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 looking at actual student outcomes rather than just school spending matters. Proficiency rates and graduation data 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 OpenSchoolData Approaches Data Differently

Rather than creating a proprietary score, OpenSchoolData presents real federal data transparently. We show NCES enrollment and demographics alongside EDFacts proficiency rates and graduation data, so parents can see what the numbers actually say without a rating system interpreting them. This approach lets parents weigh the factors that matter most to their family.

Read our full methodology for details on our data sources and approach.