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Introducing SchoolMatch®
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Since 1986, SchoolMatch® has provided families with data about public and private elementary and secondary schools and their communities. Feature stories in the following magazines have highlighted our valuable and unique service.
The SchoolMatch® databases are the foundation of our work, including that in family law cases. The databases contain continuously updated, objective information about each of the more than 15,000 public school systems in the United States.
Our vast bank of information has been designed and implemented through exhaustive nationwide research by experts in the following fields:
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Clients--individuals or corporate employees--can receive information on a total of twenty-two factors on public school systems and thirty-three on private schools. The information given ranks schools and school systems by categories. Data include:
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on scholastic examination scores |
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In an interview in Crain's Chicago Business, prominent businessman Dominic Arena described his use of SchoolMatch. Arena first learned about SchoolMatch when he was hired to head a medium-sized Chicago manufacturing firm. The father of three children, he insisted on top-quality schools. SchoolMatch provided him with a broad choice of appropriate schools within 25 miles of his new workplace--and not necessarily in the highest cost areas. Mr. Arena told Crain's that in previous moves "we had to do the research on our own or rely on whatever information the real estate agent could give. From them you get a somewhat biased individual assessment, whereas SchoolMatch is more objective."
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Every care has been taken to interpret the information accurately and to present it in a way that permits valid comparisons between public school systems or private schools. Such comparisons can be difficult because, of course, school systems vary widely in practices, procedures and even the terms they use. For example, if different systems are asked to report pupil/teacher ratios, one might include reading specialists, guidance counselors, teacher aids, and other support personnel in its count. Another might stretch the definition of "teacher" even further to include administrators, bus drivers and other service personnel. Yet another might report only teachers who are responsible for classrooms on a daily basis. In this kind of analysis, comparing the different systems without taking into account these differences is like trying to compare proverbial apples and oranges.
Instructional expenditures per pupil is another statistic that is liable to distortion. The definition we use includes only instructional supplies and support items used in regular academic endeavors. Figures from other sources often include expensive supplies and equipment for vocational, technical and special education, making accurate comparisons impossible.
Nonprofessionals can easily misconstrue school statistics and reach faulty conclusions. For example, School System A may look attractive because it reports higher teacher salaries than School System B - - yet School System A might be reporting salary schedules, not actual salaries paid to real people. School System A may be willing to pay a high salary to highly trained teachers, but if none of its teachers fits into that category, this information has no bearing on the system's educational standing.
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Norming the Data |
Faced with these difficulties, we have, over time, developed methods for norming the information, that is, adjusting data so that it can be presented in a standard format that allows valid comparisons. Norming is simply converting the data to a common form so that different schools can be compared from a common basis. For example, when we report the number of faculty in a school system or school, we do so using "full time equivalency." In other words, we take the total number of certificated faculty on the payroll and divide by the standard work week for a full time faculty member. If two faculty members are each working on a half time basis, they would be counted as one "full time equivalent" for our reporting purposes. Without such norming, research on school characteristics and student compatibility would be complicated and confusing. Similar norming takes place in analyzing test scores, school finances, accreditation and demographic information.
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As specialists in education, we secure current data from a vast network of reliable data sources. Data from school service agencies, county tax assessors, county auditors, regional planning commissions, accrediting agencies, state departments of education and state taxing authorities are used to determine ratings for each school system in the database. The ratings compare school systems with others in the nation on a one through ninety-nine point basis referred to as "national percentile." In other words, the over 15,000 public school systems in the country are placed in 99 separate "buckets" depending upon their relative position on each data item. Therefore, each percentile contains roughly 161 public school districts. As a result, a district labeled as "being in the 99th percentile" is numbered among the top (or highest) 161 school districts on that particular data item. Additionally, a school district labeled "in the 50th percentile" would be among those districts ranked right in the middle.
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Credibility |
Validity of the data has been confirmed by thousands of families and press organizations such as USA Today and Money Magazine which have used the data in their investigative reporting. The data are used for corporate work and family support, corporate recruiting, corporate relocation, site selection and school marketing research.
Use of the SchoolMatch® databases in child custody and residency cases has been highlighted in publications ranging from American Demographics to Family Circle and Education Today.
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Copyright © 2008 by Public Priority Systems, Inc.
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