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EdScore - A school ratings website for parents. https://edscore.org/ https://edscore.org/ GreatSchools has a monopoly in this space but their 1-10 ratings scal

EdScore - A school ratings website for parents. https://edscore.org/ https://edscore.org/ GreatSchools has a monopoly in this space but their 1-10 ratings scale is opaque and their website hard to navigate. EdScore has a more granular 50-100 rating scale, modern search, better mapping, and soon will feature search filters by distance and home price so parents can evaluate, say, top schools within a 1hr commute of SF with a median home price under $1m.

tixocloud 11y ago
I think it's a good idea. One thing I worked on in the past was being able to link school scores for my residential real estate startup. However, there's always been the question of "How credible are these scores" - are you guys doing the rating yourselves?
- wsvincent 11y ago
  Yes these are proprietary ratings. This is typically the first question we get: how credible/accurate are these scores. Since this is HN I can dive into this a bit more than with a typical parent: -There are fundamentally two data sets in play here, a national one, NCES, that provides basic school information: name, # of students, demographics, etc. And a State data set. - Each state administers their own state assessment tests for most, not all, grades. So for example, Massachusetts does tests for grades 3-8 and grade 10. Other states do a different mix. To assign a "score" to an Elementary, Middle, or High School you combine the grades, but there is judgement around, for example, what constitutes a middle school? Grade 6? Grade 8? It varies by school district, let alone state. -The subjects covered are typically Math and English. Some sites, especially for high school, also test Science or additional subjects. In our case, we include ALL available tests in the score calculation. GreatSchools provides no insight into whether they do this or not. SchoolDigger used to just use Math/English but recently added all tests to their rankings. -The "results" for, say, Grade 3 English are typically broken out by Advanced, Proficient, Not Proficient, Failing. But this, too, varies by state, some include 5 buckets.
  - numbsafari 11y ago
    Any thoughts on providing special scores for: - Special needs students. This could be a really active community for you. - Arts/Music/Theater programs and participation rates. - Innovative educational programs. One of the HS I attended had an on-campus fish hatchery that was almost entirely student run, it also had a professional choral program--as in, students in the "varsity chorus" got paid professional rates for a summer show series. Another that I attended had a pretty unique combined history/literature and later math/science program. I could imagine parents being interested in finding those kinds of things. - University affiliation. Many colleges/universities are affiliated with K-12 schools where they are involved in applying the latest in educational practices. - Early college programs. My wife managed to get her first 3 semesters of her Mech-E degree paid for through an innovative relationship between her HS and the local Community College. The local CC also has a great direct-to-university relationship (all credits transfer) with two local Universities. Allowed her to graduate undergrad a year early and with half the student loans she otherwise would have. - Proximity to cultural institutions. Friends Select in Philadelphia is located on the Ben Franklin Parkway... walking distance to the Franklin Institute, Academy of Natural Sciences, Phila Art Museum, Barnes Foundation, Rodin Museum... It's almost embarrassing. Standardized test scores are important, but they aren't necessarily the only thing parents are looking for.
    - tixocloud 11y ago
      Yeah, those scores/features are huge. There are lots of great detail around schools that many people just don't know about. If you can showcase that, your website could be a really powerful resource!
    - wsvincent 11y ago
      I completely agree that standardized test scores aren't the only thing parents are looking for. The main issue is: What other data set is there that exists state/nationally given we're working with 100,000+ schools? -Special needs: Hadn't considered this, but the data is there to break out numbers and performance of special needs students. Are there other factors we should consider? - Arts/Music/Sports etc: Yes, would LOVE to include data on this. I'm not aware of a dataset that contains it. Manually it'd be tough to do for 100,000+ schools. - Innovative/college programs: Yup, great idea. As we expand the site we want to find ways to highlight features like this. A simple example we can do now is Language Immersion programs. But we want to extend it in the future. - Another "problem" with the education data in general is that there's no way to compare schools across states. Common Core might have addressed this but currently you can only say, This is a top high school in Massachusetts. What if I live across the border in New Hampshire? How do 2 schools compare?
Loughla 11y ago
What separates this from something state sponsored like the Illinois Report Card (illinoisreportcard.com) that would make me want to use it? It appears a flat % score is the main draw, but without any sort of information on what that score means, or how it stacks up, it's sort of useless.
- wsvincent 11y ago
  The Illinois Report Card is a great resource. If every state had such a tool, I agree you probably wouldn't need EdScore, GreatSchools, SchoolDigger, etc. I built EdScore out of frustration that this data is all public but buried in disparate state/federal databases and not accessible to parents, even though we're paying for it to be compiled/collected. I think ratings (controversial as they are no matter what methodology you use) help parents do a quick sort of local options. And our goal with EdScore is to add search filters like commute distance, home price, school size, special ed offerings etc so that parents can search for the "right" school for their individual child based on various inputs, not a simple "best" rating or 1-10 scale that, absent other factors, is not very informative.
Flammy 11y ago
Some quick feedback: When a user clicks on a map indicator, the school name (at minimum) should be a link to open the full description It would be nice to have either a search next to the filter (so searching only within the city) or have the main site search maintain location. I expect a very significant % of your users will be looking at a single location, or at least one at a time. It is a bit weird to start with a zoomed out view of a city and only have a few schools marked. Perhaps having lots of small indicators? Might be interesting to hook in say sity or zip code demographic info from the census bureau 'Average household income' and other stats like it... I see a place for them on the site, but probably don't need to dedicate the screen real estate to them. Just a few points from a quick overview.
- wsvincent 11y ago
  This is fantastic feedback. Thank you! * Yup, about to add a bigger hit radius on map indicator * City zoom...we're working on some ways to improve this. * Interesting about city demographic data...certainly have it. I can see how it would help. We display it on the school page a bit, but can do so here as well. Thanks again for the feedback.

tixocloud 11y ago

I think it's a good idea. One thing I worked on in the past was being able to link school scores for my residential real estate startup. However, there's always been the question of "How credible are these scores" - are you guys doing the rating yourselves?

wsvincent 11y ago
Yes these are proprietary ratings. This is typically the first question we get: how credible/accurate are these scores. Since this is HN I can dive into this a bit more than with a typical parent: -There are fundamentally two data sets in play here, a national one, NCES, that provides basic school information: name, # of students, demographics, etc. And a State data set. - Each state administers their own state assessment tests for most, not all, grades. So for example, Massachusetts does tests for grades 3-8 and grade 10. Other states do a different mix. To assign a "score" to an Elementary, Middle, or High School you combine the grades, but there is judgement around, for example, what constitutes a middle school? Grade 6? Grade 8? It varies by school district, let alone state. -The subjects covered are typically Math and English. Some sites, especially for high school, also test Science or additional subjects. In our case, we include ALL available tests in the score calculation. GreatSchools provides no insight into whether they do this or not. SchoolDigger used to just use Math/English but recently added all tests to their rankings. -The "results" for, say, Grade 3 English are typically broken out by Advanced, Proficient, Not Proficient, Failing. But this, too, varies by state, some include 5 buckets.
- numbsafari 11y ago
  Any thoughts on providing special scores for: - Special needs students. This could be a really active community for you. - Arts/Music/Theater programs and participation rates. - Innovative educational programs. One of the HS I attended had an on-campus fish hatchery that was almost entirely student run, it also had a professional choral program--as in, students in the "varsity chorus" got paid professional rates for a summer show series. Another that I attended had a pretty unique combined history/literature and later math/science program. I could imagine parents being interested in finding those kinds of things. - University affiliation. Many colleges/universities are affiliated with K-12 schools where they are involved in applying the latest in educational practices. - Early college programs. My wife managed to get her first 3 semesters of her Mech-E degree paid for through an innovative relationship between her HS and the local Community College. The local CC also has a great direct-to-university relationship (all credits transfer) with two local Universities. Allowed her to graduate undergrad a year early and with half the student loans she otherwise would have. - Proximity to cultural institutions. Friends Select in Philadelphia is located on the Ben Franklin Parkway... walking distance to the Franklin Institute, Academy of Natural Sciences, Phila Art Museum, Barnes Foundation, Rodin Museum... It's almost embarrassing. Standardized test scores are important, but they aren't necessarily the only thing parents are looking for.
  - tixocloud 11y ago
    Yeah, those scores/features are huge. There are lots of great detail around schools that many people just don't know about. If you can showcase that, your website could be a really powerful resource!
  - wsvincent 11y ago
    I completely agree that standardized test scores aren't the only thing parents are looking for. The main issue is: What other data set is there that exists state/nationally given we're working with 100,000+ schools? -Special needs: Hadn't considered this, but the data is there to break out numbers and performance of special needs students. Are there other factors we should consider? - Arts/Music/Sports etc: Yes, would LOVE to include data on this. I'm not aware of a dataset that contains it. Manually it'd be tough to do for 100,000+ schools. - Innovative/college programs: Yup, great idea. As we expand the site we want to find ways to highlight features like this. A simple example we can do now is Language Immersion programs. But we want to extend it in the future. - Another "problem" with the education data in general is that there's no way to compare schools across states. Common Core might have addressed this but currently you can only say, This is a top high school in Massachusetts. What if I live across the border in New Hampshire? How do 2 schools compare?

Loughla 11y ago

What separates this from something state sponsored like the Illinois Report Card (illinoisreportcard.com) that would make me want to use it? It appears a flat % score is the main draw, but without any sort of information on what that score means, or how it stacks up, it's sort of useless.

wsvincent 11y ago
The Illinois Report Card is a great resource. If every state had such a tool, I agree you probably wouldn't need EdScore, GreatSchools, SchoolDigger, etc. I built EdScore out of frustration that this data is all public but buried in disparate state/federal databases and not accessible to parents, even though we're paying for it to be compiled/collected. I think ratings (controversial as they are no matter what methodology you use) help parents do a quick sort of local options. And our goal with EdScore is to add search filters like commute distance, home price, school size, special ed offerings etc so that parents can search for the "right" school for their individual child based on various inputs, not a simple "best" rating or 1-10 scale that, absent other factors, is not very informative.

Flammy 11y ago

Some quick feedback: When a user clicks on a map indicator, the school name (at minimum) should be a link to open the full description It would be nice to have either a search next to the filter (so searching only within the city) or have the main site search maintain location. I expect a very significant % of your users will be looking at a single location, or at least one at a time. It is a bit weird to start with a zoomed out view of a city and only have a few schools marked. Perhaps having lots of small indicators? Might be interesting to hook in say sity or zip code demographic info from the census bureau 'Average household income' and other stats like it... I see a place for them on the site, but probably don't need to dedicate the screen real estate to them. Just a few points from a quick overview.

wsvincent 11y ago
This is fantastic feedback. Thank you! * Yup, about to add a bigger hit radius on map indicator * City zoom...we're working on some ways to improve this. * Interesting about city demographic data...certainly have it. I can see how it would help. We display it on the school page a bit, but can do so here as well. Thanks again for the feedback.