Dripping Springs...... (Houston, Austin, Round Rock: jobs, housing, businesses)

[austin-steve]

The people here will help you narrow it down real quick if you prioritize and help us understand what you want and value for your family and lifestyle. It's hard for me to tell what the most important factors are for you - schools or shopping?

If close shopping is #1, you'll rule out Dripping. If decent rural schools and living in a Planned unit community are #1, Dripping will make a good candidate. If you don't want to spend more than 30 minutes commuting to Austin destinations, you'll rule out Dripping.

[tashina]

Try 78736 zip too. Semi-rural, semi-custom homes. Look in the $350-$450k range and you'll find some homes on larger lots (in general) than South Austin, but still much farther in than Dripping Springs and mostly with city services. Then you'll be within 4 miles of great grocery stores, and the Galleria opening soon.

[CravenClan]

Schools and community are #1, we drive 20 minutes to twon now, we live in the Wine Country of Tememcula, CA. and an additional 10 to the mall. With thraffic it is worse!!

Dripping Springs looked nice, for the schools and housing we are looking for. We have 6300 sq. ft and a lot of stuff, so i would like 3500+, there they seemed like a lot of house for the $$. I do know it is in a MUD (I think) Can anyone tell me about it, good or a bad thing??

How far to a grocery store from Dripping Springs?

Thanks
Christina

[CravenClan]

I almost forgot, i saw some homes in Cedar Park, by Wilshire homes, that are better for the money, how does everything else rate?? Schools being my first Q, then the shopping.....

It looks close to Lake Travis, is that a good thing or not, we LOVE to boat, but have never been to any other lakes than in Arizona, so i don't know how they compare...

Thanks
Chrisitna

[texastea]

It helps to understand something when we try to compare schools. I'm sure y'all have noticed Texas schools are ranked Exemplary, Recognized, Acceptable and Unacceptable. These are based on standardized test results, but the schools get the ratings by getting a certain score in a bunch of little sub-categories. You can be Exemplary in everything except one little category and you get rated Recognized. The categories are white, hispanic, black, native american, asian/pacific and economically disadvantaged. Here's my point: if the school doesn't have many economically disadvantaged kids or is populated with mainly white or asian kids, the test scores are going to be better without the school being a "better" school. Therefore, the ratings have little meaning, except for the school itself, to see how ITS kids are doing and where they could improve. Its not really a good way to COMPARE schools unless you know they have the same mix of students.

Sorry this is loong and maybe confusing....but I've seen lots of posts asking about schools, and we need to be sure we don't just look at the TEA Rankings. : )

[achtungpv]

Originally Posted by texastea

It helps to understand something when we try to compare schools. I'm sure y'all have noticed Texas schools are ranked Exemplary, Recognized, Acceptable and Unacceptable.

It should be noted that "acceptable" in Texas is a 40% passing rate for the entire school.

[texastea]

Originally Posted by achtungpv

It should be noted that "acceptable" in Texas is a 40% passing rate for the entire school.

What do you mean? A certain part of the test? Or the whole test?

You can look up any schools "report card" on the TEA site. You'll see that the low passing rate will usually be in one category, not the whole school. For example, Cedar Park High School is rated Acceptable...most scores are over 90%, but the school is acceptable in part because only 60% of African American students passed the science portion.

2007 Campus Accountability Data Tables

[achtungpv]

Originally Posted by texastea

What do you mean? A certain part of the test? Or the whole test?

You can look up any schools "report card" on the TEA site. You'll see that the low passing rate will usually be in one category, not the whole school. For example, Cedar Park High School is rated Acceptable...most scores are over 90%, but the school is acceptable in part because only 60% of African American students passed the science portion.

2007 Campus Accountability Data Tables

Not sure. An article in the AAS a few months ago stated that was the minimum for an acceptable rating. I don't remember the criteria for that percentage.

[texastea]

Yeah, its pretty complicated--I'm just a mom trying keep up with her kids' schools : ) I didn't see the article, but I looked at a school report card and noticed this phrase:

"Academically Acceptable standards are shown in parentheses." And beside the different subjects are percents in parentheses:

Reading/ELA (65%)
Writing (65%)
Social Studies (65%)
Mathematics (45%)
Science (40%)

So, maybe they got the 40% from that science section. Now you have me curious if that means that's the required score to pass...I'm gonna keep looking...

[texastea]

This is what I figured out...I think this is right:

All subgroups (white, hispanic, african american, native american, asian/pacific and economically disadvantaged) have to score the %'s in the above post for the school to be Acceptable, 75% for Recognized and 90% for Exemplary.