How to raise a child with emotional intelligence (in only 10 minutes a day!)

By Leslie Crawford, Senior Editor

During our nightly bedtime talks, my 7-year-old daughter has been updating me on the machinations of which girl would, and wouldn’t, let so-and-so play with so-and-so. I listen in the dark as she reflects on the most important part of her day, recess, sometimes with an operatic, "How can I stop this agony?" and more often a wistful, "It doesn’t matter. I’ll just sit all alone."

After a few nights of this, I revved up into helicopter mode and emailed the parents of one of the girls to check in about what I was hearing. The father immediately wrote back that he’d been talking with his daughter, as he does every night, and as far as his daughter is concerned, she and my daughter are solid and there’s nothing to worry about. (Confession: My daughter got the fretting gene from me.)

A national mandate: 10 minutes a day

Look at that, I thought: both of us were hearing from our daughters during night-time talks. I’m talking about talking the talk that goes beyond “How was your day?” and “What did you do at school?” (Why oh why do we ask these questions when we already know we’ll hear “fine” and “nothing”?)

At GreatSchools, we preach the value of reading to your children every day (ideally 30 minutes) – even older kids - because it’s so integral in laying the foundation for a child’s academic success. But what if a “talk to your child at least 10 minutes a day” rule was instituted nationwide? How many more kids would find the time to connect with their parents about the things that just never get the time? How many more parents would get to know the children they love so much? Life, school, work – it’s all so rushed that if we don’t make it a daily practice, days fly by before we get a chance to connect with them. Forget about it long enough and the person you’re raising just might leave the house at 18 a stranger.

Car talk ...with 7-year-olds

Tuck-in talks aren’t the only time to catch your kid. With my son, I long ago learned to prick up my ears in the car, a safe space where he’d free associate as one would to a therapist: me playing the omniscient and non-judgmental driver-cum-listener who would hear the most astonishing questions, confessions, and revelations about school and life. Case in point, when he was about seven, just as we were pulling in front of our neighborhood farmers market: “Mom, why are we here?” 

“We always come here on Saturdays," I answered. "We're just getting a few fruits and vegetables. It won't take that long.”

“No, I mean why are we here, on the planet? What are we supposed to be doing here?” 

Keeping midnight hours

These days, I must be more strategic, accessing him during the most difficult time of “day” for me: late at night. As author Michael Riera writes in his excellent Staying Connected to Your Teens: How To Keep Them Talking To You And How To Hear What They're Really Saying, parents of teens might want to set their alarms to wake up when most humans are sleeping. That’s when your vampire child is most likely burning his brightest and if the moment is right, you’ll find him at his best self – open and accessible and a beautiful blend of the child you knew and the future adult he’s going to become. Maybe, just maybe, he’ll tell me what’s actually happening at high school and, if the stars align, briefly open up about his  life that most of the time is an impenetrable locked door.

So yes, of course we want to support our children’s academic success by reading to them for those 30 minutes. And don't forget the 10 minutes a night, per grade, homework rule. (Oy, don't get me started on that nonsense!) But IQ isn’t everything. A child with a well-fostered EQ (emotional intelligence) is far more likely to be a successful adult, one who has learned, often through the regular attentions of a caring adult, vital life skills like empathy and self-control. So let’s hear it for the 10-minute-a-day (only 10!) talking rule, which isn’t really a rule at all, but a pleasure and reminds us why we had them in the first place.

I'm curious how other parents do it: How much do you talk to your child, and where and when do they open up?

 

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Follow @LeslieMCrawford

Attention helicopter parents: new study shows when it’s time to stop hovering

By Jessica Kelmon, Associate Editor

I’ll spare you snide remarks about heli-moms and -dads. My attitude is: helicopter parenting is a modern child-rearing trend. Research supports it: involved, supportive parents set their children up for emotional and academic success. But I’m only human, so I half-laugh at heli-hectoring because, hey, it’s funny.

Yesterday at work, I discovered everyone on our edit team has a very different take on helicopter parenting. One editor thinks being a helicopter parent is detrimental and borderline loony. I think it’s the norm among involved parents – with a handful of extreme cases who are to blame for negative headlines. Another thinks helicoptering has its place but crosses a line when it keeps kids from being held accountable for their actions. We all agree on one thing, though. It’s analogous to calling yourself “lazy.” Sure, you can call yourself “lazy,” or in this case, a helicopter parent, but it’d be insulting for someone else to do so.

Whatever you think of hovering over younger kids, a new study published in the Journal of Child and Family Studies suggests there are real risks for older (read: young adult) helicoptered kids. It seems many parents never quite figure out when to back off. Case in point: recently I cited a New York Times story about a mother who hired a tutor to help her struggling NYU freshman: “[the tutor] spent about 30 hours helping [the freshman] manage her schedule, pick classes and generally feel more comfortable in her new life," reported Abby Ellin. Is this helpful, or did the collegiate's mom simply hire a surrogate helicopter?

Helicopter parenting in college

“Helping or Hovering? The Effects of Helicopter Parenting on College Students’ Well-Being,” set out to tackle this question: Is the hovering helping or harming kids once they're in college?

“Parental involvement is related to many positive child outcomes,” the researchers concede. But when, they ask, does this involvement become developmentally inappropriate? College, it seems, is a common-sense answer. So they set out to test the theory that hovering into adolescence and early adulthood negatively impacts a coed’s self-determination – the basic psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness – leading to depression and reduced sense of satisfaction with their lives.

They surveyed 297 undergrads (12% male, 88% female). Researchers based their questions on “behaviors identified by college administrators as overly involved and inappropriate for the parents of college-aged students,” such as too much control (“My mother monitors who I spend time with.”) and inappropriately acting on their now-adult-student’s behalf (“If I were to receive a low grade that I felt was unfair, my mother would call the professor.”) Then students rated their life satisfaction, anxiety, depression, autonomy, competence, and connectedness. The results? Researchers tied helicopter parenting to college students’ reduced well-being – specifically, their lack of autonomy and competence lead to depression and lower life satisfaction.  

When – if ever – should the hovering become less frequent?

We all draw our own lines, which is why I found the researcher's questions fascinating. For instance, if my mom had contacted one of my professors about a grade, I would’ve been mortified; but I don’t think a curfew when you're home from college is out of the question. In your family, which of these behaviors would be acceptable – and which should you consider scaling back?

Ready, set, ask yourself…

Here are the questions the researchers used to evaluate overly controlling and autonomy-building behaviors.

1. My mother had/will have a say in what major I chose/will choose.
2. My mother encourages me to discuss any academic problems I am having with my professor.
3. My mother monitors my exercise schedule.
4. When I am home with my mother, I have a curfew.
5. My mother has given me tips on how to shop for groceries economically.
6. My mother encourages me to make my own decisions and take responsibility for the choices I have made.
7. My mother regularly wants me to call or text her to let her know where I am.
8. My mother encourages me to deal with interpersonal problems between myself and my roommate or friends on my own.
9. If I were to receive a low grade that I felt was unfair, my mother would call the professor.
10. My mother monitors my diet.
11. My mother monitors who I spend time with.
12. My mother encourages me to keep a budget and manage my own finances.
13. My mother calls me to track my schoolwork (i.e., how I’m doing in school, what my grades are like, etc.).
14. If I am having an issue with my roommate, my mother would try to intervene.
15. My mother encourages me to choose my own classes.

Do these helicoptering indicators (#1, 3, 4, 7, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14) sound uncomfortably familiar? If so, it may be time to start building your child's road to eventual independence. After all, the researchers note, it’s not just the child who suffers when the hovering never ceases: “Over-parenting” can negatively affect a parent’s mental health and has been tied to the parent’s “lower satisfaction with life,” too. Which, admittedly, isn't funny at all.

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Follow @ JessicaKelmon

Does the “IKEA effect” apply to children?

By Carol Lloyd, Executive Editor

It happened to me, just as it happens to just about every parent that ever lived. By the time the baby arrives bawling and purple by way of a body fatigued to the point of madness and despair: the miracle of love arrives along with it.

Then came those first days and weeks and months, that have stretched to years and decades of toil, effort, exertion, and yes, drudgery in the guiding of those two tiny babies towards adulthood. Somehow miraculously, the miracle persists.   

As one grandma put it when she cornered me with a screaming toddler in a crowded grocery line: “It’s the hardest job you’ll ever love.”  

In his recent report on what social scientists have dubbed “the IKEA effect,” NPR science correspondent Shankar Vedantam began with a personal anecdote about a friend who spends his free time caring for two huge misbehaving dogs that bark, get into fights, and otherwise make him unpopular with his neighbors, asking: “Does he do all this work for the dogs because he loves the dogs, or does he love the dogs because he does all this work for them? Most of the time we think that when we love something it leads to labor, but is it possible that labor leads to love?”

Turns out, recent research has confirmed Vedantam’s hunch: labor can indeed lead to love. People actually feel more love and appreciation for the self-assembled products from IKEA (however lopsided that hutch turned out) than those same products assembled by a professional.

Of course, my lovely daughters are neither Vallvik TV units nor Selje nightstands.  And I’m among those immune to the IKEA effect when it comes to cobbling together a Malm desk: there’s no love lost between me and DIY assembly.   

But the labor = love equation illuminates the miracle of child love – and it also explains parents' natural delusional perspective on their children’s charms, potential, and skills. Indeed, it’s no miracle at all, but it's still sublime. Effort and work ignites imagination, emotions, and makes us care. This laborious non-miracle of love sets our relationships to our children apart from most others. After all, in the beginning, their 24/7 needs transform the caregivers in profound ways. The repugnant becomes normal. The mundane, fascinating. The predictable, hilarious. The simple, exalted. Ordinary people become heroes of sleep deprivation and sacrifice – if only for a few months.

That the residue of that labor lasts a lifetime is a telling testament to the human heart. For some, this may be a prosaic explanation for why we love our kids so much, but I find it remarkable: that our exertions can transform our feelings. It’s also a great lesson to impart to our children: that putting nose to the grindstone can unlock a kind of deep satisfaction.

Recently, my daughters and I watched First Position, a documentary about young aspiring ballet dancers preparing for an international competition. As a former dancer, I'm not a huge fan of ballet – especially for little girls, many of whom can’t help but become fixated on staying unhealthily thin. And the film featured more than one stage mother, tilting just this side of the Toddlers and Tiaras windmill. But some of these kids had experienced what all children need to experience, that our “general ed for the general public, fill-in-the-blanks” schools sometimes fail to emphasize: that intense effort itself can breed passion and love, loose screws and all.

Follow @Carol__Lloyd

 

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What's causing the boy crisis?

Connie Matthiessen, Associate Editor

"What do you expect? He’s a boy!"

If you have a son you hear this refrain a lot — people employ it to explain everything from sloppy personal habits to lackluster grades to the jacket that goes missing over and over again.

“Boy brain!” people quip when a teen side-swipes the family car (with the other family car), or dashes out of the house leaving the front door wide open, or, after being nagged for years about his grades, confesses during his first semester at a mediocre college that he wishes he’d worked harder in high school.   

But it’s not funny, not really, that so many of our boys stop reading books, perform poorly  in school , and  worse — drop out, abuse drugs, and languish in prison. Of course, girls aren't perfect, either, but statistics make the case for a yawning gender gap: girls consistently out perform boys in school; boys are far more likely than girls to repeat a grade or drop out, and boys are twice as likely to end up in juvenile detention. Girls now earn 60 percent of college degrees, and the gap is even wider for minorities: black women are nearly twice as likely to receive a college degree as their male counterparts, for example. 

Boys misbehaving

The boy crisis has received plenty of attention: there are entire books on the subject, including The Trouble With Boys, by Peg Tyre and Richard Whitmire’s, Why Boys Fail.

Now the issue is in the public eye again because of a recent article published in the The Journal of Human Resources, which found that, beginning in kindergarten, behavior is a major factor in how teachers assign grades. Since boys don’t behave as well as girls, they receive lower grades than their test scores would predict. 

In other words, from their earliest school years boys receive grades based in part on “non-cognitive” skills that girls develop much earlier, including the ability to sit still, pay attention, participate and demonstrate knowledge in the classroom, and generally show a positive attitude toward learning.

The implication of this research is that, because of these non-cognitive lags, boys fall behind in school early and never really catch up. As one of the study authors told Christina Hoff Sommers, “If grade disparities emerge this early on, it’s not surprising that by the time these children are ready to go to college, girls will be better positioned.”

These findings are important: we clearly need to create more academic environments that take into account differences in boys’ learning styles, as Hoff Summers suggests. It’s also important, as Sara Mead points out in in Education Week, that we help boys develop essential non-cognitive skills that will serve them — not just in school but in every aspect of life.

Mind the (gender) gap

Still, for all the research that’s being done on the gender gap, it strikes me that we haven’t gotten to the bottom of this issue yet. I found this observation by a college professor, writing in response to Hoff Sommer’s article, particularly disturbing:

“…Most of my female students are hungry! Hungry for success, hungry for knowledge, hungry for whatever they need to get where they want to go. My female students track me down for meetings, advice and tips on how to get where they want to go. They ask all the right questions and are seriously thinking about their futures. This includes white, Black, Asian American and Latino female students.

A lot of my male students are complacent! They sit in my classes, never meet with me and never try to get information that they might need. I never know what their intended plans are or if they have any since they don't engage me outside of class.

The difference is striking! I don't know how things got to be this way but it is very sad and doesn't bode well for this country.

You’ve got to wonder: why aren't these boys as hungry to learn and shape their futures as their female counterparts? Should we hold them responsible, or are parents, educators, and society as a whole somehow letting our boys down? 

I’d love to hear what you think….

Follow @CMMatthiessen

We’re killing kids’ ambitions. Why?

By Jessica Kelmon, Associate Editor

Over the holiday break, my kindhearted, hardworking, straight-A niece was in distress: She was facing her first F – ever.

I’ve seen her toil away at school – taking AP English with the school’s notoriously harshest grader, staying behind to study while our entire family hit the slopes – and in life – keeping her promise to babysit when tempting plans arise and feeding those darn turtles (again!) while certain neighbors are away. She’s capable and ambitious, saving money to buy a camera to make documentary films – and then entering a contest I sent her on a whim (she become a finalist with this film). She’s a nose-to-the-grindstone kind of girl, so when she’s facing an F (or maybe a D), it’s not because she’s suddenly become a slacker.

Terrified to tell her mom, she tested the waters by telling me. It’s a moment, I told her, when you really see what you’re made of: character. Will she slink away, or buck up and try again?

But as we talked, I realized she was facing a divergence of two paths worthy of Robert Frost. You see, she’s taking both science and humanities classes in her second year at college. At the same time.

In college, I did the same thing for a year and a half. I remember getting A’s in UCLA’s North Campus humanities classes and struggling to get B-‘s and C’s in the South Campus science and math classes. I also remember a 95 on a humanities paper being a straightforward A, while a 30% (what I assumed was an F) on a chem lab could magically become a B+ with the curve. I worked hard in both – maybe harder in the STEM classes – but it felt like the writing was on the wall. When you consistently earn higher marks in one area, maybe that’s a sign, right?  

Now, watching it happen to my niece, I realize it’s not writing on the wall. It’s a matter of assuming that grades at the same university are somehow comparable. They aren’t. I urged my niece not to give up just because STEM teachers are harsh graders, not to take it as a message to ditch those arduous science courses.

I told her she’s not alone, it happened to me and I let it steer me away. But if my anecdotal experience isn’t enough, a new report released yesterday has the numbers to back me up. Here are the dismaying trends from a new study about STEM in America (they polled 55,000 teachers and reached 95 percent of U.S. high schools to generate their data, trends, and projections):

• There’s incredible STEM attrition. Some kids (thankfully more now than 10 years ago) start out interested in science, engineering, and math, but as they progress through 8^th, 9^th, 10^th, 11^th, and 12^th grade, kids lose interest – 57 percent of them, in fact.
• The remaining few who hang on in college (like my niece), well, they drop like flies: 4 out of 5 ditch STEM subjects in college.
• To make matters worse, in the past two years the STEM gender gap has grown.
• Finally, while 60 percent of schools have programs that encourage STEM, only 25 percent (of that 60 percent) think they have a program that’s working.

Of course, grading isn’t the only culprit, but I believe it’s part of it – and something I hope schools consider as they improve (Stat!) STEM engagement programs. I’m not saying hand out easy A’s – that’s neither motivating nor inspiring. But many kids, looking for feedback about their career prospects,  may do the same side-by-side comparisons of their grades, feel their STEM interest start to wane, and make erroneous decisions about whether or not to move forward. 

Here’s another take on this situation: Richard Rusczyk, a former Math Olympiad winner and the founder of the online math program “Art of Problem Solving,” advocates changing grading expectations. He’d agree with me about not handing out easy A’s, but he would characterize what happened to me – and almost happened to my niece – as falling prey to the “tyranny of 100%.” His argument is: “It’s supposed to be hard — if you’re getting 98% in a class… it may be too easy.” Read more about Rusczyk’s take and the upside to lower grades in STEM (particularly math) here.  The problem with overcoming the “Tyranny of 100%” is that, right now, if you opt out, you’re on your own. By choosing to struggle and accepting lower marks, you may be forfeit your spot in a prestigious graduate program.

By the way, my niece committed to retaking the course, working hard, and doing better. Then, she got her grade. The final grade, with the curve, was a B.

Follow @JessicaKelmon

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Second child syndrome

By Carol Lloyd Executive Editor

“First one breaks, second one bounces.” 

Z, my second daughter, has benefitted from the classic second-child upbringing… she slept most of her way through her first year (and we let her!)   Her elder sister, T, was what is known nowadays as a “sensitive” toddler, prone to biting best friends, operatic meltdowns, extravagant wish lists and inscrutable insecurities.  Baby Z couldn’t get a word in edgewise until she was two, when  she found her voice and hasn’t stopped yammering, falling on her head, blubbering and then laughing like a hyena.   She’s great: tough, easy going, hilariously out of control at times, but never, ever, frail.  Early on she learned to sleep and play on her own, reprogram my cell phone and find my car keys.  Now she spends hours exploring her favorite subject: African American women’s history.

At age 9 she’s a happy, rambunctious grade-schooler, so we tell her to pipe down and be patient. After all, her elder sister, who has been diagnosed with a murky multifactorial diagnosis which manifests as keen annoyance at noises she doesn’t like, has to do her homework and we all know a 7^th grader’s homework is more important than a 3^rd graders, right? 

It’s not that we don’t dote on Z.  We do.  And if we thought she needed it, we would have Z diagnosed with whatever expert-stamped pathology would get her the extra help she needed.  We just don’t think she needs it. But of course, I don’t know that we would have thought T needed it back when she showed a slight reading lag, had she not been Daughter Number 1 to two aging professionals, with all the OCD passion that those circumstances evoke. Now in middle school, my elder embodies all the earmarks of first born privilege: she’s accomplished and ambitious, high strung and demanding.

Growing up in the hot house

In an era when parents often display the hyperactive solicitude of a dowager ministering to her award-winning orchids, many first children suffer from hothouse syndrome. They are the center of a dangerous and precarious universe, growing up in the fun house of their parents’ refracted identities, great expectations, and dreams. 

The second child can never ignite that same fanatical focus -- which can be a good or bad thing, depending on your child and their particular needs.  If your first born is a breeze and your parenting seems to forge a multilingual straight A piano prodigy, and the second one comes along unwilling to sing to the same alfa melody (as was the case with Tiger mother Amy Chua) the second child becomes a humbling lesson in social emotional learning for the parents.  If on the other hand, the second child gets a lot less pressure and a lot more room to think, they can thrive in a very different way.  

Ironically, the awareness of the second child’s special lack of parental fixation has spawned its own anxious diagnostics in the blogosphere: “second child syndrome.” How do you know if your child is suffering from this syndrome?  They either distance themselves emotionally or get especially upset, try harder for parental approval or try less, get in trouble or try to be nice all the time (you get the point, could be any child at any time).  Yet it’s only in a culture that has obsessively embraced “cultivation parenting” that this syndrome could even exist.  What about the 3^rd, 4^th, and 5^th children or the 12^th? Perhaps what we’re really facing is an epidemic of first-child syndrome.

"The cat ate my homework"

Lately my husband and I have been trying to balance the scales and give Z more attention. Ever vigilant to signs she’s playing second fiddle to her older sister, she always ready to throw down the gauntlet and declare injustice. She’s begun to procrastinate on her homework or come up with bizarre explanations as to why she lost it. I can't blame her: now that my elder toils four hours a day on polynomials and memorizing the process of meiosis, it’s hard to sit with Z as she hammers out multiplication tables she could do in her sleep.

Either way, both daughters have benefitted from what the other has missed – the confidence that comes from parental attention. versus the confidence that comes from learning for oneself.  No childhood is perfect and theirs won’t be either.  In the meantime, I’m learning from my second daughter things I never thought I’d learn from a 9-year-old: like Harriet Tubman’s real name and how to fall on the ground, bang your head and keep laughing.

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Dads: man up at school!

Connie Matthiessen, Associate Editor

Parenting, according to a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, has become “more of a ‘guy’ thing,” thanks to the growing ranks of stay-at-home dads who are putting their own “distinctly masculine stamp on child-rearing and home life.’”  

According to the Journal, “ Mr. Mom” — that bumbling incompetent  featured in the 1983 movie of that name — is dead.  HuffPo’s Lisa Belkin even wrote an obituary for him — although she questions if he ever actually existed, speculating that he’s “either a product of Hollywood's imagination or a conspiracy by those who would keep women down by suggesting that men somehow couldn't cook dinner or burp a baby. Or both.  At the same time.”

Dads go to school

If dads are stepping up at home, does this mean they’ll increase their involvement at school as well? When I volunteer in my kids’ classrooms, work on school fundraising events, or attend PTA meetings, a handful of dedicated dads always show-up — but mothers inevitably out-number them by 3 to 1, or more.  

The national Parent Teacher Association (PTA) is hoping to get more fathers into schools, and teamed up with the organization, WATCH  D.O.G.S  (Dads of Great Students) to hold a “Male Engagement Conference” in Kansas City next month. The goal of the conference is to increase male involvement in schools and PTAs, “to reduce bullying, and to bring dads and male mentors into schools nationwide.”

A few good men

A 2009 survey by the National Center for Fathering and the PTA showed that fathers’ involvement in their children’s learning increased significantly between 1999 and 2009, which is good news — for kids and dads, too. Research shows that children whose fathers are involved in their schools have better education outcomes; they are more likely to receive A's and less likely to repeat a grade. And, as the WATCH D.O.G.S. video below makes clear, when dad’s come to school they benefit as much as kids do — and have a blast, too!  

We’d love to hear from dads: do you help out at your kids’ schools? Tell us about it!

 

Follow @CMMatthiessen

Who knew there was a season for this?

By Leslie Crawford, Senior Editor

"When I was growing up, we just went to our neighborhood school." If I drank a Starbucks for every time I have heard this lament – inevitably issued from a parent who is at wit's end over where to get her child the best possible education – I'd be the most hyperactive woman in the nation.

Well, back when I was in elementary school – after the Pleistocene era and well before the Internet – my brother, sister, and I did just that: walked the four blocks to Teller Elementary School, our locally assigned school in Denver. My mother didn't stay up late trolling GreatSchools, touring scores of schools, and hitting up other parents about what they think about this and that school and the secret to getting into those schools. She filled out a form in the spring and, come September, sent us on our way.

Education nation 2013: goodbye simplicity, hello choice!

That was then, this is now. Yes, while we might mourn the loss of simplicity back in the old days of your neighborhood=your school public education, we've gained in… choice. Today, in many school districts across the country, parents have a choice about where their children will be educated. School choice is a complicated and politically charged term – there’s still a lot of controversy about who wants it and why, who it helps and who it hurts – but for millions of American parents who want a say about where their children will attend school, it is also life-changing.

'Tis the season... to consider your school options

Now school choice even has its own special season. This year National School Choice Week begins this Sunday, January 27 and runs through Saturday, February 2. To make your school search less stressful, watch a few of our snappily short and entertaining new videos (like the one below) that reveal insider secrets about how to tour an elementary, middle, and high school. (Shhhh…don't always follow your tour leader!) Then dive deep with a crash course on school choice terminology and learn about all the different kinds of schools you can consider for your child. 

 

Curious to find out about some of the most common alternatives to traditional public schools? Start by watching our terrific video on charter schools. Move onto private schools, special education, and language-based schools. And if, like me, you've stayed up until 2:00 hungry to read more about every type of schools (from Montessori to Waldorf and virtual to STEM), go here for everything under the school choice sun.

In the meantime, let us know how your school search goes. And here's to getting the school of your choice!

Follow @LeslieMCrawford

 

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Introducing our new school profiles

By Gretchen Anderson, VP Product

While measures of a school's academic performance (such as test scores) are important, we know from experience that parents crave a far broader perspective on the schools they're considering. In response, we at GreatSchools have enhanced our school profiles by collecting and providing details on school culture, climate, and programs. And, we've made this information available to readers in a simpler, more comprehensible format.

"School Profiles" have always been the core of the GreatSchools mission, and with the roll out of our new profile design, we have already begun to see parents spending more time on the site, viewing more pages, and considering more options than ever before. We've created a new feature that allows representatives of schools and organizations to contribute to their schools' profile and provide details about their institution's strengths and unique programs. If you are a school leader or influence school leaders, we'd appreciate you passing information about this feature along so we can keep improving our school profiles.

The new profile platform also allows school administrators to add photos and videos to their school's profile, to give prospective students and parents a better sense of the school environment and focus. This feature has taken off: 1,088 schools have already added photos or video to their profiles, and traffic has increased. (To see an example of our new school profile, check out this DC school with a strong arts focus.)

To help families learn about their school's Programs & Culture or Enrollment options, we're collecting more data and information. We've also created ways to filter a set of schools according to factors parents care about most.

We have also begun improving our GreatSchools rating in Milwaukee, DC, and Indianapolis to include additional data about school climate, college-readiness, and growth. We'll continue this effort throughout the coming year.

Finally, in many parts of the country, families are restricted in their school choice by enrollment boundaries. Our new School Attendance Zones tool helps parents simplify their search by focusing only on the schools that their child can actually attend.

As you read this, all of these improvements are being rolled out nationwide. We look forward to continuing to serve America's families in their search for a high quality, good-fit education for their child.

GreatSchools would like to thank the Walton Family Foundation whose generous support made it possible for us to design and develop the new school profiles!

Evolution of the GreatSchools Rating

By Samantha Brown Olivieri, Dir. of Data Strategy

Since its inception back in 2006, the GreatSchools Rating has helped millions of parents evaluate their neighborhood schools, make clear and simple comparisons, and find a great school for their child. In a world of dizzying education data, the GreatSchools Rating offers an easy-to-understand measure of overall test score performance. The value of the rating is its simplicity and scale; the 1-to-10 rating is straightforward, while maintaining methodological integrity and scalability.

However, we know that parents care about more than test scores alone, so we’ve begun to test ways to include multiple measures of school quality in the GreatSchools Rating. Just as a doctor wouldn’t give a patient a clean bill of health based on blood pressure alone, it is important to evaluate various factors of a school’s overall performance. Here are a few concepts we’re beginning to test with an eye toward scaling the innovations that look most promising:

• Student Academic Growth Over Time. Imagine two schools with similar test scores. When you look more closely, you see that students in school A increased their performance by more than one grade level compared to the prior year, while in school B, student scores were stagnant or in some cases declined from the year before. Without a doubt, different things are going on in the classrooms at those two schools — and parents should have this information when comparing schools. Student growth metrics tell you how much schools contribute to academic improvement of all students regardless of their starting point — which a single year of test scores won’t reveal.
• Do Students Graduate Ready for College? Test score results can tell you about students’ mastery of academic standards set by the state — but they don’t tell you how well those students are prepared for success in college and beyond. Additional metrics, such as the percent of students taking college entrance exams or advanced placement courses and their performance on those tests, can provide information about how prepared students are for college — an essential factor for parents to consider when choosing a school.
• School Climate. It’s important not to overlook other aspects of a school’s environment: Does the school cultivate a safe and supportive environment for learning? Are facilities well cared for? Do teachers, students, and parents tend to get along and is there a cohesive school community? So far we’ve gathered insights by analyzing teacher survey results; we’re planning to build on this information by reaching out to GreatSchools’ users and accessing new data through partnerships.

We are also working with states, school districts, charter school groups, and others to acquire additional information about school quality. In addition, we’ve piloted a version of the GreatSchools Rating that includes these new elements in three cities — Milwaukee, Washington, DC, and Indianapolis — and we plan to  expand from there.  So far, feedback has been positive, and we’re excited to continue innovating and creating nuanced ratings that give parents valuable information about schools in communities across the country.

Here are a few examples of the new ratings in action:

• Greenfield Bilingual School in Milwaukee, WI
• Honey Creek Continuous Progress School in Milwaukee, WI
• Fernwood Montessori School in Milwaukee, WI
• Cesar Chavez PCS - Capitol Hill in Washington, DC
• Stoddert Elementary School in Washington, DC