How to Evaluate a Community's Schools

Whether you have children or are just concerned about your home's resale value, it's good to know whether your new community's schools are strong.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Electronic Personal Organizers
• Internet Access
• Notebooks
• Personal Organizers
• Writing Pens
• Computers
• Notebooks

1. Determine the features in a school that are important to you, such as class size, student-teacher ratio, expenditure per student, dropout rate, test scores, public vs. private, physical facilities, classes for gifted and talented students, or programs for children with learning or physical disabilities.

2. Obtain data about schools in your community by contacting a local real estate agent, the school system's public information officer or Web sites.

3. Review the school information to see if the data compares rankings of specific schools against the national average.

4. Evaluate the school report on the basis of your own criteria, such as accreditations, awards and outstanding achievements.

5. Make appointments with school principals to tour selected schools.

6. Visit selected schools to view the facilities and meet the principal and staff.

7. Address any questions, such as specifics about sports, arts and music programs, to the school principal.

Tips & Warnings

• Check out Web sites that provide free or low-cost school data for communities across the United States.
• Although comparing a school's standardized test scores to the national average is a common method of evaluating schools, test rankings are not the only criteria for choosing the best school for your child.