Earlier this year, I asked a simple question: Do schools that have “math” in their name do better on math? When I evaluated that question, I was using 2014-2015 data. So, I thought I might look at it again, and ask the same question, with new data.
But this time, let’s throw some more school buzzwords in there.
Traditionally, schools in Los Angeles would be named after people, streets or neighborhoods. But with the proliferation of schools in the past 10 years, schools have included more focused names and come up with some really unique and, to be honest, quite odd school names.
Besides the word “Charter”, the most commonly used words in the names of schools are:
- Street
- Avenue
- Academy
- Preparatory
- College
- Technology
- Science
- Math
- A Person’s Name
If a school uses these words in their name, does it predict success in mathematics?
This year, if your school says they focus on math – then they actually do perform better on math. The median score for the whole district in math was 24% – and “math” focused schools outperform that by 6%.
But the other buzz words have some odd trends. Schools that are focused on “arts” or are named after a person perform 6% below the average. And schools that have “preparatory” perform 13% below the median. Other interesting tidbits- schools that say they are focused on “college” or are calling themselves an “academy”perform exactly the same, on average, as otherwise named schools.
Of course, all of this is just for good fun – correlation is not causation. But that is the point.
Parents and students are in an information flooded environment. With so much to consider, the name becomes a heuristic for deciding what schools stand out. But fancy names do not mean much. Schools that have “avenue” in the name are actually outperforming schools that have “technology” in the name.
All this suggests that the most important thing you should look for is the actual quality of the school program, not just their focus. If you want to know more about the quality of a school, the best way to evaluate it is to take a tour, look at data or talk to other people you know at that school.
If you do that, you’ll really get a sense of what that school is all about.