DFW High Schools ranked by SAT 2012-2013 (Houston, Dallas: crime, movie theater)

[Vicman]

Originally Posted by Lakewood Parent

Vicman,

I hope that post was a bit of off the mark misguided sarcasm. If not you sound crazy.

If there is nobody on the Woodrow student body who is seriously making other students feel unsafe, then it's sarcasm, and things are being overblown. I see it like this: If in fact there's not this risk, then please don't overstate it. But... if there is such a dangerous element, do something about it.

Please read this:
Moving On - Page 2 - News - Houston - Houston Press

By the early 1990s, apartment owners and other residents began a counter-offensive of their own. In several high-profile cases, homeowners in the Southmeadow subdivision sued the owners of the West Fondren and Village of the Green apartments for negligence contributing to constant criminal activity. The subdivision residents said the owners didn't hire security guards, screen tenants or provide lighting. The homeowners collected a multi-million dollar settlement and used it to buy and raze both properties.

Is that crazy? Suing the apartment where criminals lived, buying it, and tearing it down in order to remove the criminals from the area around the neighborhood? They made a decision: Instead of moving out of their neighborhood, they made the criminals move. They decided those criminals were truly a threat to them, and did what they could to remove the criminals.

So, in the case of a parent considering whether a public school is safe: Is there really a threat? Is this merely a case of a school appearing low class, or is the child truly unsafe?

[Lakewooder]

To me, nobody is a "dreg". You can learn something from every person you meet and they learn from you. I remember trying to help classmate in drafting write a sentence. He was from the north side of Fair Park. It was sort of a telling moment for both of us and was handled in a gentle, low-key but ultimately jovial way. Who would I most like to see come to a reunion? This guy.

So long as nobody is threatening or harming anyone, there's no reason you cannot go to school with them. If you're a high achiever and they aren't, most likely you will be in different classes most of the time. Some of the things which happened during integration the 70s at Woodrow were somewhat provocative but nobody pulled their kids out of school. "Apartment people" is not a term I hear in our area.

[aggie972]

Originally Posted by TurtleCreek80

There has been at least one HP valedictorian in the recent past who lived in those apartments feeding to Armstrong. If I remember correctly, she immigrated from Vietman around 5th grade and didn't know any English before she got to the states. Truly an example of a family sacrificing space and comfort in order to provide the best educational opportunities for their children. I am always a little irritated when people say they can't afford HPISD. If education is the #1 priority (and maybe comfort is, even though they say it's education), there is a way for 99% of families to live there.

What if you don't want your kid to be the "poor kid" at school (even though you make a middle class income, its below HP averages)? I'd be discouraged if my kid were getting left out or made fun of because they didn't get a new Range Rover for their 16th birthday.

[bencronin04]

Originally Posted by aggie972

What if you don't want your kid to be the "poor kid" at school (even though you make a middle class income, its below HP averages)? I'd be discouraged if my kid were getting left out or made fun of because they didn't get a new Range Rover for their 16th birthday.

Granted this was 10 years ago now, not getting a Range Rover isn't what made or broke a kid at HP. Yes some kids got new cars, but most seemed to get their parent's "hand me downs". Honestly THE nicest most expensive car when I was there was a new M5....it was outrageous and people made fun of him for it. Times have changed I'm sure, but as long as you are successful in SOMETHING at HP(band, sport, class, etc.) you'll be just fine. It's seriously just like every other high school with a higher than average emphasis on success.

If you'd truly like to see for yourself, take a drive by the High School one time. Yes you'll see BMWs, Lexus, Mercedes....but most of them will be used. You will also see a load of Chevy, Ford, Toyotas etc.

Now I think it may be a little different in the sense that MOST of those kids did not purchase a single vehicle and I was the only one in my group friends that also had a job in HS outside of life guarding at the UP pool.

[TurtleCreek80]

Originally Posted by aggie972

What if you don't want your kid to be the "poor kid" at school (even though you make a middle class income, its below HP averages)? I'd be discouraged if my kid were getting left out or made fun of because they didn't get a new Range Rover for their 16th birthday.

Why don't you drive by the high school and count how many Range Rovers you see. In a school with 2,000 kids, there are way more kids who don't have a car at all than those who have Range Rovers.

The only time in HPISD where everyone seems acutely aware of who has what is in mid-middle school (7th- early 8th grades). By high school, everyone is in a "friend group" more based on what you like (sports, AP academics, debate, art, band, theatre, choir, drugs, dance, robotics, church youth group, boy scouts, etc) than what you have. My friend group included several people with trust funds (one old oil family worth $100M's) and two who lived in small apartments on the fringes of HPISD. We spent more time at the hanging out at the bigger, nicer houses (more room, pools, tv room, etc) but never EVER judged those who had less. Most of the wealthy parents are generous; I was included on multiple ski trips & weekend trips to lake houses where the hosting family paid for everything.

No one made fun of me for having a part-time job. I'd guess about half or more of my friends had a part-time job doing something (retail, babysitting, ice cream parlor). Heck, one of the coolest guys in my class mowed lawns for like 8 summers to buy his own jeep when he turned 16. His family lived in a tiny little 1200ish SF UP cottage and sold it the summer we graduated. Another wildly popular guy in my class was the son of the janitor at one of the HPISD elementary schools; he was also a minority (two strikes in your mind, huh?!) and no one ever ever made fun of him.

Drive by the HS one day. You certainly won't be able to pick out the rich kids from the poor ones; they're all in shorts and HP t shirts.

[Vicman]

There have been situations in other schools where other students made the environment so toxic it's difficult for anyone to learn. This guy taught at Berendo Middle School in Los Angeles: Los Angeles Unified School District: Inner-City Teacher Blues and his writings opened up my eyes to what happens in many urban American schools

You cannot make a student learn - you can only facilitate and encourage the process. In my opinion, achievement in education is mostly about attitude and hard work (and NOT funding or curriculum), and too many students looked at school as little more than temporary incarceration with the opportunity to fraternize with friends during lunch and breaks. Many of these types were gang members and the vast majority would drop out of school before their sophomore year in high school (LAUSD dropout rate is +-40%). These "hardcore" kids perform poorly in the traditional classroom setting and bring in toxic problems from the streets and their lives which can result in a toxic classroom.

and he talks about the types of gang members one can talk to and the ones one can't:

On the other hand, I had some classes with only four or five students who wanted to learn anything, with a number of students either already "jumped in" or flitting with gang membership. In my experience, the gang members generally came in two categories: those whom a teacher could work with, and those who barely ever came to school and just gave you the finger when they did. The latter were already gone (you cannot speak sense to a prepubescent gang "wannabe" trying to prove something - "I love my homies, man, but the rest of the world can kiss my ass!"),

And while 187 has a depiction of gangs that is a caricature making them out to be total monsters, Richard Geib took a look and argues that it can serve lessons too, and how the bad doesn't win over the good: The Movie "187" and the American Educational System

Richard Geib made it clear that there were students who worked very hard and made good grades (he recommended that one girl get a private school scholarship and she did) and he admired the students who had a more average intelligence who had to work very hard and perhaps do part time jobs at fast food restaurants to make money. These are the students that would give value to the entire Woodrow Wilson community.

If Woodrow in fact does not have the "hardcore" ones (or even if those who are just drop out and don't bother anyone else), good. That makes things much easier on everyone.

Originally Posted by Lakewooder

To me, nobody is a "dreg". You can learn something from every person you meet and they learn from you. I remember trying to help classmate in drafting write a sentence. He was from the north side of Fair Park. It was sort of a telling moment for both of us and was handled in a gentle, low-key but ultimately jovial way. Who would I most like to see come to a reunion? This guy.

So long as nobody is threatening or harming anyone, there's no reason you cannot go to school with them. If you're a high achiever and they aren't, most likely you will be in different classes most of the time. Some of the things which happened during integration the 70s at Woodrow were somewhat provocative but nobody pulled their kids out of school. "Apartment people" is not a term I hear in our area.

[BabyDoctor77]

Can someone update this SAT ranking list to include Hockaday, St. Marks and Greenhill?

[TurtleCreek80]

Originally Posted by BabyDoctor77

Can someone update this SAT ranking list to include Hockaday, St. Marks and Greenhill?

This is a thread about public schools. It's not difficult to find the private school SAT scores (google....)

[bencronin04]

Originally Posted by BabyDoctor77

Can someone update this SAT ranking list to include Hockaday, St. Marks and Greenhill?

Hockaday(2013):
50% looks to be 1950-2300
The Hockaday School ~ Facts

St. Marks(2013):
Average: 2102
http://storbeckpimentel.com/resource..._School_OS.pdf

Greenhill(I can only find back to 2012):
Middle 50%: 1971
https://www.greenhill.org/ftpimages/...misc_84832.pdf

[Gator-in-Steiner]

Vicman - your comments seem completely off the mark. I think most parents in this feeder pattern want all of the elementary schools to have students performing at as high a level as Lakewood and Stonewall. This would make our middle and high school stronger. Parents, teachers and administrators are working hard to collaborate across the schools to fill in the gaps where needed. LECPTA and the Woodrow Wilson Community Foundation are providing donations to more than just Lakewood to support this mission. Harassing people to have them leave the area sounds like a legacy of Jim Crow era and is so not what East Dallas is about.