I've used Lektor recently and I think you're missing its main advantage: it does NOT aim to introduce web dev to non developers or to dramatically simplify the process of wiring up templates. In fact, its use of models is an additional step in the traditional process for static site generators.
BUT...once setup by a developer, Lektor's structure and Mac app allows a non-technical user to edit files and publish changes to a website, which can be hosted on S3 or other options for peanuts and has none of the security issues that afflict Wordpress.
So viewed through the lens of a potential replacement for Wordpress, I think Lektor is pretty phenomenal. The idea of a Static CMS--whether Lektor can pull this off or not--just makes so much more sense than our current CMS model.
Yes, I think for special needs students or subsets of that, this would be a good way to add supplemental data. For example, a parent wants to do a search of public schools with resources for autistic children near Boston. That's a good use case and there probably is an organization with that data.
I think you're right that contests are the way to get reviews, at least, from parents/students. Niche is taking this approach actually, largely through FB I believe. It provides some interesting data. There is the same issue of timing--how relevant is a review from years and years ago--but it's interesting data.
Scraping sites is probably more of the way to go or just using Wikipedia as Google does, for example, in their school info boxes.
It's definitely something that, longer term, would be good to seriously look into.
* Yup, about to add a bigger hit radius on map indicator
* City zoom...we're working on some ways to improve this.
* Interesting about city demographic data...certainly have it. I can see how it would help. We display it on the school page a bit, but can do so here as well.
The Illinois Report Card is a great resource. If every state had such a tool, I agree you probably wouldn't need EdScore, GreatSchools, SchoolDigger, etc.
I built EdScore out of frustration that this data is all public but buried in disparate state/federal databases and not accessible to parents, even though we're paying for it to be compiled/collected.
I think ratings (controversial as they are no matter what methodology you use) help parents do a quick sort of local options. And our goal with EdScore is to add search filters like commute distance, home price, school size, special ed offerings etc so that parents can search for the "right" school for their individual child based on various inputs, not a simple "best" rating or 1-10 scale that, absent other factors, is not very informative.
The two main issues when we've thought of this are:
1) how do you ensure the data is accurate/up-to-date?
2) the graveyard issue where you don't want to show what's NOT on your site. As an example (and I know I'm probably picking on them unfairly) check out GreatSchool's crowd-sourced photos here: http://www.greatschools.org/search/search.page?q=boston%20ma)
Thanks for this feedback. We will add info on this. Perhaps a high-level overview and then a detailed one for parents that are interested in delving deeper.
I completely agree that standardized test scores aren't the only thing parents are looking for. The main issue is: What other data set is there that exists state/nationally given we're working with 100,000+ schools?
-Special needs: Hadn't considered this, but the data is there to break out numbers and performance of special needs students. Are there other factors we should consider?
- Arts/Music/Sports etc: Yes, would LOVE to include data on this. I'm not aware of a dataset that contains it. Manually it'd be tough to do for 100,000+ schools.
- Innovative/college programs: Yup, great idea. As we expand the site we want to find ways to highlight features like this. A simple example we can do now is Language Immersion programs. But we want to extend it in the future.
- Another "problem" with the education data in general is that there's no way to compare schools across states. Common Core might have addressed this but currently you can only say, This is a top high school in Massachusetts. What if I live across the border in New Hampshire? How do 2 schools compare?
Yes these are proprietary ratings. This is typically the first question we get: how credible/accurate are these scores. Since this is HN I can dive into this a bit more than with a typical parent:
-There are fundamentally two data sets in play here, a national one, NCES, that provides basic school information: name, # of students, demographics, etc. And a State data set.
- Each state administers their own state assessment tests for most, not all, grades. So for example, Massachusetts does tests for grades 3-8 and grade 10. Other states do a different mix. To assign a "score" to an Elementary, Middle, or High School you combine the grades, but there is judgement around, for example, what constitutes a middle school? Grade 6? Grade 8? It varies by school district, let alone state.
-The subjects covered are typically Math and English. Some sites, especially for high school, also test Science or additional subjects. In our case, we include ALL available tests in the score calculation. GreatSchools provides no insight into whether they do this or not. SchoolDigger used to just use Math/English but recently added all tests to their rankings.
-The "results" for, say, Grade 3 English are typically broken out by Advanced, Proficient, Not Proficient, Failing. But this, too, varies by state, some include 5 buckets.
GreatSchools has a monopoly in this space but their 1-10 ratings scale is opaque and their website hard to navigate. EdScore has a more granular 50-100 rating scale, modern search, better mapping, and soon will feature search filters by distance and home price so parents can evaluate, say, top schools within a 1hr commute of SF with a median home price under $1m.
It's incredible how accessible Meteor is for this purpose:
* One line complete local setup
* One line deployment (to Meteor servers, but still)
* Javascript only (no need to learn Python, Ruby, etc in addition)
* Out of the box User Accounts
* Simple templating engine with Blaze
I can think of no other framework/language combo where true beginners can deploy a live, database-driven website in a couple of hours. I really wish Meteor could focus more on this aspect: becoming THE entry-level framework for learning web development.
However Meteor's business model is around hosting, so it's inevitable they move further and further towards the needs of professional, rather than entry-level, developers. And this takes them further into the areas outlined in this article where they are currently weak.
https://snipcart.com/