Commentary: Parents deserve a better measure of school quality
by Helen Gym on Nov 02 2012 Posted in Blogger commentary
Every once in a while, it becomes apparent just how differently parents view quality education from the reformers out there defining it purportedly for our own good. The GreatPhillySchools website (GPS) is just one of those examples.
GreatPhillySchools launched Oct. 15, touting its “groundbreaking” schools database for parents and caregivers. The database is a project of the Philadelphia School Partership with collaboration from groups like the Notebook. The database claims to rank schools according to five metrics - academics, safety, attendance, achievement gap gains, and college bound numbers.
According to those metrics, only 13 of the 400-plus schools in the database earn a rating of 10/10 (10 out of 10) in overall excellence. And according to such metrics, Masterman is a 10 and Alcorn is a 1, but do we ever learn why?
I can’t deny that I am a bit weary of yet another ranking system for our schools. We have AYP, SPI, and a slew of