SPARTANBURG, SC (WSPA) — If you’re thinking of moving to Greenville, South Carolina, some of the most desirable locations for homes are near good public schools. To help people navigate this search, we collected data from all the elementary schools in the Upstate region and found that most of the top institutions are not far from Greenville.
Overall, the state is struggling to provide quality education for students. US News ranks South Carolina 41st in the country for education.
However, there are many individual public schools that offer students a competitive education. You just need to find one.
The search for the best local elementary schools can be complicated, involving many factors. How well students perform in the classroom, through standardized testing, is just one of many important factors used by parents to measure scholastic achievement.
7NEWS gathered standardized test scores published by South Carolina’s Department of Education to find out which elementary schools near Greenville had the most students meeting or exceeding academic expectations.
We are publishing the 2021 results with data visualizations for readers to navigate the local academic landscape more thoughtfully.
When thinking about these results, it’s important to remember that education cannot be reduced to a number. The educational environment at each school is different. Grades on standardized tests only show part of the student experience.
To determine the top 10 public elementary schools near Greenville, 7NEWS examined data from SC Ready, a state-wide program that evaluates schools with standardized tests. We then assigned point values to schools that performed the best on those tests, which measure lesson retention in English, Math, and Science, starting in the third grade.
The elementary schools that scored the highest in each of those three categories made it to the top of our list.
Below are the categories used by the SC’s Department of Education to measure the standards we used to build this top 10 list:
A student who exceeds expectations, as defined by the grade-level content standards, is well prepared for the next grade level.
A student who meets expectations, as defined by the grade-level content standards, is prepared for the next grade level.
A student who approaches expectations, as defined by the grade-level content standards, needs additional academic support to be prepared for the next grade level.
A student who does not meet expectations, as defined by the grade-level content standards, needs substantial academic support to be prepared for the next grade level.
Explore the data below to find out how well your nearby elementary schools ranked.