Comment by wsvincent | Hacker News Reader

Comment by wsvincent | Hacker News Reader

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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?

> What other data set is there that exists state/nationally given we're working with 100,000+ schools?

You could try to crowdsource this information, or contact schools in an effort to get them to self report.

True, that has worked well for NPR's Playground app, for example. http://www.playgroundsforeveryone.com/

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)

Run contests for schools/clubs to incentivize people. Try scraping their websites to come up with guesses. Maybe go state by state initially, merge the data as it grows.

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.

You could possibly also try to partner with organizations that are focused on different special interest areas to get them to help coordinate getting the data.

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.

Honestly, you might even be able to get some grant money or financial support if you commit to helping them include whatever data they have in a user-friendly manner.

It might not be the full-scope of what you are trying to do, but it might be a way to help bootstrap part of your development.

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