Episode Details

Many local communities are engaged in conversations about how school quality should be determined and how that information should be shared. Those conversations take place in the shadow of GreatSchools.org – who provides a 1-10 rating for nearly every public school in the country. These ratings have a major impact on everything from curriculum to housing prices.

Matt Barnum (Chalkbeat) wrote about the ways GreatSchools ratings can nudge families towards schools with fewer Black and Brown students. He joins us to discuss his reporting as well as what current education research can tell us about just how malleable people are when it comes to making choices about schools.

We’re also joined by Ali, the leader of the Seattle Chapter of Integrated Schools, and the author of our most widely read blog post, The Problem with GreatSchools. We grapple with the source of the data provided by GreatSchools, but also with how we use it, and, especially what our obligations are, as White and/or privileged people, when we interact with this data.

Join our Patreon to support this work, and connect with us and other listeners to discuss these issues even further.

LINKS:

• Matt’s article on Great Schools
• Peter Bergman (Columbia University) – Study on the impacts of providing GreatSchools ratings to people searching for homes with housing vouchers (Section 8)
• Vernā Myers’s TED Talk– Researcher of bias who worked with Next Door
• EdWeek interview with Bill Jackson, the founder of GreatSchools, about the original vision for the organization.
• Three takes on how Next Door has tried to address racial bias:
• Harvard Business Review
• Wired
• The Root

Join our Patreon (http://patreon.com/integratedschools) to support this work, and connect with us and other listeners to discuss these issues even further.

Let us know what you think of this episode, suggest future topics, or share your story with us – @integratedschls (https://twitter.com/integratedschls) on twitter, IntegratedSchools (http://facebook.com/integratedschools) on Facebook, or email us at podcast@integratedschools.org.

The Integrated Schools Podcast was created by Courtney Mykytyn and Andrew Lefkowits.

This episode was produced by Andrew Lefkowitz and