How many schools have your kids attended since starting kindergarten?
Military kids change schools a lot, that's no secret. What often is hard to find is the best schools at your new duty station, especially if you live off base. There are two websites that we love that can help make the processing of choosing a school much easier.
First, www.greatschools.org allows users to input the name of any school or any county in the country and will pull that school's basic info, to include student and teacher diversity, test scores and extracurricular activities.
There is also a section where visitors can leave a review of the school. There is no indication that the website administrators review each of these for accuracy. And let's face it, unhappy people tend to spread the word more often than people who have had a good experience. So, if you find a very poor review, you may want to look at the school data, visit the campus if possible and ask questions before you place the school squarely in the "off limits" category.
The website includes data for preschool - 12th grade at both public and private institutions.
The second great school-finding tool can be found at http://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools
This is the annual ranking of U.S. high schools by U.S. News & World Report. The magazine does a thorough study of more than 19,400 public schools in the nation and examines their test scores, student expectations (11 AP classes to graduate at the number 1 school!) and how well they prepare students for college.
The annual report gives report cards for each of those schools and ranks the top in the nation and each state.
Now, clearly, the military lifestyle is not going to allow us all to move squarely into the top high school district in the nation (located in Dallas, Texas, by the way). And in many cases, the schools closest to your duty station will fall pretty far down the list.
Hopefully, these two websites can help you find the best school choices in your area and from there you can begin your house search.
