West Plano OR Southlake (Weatherford, Taylor: low income, real estate, new house)

[BigDGeek]

Stick with west Plano.

[Johnhw2]

I agree no downside to West Plano for OP's criteria/

Very good schools,
Convenient restaurants and shopping (trader joe's as one example)
Diverse area
West plano has water features/decent sized trees/ non cookie cutter houses
Good access to metroplex from West Plano with NDT, PGWB, SRT
Safe neighborhoods

Hard to go wrong, we really like W. Plano after moving from Houston to here just under 2 years ago.

[MoveFromSeattle]

Any reason why Plano West Senior is only rated "Recognized"?

Some helpful stats from my own research... Plano West seems marginally inferior to Carroll High in terms of academics.

Plano West Senior High: Grade 11

Social Studies
100% (2011)

Science
98% (2011)

English Language Arts
99% (2011)

Math
97% (2011)


Carroll Senior High: Grade 11

Social Studies
100% (2011)

Science
99% (2011)

English Language Arts
100% (2011)

Math
98% (2011)

[MoveFromSeattle]

My consideration when looking at Plano was that you have to be careful in locations in order to place your kids into the best schools. Only a handful of schools in Plano are rated Exemplary. I don't have this concern in Southlake as every school is rated Exemplary.

State Accountability Ratings : Plano ISD

[Souleiado]

Originally Posted by MoveFromSeattle

My consideration when looking at Plano was that you have to be careful in locations in order to place your kids into the best schools. Only a handful of schools in Plano are rated Exemplary. I don't have this concern in Southlake as every school is rated Exemplary.

State Accountability Ratings : Plano ISD

If quality of schools is your top priority , then Plano should be your first choice without a doubt . Go check others threads on the subject .

[adixyz]

Originally Posted by MoveFromSeattle

My consideration when looking at Plano was that you have to be careful in locations in order to place your kids into the best schools. Only a handful of schools in Plano are rated Exemplary. I don't have this concern in Southlake as every school is rated Exemplary.

State Accountability Ratings : Plano ISD

Exemplary rating means 90% of the students should PASS the TAKS test. It is a good yardstick to measure overall performance and changes every year.

Texas Education Agency accountability ratings system - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Not undermining TAKS standards but TAKS tests are a cakewalk for top performing students in ALL schools. For choosing a school if anyone is really serious on academics, they should look beyond "Exemplary' ratings. For academic excellence, public schools in West Plano are better than Southlake, IMO.

[MoveFromSeattle]

I am really confused. How do we explain the rating of Plano West?

Senior High Schools (Grades 11 & 12)

Plano East Recognized
Plano Recognized
Plano West Recognized

High Schools (Grades 9 & 10)

Clark Recognized
Jasper Exemplary
Shepton Recognized
Vines Exemplary
Williams Recognized

Middle Schools (Grades 6-8)

Armstrong Recognized
BOWMAN Recognized
Carpenter Recognized
Frankford Recognized
Haggard Exemplary
Hendrick Recognized
Murphy Exemplary
Renner Recognized
Rice Exemplary
Robinson Recognized
Schimelpfenig Exemplary
Wilson Recognized

Originally Posted by adixyz

Exemplary rating means 90% of the students should PASS the TAKS test. It is a good yardstick to measure overall performance and changes every year.

Texas Education Agency accountability ratings system - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Not undermining TAKS standards but TAKS tests are a cakewalk for top performing students in ALL schools. For choosing a school if anyone is really serious on academics, they should look beyond "Exemplary' ratings. For academic excellence, public schools in West Plano are better than Southlake, IMO.

[PlanoGirl]

Originally Posted by adixyz

Not undermining TAKS standards but TAKS tests are a cakewalk for top performing students in ALL schools. For choosing a school if anyone is really serious on academics, they should look beyond "Exemplary' ratings. For academic excellence, public schools in West Plano are better than Southlake, IMO.

I'll happily undermine them....lol! But seriously, TAKS tests (on which these ratings are based) are only a small piece of the academic quality puzzle, and a typically more a reflection of the affluence and uniformity of the area than anything else. Not always...but often. You also need to look at things like SAT scores, number of National Merit finalists, college acceptance/ Ivy League acceptance, AP/IB offerings, etc. That's where you will see where the real value in the education lies...how well will it prepare your kid for college (search through TurtleCreek80's threads. She's broken these stats down a number of times befoe on here). In these measures , Plano definitely outperforms Southlake. Southlake still has GREAT schools, don't get me wrong...Plano's are just better. Add in proximity to retail and work and the diversity factor, and Plano could be your winner. However if a larger newer house, or larger lot, are higher on the priority list, then Southlake might be a better fit. Good luck with your decision!

[Big G]

Pretty much what PlanoGirl said. Plano West gets dragged down in the TAKS ratings by its non-negligible Economically Disadvantaged population, which largely comes from two pockets of sketchy rentals in the City of Dallas portion of PISD - along McCallum and around Frankford/Tollway. Southlake doesn't have a comparable segment of students.

However, if you compare the performance of those kids who are top students, and then look at National Merit stats, AP performance, elite college admissions, etc., PISD outperforms Carroll ISD by a significant margin.

[adiani]

Thanks everyone for wonderful insights.. its makes move towards right direction.
I guess I had the same confusion like MovefromSeattle had.. doing research, reading through articles there is so much inconsistent data everywhere and so misleading. But real life experiences and examples really help a lot to make any decisions.