DFW High Schools ranked by SAT 2012-2013

[HockDad]

I like the fact that DISD considers a score of 990, but that the State of Texas believes that your test score needs to be 100 points higher to be college ready. I wonder what percentage of kids were college ready under the state standards compared to the self imposed standards of DISD? Now that would be an interesting stat, especially because Miles is seeking a new contract right now.

[Lakewooder]

According to a comment posted on a Jim Schutze article, about half the DISD students who earn a 4 year degree earned less than 990 on the SAT composite score.

[frenzyrider]

Originally Posted by Lakewooder

Wouldn't that be 137%? From 43 to 102 juniors taking the test...204 students took the test last year, 354 this year, an increase of 150 students.

That is irrelevant. The college ready rate went up from 21.1% to 28.9%. That is what matters because increase in number of college-ready student also saw an increase in number of students taking the test this year. This is why we should look at the rate and not the absolute number of students in my opinion. I am not saying it is not worth an applause but I am saying it is not 130%...

[synchronicity]

Originally Posted by Lakewooder

According to a comment posted on a Jim Schutze article, about half the DISD students who earn a 4 year degree earned less than 990 on the SAT composite score.

Seems to me the goal (in a perfect world of flying rainbow unicorns who poop precious metals) would be to have every student in DISD (or wherever) be "college ready" at graduation. I realize that there are many definitions of that and we use an SAT score as an imperfect proxy, but if that's what we're going by, we would like 100% of DISD students to score 990+ on the V+M of the SAT, as we wear our helmets to protect against chunks of gold falling from the sky.

In our imperfect world, we know that's not going to happen, but we would want to increase the total number of students getting 990+. So, have more students take the test at a minimum, and strive to have all those test takers achieve the required score. IIRC there are studies indicating that (within limits), if you set a standard for taking the SAT (or AP tests or similar), that will generally achieve some level of increase in overall scores (as people who otherwise may not have worked to hit those goals now will have that in front of them and put in some level of extra effort to do better).

I'm not saying this to defend the "test everyone all the time in everything and rate schools on that" mentality which now pervades education, but rather saying that setting specific objective concrete goals is often something that achieves some level of positive results across a large population.

In short - I'm glad to see a higher percentage of DISD students taking the SAT. I get that this will likely lead to drops in the averages overall in the short term. I would hope that with proper work it will result in higher averages/better results in the longer term, and more improtantly that it doesn't just mean "hey, better SATs" but having more students who are actually equipped to succeed in college.

If any of that makes sense...