Our Methodology
By School Scout, Founder
Data systems expert with 10+ years building analytics and revenue infrastructure at B2B SaaS technology companies. Parent researching schools for my own family. Read more
Our Approach
We believe school quality should be measured by what a school adds to a child's education, not by the demographics of the families who attend. A school in a low-income neighborhood that helps students grow faster than expected deserves recognition. A school in a wealthy area where students coast on advantages deserves honest context.
That's why student growth is our primary signal. Schools that consistently improve student outcomes year over year score highest in our system, regardless of where they start.
Our poverty adjustment ensures that two schools with identical test scores but very different student populations get meaningfully different academic ratings. We use statistical regression to establish what's "typical" for a school's community, then measure how each school performs relative to that expectation.
A Worked Example
Abstract weights get easier to read once you see them applied to a real school. The numbers below pull from today's highest-composite public school in our index, HARRISON ELEMENTARY SCHOOL in Harrison, Idaho. About 42% of its students qualify for free or reduced lunch, so the poverty-adjusted residual carries real weight in its composite. It ranks #1 of 719 rated schools in Idaho.
| Component | Score (0–10) | Weight | Contribution |
|---|---|---|---|
| Student Progress (Growth) | 10.00 | 50% | 5.00 |
| Adjusted Academics | 10.00 | 30% | 3.00 |
| Resources & Environment | 9.80 | 20% | 1.96 |
| Composite | — | 100% | 9.96 |
Applying elementary weights. A missing component redistributes its weight proportionally, which is why contributions can sum slightly differently from the raw percentages.
What We Measure
Every public school score is built from up to four components, weighted by school level:
Student Progress (Growth)
Elem 50% · Mid 40% · HS 25%- What we measure
- Year-over-year change in state-test proficiency within each school.
- Why it matters
- Identifies schools that move students forward, independent of where they started.
- Limitation
- Needs 2+ years of tests; 2020–21 is down-weighted and missing-growth weight shifts to academics.
Adjusted Academics
Elem 30% · Mid 35% · HS 25%- What we measure
- State test proficiency, blended 60% raw with 40% poverty-adjusted residual.
- Why it matters
- Wealthy schools that merely match peers earn near-zero; low-income schools that beat the line earn a positive residual.
- Limitation
- States with fewer than 30 rated schools skip the adjustment — the sample is too small for a reliable fit.
College Readiness (HS only)
HS 30%- What we measure
- 4-year graduation rate, AP course breadth and participation, IB programme availability.
- Why it matters
- It's the sharpest outcome signal once students exit the state-testing window.
- Limitation
- ~47% of high schools have grad rate only; ~22% have none, and the weight redistributes.
Resources & Environment
Elem 20% · Mid 25% · HS 20%- What we measure
- Student-teacher ratio, per-pupil spending, and chronic absenteeism.
- Why it matters
- Captures the conditions students learn in — inputs, not outcomes.
- Limitation
- Spending doesn't always correlate with outcomes; ratios don't capture class-level staffing.
How Poverty Adjustment Works
For each state, we fit a statistical regression line using every public school's poverty level (free/reduced lunch percentage) and test proficiency. This tells us: "For a school with X% low-income students, what proficiency level is typical?"
To protect against outliers, we winsorize FRL percentages at the 5th and 95th percentiles before fitting. States with fewer than 30 schools skip the adjustment entirely — the sample is too small for a reliable regression.
Each school's profile shows its expected proficiency vs. actual, so parents can see the math behind the adjustment.
Scoring by School Level
Different school levels have different educational priorities. Elementary schools focus on building foundations, while high schools prepare students for college and careers. Our weights reflect this:
| Component | Elementary | Middle | High |
|---|---|---|---|
| Student Progress | 50% | 40% | 25% |
| Adjusted Academics | 30% | 35% | 25% |
| College Readiness | — | — | 30% |
| Environment | 20% | 25% | 20% |
K-12 and other multi-level schools use high school weights.
Programs & Offerings
Beyond ratings, each school page displays program data to help families understand what a school offers. This data comes from the Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC), accessed via the Urban Institute Education Data Portal.
What we show:
- AP/IB Programs — number of AP courses offered, IB programme availability, AP enrollment and participation rates
- Athletics — count of interscholastic sports offered, broken down by boys' and girls' programs, plus team counts (varsity and JV)
- Advanced STEM Courses — which of five advanced subjects (Algebra II, Advanced Math, Calculus, Chemistry, Physics) the school offers
- Gifted & Talented — whether the school offers a gifted and talented program
Limitations:
- CRDC data is collected biennially. The most recent collection is 2020-21.
- CRDC covers public schools only. Private school pages show AP/IB data (where available) but not athletics or support data.
- Sports data shows the number of sports offered, not which specific sports. No school-level sport-by-sport data is publicly available.
- We filter out obvious data quality issues: schools reporting more than 25 sports per gender are excluded as likely district-level aggregates.
- Programs data is not factored into our composite scores. It's shown as supplemental information to help families evaluate fit.
Programs are displayed differently by school level. Elementary and middle schools typically don't offer AP courses or interscholastic sports, so those rows only appear when the school actually reports that data. Gifted and talented programs span all school levels.
What Our Scores Cannot Measure
No rating system captures everything that makes a school great. Our scores do not measure:
- Teacher quality — individual teacher effectiveness isn't captured in public data
- School culture and climate — the "feel" of a school, student well-being, and parent satisfaction
- Arts and clubs — performing arts, visual arts, debate, robotics, and other non-athletic extracurriculars
- Special education quality — how well a school serves students with IEPs or 504 plans
- Safety and discipline — beyond what chronic absenteeism implies
- English learner support — quality of ESL/ELL programming
A rating is a starting point for research, not the final word. We encourage families to visit schools, talk to other parents, and consider factors that no data set can capture.
Schools Without Direct Test Data
About 33,000 schools — mostly private schools and some specialized public programs — don't participate in state standardized testing. Rather than leave these schools unrated, we estimate their academic score using a geographic proxy: the average academic score of directly-measured schools in the same area.
City-Level Proxy (~21,000 schools)
When a school's city has at least 3 directly-measured schools, we use their average academic score as the proxy. This is our preferred tier — a city-level average captures local school quality better than a statewide figure.
Weight reduction: 20%. A city proxy academic score carries 80% of the weight that a direct score would. For example, if academics would normally be 30% of the composite, a city proxy counts for 24%.
State-Level Proxy (~12,000 schools)
When a city doesn't have enough measured schools, we fall back to the statewide average. This is less informative — a Texas state average represents 9,000+ schools spanning very different communities.
Weight reduction: 35%. A state proxy academic score carries 65% of its normal weight. The heavier penalty reflects the lower predictive accuracy of statewide averages.
These discount levels were validated through holdout back-testing: we removed scores from 10% of directly-measured schools, imputed them via proxy, and compared predicted vs. actual scores. City proxies predicted within 1.5 points on average (on a 10-point scale), and state proxies within 1.7 points — both within acceptable thresholds. Every school page clearly indicates when a proxy score is used.
Equity & Diversity
Each school page shows equity-related data including a campus diversity index, demographic breakdowns, and free/reduced lunch percentages. This information helps families understand the school community, but equity metrics are not factored into the composite score.
We made this deliberate choice because equity metrics are context, not performance. A school's demographic composition doesn't tell you how well it educates students — our poverty-adjusted academic score already accounts for socioeconomic context where it matters most: in measuring whether a school outperforms expectations.
How We Handle Missing Data
When a component cannot be calculated — for example, if a school has only one year of test data (no growth) — we redistribute the missing weight proportionally among the remaining components. A school rated on two of three possible components still gets a composite score.
Public schools need at least 2 scored components to receive a composite rating. Private schools require at least 3 components — the higher bar reflects that private school data often comes from fewer, less standardized sources, and a score built from only 2 thin components can be misleading. Schools below these thresholds are shown as "Not Yet Rated."
Data Sources
| Source | What we use |
|---|---|
| NCES CCD | School identifiers, enrollment, demographics, location, student-teacher ratios |
| State DOEs (46 states) | Standardized test scores, graduation rates, accountability ratings |
| EdFacts / CRDC | Federal test scores, AP/IB enrollment, civil rights data |
| Census ACS 5-Year | Neighborhood income, education, poverty at ZIP level |
| Urban Institute EDP | Supplementary federal data (programs, finance) |
| NCES PSS | Private school enrollment, staffing, programs |
| Walk Score | Walk / Transit / Bike Score for school address (Neighborhood Context section only — not in composite) |
| FBI UCR | County-level Part-1 offense index (county granularity only — never per-school). Neighborhood Context section only — not in composite. |
All data is publicly available and free. Schools cannot pay for better ratings. See our Data Sources page for state-by-state coverage detail.
Change Log
Version 2.1 — April 2026
- Tiered proxy academic scoring for ~33K schools without test data (city proxy at 80% weight, state proxy at 65%)
- Holdout validation confirming proxy discount levels (city MAE 1.5, state MAE 1.7 on 10-point scale)
- Private school minimum components raised from 2 to 3 — prevents thin composite scores
- Equity metrics shown as informational only, no longer displayed as a numeric score
Version 2.0 — April 2026
- Added level-specific weights (elementary vs middle vs high)
- Introduced poverty adjustment via state-level regression
- College Readiness component added for high schools
- Private school scoring model with available-field compensation
- Growth component given primacy in elementary/middle weights
Version 1.0 — January 2026
- Initial composite scoring model launched
- Single set of weights applied across all school levels
Research & References
Our methodology is informed by academic research on school quality measurement:
- Value-added models — Our growth-first approach draws on research showing that value-added measures are more informative than status measures for identifying effective schools.
- Poverty adjustment — The use of regression residuals to compare schools serving similar populations is standard practice in education research (e.g., Downey & Condron, 2016).
- GreatSchools methodology — We studied GreatSchools' Summary Rating methodology to understand industry standards, particularly their approach to growth weighting and equity considerations.
- Simpson's diversity index — Our campus diversity measure uses Simpson's index (1 - Σp2), a well-established ecological diversity metric.
Parent FAQ
The short answers to the questions we hear most often.
How is this different from Niche or GreatSchools?
We lead with growth and poverty-adjusted academics, so a school that moves students forward from a tough starting point isn't penalized for its demographics. Our map-first UX lets you compare schools, neighborhoods, and housing side-by-side in one view. Every input is public NCES, state DOE, Census, and civil-rights data — no user-submitted surveys, no paid placement, no subscription.
Why does a highly-rated school in a wealthy area sometimes score lower than a school in a low-income area?
Our adjusted academic score compares schools to the regression line for similar communities. A wealthy-area school that merely matches the average for its peer group sits near zero residual, while a low-income school that beats the line earns a sizable positive residual. Growth further rewards schools that move students forward regardless of starting point.
Why isn't my kid's school ranked higher?
Most often, the school has strong raw test scores but flat year-over-year growth — and growth is our primary signal. The second most common reason is a poverty-adjusted academic score near zero, meaning the school performs in line with peers serving similar students rather than above them. Check the score breakdown on the school page to see which component is pulling the composite down.
What does the overall 1–10 score actually represent?
It is a state-normalized percentile of the school's composite signal. A 7.5 roughly means "better than about 75% of rated public schools in this state." Scores are state-normalized because testing standards vary significantly across states.
Why is growth weighted so heavily for elementary and middle schools?
Research consistently shows growth measures are more informative than status measures for identifying effective schools. Elementary and middle schools carry 50% and 40% growth weight respectively. High schools weight growth at 25% because college readiness becomes the sharper outcome signal.
My child's school has 'Limited Data' or no rating. Why?
Public schools need at least 2 scored components, and private schools 3, to receive a composite. Brand-new schools, small specialty programs, and some private schools fall below that bar. We'd rather mark a school "Not Yet Rated" than publish a score built on a single thin component.
How current is the data?
NCES Common Core data is refreshed annually, typically one school year behind. State test scores are released 6 to 18 months after the testing window depending on the state. The bottom of every school page shows the data year used for each component.
Do private schools get rated the same way?
No. Most private schools do not participate in state testing, so they are scored on components like classroom attention, instructional commitment, diversity, community context, and school profile. Where their scores include a geographic proxy for academics, that component carries a 20 to 35 percent weight discount.
Why does a school show 'Estimated academic score'?
About 33,000 schools — mostly private and some specialty public programs — don't report standardized test results. Rather than leave them unrated, we proxy their academic score from the local city or state average. City proxies carry 80% weight, state proxies 65%. Every school page labels proxy-based scores.
Can a school pay for a higher rating?
No. All inputs come from public sources — NCES, state DOEs, Census, and federal civil-rights data. Schools cannot pay to influence their score, and we do not offer any kind of featured placement in rankings.
You don't cover teacher quality, culture, or special-ed — why should I trust this?
You should not treat a rating as the final word. We are explicit about what public data can and cannot measure. Use the score as a data-backed starting point, then visit the school, talk to parents, and read reviews before deciding.
How can I report a data error on a specific school?
Every school page has a Report an Issue button at the bottom. Errors flagged there go directly to our team and are typically reviewed within 72 hours. If the source data is wrong, we flag it upstream and add a note until the next refresh.
Questions?
We believe transparent methodology builds trust. If you have questions about how a specific school's rating was calculated, or suggestions for improving our approach, reach out through the "Report an Issue" button on any school page. We're always working to make our ratings more accurate and useful for families.