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Dayton Daily News education reporter Scott Elliott writes about schools, kids, teaching and learning.
Home > Blogs > Get on the Bus > Archives > 2008 > February > 05
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
They won’t like this at Stivers
(Dayton Early College Academy’s Elton Griffith teaches a class.)
In today’s paper I wrote about the release of the third annual School Chooser Guide, designed to give parents information about more than 80 schools — public, private and charter — serving Dayton kids. This is a joint effort of the University of Dayton, the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation and the website greatschools.net.
The guide is a great tool for parents but the way some data is presented — or not presented — is going to ruffle some feathers in the education community.
The big change in the guide this year is quality ratings based on state test scores. Problem No. 1 with this addition is that not all schools get them — only the public schools (charters included) take state tests so there are no ratings for private schools. And while the test data for public and charter schools is printed right on the page in the guide, readers are referred to private school websites for more information about their test scores.
Finally, the ratings themselves will upset some folks. For instance, I noticed the Dayton Early College Academy is rated 10 out of 10 while Stivers School for the Arts rates 7 of 10. These are two very good schools that are not that different in quality. The main difference here is in factors like school design and enrollment size. Stivers is much bigger and its kids take state tests earlier in their high school careers.
Overall, the guide can be a very valuable tool for parents, with lots of good information, worksheets and exercises to help parents figure out their own priorities and choose a school that is a good match for them and for their kids. But it is going to offend some sensibilities this year with the ratings added.
If you go to www.greatschools.net/dayton you can see the data yourself.
(Image credit: Jim Noelker, DDN)
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