I happened to talk yesterday with someone who has one child at Hauser and one at RB. We got to talking about these rankings and how they're manipulated, what is actually being ranked, what the ranking actually means, etc. She mentioned that one benefit of being ranked highly, in Newsweek, the Sun-Times, or some other publication, is that you attract better teachers. If I were a teacher looking for a new position, I think I'd check out the school (and the community) using whatever online tools are available, including any of the state agency ratings or university ratings or even Newsweek. So, having your school rank highly in one of those places, no matter how dubious the distinction, attracts more teacher applicants, enabling you to hire the best teacher for the job. So, her argument went, these 'bogus' or 'dubious' criteria help make the school better by attracting more teachers (and then you hire the best ones), even if the ranking was no proof that the school actually *was* any better.
Riverside Info » About Riverside
Sun-Times Top 100 K-12 Schools in Illinois
(23 posts)-
Posted Tuesday Nov 3, 2009 10:44 #
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Any thoughts about how the switch to section 8 housing for many of Riverside's apartment buildings may effect RB's test scores? This question was asked of me when discussing Riverside's least favorite landlord and I am still pondering an answer.
Posted Tuesday Nov 3, 2009 13:23 # -
Not that the Sun Times isn't credible, but their interpretation of the numbers leaves a lot of questions. The best site I have seen for monitoring the progress of our schools is here: http://iirc.niu.edu/Default.aspx
It allows you to follow a specific class through from year to year and see the improvement (or not)in their standardized test scores. For the most part, progress has been more than adequate - at times stellar. I would think most educated teachers looking for a job would utilize a site like this (and not the CST)- and would happily come to a district like 96 (since we probably pay more than everyone else, based on other strings here)!
As far as the section 8 change, it would certainly increase our lower income sector, but that can't be assumed as a negative thing. As my earlier post suggests - parental support is the foundation for education and a family's income isn't the sole determinant in their willingness to be involved....
Posted Tuesday Nov 3, 2009 14:39 #
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