Wilmington Schools (Beverly, Melrose: low income, income, to live in)

[AMPL]

Wilmington schools are rated as 6-8 on greatschools.org – so not great nor dismal. Anyone care to give their opinion on why the towns schools are rated 6-8. My instant approach is that a high rating on greatschools primarily is obtained by having devoted and educated parents helping and pacing the kids - a rating of 6-8 does not necessarily mean that the school is not equally qualified as a higher rated school but that the parents might not pace the kids in the same way – I would be interested in hearing other peoples opinion.
Thanks
AMPL

[konfetka]

I have found that the ratings correlate with the percentage of low income students, and also depend on the number of ESL and special ed students. All schools in the state are adopting the same Common Core curriculum and Mass is the best in the country.

To get a more clear comparison you have to look at MCAS sorted by non-low income student subgroup. Then you will realize that you don't have to pay more to live in a more expensive town to get the same results.

In reality there are many schools with very high profficiency percentages in the 90's, so you have to look at profficiency percentages, because even when they are in the upper 80's or lower 90's, they will get pushed down to a rating of 6.

For example, Beverly has a 6 rating, but it's non-low income English proficiency is 91 in 10'th grade, same as Melrose and Manchester.

[AMPL]

Thanks Konfetka,
Yes just checked the pro. % and yes the difference between a rating 6 and 9 is there but the difference is really very theoretical.
Thanks again!