@article{859601,
      recid = {859601},
      author = {Schneider, Jack},
      title = {Beyond test scores : a better way to measure school  quality /},
      pages = {326 pages :},
      abstract = {What makes a school a "good" school? It's hard to say, and  our current methods of measuring school quality are crude  and often misleading. Parents who face the problem of where  to matriculate their children are often left to surf  websites that only offer one or two metrics by which to  measure school accomplishment. Or they ask around among  neighbors, work colleagues, and so on; the problem, of  course, is that nearly everyone thinks the school their  children attend is a "good" school. Lawmakers and education  reformers review spreadsheets containing data that only  confirm what we already know: high average test scores, the  metric most often used to indicate school quality, are  merely a reflection of the socioeconomic status of students  who attend the school. But which schools improve scores the  most? Which are best at protecting kids from bullying and  harassment? Which schools are best at science, at the arts?  Which schools are best at preparing underserved groups for  college and the job market? None of the metrics for school  quality that are currently widely available are helpful at  answering these questions. Schneider led a team of  researchers who asked people what they thought made for a  good school. The answers they provided sometimes aligned  with the measures policymakers and researchers have deemed  important--and sometimes not. Then they set out to design a  new system for measuring school quality that would allow  Americans to figure out which schools were good at doing  what and how to hold schools accountable for improving  outcomes.--},
      url = {http://library.usi.edu/record/859601},
}