Laura Chapman, intrepid researcher, writes here about the billionaire and corporate money supporting the rating system for schools called GreatSchools. It clearly exists to promote school choice, not community cohesion or civic responsibility. GreatSchools recently announced that it would use “growth scores” to measure school quality, not just test scores, but the difference is miniscule, and the outcome is the same: to promote segregation and school choice by linking “school quality” and test scores.
Laura Chapman writes:
Great Schools is supported by income from Scholastic, Zillow and other advertisers, who pay for packages that can push up their page views or allow them to license the school ratings. The whole website functions as a tool to perpetuate redlining, charter schools, and advocates forf school choice.
Here are the largest financial pushers of the dubious ratings:
Walton Family Foundation, Laura and John Arnold Foundation, Bloomberg Philanthropies, Carnegie Corporation of New York, Einhorn Family Charitable Trust, Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Trust, and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
These big funders are offered a display of their logos. Other supporters are: America Achieves, The Charles Hayden Foundation, Charles and Helen Schwab Foundation, Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation, David and Lucile Packard Foundation, EdChoice, Heising-Simons Foundation, Innovate Public Schools, The Joyce Foundation, Excellent Schools Detroit, The Kern Family Foundation, The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, The Ralph M. Parsons Foundation, and Startup: Education. These are not supporters of public schools.
This website is designed to market an ideology and a rating scheme. The Terms of use policy says: “Some information contained on the website may represent opinion or judgment… GreatSchools does not guarantee the accuracy or completeness of any information on the website. As such, GreatSchools will not be responsible for any errors, inaccuracies, omissions or deficiencies in the information provided on the website. This information is provided “as is,” with no guarantees of completeness, non-infringement, accuracy or timeliness, and without warranties of any kind, express or implied.”
Great Schools also lists “Partners.” Sad to say, the Great Schools website, designed to steer parents away from most public schools has a partnership with the US Department of Education and the US Department of Housing and Urban Development.
“Community Action Partners” are: Choice Matters Oklahoma, Colorado Succeeds, Community Foundation of Atlanta, Delaware Department of Education, Families Empowered, Innovate Public Schools, The Indianapolis Mayor’s Office, and United Way of Central Indiana.
“Partners for Content” include the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence featuring Yale’s RULER program, a system of direct instruction in: (a) managing emotions by naming them and (b) thinking out loud about degrees of emotional intensity (energy) and pleasantness. Students learn to Recognize, Understand, Label, and Regulate their emotions at about $7,500 per school team.
The second “Content Partner” (believe it or not) is PARCC Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Career. As of the 2019-2020 school year, these tests were only used in Washington DC, Louisiana, Massachusetts, and New Jersey. New Jersey will stop using these tests in 2020-2021.
“Other Partners” are:
–Be a Learning Hero, offers parents a “roadmap” for school readiness and test prep. Key leaders worked for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
–Common Sense Media is a marketing website offering parents reviews and lists of kid-suitable videos, books, other media.
–Education Cities is a network promoting school choice in 24 cities in cooperation with 31 city based organizations. The network is funded by the Broad Foundation, Michael and Susan Dell Foundation, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and Walton Family foundation.
–National PTA which claims not “to endorse any commercial product or service.” But also says “Companies making a financial contribution to PTA may be entitled to promotional consideration and, in some cases, may have limited use of PTA’s marks and assets.” Deals for members are offered by PTA’s 18 Corporate Alliances.” The National PTA also markets Common Core resources with outdated claims about these “being fully implemented.”
–Understood is devoted to serving families and children with disabilities. It is funded by15 non-profits, not counting these recent supporters: The New Teacher Center, Relay Graduate School of Education, the Achievement Network, and New Visions for Public schools,.
Great Schools also lists Bellwether Education Partners, the Center for Reinventing Public Education, Thomas B Fordham Institute, and Public Impact as “Partners. All promote charter schools as if these are “public.”
Great Schools generates and leases data to “leading real estate, technology and media websites.” Great Schools claims to be “the nation’s leading source of school performance information…. with “more than 55 million unique visitors” last year and “over half of American families with school-age children.”
Great Schools is designed to forward three real estate practices associated with parents seeking a school. The first is block busting—a process designed to promote fear among white home owners or prospective buyers that a neighborhood school brings too many low income racial minorities to the community and devalues its real estate. The second is redlining, illegal, but the practice of denying loans or property insurance to applicants based on the racial makeup of a neighborhood, including school demographics. The third and most common is steering, the real estate practice of directing homebuyers to or away from specific neighborhoods and schools based on the prospective homebuyer’s race color, religion, gender (sex), sexual orientation, disability (handicap), familial status, or national origin.
Great Schools rating schemes for “school quality” are a case study in what Cathy O’Neal has called mathematical intimidation. If you are mathematically inclined, see if you can make sense of the rating schemes available here. https://www.greatschools.org/gk/ratings-methodology/
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I went to the links. OMG … HORRORS!
The TAIL is wagging the dog.
well said 🙂
The University of California is dropping the SAT because it is racially discriminatory. The CCSS tests are equally racially discriminatory. Making a website that uses biased tests to promote segregation and white flight is pretty darn racist.
This debacle was brought to you by the following racists:
Walton Family Foundation, Laura and John Arnold Foundation, Bloomberg Foundation, Carnegie Corporation of New York, Einhorn Family Charitable Trust, Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Trust, and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation…
A general rule of thumb in education is that billionaire’s advice or plans should be avoided at all costs. Billionaires have their own agenda, and it generally does not include anything that is a benefit to working families. “Great Schools” is money making venture that perpetuates systemic racism in real estate and education through a web of complex algorithms.
Just an FYI….Don’t think that PARCC has gone away and these tests are only in a few states. PARCC is still alive and well. There is an arrangement with another “hydra” company that was created to quell the anger about the PARCC tests. It’s been just a renaming of the same tests but it has seemed to calm the parents for now. Same thing with the Common Core renaming. The tests are tied to the curriculum so if they get rid one, they must get rid of the other.
Great Schools is a racist organization. Any organization that funds it is, by association, enabling a racist institution to continue to operate. I make that statement based on Laura’s analyses, and more specifically, Great Schools’ “Equity Rating”. Equity ratings, like “ed reform touted as the civil rights issue of our times”, are the 21st century racist dog whistles. Equity ratings do more to cover up racial prejudices & inequities in the real estate industry than they do to promote opportunities.
The “Equity Rating” data are calculated on the percentage of disadvantaged students in that school. If there are less than 5% disadvantaged students Great Schools does not calculate an equity rating. That school is a “homogeneous” school. Translation: predominantly single race and income. Schools with no equity ratings will be more likely to stay segregated by race & income. Great schools is using a rating scheme that keeps home sales in some neighborhoods white & wealthy and home sales in other neighborhoods black & poor.
https://www.greatschools.org/gk/ratings/
Algorithms give the illusion of being free from bias. Ultimately, the formula reflects the bias of those ordering the programming of the algorithm. The rating categories as well as the weight given to each category are determined by humans with their own perspectives. So-called choice advocates that pay for the “Great Schools” website allow personal bias to be reflected in the data. It’s just like VAM, capricious and not scientific.
I totally agree that these algorithms hide human bias. Cathy O’Neal’s Weapons of Math Destruction enlightened & clarified that idea for me.
The way Great Schools uses its “equity” language is what boils my blood. It’s patently deceptive. It’s designed to trigger implicit bias in home buyers & families to keep home costs high enough to maintain racial and class segregation. Note that poor blacks & whites can’t buy homes in these homogeneous school areas.
Great Schools “equity” ratings are Lee Atwater deceptive. They are Arne Duncan deceptive. They are John King deceptive. They are Betsy DeVos deceptive. They are Eva Moskowitz deceptive.
I propose those of us resisting ed reform boldly name every one of these people and organizations as racist. It’s going to take years to undo what they’ve done so we might as well start now undoing their lying narratives.
Frankly, so called school choice is a racist hustle regardless of any language about equity or civil rights. The NAACP finally got the picture and called for moratorium on new charter schools. If Biden wins, he needs to be educated on this issue. He still believes that non-profit charter schools are fine, but the distinction between for profit and non-profit charters exists in name only.
I agree and thanks for looking into the so-called “equity” ratings.
Ever since school rankings were adopted by state DoEds, Zillow has been using them as part of their online real estate advertising to sell homes & property. Great Schools probably employs individuals who don’t see themselves as perpetuating segregation & school inequality. But by promoting school rankings & equity ratings Great Schools enables the real estate market to exploit covert racism in housing to boost its wealth and power.
Note how Zillow distances itself from being responsible for inaccuracies in the statistical methods [ e.g., ratings should not be the only factor used in selecting the right school for your family.]
In this example, Zillow linked directly to Great Schools so parents can learn more.
https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/12314-Chirping-Bird-Ln-Knoxville-TN-37932/247152854_zpid/
“About Great Schools
GreatSchools ratings based on test scores and additional metrics when available.
About the ratings: GreatSchools ratings are designed to be a starting point to help parents compare schools, and should not be the only factor used in selecting the right school for your family. Zillow recommends that parents tour multiple schools in-person to inform that choice. Historically, GreatSchools ratings have been based solely on a comparison of standardized test results for all schools in a given state. As of September 2017, GreatSchools ratings also incorporate additional information, when available, such as college readiness, academic progress, advanced courses, equity, discipline and attendance data. Learn more”
Charter schools and gentrification of urban neighborhoods work in tandem. In many cities tiered charter schools promote enhanced segregation. Yuppie selective charters move into renovated housing near the CBD. The student enrollment is mostly white and upper middle class. The cheap charters set up in areas further from the CBD to encourage minority parents to move out of the area being gentrified and where minority students often wind up after the public schools are closed. These schools are for the poor minority students. This is Jim Crow in real estate and education. It is all separate and unequal treatment by race and socioeconomics. We have seen this same cycle repeat in various cities.
Interesting and enlightening on how these charters & real estate function in tandem. Maybe we shouldn’t call them charter schools & instead call them segregation academies.
BTW, what is a tiered charter school?
Great reporting, and thanks to all involved. Now I understand why the GreatSchools website always aroused my skepticism.
Can you post the link to where Laura Chapman wrote this?
She wrote it as a comment on this blog. Laura often does deep research and posts her findings here. She is a treasure.
THIS is how Matt Barnum at Chalkbeat perpetuates Great Schools & ed reformers racist lies:
“America’s most widely used school rating system is overhauling its approach with a series of changes that will weaken the link between race, poverty, and school scores.”
That statement is false. What Great Schools did was revise their ed reform strategy by reporting “equity ratings”. These ratings reveal racial & income levels in a school neighborhood by telling potential home buyers the racial & wealth makeup of the schools & neighborhoods. Equity ratings are a wink wink, nod, nod to home buyers.
Matt Barnum’s statement is even more pernicious in that it hides Great Schools real estate industry connections behind school rankings. I don’t know or care if Matt Barnum & Chalkbeat are overt or covert racists. What I do care about is that Barnum & Chalkbeat editors took Great Schools words as accurate & truthful in light of Great Schools racist dog whistles. Maybe that makes Chalkbeat & Barnum complicit racists.
Great Schools is nothing but a propaganda mill for the same greedy, corrupt grifters that are working hard to turn the U.S. and the world into a Klpetoracy that only feeds them.