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Don't underestimate them just because they are always compared against two top DFW schools of Plano West & Plano Sr.
Yup, a school with PESH's credentials would be the absolute "crown jewel" of every single multi-high school DFW district except Plano & Lewisville ISD's.
THANK YOU so much for ALL the responses! We are moving to TX soon (currently researching on where to buy) and I have to be honest, I'm torn between the desire to purchase a brand new affordable home in Frisco (with "ok/decent" schools) or purchasing a pre-owned/older/maybe smaller/possibly more expensive home in Plano/Plano ISD, which has a reputation of having "excellent" schools! My daughter is in elementary school - she attends a "top tier" nationally recognized private school in Wash, DC. Believe me, we've made MANY sacrifices to send her there and if we could afford to keep her there, we would. I think she will do well anywhere but I also want to place her in the "best" educational environment -a school that has a large # of offerings and challenges her academically, so she's well prepared for college if she desires to go. For me, it's all about exposure and providing the "best" (and affordable) educational environment so she's not limited. We have seen new(er) and affordable homes that we like but most seem to be zoned to Plano East, which isn't the "best" high school in Plano but based on your responses, it would still be your 1st choice compared to FISD. What are the "best" elementary/middle schools that feed into Plano East? Are there any neighborhood recommendations? Ideally, we'd like to buy a 4/5bdr/3800-4000 sq ft home.
Frisco doesn't have so so schools, right now there is a bit of prejudice against Frisco because it is the "new" thing. It is the largest exemplary district in Texas, a title Plano can't claim. Check great schools.com and do a comparison against Plano high schools. One key thing to keep in mind is the value of being in the top 10% of your class, very hard to do in Plano. Frisco made this easier by sectioning out the schools in smaller sizes.
Plus Frisco has the central campus for ap, specialty skills as mentioned before. Plano has good schools, but Frisco schools are equal, if not better.
Frisco doesn't have so so schools, right now there is a bit of prejudice against Frisco because it is the "new" thing. It is the largest exemplary district in Texas, a title Plano can't claim. Check great schools.com and do a comparison against Plano high schools. One key thing to keep in mind is the value of being in the top 10% of your class, very hard to do in Plano. Frisco made this easier by sectioning out the schools in smaller sizes.
Plus Frisco has the central campus for ap, specialty skills as mentioned before. Plano has good schools, but Frisco schools are equal, if not better.
haha what? The top 10% is the same number of kids dude. 150 of 1500 is the same as 25 of 250 at 6 campuses.
Also, Frisco isn't "new" anymore. They've been a multi-campus district for a dozen years. That's why there's backlash.
Frisco doesn't have so so schools, right now there is a bit of prejudice against Frisco because it is the "new" thing. It is the largest exemplary district in Texas, a title Plano can't claim. Check great schools.com and do a comparison against Plano high schools. One key thing to keep in mind is the value of being in the top 10% of your class, very hard to do in Plano. Frisco made this easier by sectioning out the schools in smaller sizes.
Plus Frisco has the central campus for ap, specialty skills as mentioned before. Plano has good schools, but Frisco schools are equal, if not better.
And I'm as sexy as Miss Universe, if not better. Among 10 ugly people who participated in my beauty pageant, I was in top 10 %.
Last edited by GripeWater; 06-04-2013 at 12:53 PM..
Frisco doesn't have so so schools, right now there is a bit of prejudice against Frisco because it is the "new" thing. It is the largest exemplary district in Texas, a title Plano can't claim. Check great schools.com and do a comparison against Plano high schools. One key thing to keep in mind is the value of being in the top 10% of your class, very hard to do in Plano. Frisco made this easier by sectioning out the schools in smaller sizes.
Plus Frisco has the central campus for ap, specialty skills as mentioned before. Plano has good schools, but Frisco schools are equal, if not better.
What???
My niece graduated as #6, but with a class of only 50, she wasn't the top 10% of her class. I was about #50, but in a class of 1000 in Plano. Math does come in useful after high school.
If Frisco is so great, it WOULD be reflected on this board. People here, while wanting to show their areas in a good light, are also honest about what constitutes a good school. Otherwise, J.J. Pearce wouldn't get mentioned on here as much, OR Plano East.
Frisco doesn't have so so schools, right now there is a bit of prejudice against Frisco because it is the "new" thing. It is the largest exemplary district in Texas, a title Plano can't claim. Check great schools.com and do a comparison against Plano high schools.
And if you do, you'll discover that the Plano high schools have considerably higher SAT and ACT scores with a greater percentage of students taking the tests, and far more students who are NMSF, and better results on the AP tests, and the elementary schools show better results on the TAKS tests (through the years that was offered) and...well, pretty much by every objective measure you can come up with, Plano ISD schools outperform Frisco ISD schools.
Quote:
Originally Posted by DFWMike
One key thing to keep in mind is the value of being in the top 10% of your class, very hard to do in Plano. Frisco made this easier by sectioning out the schools in smaller sizes.
And as others have pointed out, you may want to brush up your math skills before arguing for the superiority of your preferred school district.
Quote:
Originally Posted by DFWMike
Plano has good schools, but Frisco schools are equal, if not better.
And there is absolutely nothing to back that up besides your wishful thinking. Frisco has good schools. Plano schools are arguably (probably?) the best in DFW that don't require buying a million-dollar home to get into.
There is something to back it up, check out the TEA website for academic ratings. Which shows Frisco centennial as exemplary while Plano East is recognized as are the other two plano high schools. Every HS campus in Frisco is recognized and Centennial is exemplary which is almost unheard for high schools that aren't magnet schools. In USA today school rankings Liberty ranks ahead of Plano East at 86 and Centennial ranks right behind Plano East' 91 at 96. Hardly something to down Frisco about. And this forum is the result of opinions, there is plenty of fact here, but there is plenty of washing over facts in order to make a persons neighborhood look better. It's no secret that there are plenty of posters on the board who love to bash Frisco, I was one before I moved here, not as bad as I thought....of course I live on the east side.
So no, it's not wishful thinking, it's fact. And yes, I meant to say valedictorian and salutatorian competition, but everything else is more competitive because of numbers. I've seen that comment from Plano people on this board, I know quite a few people from Plano and people who work in Plano ISD. It's a great school no doubt, but there's no reason to say Frisco is second rate. It's just new. So there's some facts.
I do deserve the comments about the math, I should have phrased my statement right.
See just one school ranking chart below:
1 School for the Talented and Gifted ranking data
2 School of Science and Engineering ranking data
3 Highland Park High School ranking data
4 Carroll Senior High School / Carroll High School ranking data
5 Plano West Senior High School / Jasper High School / Shepton High School ranking data
6 Argyle High School ranking data
7 Flower Mound High School ranking data
8 Coppell High School ranking data
9 Plano Senior High School / Jasper High School / Vines High School ranking data
10 Pearce High School ranking data
11 Liberty High School ranking data
12 Centennial High School ranking data
13 Marcus High School ranking data
14 Prosper High School ranking data
15 Keller High School ranking data
16 School of Health Professions ranking data
17 Hebron High School ranking data
18 Allen High School / Lowery Freshman Center ranking data
19 Grapevine High School ranking data
20 Plano East Senior High School / Clark High School / Williams High School ranking data
There is something to back it up, check out the TEA website for academic ratings. Which shows Frisco centennial as exemplary while Plano East is recognized as are the other two plano high schools. Every HS campus in Frisco is recognized and Centennial is exemplary which is almost unheard for high schools that aren't magnet schools. In USA today school rankings Liberty ranks ahead of Plano East at 86 and Centennial ranks right behind Plano East' 91 at 96. Hardly something to down Frisco about. And this forum is the result of opinions, there is plenty of fact here, but there is plenty of washing over facts in order to make a persons neighborhood look better. It's no secret that there are plenty of posters on the board who love to bash Frisco, I was one before I moved here, not as bad as I thought....of course I live on the east side.
So no, it's not wishful thinking, it's fact. And yes, I meant to say valedictorian and salutatorian competition, but everything else is more competitive because of numbers. I've seen that comment from Plano people on this board, I know quite a few people from Plano and people who work in Plano ISD. It's a great school no doubt, but there's no reason to say Frisco is second rate. It's just new. So there's some facts.
I do deserve the comments about the math, I should have phrased my statement right.
"Exemplary" means crap (actually less than crap) when it comes to college admissions....which is the "end game" for rating a K-12 school system. All exemplary means is that the students (all segments of students which becomes more difficult at more diverse schools) are passing the low standards of the state standardized test, have low drop out rates, and high daily attendance. Big whoop!!
The national high school lists are also worthless because they divide the number of total AP exams given (not passed, just given) by the school population. I could take the AP Calculus and completely bomb it and my school would have a higher rating than another school where an equally unqualified student doesn't take the AP Calc exam. How messed up is that?! It doesn't measure college preparedness at all!
The plain facts are that Frisco lags Plano considerably:
2013 NMSF:
Frisco ISD = 12 NMSF out of 2,238 seniors (.5% of senior class, which is the national average)
Plano ISD = 128 NMSF out of 3,815 seniors (3.5% of senior class, 7X national average)
So despite having a senior class 60% the size of Plano's, Frisco ISD only had 10% the number of NMSF. That is poor.
I don't need to re-hash it again, but you can pull up my previous threads on Frisco's mediocrity despite having a population that is more affluent and more educated than Plano's. Makes absolutely no rational sense but numbers are facts.
There is something to back it up, check out the TEA website for academic ratings. Which shows Frisco centennial as exemplary while Plano East is recognized as are the other two plano high schools. Every HS campus in Frisco is recognized and Centennial is exemplary which is almost unheard for high schools that aren't magnet schools. In USA today school rankings Liberty ranks ahead of Plano East at 86 and Centennial ranks right behind Plano East' 91 at 96. Hardly something to down Frisco about. And this forum is the result of opinions, there is plenty of fact here, but there is plenty of washing over facts in order to make a persons neighborhood look better. It's no secret that there are plenty of posters on the board who love to bash Frisco, I was one before I moved here, not as bad as I thought....of course I live on the east side.
So no, it's not wishful thinking, it's fact. And yes, I meant to say valedictorian and salutatorian competition, but everything else is more competitive because of numbers. I've seen that comment from Plano people on this board, I know quite a few people from Plano and people who work in Plano ISD. It's a great school no doubt, but there's no reason to say Frisco is second rate. It's just new. So there's some facts.
I do deserve the comments about the math, I should have phrased my statement right.
See just one school ranking chart below:
1 School for the Talented and Gifted ranking data
2 School of Science and Engineering ranking data
3 Highland Park High School ranking data
4 Carroll Senior High School / Carroll High School ranking data
5 Plano West Senior High School / Jasper High School / Shepton High School ranking data
6 Argyle High School ranking data
7 Flower Mound High School ranking data
8 Coppell High School ranking data
9 Plano Senior High School / Jasper High School / Vines High School ranking data
10 Pearce High School ranking data
11 Liberty High School ranking data
12 Centennial High School ranking data
13 Marcus High School ranking data
14 Prosper High School ranking data
15 Keller High School ranking data
16 School of Health Professions ranking data
17 Hebron High School ranking data
18 Allen High School / Lowery Freshman Center ranking data
19 Grapevine High School ranking data
20 Plano East Senior High School / Clark High School / Williams High School ranking data
TC80 pretty much summed it up - the "exemplary/recognized" etc. rankings are pretty much useless when it comes to evaluating high performing schools. Any argument that is based on "well, this school is EXEMPLARY while that is just RCOGNIZED" is one I'll disregard. And that's not because I'm dissing Frisco, but because the rankings for that, as TC80 notes, are based on factors that are pretty much meaningless once you get above a fairly low level of acadmeic achievement.
As for the rankings - do you have a link to the USA Today rankings, or whatever the source is (I tried my google-fu and came up with the US News rankings, which differ from those above, as well as the "most challenging" rankings, which also differ from above and are based solely on AP/IB tests)? I know the US News 2013 rankings have WT White ranked ahead of Plano East, based (I assume) primarily on percentage of students TAKING AP tests, which as TC80 points out is a ridiculous metric to assign more than a tiny amount of weight to. WT White is doing some great things, but there is no way in heck that it's putting out higher academic achievement than Plano East.
Again, the metrics THAT COUNT are things like college admissions and SAT/ACT scores (which can't be fudged unless only a tiny percentage of students take the tests) as well as (to a lesser extent) AP PASSING percentages (and even then, that category is a bit limited as there is a voluntary aspect to it. If you're going to college you pretty much have to take the SAT or ACT). Plano East performs substantially better than the Frisco schools on those metrics. Plano East has FAR more NMSF students (representing that far end of the distribution curve) as a percentage of student body than Frisco ISD. Plano East accomplishes this with WORSE socioeconomic demographics than Frisco ISD.
Look, nobody is saying that Frisco stinks or that Frisco schools are awful. BUT, Frisco schools are NOT as good as Plano's are. Given the fact that Plano ISD is arguably the best in DFW that doesn't require a million-dollar plus home budget (nod to Highland Park), that's hardly a damning indictment.
But in the meantime, please quit pretending that Frisco ISD is in the same class as Plano. It's not, by more than a small margin. If that changes everyone here will be eager to note that, but those are the facts as they currently stand.
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