Newsweek 2009 Top Public Schools (Dallas, Fort Worth: 2011, magnet schools, college)

[sparkman75229]

The annual list of top public schools is out and DFW is well represented. The TAG and Science/Engineering Magnets are #1 and #2 respectively.

I know these lists get tiresome, but good press is good press.

Check it out:

America's Top Public High Schools | Newsweek Best High Schools | Newsweek.com

[whatdoiknw]

interesting.

I never realized J.J. Pearce was ranked so highly. Even though, I went to Lake Highlands a lifetime ago and it was a great school back then, I didn't think it would rank so highly present day as I've heard the quality has degraded quite a bit from a decade ago.

Also, I thought Allen would have ranked higher than Mckinney.

[Grainraiser]

I'm most impressed by Garland high school. They are rated as the best normal high school on the list IMHO.

[Dangerfield]

DFW (Dallas/Irving) has 4 in the top 25 out of a national pool of 1480; that's pretty amazing.

[theloneranger]

However, you do have to take the rankings with a grain of salt. The formula they use to rank them is: number of AP tests taken at the school divided by the number of graduating seniors.

It includes nothing else. It doesn't even consider if they pass the AP tests, just that they take them. Their logic is that the kids will be prepared for college by taking college-level classes in high school, regardless of their success in them.

Some schools on the list have a fairly low pass rate for their AP classes, and get skewed because a smaller number of kids take a lot of AP tests each. For example, at TAG Magnet, it's mandatory to take at least 1 AP class as a freshman, 2 as a sophomore, 4 as a junior, and 5 as a senior--no other choice. So TAG is benefitting by making kids take the courses, not necessarily by being successful at producing well-rounded and college-prepared students (though TAG does do well at this, it's not a guarantee).

The list also excludes students from schools with high SAT scores on average, even if they are magnet schools. TAG is at the top of the list because their kids usually don't have insane test scores, just good ones.

[theloneranger]

Originally Posted by Grainraiser

I'm most impressed by Garland high school. They are rated as the best normal high school on the list IMHO.

No, Highland Park is the best rated "normal school" at #23. TAG and SEM, at #1 and #2, are magnet schools, and North Hills, at #9, is a charter school which admits by lottery. HP is a comprehensive high school and educates every student in its district. After them, Paschal in Fort Worth is a comprehensive high school, and then the top rated non-HP school in the Dallas area is W.T. White High School, a DISD comprehensive high school, at #171. White is usually not regarded as a highly ranked high school, but the school does very well with getting kids of many backgrounds into advanced classes and to take AP tests (even though less than 30 percent of their students pass a single AP test while in high school, the average WT White senior has taken over 3 AP tests by the time they graduate).

Garland is just behind White, at #173.

[Lakewooder]

Woodrow is ranked at 637 - just behind McKinney North and ahead of Allen, Plano East, Trinity IB and our neighboring Lake Highlands. We improved our E & E to 36. This is higher than Paschal's and more than twice the national average. It is also 43rd among the 100+ Texas schools listed.

I am surprised not to see Hillcrest on this list. I know one year they did not get our data so perhaps the same happened to them...

[whatdoiknw]

I dunno. even though technically, Highland Park is a "normal" high school, I just don't it is.

[theloneranger]

Originally Posted by Lakewooder

Woodrow is ranked at 637 - just behind McKinney North and ahead of Allen, Plano East, Trinity IB and our neighboring Lake Highlands and we improved our E & E to 36. This is higher than Paschal's and more than twice the national average. I am surprised not to see Hillcrest on this list. I know one year they did not get our data so perhaps the same happened to them...

They also don't have any of the other DISD magnets other than TAG and SEM. I think that BTW would have made the list, and Health and BMC probably would have had a chance as well.

Hillcrest should be on the list--I can't see how they would average less than one AP test per grad. I also would think that Skyline would have a shot, though with such large classes that might hurt them.

I'm guessing they may have forgotten the data.

[theloneranger]

Compare these to the rankings in 2005 (Metroplex schools listed):
#6 Science and Engineering (Dallas)
#12 Highland Park
#76 WT White (Dallas)
#100 Grapevine
#111 Colleyville Heritage
#137 Paschal (Ft Worth)
#179 Garland
#180 Plano West
#237 Carroll (Southlake)
#238 Coppell
#289 Diamond Hill-Jarvis (Ft Worth)
#297 Hillcrest (Dallas)
#308 McKinney
#367 Plano Senior
#455 McKinney North
#491 Creekview (Carrollton)
#502 JJ Pearce (Richardson)
#508 Plano East
#549 Newman Smith (Carrollton)
#625 LD Bell (Hurst)
#627 RL Turner (Carrollton)
#779 South Garland
#800 Northwest (Justin)
#854 Western Hills (Ft Worth)
#875 OD Wyatt (Ft Worth)
#891 Lake Highlands (Dallas)
#900 The Colony
#907 Allen
#940 Amon Carter-Riverside (Ft Worth)
#949 Arlington Heights (Ft Worth)
#971 Mirabeau B. Lamar (Arlington)
#988 Marcus (Flower Mound)
#1014 Naaman Forest (Garland)
#1043 Trinity (Euless)
#1053 Rowlett


TAG wasn't rated because they were considered to be too selective to fulfill the requirements of the Challenge Index--which is the school that gives average students the best educational opportunities. Matthews has since changed the criteria from simply being a selective school to being a selective school and having a higher average SAT/ACT score than the highest comprehensive high school, which isn't the case for TAG anymore. North Hills didn't have a graduating class until 2007, so they didn't rank here.

Woodrow wasn't ranked at all--have they ramped up AP offerings since then, Lakewooder, or was the data missing?

Also, E&E wasn't included at that point, but you'd see a huge disparity between these schools. For example, Ft Worth ISD, which has the most schools on the above list, doesn't get high E&E scores because their kids don't usually pass many AP exams, except at Paschal.