Public School Rankings… How Poor Neighborhoods Affect Placement

How schools fit into Public school rankings are extremely important to many people. District and state officials, principals, teachers, parents, and students are all concerned, in varying degrees, in how their schools compare to others. In a society that is increasingly trying to “keep up with the Joneses”, all investors in the schools (the same folks listed above) are constantly monitoring how they stand in public school rankings , and trying to be better than other schools.
Lots of factors go into determining where a school is placed in Public school rankings. While the majority of the consideration is given to test scores – how well students scored, as well as how many have taken advanced assessments such as Advanced Placement tests – consideration is also given to factors like socioeconomic background. To be more specific, Public school rankings are influenced by how many kids are receiving free or reduced lunches each school day.
Kids who come from a low socioeconomic background, meaning their families are at or below poverty level, tend to attend schools that are not up to snuff – and are in the lower end of Public school rankings. It’s not meant, by any means, that they are choosing these schools. Maybe they have no other options; it’s easiest for their parent(s) to send them to the closest school to home because they are working one or more jobs to make ends meet. It’s also possible that parents don’t know that they have options in where they send their children to school – and can find better ones by looking at Public school rankings. Families who are simply struggling to survive may not have school as a top priority. They probably don’t even know that Public school rankings even exist and are available to them; they are too busy living day to day to even look into Public school rankings. Often, parents at this low level of income are themselves undereducated, and simply do not know that there are better educational opportunities out there which are identified by their placement in Public school rankings. As a matter of fact, due to the 2002 No Child Left Behind Act, and the 2007 reauthorization of that Act, parents of students who are attending low-performing schools at the bottom of Public school rankings have the right to withdraw their children from said schools and enroll them in places that are on the top in regards to Public school rankings.
It is definitely to the benefit of all parents, whether they are below poverty level or at the more affluent end of the spectrum to consider Public school rankings whenever they are making decisions about which schools their children will attend. It is a decision that can have long-reaching, indeed life-changing effects.