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A majority/near majority of white students over the past 5 years have left the Woodrow feeder pattern. I showed the K vs 5th enrollment numbers for Lakewood El. The same holds for Stonewall. In a previous post, I showed the drop in white enrollment between 5th and 6th at Lakewood El. and Stonewall vs Long. That is the leaving I was referring to in my post. There is no argument against actual numbers. I showed the trend line as well for K to 5th. I think the trend line for retaining white kids has a positive slope, but it is still a fact that K to 7th retention of white students is a minority.
I also explained how you can estimate what type of students leave based on the 5 year NMSF rate at Woodrow. You didn't address that either. It's not really anything to argue about. Based on NMSF, the probability that the kids (white and nonwhite) leaving the Woodrow feeder are smarter and more affluent than the ones staying in the pattern is near 100%. If you run the numbers with NMSF plus commended, you get the same result. Mr. Irby at Woodrow can explain the math to you if you don't believe me.
I never said anything about any exodus to Lakehill. (Lakehill does have a very small high school, less than 80 students I believe.) I said that Lakehill outperformed (or crushed) Woodrow in SAT scores and NMSF for all of their students vs Woodrow's white students. That is a true statement. Your story about girls leaving Lakehill doesn't address my argument. When Lakehill's scores and NMSF rates fall under Woodrow's, let me know. That would be a huge leap for Woodrow.
As for the IB program at Woodrow, it is indeed new. I think Dr. Ritchie is a strong leader, and I have high hopes for the IB program raising SAT scores and attracting better students. Time will tell.
I went to to local public schools for elementary and high school, Catholic for middle school. I understand the value of public schools to our neighborhood. But when you don't present an accurate reflection of our schools, parents can tell, especially the type of parents that DISD needs to keep. Middle and upper class parents are not interested in ACT improvement rates or college readiness improvement rates. They want complete matriculation lists per class, average SAT scores for kids in IB program or AP programs, all school 25th and 75th percentile SAT scores, distribution of AP scores, and the results when the IB programs scores come in. They want accurate data to help them decide what is best for their kids.
Lakewooder, when you say Woodrow has "a critical mass of students taking AP and IB courses going on to great colleges" (as you did Monday), that is a misleading statement. A reader might take that to mean you have 30-40 graduates going on to top 25 colleges (based on a recognized list, say the US News list of top 25 national universities. Not a perfect list, but a metric we can use). A critical mass seems to indicate a significant number. But I'm betting the average number of kids going from Woodrow to top 25 is nowhere near 30-40, but 5-7. That is fine, but just say it straight. In the long run, you help Woodrow the most by giving information with context and transparency.
You hit the nail on the head with an objective & very constructive analysis. I think by now, the people posting on here looking to relocate are savvy enough to spot trends in terms of a recurrence of posts by the same couple Woodrow boosters. At this point, I don't think anyone moving here would give those overly-positive posts much credence.
Total white population is one thing; RETENTION of whites is the more important thing for the whole feeder pattern. When a school like Lakewood is losing half of its white population by 5th or 6th grade, that is a major red flag about the next schools in the feeder.
Out of curiosity, can someone tell us approximately how many students go to top 25 colleges from Highland Park, Carroll (Southlake), Plano West, and Coppell, and, if possible, which schools?
Most schools have a School Profile form on their website. This profile is attached to every college application so admissions committees can better compare applicants from schools all over the US.
Highland Park includes a list of colleges at which the prior senior class matriculated. There isn't a count of students per college, but it's safe to assume (based on personal knowledge of the school) that it's 1-2 max per Ivy and up to 6-8 for a school like Vanderbilt or Wake Forest.
The class of 2013 has freshmen at the following top 30-35 ranked colleges and liberal art schools:
Boston College
Boston University
College of William & Mary
Duke
Georgetown
Harvard
Johns Hopkins
MIT
NYU
Northwestern
Rhodes College
Rice
Sewanee/ University of the South
Stanford
UC Berkley
U Chicago
U Penn
USC
U Richmond
UVA
Vanderbilt
Wake Forest
Washington & Lee
Wash U - St Louis
I would guess approx 40-45 students out of a class in the low 400-student range are at top 35 schools. So about 10%. I would also say the class of 2013 has one of the less impressive lists of matriculation in recent history- no Princeton (usually send 1-3), no Yale (usually send 1), no West Point or Naval Academy (usually send 2-3 between the service academies), no students at any of the tip top liberal arts (Amherst, Wellsely, Swarthmore, etc) and usually send 2-3 students total across the top 10 lib arts.
Out of curiosity, can someone tell us approximately how many students go to top 25 colleges from Highland Park, Carroll (Southlake), Plano West, and Coppell, and, if possible, which schools?
Plano West doesn't publish the list (Plano ISD does has some info for the whole district), but I was in the class of 2013. Here's what I can remember
4 people enrolled at UPenn
2 People enrolled at Brown
2 People enrolled at Stanford
3 People enrolled at Harvard
1 person enrolled at MIT
1 person enrolled at Princeton
1 person enrolled at Dartmouth
2 people enrolled at Columbia
2 people enrolled at UChicago
3 people enrolled at Duke
A handful enrolled Rice and Cornell; I think 7 or so people went to Rice, and another 4 or 5 went to Cornell.
2 people went to Wellesley, but I can't remember any others going to top liberal arts colleges.
A whole bunch went to WashU in St. Louis
I remember at least one person going to the each of following (most probably got more than one, I just don't know the exact numbers):
Vanderbilt
NYU
USC
Northwestern
UC Berkeley
Georgetown
Sorry this is incomplete and a bit vague..It's hard to know where everyone went at Plano West since it's such a large school.
Total white population is one thing; RETENTION of whites is the more important thing for the whole feeder pattern. When a school like Lakewood is losing half of its white population by 5th or 6th grade, that is a major red flag about the next schools in the feeder.
I think that's partially true. I do think that parents in the Lakewood feeder pattern probably benefit from having more nearby school choices than parents in most other areas of DFW. As compared to other affluent areas of DFW, there are more public, charter and religious and secular based private schools to pick from in the area. This is not to say parents in other areas don't have alternative choices. They do. They just don't have as many.
I would use ice cream as an analogy. If you like a special flavor and it is readily available at a specialty store close pretty close to where you live, you probably will choose it over buying vanilla (a plain old neighborhood elementary school). Nothing wrong with vanilla, but the specialty store meets your particular taste.
This is partially why the retention rate is lower Lakewood than in other areas. Regardless, the trend is that more and more people are putting their young kids in Lakewood. In the past they would not. I have no reason to believe that the K to 5th grade retention RATE will change for the better in Lakewood. However, the sheer increase in young neighborhood kids going there speaks well of the school and indicates that greater and greater numbers of neighborhood kids will attend Long and Woodrow. I suspect the trend is true at Stonewall, Lipscomb and Lee, but I am not as familiar with what's happening in the other elementary schools in the Woodrow Wilson feeder pattern.
I'm a parent of a kindergartener at Lakewood. I see the school for what it is which is a simple but good neighborhood elementary school that serves the majority of the students that attend there well. Are there available alternatives to Lakewood that may fit many parents' individual desires better? Certainly.
Lakewooder, I'm not sure if you don't understand or you're just trolling me, but I'll try once again. Today, this very day, there are 160 white K students at Lakewood El. and only 66 white 5th graders. That is a difference of 94 kids. In five years, if the trend line holds to it's 5 year running average, only about 80 of those kids will still be there to graduate from Lakewood elementary. That implies a growth rate of 66 5th graders today to 80 5th graders in 6 years. Now, could more kids in K today stay around on average to 5th? Move from 50% retention to 80%? Maybe, maybe not.
Of those remaining predictive 80 kids, only about 60 are going to go to Long, if the current trend continues. Could that change? Sure. Long, like Lakewood El. and Stonewall, could hit a tipping point in demographics that would entice more parents to stay the course. Who knows what will happen? But, it's easy to tell you what has already happened.
In 2009, you had 453 whites out of 634 students or 71%. Today you have 644 out of 851 or 76% white. That's an increase, but not huge on a percentage basis. The entire school has grown by 217 and it is 5% whiter. That has nothing to do with the retention of K students to 5th or K to 7th. It has nothing to do with your best students leaving.
It means that Lakewood El. is attracting 217 more students via popularity or population growth or a combination of the two. The climb in white students actually starts in 2008, one year after African-American enrollment at Lakewood dropped from 140 students to 23 students and Hispanic enrollment dropped from 249 to 131 students. Over the previous decade, increasing African-American and Hispanic enrollment was positively correlated with decreasing white enrollment. You can draw you own conclusions as to why Lakewood El. is more popular than ever.
Again, you've responded to my comment with a random fact. Yes, Lakewood El. has more students. St. Thomas has record numbers too. So does HPISD. So what. But, when you look at HPISD's K to 5th retention rate, it is going to be 90-100%, not 50%. I was using Lakewood El.'s current retention rate to explain Woodrow's near zero rate of NMSF.
But again, none of this really matters to a parent in 8th grade trying to decide whether they should go to Woodrow. Today's Lakewood El. kindergartners will not help them even if they stay at a 100% retention rate. If you can't understand that, I don't know how to explain it. Maybe Mr. Irby could or ask someone at your job to talk you through it.
If you're just trolling, remember you're not helping Woodrow by denying the obvious.
From looking at the demographic trends from 2007 the elementary schools in the Woodrow Wilson feeder pattern are changing significantly. No reason to believe that this trend won't continue. Removing Roberts Elementary (2013: 603 total students; 7 white) from the feeder pattern will change the demographics of Woodrow more than anything in the future.
Here's Lakewood Elem.'s recent white enrollment numbers:
White enrollment at K , at 5th, and at 5th as a percentage of K
2013-2014; 132, 59 44.6%
2012-2013; 112, 68, 60.7%
2011-2012; 98, 65, 66.3%
2010-2011; 114, 61, 53.5%
2009-2010; 89, 43, 48.3%
2008-2009; 75, 37, 49.3%
2008-2014; 620, 333, 53.7%
Lakewood loses about half of it's white K class by 5th and another quarter to half by 12th.
If I understand your chart, there were 75 white students enrolled in Lakewood in 2008-2009. In 2013-2014, those same students would be in fifth grade. The chart says 59 white fifth-graders this year. Sounds like a 79% retention rate.
Quote:
Originally Posted by LakeDad
Now, could more kids in K today stay around on average to 5th? Move from 50% retention to 80%? Maybe, maybe not.
I suspect the retention rate will only improve, but I'm not really in the know about what is going on at Lakewood - my kid goes to Robert E. Lee!
Lakewooder, Lakedad, Lakewood Parent ... Lakewood has taken over CD.
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