Schoolie Launches New Service to Help Parents Rate and Compare Schools Using Big Data Analytics
Palo Alto, CA (PRWEB) June 29, 2015 -- Schoolie today announced the most comprehensive school comparison service available in the U.S., designed to help parents compare local public schools and make the best choices for their kids. Without Schoolie, parents have few reliable information resources to rate and compare schools in their district, among them standardized test scores which provide a very narrow view of how well a school is doing. Schoolie promises to give parents much more information and insight by leveraging the power of big data analytics. Using nineteen rigorous performance metrics powered by Schoolie’s proprietary algorithm, parents can access a complete, statistically accurate view of a school's potential fit for their children, helping them decide where their kids are most likely to succeed academically and socially, and where they will be set up for the best college and career opportunities.
"We're using big data to help parents make smarter decisions about where they send their kids to school”, said Nasha Fitter, Schoolie CEO “This level of data transparency has never existed before, and ultimately will improve educational standards across the U.S.”
While other tech companies use big data to give consumers insight into purchasing homes, merchandise, and airplane tickets, Schoolie is the first company to help parents make what many consider to be the most important decision in their lives - where their kids learn.
When she worked with K12 principals as Director of Microsoft's Global Schools Program, Fitter realized that even though empirical data was available about U.S. public schools, it wasn’t easily accessible to parents, and no company was organizing and analyzing the data in a meaningful way. She recruited a world-class team of data scientists and passionate educators to address this need and created a school ranking system that is more comprehensive than the U.S. News and World Report list of the best high schools, released earlier this year.
For each school in its database, Schoolie organizes and prioritizes huge volumes of publicly available data from school districts, the State Department of Education, The College Board, and the National Center for Education Statistics. Its data scientists then analyze the information and produce a school rating based on nineteen separate performance indicators, which also serve as a good predictor of college readiness for graduating students.
"I've been using Schoolie to figure out where we should move to in Oakland to be close to the school that’s right for my kids," said Niraj Shah, Apple executive and father of three. "I love how Schoolie provides more than just test scores, and makes it easy to find, compare and contrast specific details on academic rigor that my wife and I care about”.
“I like Schoolie’s web site. It made the process of researching schools so much easier for me and helped me through a stressful time”, said Ami Badani, marketing executive and mother of two.
"Schoolie brings transparency to education” said Patricia Ragan, a teacher at Canastota Jr. Sr. High School, near Syracuse, NY. "Every teacher strives for excellence in the classroom, Schoolie allows parents to see the great job we're doing with their kids and compare our work with teachers in other schools."
While Fitter plans to include elementary school metrics and grow her company nationally, for now the Schoolie database has information about high schools only and from 10 school districts covering 20 cities in California, and data from school districts throughout the states of Texas and Georgia. Eventually, Fitter predicts parents in every US state and every school district will be able to visit the Website, schoolie.com, enter a zip code, compare and contrast data points from different schools, and get a weighted quality score for each school they’re considering for their children.
About Schoolie
Schoolie is an education technology company, helping parents compare, evaluate and select public schools in the United States. Its cloud-based platform uses big data and proprietary algorithms to provide insight and information to help all stakeholders improve educational standards and student outcomes. Schoolie believes in the power of data rigor and transparency to drive meaningful change and can be found online at http://www.schoolie.com.
Gary Gabriel, Schoolie, +1 (888) 778-3038, [email protected]
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