Austin public school ratings - 2010 (Pflugerville, Roma: low crime, magnet school, income)

[hound 109]

Originally Posted by mm57553

I was glad to see that all Steiner Ranch schools were rated exemplary - including the new Vandegrift High School (its first year to be rated).

mm, do you have a link where i can look at Vandegrift's (& all the schools that feed into it) scores? I would have been shocked if it wasn't rated high, but I'd love to see some data on scores & demographics.

& do you know when the first Senior Class graduates?

Thanks.

[centralaustinite]

You can go the TEA website, linked in the first post I think and dig through the data! I have done it many times, interesting stuff, but I don't have the extra time this year (and I'm not even a public school parent, just an education geek!)

[hound 109]

Originally Posted by Austin97

you cant have it both ways.. they cant both teach to the test and do poorly. If everyone was scoring really high on the test then I would agree that the test doesnt mean much and teaching to the test is a problem. However students at most schools aren't acing the tests even if they are teaching to the test. This means the students arent even learning the fundamentals.


If they cant do well on the basic stuff on the taks test, it is irrelevant if the teachers are teaching to the test because the students still arent learning it. What else should they be learning if they cant do the basic stuff on the test?

(and I have looked at the tests and they are extremely basic at every grade level).

I pretty much agree. The "teaching to the test" gripe doesn't make sense to me.

I've seen sample "tests". The only "teaching" to it would be a review of the skills needed to answer questions on the test (& it IS basic stuff), & the taking of sample tests to see if the kids are learning the fundamentals & getting the basics. (My wife is doing that every day with my kid the past week & the next two weeks in preparation for the new grade...to make sure he hits the ground running). One person's "teaching to the test" is another person's chapter or semester review. What's wrong with that?

[Jennibc]

Originally Posted by hound 109

I pretty much agree. The "teaching to the test" gripe doesn't make sense to me.

I've seen sample "tests". The only "teaching" to it would be a review of the skills needed to answer questions on the test (& it IS basic stuff), & the taking of sample tests to see if the kids are learning the fundamentals & getting the basics. (My wife is doing that every day with my kid the past week & the next two weeks in preparation for the new grade...to make sure he hits the ground running). One person's "teaching to the test" is another person's chapter or semester review. What's wrong with that?

What's wrong with it are mind numbingly boring worksheets that the kids do daily so that everybody passes and schools get an exemplary rating. We finally pulled my son out of public school here because he'd come home and show me the worksheets and say "this is stuff I learned in preschool, when are we going to be learning something new?" and "this is a waste of my time." I couldn't argue with him and thought if I had to sit and do worksheet after work sheet with math problems like 2+9 in the second grade I'd be pulling my hair out. It was insane to have a kid sitting in school for SEVEN hours a day so that he could do jump through hoops work-sheets a few hours a day.

[austin-steve]

Originally Posted by Jennibc

...Take a look the zip codes represented and you can see that it is not 75% coming from lower income neighborhoods. http://www.lasaonline.org/docs/LASA_Student_Numbers_by_ZIP_08-09.pdf (broken link) Kealing is the middle school magnet program and it too is academically advanced and there is a rigorous application process.

True, but there are a large number are drawing from 78723 and 78753 which are not high income areas. It is a tough academy to get into. My daughter has a friend who attends LASA and the friend says it's tough and she likes it ok, but she wishes there was not so much separation between them and the "regular" students. They are on separate floors and take no mixed classes. They have no overlapping teachers. They don't really mix at lunch or on free time either. So it truly is two separate schools under one roof. She talked about all sorts of resulting social dynamics which I won't go into, but it sounded less than ideal to me from anything other than a purely academic standpoint.

And it's interesting that over 100 kids are drawn from SW Austin out of Bowie and Austin High attendance zones, making the 45 minute crosstown trek from Oak Hill when Westlake, which accepts out of district transfers (unlike LASA), would be only 12-18 minutes and provide a more rounded high school life and college prep experience, in my opinion (as a biased Westlake Dad).

Steve

[austin-steve]

PS - Good job to the Austin Statesman for outing the pretenders in its recent article about this bogus "special measures or exemptions" puffing of ratings.

But figures released Friday by the Texas Education Agency show that statewide this year, only 33 percent of the 5,777 exemplary and recognized campuses earned those ratings without using exemptions or special measures.

That means 67 percent of Texas Schools now boast a rating that wasn't earned. Give me a break.

So, basically, if you are a family moving to Austin and, for better or worse, want to use the standard ratings to help pick where you'd like to live, there are now 2 "exemplary" ratings, and 2 different "recognized" ratings. The first being those "Exemplary" schools that met the criteria based on unaltered, absolute standards, and those that were boosted up to exemplary or recognized based on special measures and exemptions.

So, as a Realtor, when a buyer tells me "I want to live in an area with good schools, at least a recognized or exemplary elementary", I have to have the "absolute standards" vs. "special measures" conversation to explain that not all Exemplary schools are created the same, and then let the buyer/parent decide if the boosted scores are good enough.

Statesman Article:
http://www.statesman.com/news/local/...gs-833242.html
Steve

[Jennibc]

Originally Posted by austin-steve

True, but there are a large number are drawing from 78723 and 78753 which are not high income areas. It is a tough academy to get into. My daughter has a friend who attends LASA and the friend says it's tough and she likes it ok, but she wishes there was not so much separation between them and the "regular" students. They are on separate floors and take no mixed classes. They have no overlapping teachers. They don't really mix at lunch or on free time either. So it truly is two separate schools under one roof. She talked about all sorts of resulting social dynamics which I won't go into, but it sounded less than ideal to me from anything other than a purely academic standpoint.

And it's interesting that over 100 kids are drawn from SW Austin out of Bowie and Austin High attendance zones, making the 45 minute crosstown trek from Oak Hill when Westlake, which accepts out of district transfers (unlike LASA), would be only 12-18 minutes and provide a more rounded high school life and college prep experience, in my opinion (as a biased Westlake Dad).

Steve

My point was that I don't think 75% of the spots are held for lower income students. I've heard the criticisms before. It would be ideal to have it at a separate site altogether but economically that's not feasible. The reason to not have mixed classes is because the entire LASA experience is supposed to be rigorous and far exceed state standards and if kids are not motivated for that or not ready for that, then they will be set up to fail.

[centralaustinite]

I never would have considered Westlake HS before but now that they have stopped ranking kids below the top ten percent, we are considering it. LASA should do the same (several Dallas area schools do it as well) because it reduces the cut-throat competition and doesn't penalize kids who have mastered the material but because they attend a school with so many high achievers end up only in the top quarter or third of their class, in many other states now, there is no class ranking at all, colleges must rely on grades alone.

LASA is on our list as well but the dynamics there are tough, no doubt. Might end up sticking with private for HS, thankfully still have some time to decide.

[AusParent]

Originally Posted by Jennibc

Are you confusing a magnet school with charter schools? Can you direct me to your source of information for this assertion.

Originally Posted by Jennibc

My point was that I don't think 75% of the spots are held for lower income students. I've heard the criticisms before.

We called an AISD magnet school two years ago when we were considering the possibility. Here's an excerpt from notes on the phone call:

Acceptance Criteria: recommendations, grades, TAKS, attendance
Enrollment: 75% “Title 1” schools, 25% regular schools
Lottery System: for qualified students within each of these two categories

PS Don't take my word for it - call an AISD magnet school or AISD headquarters.

[centralaustinite]

interesting, I wonder how they would handle my kids who have always lived in areas zoned to title 1 schools but who were never enrolled in them. I do know that kids go to LASA from private schools too.