Kensington Elementary
Hello, I would like to ask about Kensington Elementary School. A year ago it had a 9 out of 10 ranking on great schools.org. This year it is 7 out of 10. I don't seem being able to figure out why. Can you please share your thoughts about it or experience from attending Kensington Elementary school? Thank you.
Apr 1, 2020
Parent Replies
Looks like they changed the way the overall ranking is calculated since test scores are at 10/10. Looks like they put more weight on how low income students may be doing. I have seen that for other schools as well. Too bad they don't tell us the criteria used or if and when they change it.
The rating went down because equity is now factored in. There are not a lot of non-white or low income students. They did not test as well as white and non-low income students. Test scores scores overall are still a 10.
GreatSchools reworked their formulas recently in a way that is detrimental to schools that have any sort of a low income population. If you look closely, you'll see that Kensington gets a 10/10 for test scores overall and for not low-income students, but their overall score is lowered because low-income kids aren't performing as well as non low-income kids. I think it was a change made from good intentions, but is having unintended consequences in punishing otherwise good schools.
The broad systemic inequality in our society that results in test scores being tied to socioeconomic status is not any individual school's fault and the fact that Kensington's 7% of low-income students don't score as well as the 93% of students who are not disadvantaged is no reason to think the quality of instruction overall is any worse. We're at a different elementary school in the district that went from a 7 to a 3, but the quality of instruction is just as good as ever, if not better, and our kids are learning off the charts.