Image by lane.bailey via Flickr

For Home Buyers with school age (or soon to be school age) children, the quality of schools can be a very important factor in selecting a home. Even those that may not have kids or plans for kids often pay attention to school quality in places where they buy homes. High quality schools have a deep and lasting effect on the prices of homes, as well as the demand for the area.

One of the tools that I often use to figure out the quality of local schools is GreatSchools.org.

Among the particular things I look at on GreatSchools.org are:

• Community ratings. These are ratings (and comments) from parents, school officials and students regarding the school. I try to keep in mind that ALL of the voices have their biases.
• GreatSchools ratings. Unlike the community ratings, these are purely data driven. Test scores rule the day.
• Teacher & Admin Education Levels. This tells me what levels of education have been achieved by the staff.
• Programs. Obviously this is about the various activities available to the students (and parents in some cases).
• Nearby Schools. Both public and private.

One thing to keep in mind, though, is that it is a snapshot in time. The parents and students can generally only comment on their experience, which may be vastly different from the experiences of others in the same school. And test scores don’t tell the whole story… but they are generally a pretty solid indicator.