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Old 09-14-2015, 09:23 PM
 
305 posts, read 473,938 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by cleareyedguy View Post
I moved away from Dallas 30 years ago but am a little confused. Not a single non-magnet student in DISD hit the NMSF cut off? One percent of 160,000 would be 1600 kids. Where did they all go? I understand that Plano is a middle or upper middle class place with a core of academic kids, and I guess it makes sense that St. Marks, Cistercian, and Hockaday can get high percentages, but how does flower mound (which I'd never heard of) hit the jackpot, while Dallas produce none outside of the magnets?
A very large swath of north Dallas is fabulously wealthy but none of the kids in those zones actually go to the neighborhood schools. The white kids in these boxes do not go to the public schools. Blue dots on this map are white people. Overall Dallas proper is 50% white, and this is the whitest (and wealthiest) part of the city. Want to know why DISD doesn't have any high performing schools? It's not because "DISD is crap" it's because all the wealthy students who live in Dallas DO NOT GO TO PUBLIC SCHOOL.



This is the demographics of the two high schools in these zones:

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Old 09-14-2015, 09:46 PM
 
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So, are there any high-performing schools with Black or Hispanic majorities with a high % of NMSFs? In Dallas, or anywhere?

Does anyone have the demographic breakdown of ALL NMSFs in the nation? Like in a handy, scrumptious pie chart?
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Old 09-14-2015, 10:09 PM
 
1,087 posts, read 774,387 times
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So, Plano West Senior High School had 53 NMSFs; how competitive is it nationwide? I tried to put it into perspective by looking into other 'good areas' with competitive knowledge based businesses to judge what Plano West is:

Seattle Bellevue Interlake High School (Microsoft and other tech companies): 29.
Gunn High Scholl Palo Alto California (Silicon valley): 46.

... they are not close. What am I missing? Plano and Dallas area got a lot things that are no less than those areas.
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Old 09-14-2015, 10:14 PM
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Aceraceae View Post
Flower Mound median income is $118,000, so you can draw the conclusions from there. I'm sure someone will chime in about DISD.
Unlike other big scoring districts where good students just bring it home, FMHS provides special support for PSAT preparation to make sure that they bring it home.
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Old 09-14-2015, 10:35 PM
 
13,194 posts, read 28,091,857 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by txjl123 View Post
So, Plano West Senior High School had 53 NMSFs; how competitive is it nationwide? I tried to put it into perspective by looking into other 'good areas' with competitive knowledge based businesses to judge what Plano West is:

Seattle Bellevue Interlake High School (Microsoft and other tech companies): 29.
Gunn High Scholl Palo Alto California (Silicon valley): 46.

... they are not close. What am I missing? Plano and Dallas area got a lot things that are no less than those areas.
It's really more about the % of senior class being named NMSF than sheer numbers. NMSF recognizes the top .5% of scores so a school with .5% of senior class being named NMSF is, in theory, "average." I don't know now large the senior class's at Palo Alto or Interlake are but typically the highest %'s in the DFW area (public schools only) are in the 2.5-3% range. That is where Plano West, Flower Mound, Coppell, and HP usually shake out, %-wise.
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Old 09-14-2015, 11:15 PM
 
Location: Southlake. Don't judge me.
2,885 posts, read 4,621,116 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by TurtleCreek80 View Post
It's really more about the % of senior class being named NMSF than sheer numbers. NMSF recognizes the top .5% of scores so a school with .5% of senior class being named NMSF is, in theory, "average." I don't know now large the senior class's at Palo Alto or Interlake are but typically the highest %'s in the DFW area (public schools only) are in the 2.5-3% range. That is where Plano West, Flower Mound, Coppell, and HP usually shake out, %-wise.
Actually, HP has generally done a little worse than Plano West/FM/Coppell, who put up numbers considerably above 3% this year and generally have in previous years (well, Coppell and FMHS were actually close to or above 4% this year. I'm not sure about Plano West's class of 2016 size, but even at 1,500 students they'd be above 3.5%). This year, for example, HP had 16 NMSFs. In 2014 there were 526 10th graders (who would be class of 2016). 16 out of 526 is almost exactly at 3%, and this was their best year in recent history. Last year HP had 14 out of 524 (again, 524 10th graders in 2013. I'm assuming no dramatic changes in class size from 10th grade to 12th grade), which would be 2.7%.

In 2014, HP had only 8 NMSFs, and they had 12 in 2013. I'm not going to look up class sizes because I'm lazy but would guess they were still in the range of 500+, which would mean an average of about 2% over those two years.

Obviously, these aren't BAD numbers by any means. But one should note that HP, like Carroll, has fantastic averages but underperforms a bit at the top end compared to Plano/Coppell/FMHS. It's picking nits, but then we do that a lot on this forum.

In the great scheme of things, anyone fortunate enough to attend HP or Carroll or Coppell or Plano West or FMHS (or several others that often come up) has the wind at their back big time. (Obviously I'm just talking open enrollment publics; the kids attending St. Marks and the like have even bigger advantages).
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Old 09-14-2015, 11:47 PM
 
19,469 posts, read 17,695,925 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by txjl123 View Post
So, Plano West Senior High School had 53 NMSFs; how competitive is it nationwide? I tried to put it into perspective by looking into other 'good areas' with competitive knowledge based businesses to judge what Plano West is:

Seattle Bellevue Interlake High School (Microsoft and other tech companies): 29.
Gunn High Scholl Palo Alto California (Silicon valley): 46.

... they are not close. What am I missing? Plano and Dallas area got a lot things that are no less than those areas.
Plano West 53/1100 (that's a guess I don't know PW's class size) = about 4.5%, PW is about 23% Asian.


Gunn 36/455 = about 7.9%........Gunn is a stone's throw from Stanford. Many sons and daughters of Stanford faculty attend Gunn. It's about 43% Asian and by all accounts a very unhealthy school overall, Gunn is home to one of the worst suicide clusters in the country - with a rate about 30x the national teen suicide rate. FWIIW the 46 number is from last year - Gunn's 5 year average is 37 and change.

Bellevue 29/~400 = 7.25%..............I don't know the percentage of Asian kids in the school but it follows that it's a high number. I've been to Bellevue on business many times - its's a very Asian town. Bellevue is one of the couple of best high schools in Washington. US News has it ranked just a couple spots behind Gunn in its national rankings at #160.

FYI - 2015 NMSF qualifying scores.......

CA - 222 3rd
WA - 219 tied for 5th with Virginia
TX - 218 tied for 7th with NY
WV and ND - 201 tied at 49 and 50
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Old 09-15-2015, 12:08 AM
 
19,469 posts, read 17,695,925 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by synchronicity View Post
Actually, HP has generally done a little worse than Plano West/FM/Coppell, who put up numbers considerably above 3% this year and generally have in previous years (well, Coppell and FMHS were actually close to or above 4% this year. I'm not sure about Plano West's class of 2016 size, but even at 1,500 students they'd be above 3.5%). This year, for example, HP had 16 NMSFs. In 2014 there were 526 10th graders (who would be class of 2016). 16 out of 526 is almost exactly at 3%, and this was their best year in recent history. Last year HP had 14 out of 524 (again, 524 10th graders in 2013. I'm assuming no dramatic changes in class size from 10th grade to 12th grade), which would be 2.7%.

In 2014, HP had only 8 NMSFs, and they had 12 in 2013. I'm not going to look up class sizes because I'm lazy but would guess they were still in the range of 500+, which would mean an average of about 2% over those two years.

Obviously, these aren't BAD numbers by any means. But one should note that HP, like Carroll, has fantastic averages but underperforms a bit at the top end compared to Plano/Coppell/FMHS. It's picking nits, but then we do that a lot on this forum.

In the great scheme of things, anyone fortunate enough to attend HP or Carroll or Coppell or Plano West or FMHS (or several others that often come up) has the wind at their back big time. (Obviously I'm just talking open enrollment publics; the kids attending St. Marks and the like have even bigger advantages).
That's interesting. While HP's NMSF results are as you say, a bit less than PW, SLC, Coppell etc. HP's average SAT score is much higher usually.

Guesses.............lots of rich and smart parents plus mostly motivated kids at HP yield very high achievement by most everyone. And just maybe these other schools have more over-achieving Asians who hammer the PSAT but also more lower achievers as well who pull the averages down a good bit.
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Old 09-15-2015, 07:08 AM
 
233 posts, read 301,088 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by EDS_ View Post
That's interesting. While HP's NMSF results are as you say, a bit less than PW, SLC, Coppell etc. HP's average SAT score is much higher usually.

Guesses.............lots of rich and smart parents plus mostly motivated kids at HP yield very high achievement by most everyone. And just maybe these other schools have more over-achieving Asians who hammer the PSAT but also more lower achievers as well who pull the averages down a good bit.
This is a case of economically diverse vs homogeneously super affluent. HPHS isn't doing better than Coppell or West, its just that student body is blessed with more resources. There are no disadvantaged students to bring average down. I think HPSH has potential to do much better but district is not taking full advantage of their student body.
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Old 09-15-2015, 08:15 AM
 
13,194 posts, read 28,091,857 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by DallasG View Post
This is a case of economically diverse vs homogeneously super affluent. HPHS isn't doing better than Coppell or West, its just that student body is blessed with more resources. There are no disadvantaged students to bring average down. I think HPSH has potential to do much better but district is not taking full advantage of their student body.
I think that it's a cultural difference more than anything. In Plano (and similar communities with high concentration of traditional Asian families), there is a focus on academics above all else. These kids are typically in Saturday school, not out playing sports or doing other hobbies like their counterparts (with the exception of musical instruments and STEM-related hobbies which are deemed acceptable by Tiger Mom/Dad).

At HP, there is a focus on being well rounded ("enter to learn, go forth to serve" is the school motto) and thus you have very, very few kids with a singular focus on academics. My class' valedictorian was also the State Champion for tennis singles and an artist who showed. The salutatorian won the coveted "Blanket Award" for being the most well-rounded boy in our class. He had hundreds of hours of community service and was on a varsity athletic team that also won state - oh, and he was in a garage band on the side. I couldn't tell you if either were NMSF because it wasn't a big focus, but they did well enough to matriculate at Princeton and Duke, respectively.
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