By Jennifer Hiller
Advertiser Education Writer

Parents I know, and many more I don't but who e-mail or call, often ask the impossible question.

Does my child go to a good school?

Most people want to know this before kindergarten or a move to a different part of town. Others hear a rumor or read a news story and start to worry about school quality after the fact, such as when their child is a senior in high school and has applied to college.

They start to wonder if they had driven a few miles down the road to the other elementary school if they would have produced a National Merit Scholar instead of a C+ student.

And honestly, even though this good-schools question comes my way at least a few times each week, I still have no idea how to respond. But I do know a few places to send people for answers.

Start by going to the school if you haven't already. Ask for a tour (unless, of course, you have a teenager, because they may actually die if you are spotted within a mile of their school). Ask about the curriculum and the school's education philosophy. You will probably hear a lot of edu-speak and gobbledygook, which is the preferred language of people who have an education degree, but someone at the campus should be willing to answer your questions and show you around. If no one can do this, worry.

Second, talk to other parents who have children there. Talk to the teachers. Talk to the children who attend. Find out their opinions.

Third, go with your gut feeling about a school.

For those of you who think this sounds too touchy-feelie, go to the Internet.

There's a Web site maintained by the Department of Education — http://arch.k12.hi.us — that is full of information most people probably never knew about their neighborhood school.

How many teachers does it have? How much experience do the teachers have? What is the turnover? Does it have enough classrooms? How many kids got suspended last year? What percentage of the students are in special education? High poverty? How many families in the community are headed by a single mother?

The annual reports, called the School Status and Improvement Reports, are required by state statute. They contain everything from parent satisfaction surveys to a profile of the school campus.

The No Child Left Behind reports found on the same Web site will give you a breakdown of the school's most recent standardized test scores by grade level, ethnicity, income level and other measures.

This is where you can find out high school graduation rates and how well your school is doing compared with the rest of the state. Is it doing a better job at math? How well are the limited-English speakers performing?

Because the federal No Child Left Behind law requires this detailed breakdown of test scores, parents should have a wealth of data to work from in the future when multiple years of data can be compared.

None of it, however, will tell you what you really want to know, which is, "Will my child thrive in this place?"

That's something you'll have to answer on your own because numbers don't always tell the story, and a great school for one child might be a stifling place for another. This is just a jumping-off point.

Reach Jennifer Hiller at jhiller@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8084.