GreatSchools
February 2010
This workbook, the third edition of a joint venture of GreatSchools and Fight for Children, is a useful resource for any Washington, D.C. parent seeking the right school--and a fabulous model for other communities. It briefly profiles every school in the District--both public and private--listing details such as enrollment, foreign languages offered, special education services, and extra-curricular activities. For public schools, including charter schools, it also provides the percentage of students in each school scoring “proficient” on the 2009 District of Columbia Comprehensive Assessment System (DC-CAS), as well as GreatSchool’s own academic rating of one to five stars. (Private schools are not required to report testing data.) The workbook is provided to parents at no cost; it also includes helpful information--such as lottery and application deadlines--and guidelines for parents not sure which school attributes should be considered most heavily. At this point, GreatSchools has only published “Choosers” in two other cities--Dayton, OH and Milwaukee, WI--but we hope that they expand this valuable resource to cities nationwide. Until then, you can rest assured that similar data for all cities can be found on GreatSchools.net. You can find the 2010-2011 D.C. School Chooser here.
