on
If your students were getting scores of 80/100 BEFORE being thought about the subject, either your test is very bad or your school is making a very wrong choice about what to teach.
Edit: if you want to make a good test with scores that actually represent a good metric, look for good examples around the world. I specifically suggest you to look at how Brazil's ENEM test and scoring works.
@@piteoswaldo The tests are really bad, but they aren't set by the school. It is good the school isn't teaching to a really east test.
@@HesderOleh Yeah, there'd be no point in testing if each school created their own test. I don't know who creates the standard test and standard curriculum, but the blame is on them.
Fabrício Lara I don’t think OP meant that the students were proficient in the subject literally getting 80s before taking the class, but would probably be getting 80s from being taught average lessons. Keep in consideration students from other schools who would be getting 60s from the same lessons, not necessarily since the lessons are bad or are taught by bad teachers, but because of the students preparedness as this video emphasizes.
This way, the students which are more prepared have less of a gap to improve. So if you were measuring improvement for one set of students your expectations are perfection, where another set of students your expectations are much lower, it’s simply an unfair measurement.
If School A had an improvement score of 5, and School B has an improvement score of 20, which school is better? Probably B. If I told you school A improved from 85 to 90 and school B improved from 50 to 70, the answer “which school is better” is rather ambiguous.
I feel like Vox missed the mark on this one. It isn’t the job of these ranking websites to remove the correlation between income and standardized test scores. At the end of the day, if a school is producing high test scores, it’s a good school. I understand that growth could also be an important factor when rating schools, but I’m not sure if growth would be a “more accurate” metric than performance.
Vance Winstead the website should have a break down on overall test scores and overall growth. If you’re stuck with school that in general have low scores but if you can figure out which one has the best growth then it’d be useful.
there do exist good black schools and bad white schools but theyre outliers/exceptions, not the norm
i don't know why, but i think the analysis in this video not as deep as usual vox video
keep improving Vox
Yup!!
It's because they take as a given the fundamentally unequal US practice of tying school funding to neighbourhood property taxes.
I think because they boiled "good schools" down to those with good improvement in test scores and failed to mention other factors related to funding such as building condition, staff retention, discipline, class size, and other resources. The fact is that in our country rich schools almost always *are* good schools (there are some bad rich schools but you have to try really hard to fail at it) because of how we fund things. A teacher who has to buy all of their own materials in a class of almost 30 will struggle to get as much done as a teacher with better funds and class size even if they're great. The fact we give the most needy children the least resources in our country is tragic.
YESS! So true. I love most Vox videos. This one glanced over more nuanced perspectives.
@@dickersonbuttman69 School funding is based on municipal (not neighborhood) taxes and are supplemented by state and federal funds. Expenditure per student does not correlate reliably to state test results. Denver does not spend more per student in the affluent Belcaro or Washington Park areas than in humble Villa Park or Barnum zones.
Thanks for watching! Make sure to read this accompanying piece on Chalkbeat, where you can see how schools are rated in several other metro areas: www.chalkbeat.org/posts/us/2019/12/05/greatschools-ratings-poverty-race-segregation-housing/
Also, growth score is not linear; so same growth score doesn’t equal to same quality as it is harder to improve in already high scoring students...
If the school's students are more proficient that means that your kid will have more proficient friends, which might be more important than the school itself.
Also, it might be it is easier to improve when your level is low and that is why the poor schools have better improvement scores.
In conclusion : online ratings not always accurate
Shocking, I know.
After watching the video though, I get the impression that the online ratings actually do represent useful information. You should definitely know how they are calculated under the hood. I'd still use them to decide between schools though. Besides, they didn't really offer any alternative.
It can be a "good" guidelin e but it shouldn't be the only guideline.
That’s all you got out of the video ig
Online school ratings, while not an accurate predictor of your kid's particular outcome, are probably better (or easier to survey) than the alternatives. What friends or neighbors say about a school might also be helpful, but don't people select and screen friends more or less the same way the screen schools or mates?
In the UK, every school is inspected every few years by Ofsted which look at leadership, quality of education, safety, etc. and give each school a qualifier from Inadequate to Outstanding.
Daniel Nicholson Except for that whole ‘let’s not inspect the high-rated schools for a decade’ nonsense.
I’m glad there’s an official body, but oof.
Ofsted is a joke in the UK, schools know when they are coming therefore are prepared and the all the kids are normally told to behave well on the day.
i go to a very good school in a white/jewish area but almost the entire population of people in the school is South-East asian including me
@@SharkWarrior35 i agree remembering primary school the teacher always told us to behave when a 'visitor' came
The department of education in the US already does this..
I remember reading a review where a guy said he had to walk around with a shiv like it was a prison but when I entered there was barely any fights when I went there
It was a different time for him and a lot changed since Then
When I went into my middle school it was an A school, when I left it was a C school... All me, baby
Same here
From what I’ve seen, having attended both a majority white school in a good area vs a low income school with majority black and Hispanic, the less affluent schools in general are worse for other reasons lol. Less funding is one, but another thing I’ve noticed is the fact that less people care about school in those neighborhoods. Of course you still have people who do, but it isn’t the main priority for a really sizable chunk. In general I learned way less at the poor school than the more affluent school, I even almost failed a class because it was considered weird to try or care that much, versus my near perfect GPA in the more affluent school.
Now this is super anecdotal, don’t take it as science. But from my general experience on going to a D school versus an A school, i felt the scores reflect it fairly well lol
Of course you have some exceptional teachers, but these are often exceptions, not rules. And of course you can have the opposite.
The ratings on these types of site don’t reflect the full story, but can usually be an indicator of some common issues found in the lower rated schools which could make your child do WORSE even if they’re well prepared like that of a child in a white affluent neighborhood. Just my opinion, I could be totally wrong, I’m no professional.
DefinitelyNotDan I’m sorry, the last sentence is confusing me. Are you saying I have a low intelligence for sharing my anecdote or the people in low funded schools themselves? Also, yes it makes sense. I was more talking about attitudes, I’ve noticed they’re different. You can have good and bad teachers everywhere
I've taught in a good middle class school and in a low income school, attitude is everything. In the low income school, a lot of kids barely cared about education. It was disappointing.
Mario Mendoza 100%, attitude is contagious
Growth score representing 25% of the total score seems fair
God, I LITERALLY knew that "whiter, richer" = "better" was going to be what they found to be the results before even starting this video. I thought maybe not. Halfway through: Yep, I was right. I was hoping I wasn't right, but ....
Weird how white and asian are always better, isn't it?
1lookkey it’s more like richer neighborhoods demand higher quality because they have the funding. It’s almost as if it’s *gasp* common sense :o
Andrew Ponti I mean that’s really what it comes down to though. In general Whites and Asians are higher income, their schools get more funding, kids do better, the circle continues. Blacks and Hispanics tend to be poorer, their schools get less funding, thus they get older/worse equipment, less qualified staff etc, kids do worse, which continues the circle. It’s not that it’s racist it’s just kids aren’t given equal opportunity due to the disparity in funding. The only way you’re going to break the circle is by redistribution of funding, it doesn’t have to be exactly the same but at least some redistribution from higher income to lower income.
It's a cultural thing
Lot of white and richer people may come from a better home life. But if you come from a messed up home life that will make you tired, stressed, sad etc... which means its harder for you to concentrate and learn in school bc you have so much more other problem that goes through your mind other than the math problem. Plus they will not be able to afford a therapist or maybe adhd medicine if they need that. Or medicine for some physical illness. But richer people obviously will be able to afford which make everything alot easier if they have some disorder or something. Right!? And then their is diet. If your poor you might not afford alot of food or good food right? Which means you might be hungry alot which make it hard to study. And you might be deficient in alot of things which also makes it harder to concentrate. And it will make you really tired etc... Its an endless cycle.
One issue I have with this is that you want your child to be on the same level as its peers. If not, it's either going to fall behind or also fall behind because it gets bored easily by the education meant for less prepared children. You don't want THE BEST school even if it has an amazing growth score, you want the best school for YOUR KID.
BaronZ ideally you want to get your kid in the best school from the very beginning. Don’t wait till middle school or high school after their work ethic, intelligence, and character has already been partially built.
Do one for ratemyprofessor, the unofficial college class rating system
Yes, that's what I thought this video should originally address.
Sometimes i feel like schools forget about why your really there, your there to learn, but at the same time your just there and you stay there if you have a good GPA
Just a small note, if you start at 1, and end at 100, you can say you've grown 100x, but when you start at 150, and end up at 300, you've grown only 2x.
But remember - you're at 300, and they're at 100.
Also, the belief that schools directly impart education to students is fundamentally flawed. Kids learn a lot more from their peers. And guess what kind of peers do I want my child to have? The more affluent and sophisticated and better educated ones, or the lower income group ones?
Well, your first point doenst make much sense, just use absolut values? On the other hand I'm not familiar with these tests (Greetings from Germany), but I can imagine it being easier to learn the easier tasks than ofc. the harder ones, which makes growth tricky. Someone who knows nothing can achieve a great deal, while someone with already good marks has not much room to grow in these tests.
To your second point, partially. There is real influence in schools, but most comes from the parent house & even before you attend school. Living happy, well attended first years sets you up for your entire life. (I don't know the studies on top of my head, sure you can find it though) That requires having resourceful parents aka the dough.
@@Kostchei Well they're measuring growth on some absolute number right? In the video too, they were using absolute scale of measurement.
Also, it maybe true someone who knows little can go on to learn a lot, however I'm not really going to risk my child's future with experiments, but would rather play safe, and ensure my child gets into a place with children coming from highly educated backgrounds.
I can teach subjects, however I can't modulate the environment in a school.
This entire video is bogus because it tries to establish that just because some people are growing in some schools (when compared to their past metrics), means that the school is better than traditionally better reputed schools
my school is rated 3/10
my school is actually all i could ask for. my school is the best.
Interesting video. But looking at the data, there are 1) many schools with many rich kids, and 2) many schools with many poor kids. Very few schools with average-income kids.
Why’s that?
america
Because.....
*MuRiCa*
These are public schools... if you include private school (which are mostly almost all for the rich), the numbers even out I think.
capitalism
In America, the middle income ranges are very quickly disappearing, due to a few reasons. Like, the American class system rewards getting as rich as possible-- and it just isn't made to keep people in middle class. At least, that's how I understand it!
I feel like evaluating schools is something that needs to have a qualitative side and not just quantitative. How well do the teachers teach, how well designed is the curriculum, etc.
How well is the school equipped to handle bullying, provide counseling, support kids with learning disabilities, provide nutritious and appetizing meals, how long is lunch and recess, etc.
@@ALu-nq8rf how the students are treated and for candidate teachers or college students who are studying education the stuff environment is a huge factor of which school you want. Me I already found my Dream Campus and District its the same district I graduated in
- Room for growth is not equal throughout the performance scale
- Peers that started with higher performance might be more desirable regardless of growth
- This is a multi dimensional problem (not just a linear scale) and should answer questions like "how is my child going to be treated if struggling to keep up with the peers' pace?"
The problem with growth is that it's a lot easier going from bad to mediocre than it is going from good to great. Think of any given topic you know very well. How long would it take you to teach someone a basic understanding of that topic and how much more informed would they be than a person who had no knowledge of the topic? Now, how much longer would it take you to teach them enough to get to that next level of knowledge? And the level after that? I bet you'll find that the learning curve is exponential more often than not.
If your child was already struggling and you move them to a affluent Neighborhood, your child will continue to struggle or fall further behind because they can’t keep up with the curriculum.
But it also depends on the child. I had to move school districts after 7th grade it was my choice I knew the risks of entering a new district it not only ment saying goodbye to my friends and those who I grew up with since I was 5 years old but a new curriculum, new teachers, a new policy to abide by. My mom was for my decision and my dad on the other hand was nervous. Adapting to a new school and sudent body came easy for me but the curriculum was a bit hard ( I went to an IB Middle school ) I had more projects, homework, essays etc. I personally believe that it all depends on the child each child learns differently.
It also depends on the foundation. If the child never had a good foundation, they're going to struggle regardless of what school they go to. some people put their children in private school all the way up to middle school. By then, the foundation is already engraved and they'll adapt to any high school education
Which is precisely the case against affirmative action. Check out Thomas Sowell.
that might be true but affluent schools can provide more resources and support for struggling students
Me after every Vox video: I hate rich people
Also me after every Vox video: I have to become one of these rich people
@e n o u g h Wanting raise one's status isn't jealosy
@e n o u g h hey, all the more reason to work to better yourselve and improve your lot in life
@@fugginsloth Would you rather be smiling all day and you're poor or have a lot of money to buy things that bring you joy?
You're defining me!
Wow people’s perception of money is scary! A lot of rich people are evil and greedy and that’s why they stay rich. Doesn’t mean they’re better than anyone else. Look at the increased wage gaps and how the increase number of billionaires equals decrease in overall community wealth. Christmas season and people still attached to money as status symbol.
who needs money for education and knowledge we have Khan academy
What if someone who goes to a poor school does not have money to have a computer for themselves or wifi
catfruit o stinks
@@jk-gb4et Public libraries?
@@jk-gb4et wifi - yep, there is need for education
working computer to access web 2.0 standard is around one-third working day.
I've been in mostly white schools in Canada and very diverse schools in Houston Tx, I watched at least 5 teachers have mental breakdowns in Houston ISD. Teachers do not want to teach unruly kids who haven't been disciplined properly so the least experienced teachers or the worst is what you'll find in poorer schools
As a parent with the financial ability to move around for my child's education I don't really care about growth rates though, do I? Surely the overall performance is more important to me. Especially when considering that I probably want my child to be friends with children from other educated families.
I feel like this knowledge isn't really new. I think the more interesting and helpful topic would be focusing on the green in the low income areas and what makes them green. What is happening in those schools that are helping kids achieve those high scores?
Imagine if you didn’t have to go to school
Heaven...
I feel so many of vox’s videos information could be explained in 30 seconds.
Bro my elementary school was one of the best elementary schools in the state and it said it was a 5
Unknownz 123 my high school was a 2/10 despite it being the 3rd best one in the city (by residents standards.) the 2nd best one was a 3/10. The best one was an 8/10. In reality I’d say mine is a 6/10, 2nd best is 7/10, and the best one is a 9/10.
When people say “you’ll miss school”when you graduate
Me: *HA!*
what does this have to do with the topic?
How's your job at McDonald's
SuperSaltySam a lot of university students don't miss school. Don't see why you'd assume that'd make you an undereducated McDonald's employee.
Can we look at the fact that there are more low income student schools then others????????
There is more low income people than affluent people, so it makes sense.
Well, what would you seriously expect from one single score? The same problem shows in, for example, DxoMark scores of cameras and many other single rating systems; it's super hard to weigh these things to everyone's liking.
First, why are children from less affluent families so much less prepared than the others and what can be done about it?
Second, growth rate seems to be an even worse metric than proficiency as with higher level of proficiency achieving growth gets a lot harder.
Excellent question. A lot of the gap in proficiency levels between low- income and affluent families, or even middle- income families, comes from how many words are spoken to the children at home.
I don't want to make this comment too long, so I'll sum it up here. Studies have found that low-income children hear one million + less words before they are school - age, than their wealthier counterparts.
Think about what it means to be more or less affluent. Affluence is a measure of the resources a family has available. If you have more resources, you can afford to divert more of that towards your childrens' preparation for school. Having more money means you have more access to tools available to educate your child.
As for growth rates being used as a measurement, there's really no single measurement that can determine if a school is good. As with most things, reality is complicated. A less educated family who is unable to prepare their child for school is probably best served by schools that focus on growth scores. A family that has the time, education, and resources to prepare their child to be an exceptional student is probably best served by a program that surrounds them with similarly prepared students and more advanced curriculum.
Of course, even these assumptions have weaknesses. There are studies that strongly suggest that when less prepared students are put in an environment with more prepared students, they tend to learn faster. Likewise, a student who is only surrounded by privileged peers is likely to develop a distorted view of reality.
Its like Vox hires based on personal beliefs rather than actual data analysis skills
again though, it is important to consider proficiency, as the enviroment that a child learns in is also very important
I work in San Francisco, Oakland, and Berkeley, running my own business which is an afterschool tennis program (ewtennis.org). I've got to say that they nailed this. The amount of racial/economic segregation is astounding.
I'm from NYC, and because rich, poor, Black, White, Pink, Purple, etc. all attend basically the same schools, schools, for the most part are pretty uniform. You leave that, and discrepancies are intense.
We need more integration. Period.
How subscriber counts make bad channels look good.
How super rich media groups are using sub bots.
Well, this score is making some sense. Of course gaining knowledge is first priority, but having the ability to network with the most useful people out there is also very important in schools.
People who live in more affluent neighborhoods tend to put more focus on the success of their children in school, so...
More like they have more time and resources.
also, some schools have a big population of immigrants who don’t speak english and then they’re forced to take these big tests in a language they don’t know and the scores end up reflecting badly for the school when really it’s not that the school is bad, it’s just that that school has to do ten times more when teaching it’s students. Letting schools be defined by test scores is so unfair and doesn’t take into account anything but a students test-taking abilities.
I don’t think measuring the student is only a measure of how prepared they are.
Don't depend on the school system to educate your children.
I just looked and saw my high school has a 10, strange
red elephants,
it's not strange. you probably have a good family
I went to a lot of "diverse" schools growing up. What I found is the more black and Hispanic the student body, the more violent the school is. It didn't matter if the school was in their own neighborhood or if they were bussed into whiter neighborhoods, the results were the same. My own kids go to a public school that is 75% white or Asian, and there is no violence.
In New Zealand, we already had a rating system like this for the past 30+ years. It is called the "Decile" system. It rates the average income affluency of the school's neighbourhood and through that suggest how to distribute additional school funding. But over the past few years, the government realized parents were using it as a rating system despite it not being an indicator of school quality. As of 2020 the Decile ratings will no longer be public. Additionally the government will give equivalent to US$90 to each school per student if it does not pressure parents for voluntary donations. This is reducing funding inequality at low to mid level decile schools, though a gap still exists between them and high decile schools with students from affluent families. These schools get much more than US$90 when asking for donations, and the parents can more than afford to give. It is part of the gap between the majority of New Zealanders who at times have to do without or ask for support, and a 15-20% who are highly affluent, can have all they want for their children and more, and increasingly seem out of touch with the realities of life for everyone else.
When’s a 2019 in 5 min coming
this also makes the already high scoring schools more likely to neglect struggling students. since the students are already mostly scoring high, the struggling students become outliers and are generally ignored.
Growth metrics aren't really reliable either, because it's still an indicator based heavily on the student. Admin and teaching staff metrics should also be included, although those carry their own problems too.
Growth scores alone doesn't matter. How many resources a school has which is tied into its neighborhood is very important when it comes to school quality.
Guys, the 2019 rewind is out. It’s time to get to work.
In sports, it's better to be on the bench of a great team than starting on a bad one. This is because you still practice with the better team. You should judge a school based on the intelligence of the kids who go to it. This said, not all school work is group work, so it should only be one of the factors considered.
Also, fully agree with what others have said about growing poor scores being easier than growing top scores.
Even if the “Growth Score” was a thing, the students there are still failing the standardized tests. I doubt they actually are actually teaching them what is actually going on the tests.
I think the only way to truly tell is to ask the students how they like the school. I hate how centered people are on how much they grow, or how smart they are, when really what matters is that they are happy.
i was born the same year n* ch*ld l*ft b*h*nd began which explains a lot about me and everyone i grew up with
in germany, asian and russian speakin kids have the best scores in schools and from muslim countries the lowest. For the most part its a culture thing, growing up here as a russian, i got pressured much to have good grades and grew up reading a lot. I know hundreds of arabish or turkish kids, and they bully the "nerds" and make even competition who can have the lowest grades and can pass. As far as i know their parents dont care about grades at all aslong they have no troubles with police. To deny that there is no racial difference is just straight naive
Most turks and arabs are from Asia too
@@jaojao1768 you are right, my mistake. I talk about vietnamese, chinese, japanese or eastern asian countries in generall
What matters is what the students know at the end, not how much more they now now vs. when they started their education. I'd much rather hire a programmer who went to school already knowing 3 programming languages and only became slightly more proficient in all three, rather than hiring a programmer who went to school knowing no languages and only learned two.
Great research!
I mostly agree, though the less affluent students may have more to learn, thence advancing more.
It doesn’t matter how much “growth” you do if your students leave with less education.
hate when the point goes whoooooosh
GreatSchools has implemented Growth Scores and heavily weights on their ranking. Now, schools with consistent high performers are being penalized because they are already have high scores.
In Germany you visit the schools in your area when you are about to finish school.
that's cool
I'll take the school with the most funding
*private school*
gorrilaunit99 A lot of times Private schools don’t have the most funding per pupil, they just get to avoid serving certain children and families that would otherwise consume a lot of resources.
@@jxsn000 Tuition at a proper private school is over $50,000-$100,000 per student. What is the spending per student at public school?
Whatever you say, snob.
That’s because Denver’s public school system is divided by districts which are divided by city and county. The neighborhoods with more funding are considered better schools to this rating system.
Wouldn't a parent want to send their student to a school with a higher percentage of smart, high-performing students, though?
No, you see to Woke liberals your primary concern as a parent is to lessen segregation in America.
I noticed that if a kid is failing a class, the school is failing them.
I noticed that you are not a teacher...and probably don't work in a school...
@@cameronhuble2514 nah a teacher told me that
You know, it's probably good that we don't tell the parents who have enough money about good schools serving mainly non-white and less affluent students, or it'll end up with good schools mainly serving them
If the affluent families spread out more, then the wealth would be more evenly spread.
@@Asocialite__ that's not what the data suggests, if wealthy people move to poor neighborhoods it leads to displacement due to rising living costs
@@feynaomi That's if you get large numbers of people moving to an area in a gentrification scenario. Spread the effects out in a larger area and you get more of the benefits with less of the downsides.
But I take your point.
First of all, what do you mean by better prepared @3:30 ?
I just checked my city, and the only 3 9-12 schools are rated 3/10 😂
only 3? 😳
So as a general rule, send your kid to a school with more white and asian kids, more wealthy kids and high growth scores on top of already well prepared kids coming in...
I would want my kid going to a school with diversity and teachers who care about their students. You can't make a decision without going to the school and meeting the people that are going to be taking care of your kid.
Question to the people who wrote and narrated this video: what school would you send your children too?
here is the thing better prepared kids is a HUGE reason why you would want to pick that school or area. not since the school itself is doing a good job but your kids will then become friends with those better prepared kids who will constantly teach each other and there parents will look after your kid just like how you look after there kid and teach them things.
however as stated certain schools do a great job teaching kids and the school area you can afford might not be in that area of better prepared kids, or your own time with your child might be limited so growth score becomes a huge factor for you. it is a situation of understanding where you are what are the best choices for you kids with your funds as horrible as it might sound.
The information presented here is well known among educators... Growth scores are just as problematic. Read Diane Ravitch's "Reign of Error," for details and history. Fantastic Book!
I was reading comments about how it's just easy to go to a school in a better performing district and then found out it's prohibited most of the time.
What's wrong with the US? They're all fancy talking about freedom and yet can't choose a school for their child
- Schools are assigned by home address, so that the closest school with space is your default school.
So its easy to change schools if you can afford to move to live by the new school.
However its hard to change schools if you live farther away, because students that live by the school are given priority for the limited space, that's just fair.
Freedom is great and all, but a school can only physically fit so many students no matter how good of a school it is.
I feel like an easy fix would be to report the average entering and exiting scores so that you can visualize what the growth and proficiency actually mean.
Does America not have anything like Ofsted here in the UK?
Vox: never leaves links to there supposed *research*
Me:hmmmm 🤔
You could click the 'show more' button
There’s an entire description with links to all research.
Haven't watched yet, but I'm betting it's money. The score correlates with money.
Similar problems with this rating system was why states in Australia abandoned the "Overall Position" system. This was a rating 1-20 of your grade relative to everyone else's (not your actual score based on marks, which is the new ATAR system X/99). A large portion of the OP was based on a "core-skills-test" which is essentially one big standardized test that schools would spend years preparing students for. Private schools had better opportunities outside of regular hours to prepare students, so they did not have to sacrifice regular grades for focusing on the CST.
Where can I find growth scores?
I would rather go to a school with higher achieving students, as they tend to teach harder stuff and have better teachers