I was reading the reading thread and Jolynn's thread on selecting a house. In one of these test scores were mentioned as a measure of how good the schools are.

Please take this as a warning from an insider:

The test scores in many schools are not an accurate assessment of what the students can do. The scores around here have been very high even for students that do not have most of the skills that they supposedly mastered according to the state tests. It is insane and so sad.

I do not know what is happening in NYS, but it is unbelievable!  There are students that I recommend to be held over because there is no way they can master the skills in the next grade and I have been told that I can't hold them over because they passed the state test. This happens far too often.

Also, when schools are rated using a letter grade be careful. My school is an "A" school...LMAO. There is NO WAY we should be rated an "A" Many of the schools in the city have been rated "A" and this is what many of the teachers do

One of the main flaws is that this rating system here is mainly based on the % increase on the tests. For example:

School A is at 85% grade level on reading and goes up to 87%  this year
School B is at 45% and goes up to 65% this year

These two schools can end up with the same rating because school B made a very large increase and school A didn't.

Now what sense does this make...I could not tell you. School A is doing so well that it would be extremely hard for them to go much higher, so they should be and "A" rated school. There is no way the second one should be an "A" rated school as well.


Please when selecting a school for your 05er talk to teachers, parents, people around the area...etc. Find out what the ratings are based on. You might find that they do not have the best test scores, but there are many other things that you love about the school. Or vice versa, they might have great scores and you don't like they environment.