The Movoto Blog, here, has produced a list that ranks suburban areas, entitling the post, “These Are The 10 Best Suburbs for Education In America.”
The rankings are based on a “Big Deal Score,” which is some mathematical concoction based on student-teacher ratio, money spent per year per student, high school graduation rate, and the GreatSchools.org rating, which is based primarily on standardized test scores.
Five suburbs in Maryland made the top 50 out of 109 suburban areas the blog considered, as did two in Illinois, including three in the top 10 for Maryland and one for Illinois:
- 3. Ellicott City, Md.
- 7. Evanston, Ill.
- 8. Columbia, Md.
- 9. Towson, Md.
Also making the top 50 were Skokie, Ill., at rank 12, Frederick, Md., at rank 33, and Silver Spring, Md., at rank 35.
According to the blog’s “about” page, the owners hope to start conversations about cities. Unfortunately, the discussion is thin and support for any points of view tainted by the unfairness, invalidity, and unreliability of most standardized tests used in the rankings.
Furthermore, much of Maryland’s ranking success is based on per-pupil spending:
- Average ranking for the 5 Maryland suburbs on per-pupil spending: 10.2
- Average ranking for the 7 non-Maryland suburbs in the top 10: 19.7
Maryland’s per-pupil spending is high for many reasons, including strong political support for the schools, but one of the big driving forces behind the state’s continued high spending is the Maintenance of Effort law, which requires school spending to remain at least the same from one year to the next. When the recession happened and states like Illinois cut funding to the schools, Maryland could not.
I realize the top 10 list is basically fluff, but it carries the impression of reliability and of steering people to move to or out of certain communities. Many, many communities were not even considered by Movoto, and the list should be read for the fluff it is.
I appreciate that many suburbanites make relocation decisions based on the perceived quality of schools. However, if people want to start a conversation about cities or suburbs, they need to use accurate data that truly reflects the quality of the schools in those suburbs. Per-pupil spending is influenced by too many factors, which vary from state to state, and test scores don’t in any way reflect the quality of schools, let alone entire communities. Standardized tests vary widely from state to state, which means this and many other oversimplified analyses are comparing apples and oranges.
Important decisions, including buying a home, should not be based on test scores or any formula thereof, as doing so will lead to errors in judgment. Those bad judgments could affect quality of life, which has a research-proven and direct impact on the quality of the schools in a community—and even on test scores. We can’t “prove” a conclusion by simply restating it.
