2015 National Merit Semi-Finalists (Plano, Allen, Howe: buy, high school, live)

[Big G]

Originally Posted by frenzyrider

But what happened between Plano west and Plano sr. The numbers almost swapped from last year?

Originally Posted by fndmom

The realignment that moved the Jasper kids from PSHS to PWSH.

Part of Jasper already went to West. This boost represents the effect of moving Rice MS from Senior to West. Pretty dramatic for one middle school.

Originally Posted by biafra4life

Dont know if I would be thrilled or worried if I was the head honcho at PISD. Great for Plano West but Good God look badly Plano Senior fell off!!! I would have thought a roughly even spreading of the wealth* would be preferable to concentrating everything at one school.

* Copyright John McCain

I agree, the realignment was severely bungled. In retrospect, keeping Rice at Senior and moving Schimelpfenig to West would have been the optimal realignment. Water under the bridge now.

Originally Posted by PatriciaWas

They know their district, that's the reason they housed new health and IB academies at Plano East. STEAM Academy is in central Plano. This was Plano Senior's first year without Jasper but they are working to bring Vines & Clark at similar level. Plano West has established itself as the best open enrollment public school in state. All three schools are already way ahead of most schools.PISD board just won award of best board in Texas. PISD is ahead in their game and Plano's corporate residents are very interested in supporting them. Their "Head Honcho" has little to worry about. :-)

I wish I could be that optimistic. But you can't just force the kids from some low-performing place like Carpenter MS to magically become as smart as the kids from the Rice MS area.

Since the overall district numbers are almost identical from last year to this year, you can make a rough calculation of the realignment's effect. (Keeping in mind that the actual kids are different from year to year.)

Plano West received 20 additional NMSF kids from the Rice MS area.
Plano East lost 3 NMSF kids from the Clark (Hendrick & Carpenter MS) area. (Kids from that area in the IB program would have remained at East.)
Plano Senior experienced the sum of those effects - lost 20 kids to West, gained 3 from East. Hardly a fair trade.

---

I've posted this thought before, but, IMO, I think the realignment has created a "lose-lose" situation.

Plano Senior, which used to be almost identical to Plano West on this particular measure (and even ahead of them in some years), is now the LOWEST performing senior high in PISD - even below Plano East on a percentage basis (using the current PESH enrollment, which is right around the 2K mark.) That lowers the reputation of PSHS, and will make it more difficult for those who ARE performing at the NMSF level to get into top-end schools.

But that boost doesn't help the NMSF kids at West to any substantial degree. Instead, it hurts them. A sharp kid who would have ranked 25th or 35th at either of the old PWSH or PSHS is now going to rank 50th or 60th at the new PWSH. Again, that will make their app look worse to the top schools. And it's unlikely the admissions committee at, say, Stanford, is going to follow the tiny details of this border shift and adjust their expectations for PWSH kids. They're just out of luck.

[PatriciaWas]

I know that people from Plano Senior area felt disgruntled during realignment. They are behind PLano West but still far ahead of most public schools in Texas. Park West area's new neighborhoods are pumping new blood and they'll get over Rice. Central Plano is a lovely area for families and would keep attracting them. Plano Senior has awesome faculty and a well established system for academics and nerdy EC's, that's an asset.

Plano West is a powerhouse without a doubt and attending school with top talent and hard workers help kids bring their top game. They'll be able to compete wherver they go. All big universities know Plano. In fact President's office noticed that 40% of 2012's Presidential Scholars from Texas were PISD students.

Plano East is in a very good position with McMillan, academies and plenty of new construction in feeder areas.

Transferring between schools and academies is a great option. Students have access to each excluding PWSH, unless they live in that area. People from West can always go to PSH if they have their top priority is to be top 1%. When you have a district that offers multiple great options then it's a win win for everyone.

[biafra4life]

Originally Posted by Big G

Part of Jasper already went to West. This boost represents the effect of moving Rice MS from Senior to West. Pretty dramatic for one middle school.


I agree, the realignment was severely bungled. In retrospect, keeping Rice at Senior and moving Schimelpfenig to West would have been the optimal realignment. Water under the bridge now.



I wish I could be that optimistic. But you can't just force the kids from some low-performing place like Carpenter MS to magically become as smart as the kids from the Rice MS area.

Since the overall district numbers are almost identical from last year to this year, you can make a rough calculation of the realignment's effect. (Keeping in mind that the actual kids are different from year to year.)

Plano West received 20 additional NMSF kids from the Rice MS area.
Plano East lost 3 NMSF kids from the Clark (Hendrick & Carpenter MS) area. (Kids from that area in the IB program would have remained at East.)
Plano Senior experienced the sum of those effects - lost 20 kids to West, gained 3 from East. Hardly a fair trade.

---

I've posted this thought before, but, IMO, I think the realignment has created a "lose-lose" situation.

Plano Senior, which used to be almost identical to Plano West on this particular measure (and even ahead of them in some years), is now the LOWEST performing senior high in PISD - even below Plano East on a percentage basis (using the current PESH enrollment, which is right around the 2K mark.) That lowers the reputation of PSHS, and will make it more difficult for those who ARE performing at the NMSF level to get into top-end schools.

But that boost doesn't help the NMSF kids at West to any substantial degree. Instead, it hurts them. A sharp kid who would have ranked 25th or 35th at either of the old PWSH or PSHS is now going to rank 50th or 60th at the new PWSH. Again, that will make their app look worse to the top schools. And it's unlikely the admissions committee at, say, Stanford, is going to follow the tiny details of this border shift and adjust their expectations for PWSH kids. They're just out of luck.

It would be interesting to hear from someone the rationale for fatally weakening what was a very strong school (Plano Senior) just to give more to the rich in this case (Plano West). I fail to see how this realignment is in PISD's interest. Destroying Plano Senior to the point where it is outperformed by Plano East just makes no sense.

[Big G]

Back in '09, the stickiest wicket was how to avoid concentrating both Bowman MS and Armstrong MS at Williams HS. The other big issue was resolving the tantrum Schimelpfenig parents threw about no longer attending Jasper. The ultimate negative impact on Plano Senior was not even part of the discussion.

I doubt they could/would have done much about it anyway, since that would have required explicitly admitting that Rice MS is in no way interchangeable with Carpenter MS in academic performance. Both schools are majority-minority, but Rice is 57% Asian, while Carpenter is 22% black + 32% Hispanic. So that's another third rail no one was going to grab.

FWIW, Plano Senior is far from "destroyed" by this setback. They're still ahead of Allen and most of Frisco, even with the reduced numbers.

[GreyDay]

Originally Posted by PatriciaWas

They know their district, that's the reason they housed new health and IB academies at Plano East. STEAM Academy is in central Plano. This was Plano Senior's first year without Jasper but they are working to bring Vines & Clark at similar level. Plano West has established itself as the best open enrollment public school in state. All three schools are already way ahead of most schools.PISD board just won award of best board in Texas. PISD is ahead in their game and Plano's corporate residents are very interested in supporting them. Their "Head Honcho" has little to worry about. :-)

Is it better to judge a school by its top students or its average student?

[PatriciaWas]

I'm not talking about top 10%. Their "average" student is far ahead than "average" student of most public schools with similar or better demographics.

This doesn't make them perfect but when compared against peers then their district outperforms competition. No open enrollment public district with limited resources and financially and ethnically diverse population can produce homogenous results.

[adixyz]

This thread title should be renamed back to Plano and a new one created when we have the complete list of 2015 National Merit Semi-Finalists for all schools in DFW.

[stan4]

As a National Merit Scholar, I still do not understand why this is such a highly touted thing.
I am proud and happy for the kids, but I am perplexed as to why this is used as some kind of benchmark.
You take a test and write an essay.
???

[Walter Benjamin]

Originally Posted by stan4

As a National Merit Scholar, I still do not understand why this is such a highly touted thing.
I am proud and happy for the kids, but I am perplexed as to why this is used as some kind of benchmark.
You take a test and write an essay.
???

IMHO, it's because there are so few ways to really get a handle on how different schools compare to one another, in the level of student achievement and rigor of curriculum. Just about the only way is to compare the standardized tests: AP, SAT and PSAT.

Granted the test itself may not seem like a lot, but I believe it is pretty well correlated with all kinds of substantial achievement. I know the SAT is correlated with college GPA, and the PSAT is quite similar to the SAT...

[PatriciaWas]

What other metrics do you suggest? GPA is not a very reliable indicator. Different schools and teachers have different standards, not all 4.0 were created equal. State tests have little value. Standardized tests have more value and aren't conducted by the schools. We have sports competitions, why not let academic stars a chance to shine?