| Any concerned parent knows that the quality of the | | | | special consideration. On the main profile page of |
| school their child attends will have a big impact on | | | | each school, you can view parent reviews, see |
| their future. If you’re in the process of moving | | | | recent test scores and learn about the school |
| and have children, you may be concerned about the | | | | environment. Take the overall scores with a grain of |
| quality of education that your child will receive in their | | | | salt since they are based on parent’s reviews. |
| new home town. Before you settle down new roots, | | | | One parent with a bad experience for their child can |
| you can figure out the lay of the educational | | | | pull down the whole score. Be sure to read the |
| landscape in a few different ways. | | | | parent reviews in detail rather than just looking at |
| One of the best resources if you’d like to get a | | | | the number score. |
| bird’s eye view of the schools in an area is | | | | Connecting with other parents may be hard when |
| School Performance Maps | | | | you live hundreds of miles away from your new |
| (schoolperformancemaps.com/). This resource lists | | | | home, but there are a few online outlets where you |
| information on school districts in California, Colorado, | | | | can ask specific questions to residents. Yahoo |
| Texas, Florida, North Carolina and Maryland. Other | | | | Answers (answers.yahoo.com) allows you to ask |
| states are to follow as the system becomes more | | | | questions on any topic imaginable, including the school |
| developed. By clicking on the interactive map and | | | | district your children will be entering. You can ask |
| zooming into the area you’ll see different schools | | | | about recommended schools, get feedback from |
| and their ratings (based on 1 through 10 scale). They | | | | parents and even hear from some older students in |
| appear as color coded dots on the map. You can click | | | | the district, depending on who is answering the |
| on each dot to get a reading from the last three | | | | question. |
| years for each school. The school listings can be | | | | City Data Forums (city-data.com/forum) are full of |
| categorized by elementary school, middle school and | | | | local residents and people who are looking to move. |
| high school. | | | | You can navigate to the part of the forum related to |
| If you want to get an in depth view of a potential | | | | your new home town and ask about schools. In |
| school, you can try out Great Schools | | | | most cases, you’ll get a detailed answer to your |
| (greatschools.com). This free, interactive community | | | | question from residents of the area. |
| allows parents, educators and students leave | | | | These resources will help you understand the lay of |
| comments about the schools in a city. Great Schools | | | | the educational landscape before you pack up and |
| has its own independent rating system of 1 through | | | | move to town. Since school district lines can make a |
| 10, based on community feedback. A school gets an | | | | big difference on your choice of residence, it makes |
| overall rating of one through ten, but there are also | | | | sense to do this kind of investigation before you |
| individual ratings based on grade levels and other | | | | move. |