Fall is a grueling time of year for some families, as many start to consider where their child will go to school the following year. A lot of families opt for the school they are zoned or assigned to, but others, depending on their district or personal preferences, may consider different public, charter or private schools. Many schools, public or private, start their application process in the fall.
About two years ago, I was one of those parents. My son was going into kindergarten, and we were on applying for five public schools, two of which were charter schools. Our school district, like a growing number of others, allows families to enter lotteries to attend traditional public schools outside of their neighborhood or take entrance exams for specialty or magnet schools that offer a different style of education or a different curriculum. This is on top of charter schools and private schools, which usually have a separate application process.
After applying in the fall, initial decisions came in the spring, and we found ourselves on multiple waiting lists. This can be normal in our city, as families from all zip codes are interested in attending private schools or public schools other than their neighborhood school. After about a month, we got an offer for one of the public schools we were interested in. It was a hard few months, not knowing where he was going to end up, but we also understood that we were lucky to have options. Many folks do not. My husband and I went back and forth until the deadline—should we take the offer or stay with our neighborhood school?
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There was nothing wrong with our neighborhood school, but the others we applied to were schools with great reputations or bilingual programs. I struggled with the decision, despite being an education researcher who studies school choice for a living. I’m not the only one. Parents look at many things when trying to decide where to send their child to school. Some are practical: location, test scores. Some are more abstract and personal: community, diversity. Here are some key factors to consider when trying to find the best fit for your child.
The administration and teachers. Many districts showcase their schools during school fairs. When we went to ours, the principal of the school we eventually picked greeted us with a smile and showed so much enthusiasm about the school. It spoke volumes to us that he was willing to give up time on a weekend to share what made his school great. The presence of a strong and active school leader was a significant factor in our decision about where to apply and ultimately enroll our son.
School leadership matters. Research shows that good principals affect student outcomes in much the same way as good teachers. Estimates suggest that replacing a below-average principal with an above-average one results in a nearly three-month increase in student learning in both reading and math. The best principals usually implement four key practices: they foster a positive school climate; they prioritize instruction in their work with teachers; they create opportunities for collaboration and professional learning among their faculty and staff; and they effectively manage resources and personnel. The same is true for teachers, who are the most significant factor in student learning. So if you’ve heard great things about the teachers or principal at a school, don’t ignore it.
Distance and transportation. Wherever you enroll your child, you have to figure out how to get them to and from school five days a week, whether this means walking, driving, or putting them on a school bus. When your kids are young, this responsibility falls to you: walking or driving them to school or ensuring they are at the bus stop on time each day. If your child is a tween or teen, this responsibility may be on them. In any case, the time and effort it takes kids to get to school matters in terms of attendance. Students with long commutes tend to have lower attendance. Families who face long and complicated commutes are more likely to switch schools, even if their child started in a top-choice school. If your child is eligible for a school bus, this could ease logistics—but a long bus ride may also be detrimental to attendance.
The school climate and community. Two of the schools we listed during the selection process were ones we knew other children from our preschool would attend. At the time we applied, we didn’t know any kids or parents at the school he eventually attended. So we asked around and learned that the school had an active family-school organization (FSO), which is similar to a parent-teacher association (PTA).
The fact that our school had such a group told us that a core group of parents were involved, which can benefit both individual and school achievement. We checked out the FSO’s social media pages and learned about the numerous events the school hosts every year to welcome incoming families. These included school tours and information sessions about enrollment, and a beach party as well as events at local playgrounds for current and incoming kindergarten families to get to know each other. All of these pointed to a positive school climate, which boosts student engagement, grades and performance.
Measures of school performance. Note I did not say “test scores.” That is because it is necessary to consider multiple performance and quality metrics to get a comprehensive picture of the school. One of my husband’s first questions when we received our offer was, “What are the test scores like?” I told him I would look, but school quality is more than just test scores.
Be aware that the proficiency rates that are easily accessible or reported on sites like U.S. News and World Report rankings or GreatSchools are averages. Therefore, they don’t necessarily reflect how your child would be expected to perform in the school. So it’s always worth digging deeper to find information about the proficiency rates for kids who are similar to your child. In addition, proficiency rates are highly correlated with family income, so they provide limited information about a school’s contribution to student outcomes on their own.
That’s why it’s also important to consider growth. Unlike proficiency measures, growth measures tend to be weakly related to family income, because they are typically constructed using statistical models that account for student backgrounds. Thus these measures are likely to be more reflective of what’s happening day-to-day. Many states include growth information on their websites as part of the state report card, which federal law requires to be publicly available to parents. If a school is meeting or exceeding its growth targets, to me that indicates the leadership and teachers there work hard to support and improve student learning. Other vital factors to consider include teacher-student ratios (the closest you will likely come to class size) and access to other resources, such as tutoring, counselors and school libraries.
Diversity, extracurricular activities, and special programs. There is more to school than just reading and math. Other factors you might want to consider include student diversity, extracurricular activities, and special programs such as immersion or bilingual education.
My son’s school is socioeconomically, racially and linguistically diverse (which was important to us), and it offers many after-school clubs ranging from STEM to sports to an Arabic drumming ensemble. It does not offer immersion or bilingual education, although the charter schools we applied to did. How much do these factors matter beyond personal preferences? Racial diversity benefits a range of outcomes including test scores, GPAs, educational attainment and earnings, while the effects of socioeconomic diversity are less clear cut.
Extracurriculars matter to parents when choosing schools, but the academic benefits of such participation are modest. For example, in one study, participation in sports among high school students was linked to a 1 to 2 percent increase in test scores, and, among certain student groups, with increased expectations of obtaining a college degree. Dual-language/immersion programs do improve student outcomes and may be particularly beneficial for reading performance; yet the strongest evidence supporting dual-language education is based on outcomes of children whose parents applied to these programs, so it’s not clear that benefits would extend beyond children whose families were already interested in these programs. The bottom line is that each of these factors improves performance to varying degrees and is worth considering in the school selection process.
In the end, things like principal and teacher quality, positive school climate and thriving community outweighed test scores in our decision. This isn’t to say that test scores are unimportant—I frequently use them in my research as an outcome measure to explore questions like how moving schools or moving homes affects students, or whether charter schools are more effective than traditional public schools. I also recognize that proficiency rates capture only one dimension of school quality and the schooling experience.
My son is now in first grade. I am constantly amazed by how much he has grown since he started kindergarten—he can read and write, he’s learning how to spell and do math, and most importantly, he loves going to school. I’m fortunate to have choices—I know this. But there is no greater feeling than knowing I’ve made a good one on behalf of my child.
