Parents Need a Reason to Dig Into School Quality Data, Study Finds

It's not enough for parents to have access to data on school quality; they need an explicit reason to start comparing schools to make use of that information, finds a study released this morning in Education Next.

New school options, be they from a move, a charter school opening, or the No Child Left Behind Act's public school transfer program, spurred parent activity on the school-ratings website, GreatSchools.org, the study found. Michael Lovenheim, an associate professor of policy analysis at Cornell University, and Patrick Walsh, an associate professor of economics at St. Michael's College, tracked more than 102 million keyword searches on the site. They were able to match searches to school districts in 39 states and track the ebb and flow of searching activity in each community from 2010 to 2013.

http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/inside-school-research/2017/11/more_choices_spur_parents_to_ding_into_school_quality.html