Do School Ratings Actually Matter?

School ratings drive real-estate decisions worth trillions of dollars, influence where families move, and shape property tax revenue that in turn funds schools. But how accurate are they? And do they measure what actually matters for your child?

The Real-Estate Effect

Research from the National Bureau of Economic Research shows that school ratings directly influence home prices. A one-point increase on a 10-point scale is associated with a 1.5-3% increase in home value — which in many markets means $10,000-30,000. This creates a self-reinforcing cycle: higher home prices generate more property tax revenue, which funds better-resourced schools, which get higher ratings.

This is why outcome-based ratings like the DataScore are important. By measuring what students achieve rather than how much money flows in, growth-focused ratings can identify high-performing schools in overlooked communities — schools like those in our top Title I schools list.

What Ratings Get Right

• Academic outcomes are measurable — proficiency rates, graduation rates, and growth trends are real, comparable data points
• Transparency helps parents — before rating systems, school quality was opaque to anyone who didn't already know the right people
• Accountability pressure — low ratings create public pressure for improvement, which has driven reforms at underperforming schools

What Ratings Get Wrong

• Conflating demographics with quality — some rating systems effectively rate the wealth of a school's neighborhood rather than the school itself
• Ignoring growth — a school at 45% proficiency that improved from 25% three years ago is making remarkable progress, but a static score makes it look bad
• Missing intangibles — school culture, teacher quality, extracurricular opportunities, and how a school handles struggling students cannot be captured in a single number
• Single number oversimplification — reducing a complex institution to a letter grade or number inevitably loses nuance

How We Built the DataScore Differently

The DataScore was designed to address the biggest criticism of school ratings: that they correlate more with wealth than with teaching quality. By focusing exclusively on outcomes (proficiency, growth, graduation) and weighting growth at 30%, the DataScore rewards schools that are improving — including many in communities that traditional ratings overlook.

Read our full methodology for details on how every school is scored.

Frequently Asked Questions