About School Choice Community

We believe families should not have to become researchers to make a good school decision. Choice Architect translates your priorities into a shortlist you can understand, with clear "why this?" explanations and practical map context - always paired with honest limits on what any tool can know.

Why we're building this

Today's school search is often ad-driven, score-first, and not customizable by families or schools. Test scores matter, but a school is more than a test score - culture, mission, and teaching philosophy matter just as much. Standardization has stifled the distinct choices that families deserve.

School choice is expanding: homeschool co-ops, microschools, learning pods, and innovative campuses are all part of the landscape now. Every school should be able to tell its own story - its coursework, who attends, how it was founded, and how it shapes young people - and attract families who share its values.

Parents need guided discovery to define their preferences, not just raw rankings. AI makes matching school stories with family values much more practical than it was before.

Our vision: member-driven, not ad-driven

School Choice Community is a two-sided platform built for families and schools. We are member-driven, not ad-driven. Schools upload and manage content that helps families understand the school - academic metrics are still included, but schools can share their full picture. Families get a guided journey to discover what matters to them, then intelligent matching to schools that fit.

For school leaders

School leaders can use Tell Your School's Story to submit narratives we review before publishing. Each submission is added to our searchable index so families can find the school by name and context; we still recommend verifying details directly with the campus.

Coverage, freshness & limitations

We expand state-by-state from an NCES-backed spine, with metro weighting for priority regions (including New York and California) alongside Arizona, Michigan, and Florida. National mode searches across ingested states; naming a metro or ZIP still gives the best commute context. School counts and accountability fields are refreshed on a development schedule, not live with every state release - always confirm enrollment, transportation, and eligibility on official sites.

Thin regions may show a "growing coverage" note. School leaders can help us expand faster through For School Leaders.

How the product works

Retrieval blends semantic similarity with lightweight intent cues (grades, commute language, location).
Public data anchors many rows where we have ingested extracts; some catalog copy is illustrative for demos (especially marketplace-style items in Arizona).
AI responses summarize the shortlist you see - they can be wrong; use them as a starting point, not the final word.

Official sources & attribution

NCES EDGE / ArcGIS PublicSchools for nationwide coordinates, grade spans, and NCES IDs.
NCES CCD (Common Core of Data) directory + universe indicators (where available) for public school context like locale, staffing ratios, and related directory fields.
Michigan CEPI / MDE and Florida FLDOE files for accountability joins where automation can reach them.
Urban Institute Education Data Explorer referenced for CCD-style investigations during pipeline development.
NCES PSS (Private School Universe Survey) for private-school locations, enrollment, and grade span signals (2021-22 public-use file in this sprint).
Stanford Education Data Archive (SEDA 5.0) supplies pooled grades 3-8 cohort-scale benchmarks we merge by NCES school ID (national percentile ranks are computed during ingest; when only pooled math and combined averages exist, reading uses an implied ELA composite). Cite: Reardon et al., SEDA v5.0 (Stanford Digital Repository). Refresh by running scripts/ingest_seda.py or national ingest with a cached pool CSV.
EdFacts / Ed Data Express is used as a fallback performance layer when SEDA is missing. We currently ingest percent proficient on statewide math and reading/language arts assessments (All Students, All Grades) and label it clearly by school year; because these are state tests, they are not perfectly comparable across states. Refresh with scripts/ingest_edfacts.py.

Performance freshness: star ratings and tiers summarize archived pooled benchmarks. They are orientation signals only - pair them with current state accountability releases and campus visits. Coverage varies: not every school appears in the Stanford pool; we merge by NCES ID when possible, then careful name-and-state matches, then district-level estimates when school data is missing.

Privacy

We use privacy-minded, mostly anonymous analytics (see our full Privacy Policy). Optional "Use my region" uses coarse IP-based US state only, never precise GPS. Terms of use: Terms of Service.