The SAT Paper Chase pt. 1: SAT Data in the The District

SAT data are extremely important for suburban families. Yes, they're a blunt instrument. They don't tell how well a school district is doing. I believe that SAT scores are more linked to family income than anything else (unless you're in Prince George's County, MD). Yet parents want their kids to go to the most selective colleges, and SAT scores are a key ingredient in determining which students get into schools and how much these students have to pay.

So with that I unveil the SAT Paper Chase!

The goal of the SAT Paper Chase is to obtain SAT score data from all Washington, DC public, private, and charter schools. Families, should NOT use SAT scores or AP scores in isolation to help determine whether a school is right for them. Instead, they should seek to see how SAT and AP scores correlate with family income and reduced lunch percentage. Any time you have a positive outlier, a school that has strong scores with a large population of reduced lunch students, you know that school is likely exceeding national performance by means fair or foul. Any time that you have a negative outlier, a school that has weak results despite having few reduced lunch students, you can be pretty confident that you have a school whose reputation may exceed its results.

Read a breakdown of how three public school district, DC charter schools, and DC private schools handle SAT data transparency after the jump.