Web Search:How to Find Information (Facts) Relevant to a Move to DC

Searching the Web is part science, part Art. This is intended to illustrate

some successful approaches

  1. Assume that you are moving with 2 children, ages 6 and 8, so elementary school quality is of prime importance
  2. Start with Google or Bing. A moderately broad search would use words like: “elementary schools Virginia”. This produces thousands of pages in one search by the professor. Many of these are specific schools in Virginia and West Virginia: It is hard to tell where these schools are located. You need a map and a listing of schools near DC and Dulles airport. Also, you may be interested in Maryland locations, not just Virginia.
  3. Local governments (town, county and state governments) might compile schools and even plot them on a map. If you work with the listing in #2, you can find a government listing, but it is hard to find.
  4. How do you narrow down to local government schools listings in the Northern VA, Maryland area of interest to you?
  1. Try “virginia state government” and “Maryland state government.”
  2. The Virginia site leads to “Family and Education” then to K-12 schools. (Note: the keyword “K12” has been found useful also.)
  3. This leads to a list of all schools in the state by county. So you need a map.
  4. Search the VirginiaState web site for a map.This quickly leads to a map that shows the counties of Arlington, Fairfax and Loudon as the most relevant.
  1. Now you can search “schools FairfaxCountyVirginia”. This produces still thousands of results, but the very first result (for one search by Prof. Clapp) is Fairfax County Public Schools, a government site. The second is a part of the same site that has test score results. This is a large part of what you want.
  1. Student searches have produced sources for test scores and other indicators of school quality (pupil teacher ratios, expenditure per pupil): However, this is just for AlexandriaCity, not other part of the Maryland, DC, Virginia area.
  2. Student searches have shown that neighborhood information can be obtained from and from the National Association of Realtors: . These sites are good for a broader search of the Maryland, DC, Virginia area. Note that these are private companies, so they can only be found if you do NOT limit your search to .gov and .edu sites.