let's talk schools (Seattle, Bellevue, Sammamish: best schools, education, ratings)

[RVD90277]

i thought that if you wanted to talk school district rankings, then the seattle area roughly ranked like this:

1) Mercer Island
2) Bellevue
3) Issaquah
4) Lake Washington

On schooldigger it ranks them more like:

Washington State Districts - WA School District Rankings

1) Mercer Island
2) Issaquah
3) Lake Washington
4) Bellevue

Any explanation? Is schooldigger not a good site? Is it because Bellevue is such a large district that the best schools in Bellevue are among the best but the worst schools are average (while smaller school district don't have as large variance)?

[Inkpoe]

Schooldigger uses the test scores of individual schools within the district. It explains here:Ranking FAQ

And if we were talking about SD in Seattle area ranking order, it should be as followed:

1.) Mercer Island
2.) Issaquah (#5 on schooldigger)
3.) Tahoma (#6 on schooldigger) - serves Maple Valley area
4.) Lk WA (#8 on scooldigger)
5.) Northshore (#10 on schooldigger) - serves Bothell/Woodinville

Bellevue actually doesn't show up til #15, and even then there's one more Seattle area district before BSD. I don't think size of student population really a whole lot do with test scores-- BSD is just slightly larger than Issaquah. However, I would say that BSD has more socioeconomic variety than Issaquah, LK WA, Mercer Island does. Northshore and Tahoma is very middle class though... so I'm not sure why they do better on the tests than BSD.

[Ira500]

schooldigger's a good site, but maybe their data isn't as current? Where did the first listed ratings come from, greatschools?
Looking at greatschools.org, and at high schools only, you can see why Bellevue ranks lower. The greatschools rating comes entirely from test scores. Interlake HS only gets a 5 out of 10, and Sammamish( in Bellevue) HS gets a 3 out of 10, so even though Newport and Bellevue HS get rated 8, those other two drag down the average. There are also some elementary schools in Bellevue rated below average. Lake Washington doesn't have any high schools rated below a 6, nor does Issaquah. Mercer Island only has one HS, and it's rated a 10.

[RVD90277]

the first listing was just from my head and impressions from reading stuff here in this forum. so it's not from any real source.

[BellevueNative]

Some schools in Bellevue have pretty huge ESL populations. They tend to be in east Bellevue, not coincidentally the schools that feed into Interlake and Sammamish High Schools. Consider that those kids are potentially very bright, and school instruction is strong, but they probably don't test well as a result. This is why testing alone is not a good measure of a school's (or district's) success.

[Hemlock140]

You need to look at individual schools rather than just districts. Mercer Island has only top-notch schools, the others depending on size may have 1-2 lower performing schools but most are great. Pick any of the districts mentioned in previous posts and then select one of the best schools in any of them and you will be happy. Typically the best are in the most expensive areas, with better educated parents that value education and support the local schools with money and time.