Can User Reviews Like Those on GreatSchools Improve Information for Schooling Choices? Policy Brief

Families are being given more and more choices of schools, from charter schools to virtual schools and private schools, through school vouchers. However, families often report not being well informed about these choices. Many report being awash in information, though not necessarily the information they want or need. State, district, and school websites, along with Facebook pages and word-of-mouth, provide additional information but not necessarily a coherent picture of the various schooling options available to families. Massive school information and review platforms add another source of information. These platforms provide access to much of the same data found on other public websites--test scores, student demographics, graduation rates, and more--combined with text reviews and star ratings provided by students, parents, educators, and other stakeholders. The authors studied the content and usefulness of user reviews from one of the most widely used platforms, GreatSchools, including 50 million words of text across more than 600,000 reviews written about 84,000 schools from 2009 to 2019. The findings suggest that user reviews have the potential to inform consumers about school choices. However, they face many hurdles, some of which have not been well recognized. The authors propose ways to improve school user reviews and discuss implications for school choice.