RICHMOND, Va. (AP) - Virginia's public schools are included in a national education database accessed from a new Web site: SchoolMatters-dot-com.

You can look up all sorts of detailed information, including per-student spending, student-teacher ratios and test scores.

The Web site also provides analytical tools to measure how school districts are spending your tax dollars.

For example, in Virginia 63-point-one percent of new money is spent on improving instruction -- which compares favorably with the national average of 64-point-one percent.

SchoolMatters-dot-com is run by the National Education Data Partnership, funded through the Broad Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

The Web site was developed by Standard and Poor's, the company that tracks Fortune-500 companies.

Click here to check out how your school measures up

Date published: 3/30/2005

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