School districts - Low income and TAKS averages (Dallas, Fort Worth: apartment complex, home)

[FarNorthDallas]

Here are the school districts ranked by low income percentage followed by the overall average of all their TAKS scores.

% low income, district, TAKS average

0 Highland Park 98.259
1 Carroll 97.481
2 Lovejoy 97.105 (goes through 9th grade)
7 Coppell 96.481

11 Frisco 92.925
11 Sunnyvale 95.647 (goes through 8th grade)
13 Grapevine-Colleyville 93.481
14 Allen 93.777
14 Keller 88.703

16 Midlothian 91.296
19 Forney 85.925
19 Plano 93.111
19 Rockwall 91.592

20 Northwest 88.333
21 Lake Dallas 85.703
21 Lewisville 91.444
24 McKinney 91.333
24 Wylie 86.925
25 Crandall 88.555
28 Celina 91.851
29 Mansfield 84.148

32 Red Oak 85.666
33 Royce City 82.148
38 Denton 83.259
39 Little Elm 81.555

42 HEB 89.407
43 Cedar Hill 76.259
45 Birdville 83.000
45 Waxahachie 84.481

48 DeSoto 70.333
48 Garland 82.962
49 Mesquite 81.481
49 Richardson 88.259

51 Carrollton-Farmers Branch 85.333
51 Kaufman 85.666
54 Arlington 79.740
59 Duncanville 78.925

60 Ennis 82.407
62 Grand Praire 75.148
65 Lancaster 64.037
66 Terrell 74.407
67 Ferris 81.259

71 Fort Worth 70.444
72 Irving 76.814
84 Dallas 71.259

The Dallas Morning News has all the TAKS scores. I just averaged them into one number. Looking at them like this shows certain things like Frisco's scores should be higher. Plano is doing a great job. DeSoto is in trouble.

[socketz]

19% low income in Plano, 13% in Grapevine-Colleyville ?

11% in Frisco ???? The town was built almost entirely from scratch.

Sounds high.

I wonder what they consider low income.

[rantanamo]

There were people in these places before the sprawl.

[socketz]

I thought there were very few people in Frisco before the build out. Seems that this group would make up a small percentage. Even then, they would have made a fortune if they held on to their property, so I'm still not sure where the low income Frisconions are hiding. I don't even see many apartments in that area.

[aceplace]

Good point, socketz. There may be 11% of SOMETHING in Frisco, but we have no idea what that something is. It is very unlikely to be a census of Frisco's population of unwed welfare mothers, homeless shelter population and burger flippers.

One problem with taking a statistic at face value is that the author is usually not very honest about what he was REALLY measuring.

[carron]

A good website for school data on demographics and test reults is National Center for Educational Accountability/Just for the Kids This website also lists Frisco with 11% low income (low income for schools is defined by students on the free and reduced lunch programs.) When you look at each elementary school within the district (I believe there are 18) all but 2 have low income at less than 15%. Several with 3-5%. One school has over 40% and that's what results in the district being at 11%. Think about the population density of an apartment complex. One apartment complex may contain as many families as a small subdivision.

[socketz]

Originally Posted by carron

A good website for school data on demographics and test reults is National Center for Educational Accountability/Just for the Kids This website also lists Frisco with 11% low income (low income for schools is defined by students on the free and reduced lunch programs.) When you look at each elementary school within the district (I believe there are 18) all but 2 have low income at less than 15%. Several with 3-5%. One school has over 40% and that's what results in the district being at 11%. Think about the population density of an apartment complex. One apartment complex may contain as many families as a small subdivision.

I agree. Centennial Elementary next to my Apartment complex and is the school for the nicer part of Willow Bend where the lowest cost home is 400k. Many are well over a million, most are right around 700-800k.

However, 13% of those in the school are eligible for reduced/free lunch.

Student Teacher Ratio Centennial Elementary School - Plano, Texas - TX

My apartment complex is the only apartment complex that feeds into this school (and the apartments are not cheap compared to others in the area), yet they affect 13% of the school's population.

[GoPadge]

I took FND's list and played with it a bit in Excel trying to find a fairly easy way to compare how the districts were doing. I ended up just sorting them by % low income and then by TAKS average (which in and of itself is a questionable conglomeration of a questionable test, so take everything with a huge grain of salt). I then looked at how a district ranked on the two different sorts, and used the ranking on the % low income and subtracted the ranking on the TAKS results. This left me with a range of number between +13 and -14. A school with a 0 result was at the same ranking on both lists. Which I interpreted to be doing about what you would expect (assuming you accept that income plays into a students ability to perform).

For example Highland Park was number 1 on both lists, 1 (% low income) - 1 (TAKS average) = 0. They're doing good with what they have.

Fort Worth was number 43 on both lists, 43 (% low income) - 43 (TAKS average) = 0. They're doing ok with what they have.

Were the numbers get interesting is, of course, on the extremes. Richardson ISD was number 32 on the list with 49% low income, but based on the TAKS they were number 19, for a difference of +13. The other end of the scale was DeSoto ISD which was number 30 on the list with a 48% low income (one step above Richardson ISD), but based on the TAKS average they were number 44, for a difference of -14.

One more note on the rankings, I sorted based on % low income and then started ranking the districts with HP as a 1. As you look at FND's list you see that Sunnyvale and Frisco were both 11%. In my rankings they both are tied for 5, but Grapevine-Colleyville is number 7, there is no number 6. I did this becuase there were a number of ties as far a the percentage of low income students, but only two sets of two ties for the TAKS averages. By skipping the ties I kept both lists with a ranking of 1 - 45. The same methodology was used when ranking the districts by TAKS results.

My list only shows how a district (NOT an individual SCHOOL, and you kids attend a school, not an entire district) does at preparing it's students for the TAKS in comparison with districts of similar socio-economic mixes. For example if I were considering Richardson, Garland, DeSoto or Mesquite, Richardson clearly does a better job of preparing student for the TAKS than Garland or Mesquite, and I would cross DeSoto off my list. Garland does a fair job, and would be my second choice.

District....Difference
Richardson.....13
Kaufman........11
HEB............11
Celina.........10
Carrollton-
Farmers Branch..9
Ferris..........7
Ennis...........7
Irving..........6
McKinney........4
Plano...........3
Lewisville......3
Dallas..........3
Waxahachie......2
Crandall........2
Allen...........2
Terrell.........0
Sunnyvale.......0 (goes through 8th grade)
Rockwall........0
Lovejoy.........0 (goes through 9th grade)
Highland Park...0
Grapevine-
Colleyville.....0
Garland.........0
Fort Worth......0
Duncanville.....0
Coppell.........0
Carroll.........0
Arlington.......0
Red Oak........-1
Grand Praire...-1
Birdville......-1
Mesquite.......-2
Wylie..........-3
Northwest......-4
Midlothian.....-4
Frisco.........-4
Denton.........-4
Lancaster......-5
Mansfield......-6
Lake Dallas....-7
Little Elm.....-8
Keller.........-8
Royce City.....-9
Forney.........-9
Cedar Hill....-12
DeSoto........-14

[carron]

I have seen something similiar to what you are describing numerically represented graphically (I think the graph came from Just For Kids but it may not be on the website - it may be from one of their conferences) The one I saw was actually for schools. The horizontal axis is the % low income. The vertical axis is the TAKS score. Theoretically, if test scores are dependent on economic status then all data points would be linear. With the graph if your school is above that line it's a good thing (you are doing better than you are expected to with your population). If your data point is below the line than you are not doing what you should with your population.
Since your data is already in excel you might graph it and see what happens.

[GoPadge]

I would, but I tend to not save most of my charts.... In this case I'd rather see a chart for individual schools, and not whole districts, While individual districts works ok for smaller districts, it can be extremely numbing for larger districts. Take Dallas ISD. As an average they were only 3 rankings ahead, and yet they have THE best school in the country within the district.

I may take a look at results for area high schools and generate a new chart (and actually save it) when I get some free time.