Schools are one of the most important aspects of a city and greatly impact its economic development efforts. The problem is, simply put, school ratings are biased. Most school ratings focus on test scores which data shows are driven by parents income not the quality of the school. When school ratings are not truly rating the school’s performance it can have serious impacts on a community. It perpetuates sprawl, robs parents of time with their children, robs children of valuable diversity experiences, impacts real estate prices, tax revenues and can undercut a city’s entire economic development efforts. In today’s episode we’re joined by Tom Brown, founder of School Sparrow, to discuss just that.
For more information on School Sparrow visit schoolsparrow.com
Related articles:
Scientific American – How diversity makes us smarter
NY Times – Educated parents use far more words
Chalkbeat.org – GreatSchools ratings penalize schools that serve low-income students and those serving largely black and Hispanic students
DailyNews.com – How one parent is improving their local school