U.S. News - 2013 Best High Schools Rankings - Dallas Metro (Plano: home, buying)

[synchronicity]

Originally Posted by bencronin04

I disagree with this one. It's not the school that is selective, its the market. Houses in such area are expensive BECAUSE of the school of how good the schools are, not the other way around.

Chicken and egg. It's self-reinforcing - area is set up in a way that appeals to an affluent demographic, that generally improves the school results, which draws in more affluent families with kids who value education, which drives up the school results, and so it goes.

The history of Park Cities has been rehashed numerous times on this forum and is not worth repeating, but they're an independent island within Dallas and because it's close to downtown, it will remain desireable. Preston Hollow remains desireable due to location even though the public schools there aren't very good and many residents send their kids to privates.

Southlake does not have multi-family dwellings and used to require certain larger lot sizes (they're been paring that down over time, but IIRC initially lot sizes had to be about a half acre). This helped set it up as an affluent area, which has led to good school metrics in Carroll ISD (there's an argument that their metrics should be better given the economic demographics of the student body, but that's for another time and place).

Anyway, it's self-reinforcing, and we can debate which drives which, but they both support each other.

[bencronin04]

Good points.

[SMS_Parent]

Originally Posted by HockDad

Personally, I prefer to rank schools on results rather than effort. The above rankings are based on the number of kids that actually take an AP exam, compared to the number of kids that actually do well on the exams. People that think that either of the DISD schools are the best in the country are fooling themselves. Nonetheless, they are good schools and applaud the district with their efforts. I suspect that in 10-20 years they could really be powerhouse schools.

Excellent point. Newsweek highly values exposing students to AP classes. If you take a look at the AP pass rate by exam for some of the highly ranked schools on the Newsweek list the results are shocking and seem to suggest that certain magnet and charter schools have learned to game these ratings by pushing everyone into taking at least one AP class even if they don't have much of a chance of passing the test -- either because the students cannot handle the material or the school doesn't actually teach the material -- I don't know which is worse. Does it really make sense to argue that #398 Williams Preparatory (AP participation rate 83%; exam pass rate 19%) is a better high school than #432 Grapevine High School (AP participation rate 61%; exam pass rate 63%). In fact, many people might prefer #432 Grapevine over #14 Irma Lerma Rangel (AP participation rate 100%; exam pass rate 38%)

[tyanger]

Williams Prep .83 x .19 = 16% of student body pass an AP test
Grapevine High .61 x .63 = 38%
Irma Lerma 1.0 x .38 = 38%

Interesting. Grapevine and ILR end up in the same place, while I imagine the experiences of the student bodies were pretty different.

[SMS_Parent]

Originally Posted by tyanger

Williams Prep .83 x .19 = 16% of student body pass an AP test
Grapevine High .61 x .63 = 38%
Irma Lerma 1.0 x .38 = 38%

Interesting. Grapevine and ILR end up in the same place, while I imagine the experiences of the student bodies were pretty different.

Interesting observation, but you have to recall that IRL is a selective enrollment school. You cannot even apply unless you are in the 5th stanine or above on the ITBS (where stanines 4, 5, and 6 comprise the "average" portion of the bell curve) -- and there are no doubt certain areas of the city of Dallas where having the minimum ITBS scores won't get you into IRL since slots at the school are allocated by region of the city. Grapevine has to take whoever walks through the door who lives in the school zone -- though no doubt scores on the ITBS in Grapevine skew a little high due to the economic status of the population.

[vinhmen]

Originally Posted by HockDad

Personally, I prefer to rank schools on results rather than effort. The above rankings are based on the number of kids that actually take an AP exam, compared to the number of kids that actually do well on the exams. People that think that either of the DISD schools are the best in the country are fooling themselves. Nonetheless, they are good schools and applaud the district with their efforts. I suspect that in 10-20 years they could really be powerhouse schools.

You need to read the ranking formula more closely, as you are confusing Newsweek's methodology with US News.

How U.S. News Calculated the 2013 Best High Schools Rankings - US News and World Report

This third step measured which schools produced the best college-level achievement for the highest percentages of their students. This was done by computing a "college readiness index" (CRI) based on the school's AP or IB participation rate (the number of 12th-grade students in the 2010-2011 academic year who took at least one AP or IB test before or during their senior year, divided by the number of 12th-graders) and how well the students did on those tests.

The latter part, called the quality-adjusted AP or IB participation rate, is the number of 12th-grade students in the 2010-2011 academic year who took and passed (received an AP score of 3 or higher or an IB score of 4 or higher) at least one of the tests before or during their senior year, divided by the number of 12th-graders at that school.

[vinhmen]

Originally Posted by synchronicity

Yes, that's one of my big issues with the rating systems of both publications - IIRC, they give a fairly heavy weight to AP/AICE/etc. tests TAKEN relative to size of student body, moreso than the actual results.

I think "participation rate" should be taken into account, but results should be given far more weight. Which means...well, like anyone else, glance at the rankings, but then focus on the data.

Again, it is all spelled out in the published formula:

For the college readiness index, the quality-adjusted participation rate was weighted 75 percent in the calculation, and the simple AP or IB participation rate was weighted 25 percent.

[synchronicity]

Originally Posted by vinhmen

Again, it is all spelled out in the published formula:

Yes, but there is still a considerable weight attached to participation rate rather than scores. I'd also add that in some parts of the country fewer students take AP tests for various reasons than in other parts of the country.

Personally, I put much more weight on SAT/ACT test results at high schools than the AP test results, but the US News rankings appear to completely ignore SAT/ACT (save possibly as screening criteria) and base their rankings almost exclusively off of AP/IB test results, while the Newsweek rankings have 40% of their rankings based on AP tests in some manner.

We all can attach whatever weights we want to different criteria for whatever reason we want. Let's just say there's no way in hell I'd personally put Irma Lerma Rangel (1426 SAT/20.5 ACT) ahead of, say, Stuyvesant (2068 SAT/31.3 ACT). You or anyone else is free to disagree with me.

[PISDstudent]

Originally Posted by synchronicity

We all can attach whatever weights we want to different criteria for whatever reason we want. Let's just say there's no way in hell I'd personally put Irma Lerma Rangel (1426 SAT/20.5 ACT) ahead of, say, Stuyvesant (2068 SAT/31.3 ACT). You or anyone else is free to disagree with me.

I think this pretty much sums up my feelings about this. But oh well; they didn't ask me

[TX75007]

Originally Posted by synchronicity

We all can attach whatever weights we want to different criteria for whatever reason we want. Let's just say there's no way in hell I'd personally put Irma Lerma Rangel (1426 SAT/20.5 ACT) ahead of, say, Stuyvesant (2068 SAT/31.3 ACT). You or anyone else is free to disagree with me.

Bingo. I agree with you.

I think a better way to rank schools is with a curve.

Come up with 10 criteria to rank a school by. Pick 100 schools. Rank them from top to bottom in each category.

The top school in the category gets 100 points, the bottom gets 0.

Add up the scores for each school and the school with the most points is on top.

I'd start with objective and wide ranging categories. Some would be winner takes all and others would be based on internal effort.

For a school to be on the top 10 of these, it would have to be truly spectacular.

1. Total number of NMSF as a % of graduating seniors.
2. Graduation rates for kids beginning in 9th grade.
3. Average SAT/ACT scores.
4. Total number of Kids who make national lists like Intel, Westinghouse, AMC, Debate champs, etc.
5. Total number of NMSF.
6. Graduation rates for minorities.
7. Number of seniors going to college or military as % of student body.
8. Outcomes of students 10 years later by salary average.
9. Incidents of violence in schools.
10. Subject majors of specialize teachers, ie History teachers have History degrees, Phsyics teachers with physics degrees, etc.