
Show HN: Chalkscore – Glassdoor for Education - mraa
https://www.chalkscore.com
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mraa
Hi HN, my wife and I are both teachers and we've both worked in schools that
looked really good on paper - good attainment, great inspection reports etc -
but were not very nice places to work in. Speaking to friends, this is a
common problem because almost all the publicly available information about
schools is for parents, students and sometimes inspectors.

The things teachers care about you can only discover by talking to other
teachers, but without a personal connection that's almost impossible. When
applying for a new job, schools know a lot about the candidates but the
opposite is rarely true. We're trying to redress the balance a bit with
Chalkscore. We hope it will let teachers make a more informed decision about
where to work, and in doing so, that it will exert a gentle pressure on
schools to pay more attention to working conditions and environments for
teachers.

Happy to answer any questions!

~~~
hathawsh
1) As someone who is committed to improving schools, what is your reaction to
the current praise for schools in Finland? This video in particular makes
Finland look almost incredible:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHHFGo161Os](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHHFGo161Os)

2) In some places, the environment at the school is determined more by the
district than the individual school, since there is mobility within the
district. Have you thought about tracking reviews of districts?

~~~
mraa
Finland's reputation is well deserved! My wife took part in an exchange visit
there and spent a week in a Finnish classroom. They are more selective for
teacher trainees than the US and UK, and their training program is more
rigorous than the UK, but once completed, teachers are trusted as
professionals and left to do their jobs without being micro managed. There was
also a lot more focus on subjects outside reading, writing and maths and a lot
less focus on testing.

District reviews are on the road map!

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matt_the_bass
Great idea! My wife is a teacher and this was a big question for her.

The difficulty will be getting teachers to do this. Maybe start promoting in
one geographic region?

~~~
mraa
It's definitely a pain point for many teachers. So far, the response from
teachers has been overwhelmingly positive. The response from school leaders
has been cautious at best.

Focusing on one region is a good idea!

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michaelmior
Looks like a great start! Would be nice to be able to search by location only
to know if any schools near me have been reviewed.

~~~
mraa
Added search by location and search by district today. I hope you find it
useful!

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dang
Two tips for a Show HN like this:

(1) You should add a comment to the thread giving the backstory of how you
came to work on this, and explaining what's different about it. That tends to
seed discussion in a good direction.

(2) On HN it's a bit of an antipattern to have your username be the name of
your company or project. It creates a feeling of using the site for promotion
and of not really participating as yourself. Better to have a username that
represents you as a human being, which of course need not be your real name.
(If you want to change your username, email us at hn@ycombinator.com and we'll
help.)

Good luck!

~~~
3into10power5
Dang,how in the world do you read so many comments and also maintain HN? Any
tips/your workflow will be appreciated.

~~~
dang
I'm not the only person who does it. sctb is the other public moderator.

We write software to try to keep on top of things.

