Good school hunting

As I am looking at pre-pre-schools for the kids, it has gotten me thinking about real school, like kindergarten (hold me).  As I've mentioned, when we bought our house in 2005, we didn't think we'd still be here when our kids went to school (and still may not be), even though there is a grade school just a few doors down from our house.  I knew that schools were important even if you aren't planning to use them (for resale, if nothing else), but given our haste in buying and other considerations (location, layout, room to grow, etc.), I didn't do even cursory research on our schools.

Count me lucky again, as I've discovered the site Great Schools which compiles ratings on all public schools.  I found our elementary school is a nine (now a ten!), middle school a ten, and high school a nine.  Our district also allows kids to attend any school in the district (not just the closest) so they could attend one of the several higher ranked schools, including the nearby public math and science academy (one of the best schools in Cook Co.) which is a ten.  Given their parents, this will be most likely be the twins' inclination, but we are obviously looking forward to nurturing their other interests as well. There is also a "10" high school in our district, which my artist aunt just happens to have attended.  I realize there is more to a school than these metrics and that many love schools that are not top rated, but I think it's helpful to have some sort of measure to know what are looking at instead of just going by other people's opinions.

It is also important to me (and DH) that they attend a school that is diverse (something that my education before college was seriously lacking, save the Hmong refugees the Lutherans in our town brought in).  The ironic thing about schools is they are usually reflective of the parents as much as the kids (or even the teachers, as important as they are). Highly educated and/or high income parents tend to have high performing kids (very broadly speaking, of course) and these people tend to cluster in specific areas (of million dollar homes, in Chicago anyway). Many of the schools in more upscale suburbs are top rated, but they also typically have less diversity.  Our district is fairly diverse, the schools are about 1/3 non-white, mostly Asian, which is a plus in my book.

Out of curiosity, I looked up the schools I attended (beware, this site is highly addictive).  My grade school and middle are eights and high school a seven (now six, four, and seven, respectively), among the best in our district.  Even in the advanced program, I was bored through most of school (one of the more reasonable reasons my sister is home schooling).  Had my parents been more proactive, I probably should have been skipping grades or getting scholarships to prep school, but instead I was making the most among peers who thought drinking and driving was a legitimate extracurricular activity (it was Northern WI, after all).

So check out the site...  How are the schools you went to?  The ones you are planning or hope to send your kids?  Were you surprised by their ratings?