Giving Compass' Take:

• New York City's annual school survey returned many positive results in 2018, although not all of the news was good. 

• How does public perception influence policy? What questions could help paint a better picture? 

• Learn about parents' fear for their children at school. 

New York City released the results of its annual school survey, a trove of data that shows how students, parents, and families feel about their schools and the system at large.

An important caveat: The education department has been criticized in the past for changing the wording of certain questions particularly around school discipline, making it difficult to make year-over-year comparisons. Education department spokesman Will Mantell said that 11 out of 226 total questions were changed and three were deleted.

The survey is full of bright spots: 95 percent of families who took the survey said they were satisfied with their child’s education over the past year. And among pre-K through fifth grade teachers, 99 percent said they felt students are safe in their classes.

Parents also continued to give high ratings to Mayor Bill de Blasio’s Pre-K for All program, which offers free full-day care for all city four-year-olds and expanded for the first time this year to begin covering three-year-olds.

Read the full article about New York City school rankings by Alex Zimmerman at Chalkbeat.