Our mission is to bring equitable school rankings to all families in the US.
We do this because the dominant school ratings sites, found on most major real estate portals, are biased towards schools where parents have high incomes. These ratings unfairly discount out-performing schools where parents have diverse or low to moderate incomes.
Today, many parents are making housing decisions based on these biased school ratings. We believe parents should have a more balanced view of school quality when making one of the biggest investments of their lives.
Schools are an integral part of the surrounding community. In addition to educating the community’s children, they employ residents, connect neighbors, and impact home values.
The public perception of any one school has an enormous impact on the surrounding community. Families that can afford to pay careful attention to school quality often choose neighborhoods where the local public school receives a high rating.
Today’s dominant rating system is hurting many neighborhoods that are overlooked by parents due to artificially low scores.
At SchoolSparrow, we help change public perception about underrated schools so that we help recognize the great schools that are outperforming dominant narratives about public education.
When parents start searching for real estate, they end up on websites where school ratings are published for the public schools assigned to any one property.
Schools that score below a certain threshold are often passed over in favor of schools with higher scores. Generally speaking, our experience indicates that parents shopping for a new home want to see a 7/10 or better for the public school associated with their new home.
This often results in parents being steered towards schools in communities with high real estate prices, and schools with less racial/ethnic and socioeconomic diversity.
The ubiquitous school rankings on real estate search portals favor schools where parents have high incomes, and discount out-performing schools where parents have lower incomes. This is because parent income is the largest influencer of standardized test scores - not school quality.
Today’s dominant school ratings are actually contributing to the segregation of our nation’s schools, but it doesn’t have to be that way.
The school ratings at SchoolSparrow elevate outperforming schools to the forefront, and shift focus away from parent income.
Our ranking algorithm controls for parent income. This results in a more balanced view of school quality that identifies schools where the educators are making the difference, not simply benefiting from high test scores from high income students.
We hope to spread awareness to parents nationwide about the real driver of most school ratings (parent income), and deliver an alternative rating system that focuses on fairness and transparency.
In the end, using our system, people will be able to live in more affordable communities,
closer to work, and with more time to spend with their families. If a working parent can
spend an extra hour a day with their children, this
overcomes the incremental difference between any two schools.
Imagine finding a home that fits within your budget but also provides your children with an amazing education. It’s no longer just a great elementary school, but a bright future.
Imagine what happens when you live closer to your job and spend less time commuting; you’re able to spend more time with your children.
Imagine what happens when parents and local businesses see the value in their neighborhood public schools and continue to support their growth and their students’ futures.
Informationally, we also publish a diversity score based on the number of races that comprise at least 10% of the student population at each school. The max score is 40 points, which means 4 races are represented by at least 10% or 3 races are represented by at least 20% of the student population.