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Well then it's like I said. If the most affluent kids at Woodrow are still not able to compete with similar kids from Plano et al, then indeed we can point to the educators at that school and question if they are indeed doing the best they can for the students. I call it like I see it. If no kid at that school can compete with similar kids from other schools then it's no longer a question of demographics as I initially thought.
No yeah, you definitely said that - wasn't taking issue with anything you posted, which I thought to be valid! I was targetting this more at some of the boosterism that the school gets on here a lot, which, IMHO, reaches a nearly comical level.
Again, I'm not trying to bash the school. I do think though we should be even-handed in how we treat it - you don't hear the praises it gets all of time directed at somewhere like Wakeland.
Now to get to why I am writing all of this. I am not trying to beat down on Woodrow. A 1599 on the SAT is nothing to be ashamed of - it's solidly above average. But I am really quite confused as to the treatment it gets on this forum. Even when you only consider the White subgroup, it just doesn't make the cut as a top school. Again, it's not doing a bad job with these students, but if we want to be fair, we should be honest with how this school is performing - for affluent White students, it's on par with some mediocre to good high schools, and there is hope that in the long term, it might improve.
Well then it's like I said. If the most affluent kids at Woodrow are still not able to compete with similar kids from Plano et al, then indeed we can point to the educators at that school and question if they are indeed doing the best they can for the students. I call it like I see it. If no kid at that school can compete with similar kids from other schools then it's no longer a question of demographics as I initially thought.
I'm glad you can see that now. Demographic by demographic, the scores don't stack up for Woodrow when being compared to elite publics. Not for white students, poor students, etc. In every demographic bucket, Woodrow scores more like a Tier 2/3 school for white kids (or the greater honors / AP program) and a Tier 4 school for the other 75-80% of the student body.
And from someone whose best friend taught in a Plano Sr feeder until last year, the poor students in Plano come from the same backgrounds as the poor kids in East Dallas: latch-key kids usually with an overwhelmed mom working several shifts and an absent father, parent(s) spend no time working with kids on homework / reading and never show up to parent-teacher conferences, a large portion of non-English speaking parents or ESL, on some scale between malnourished and poor diet of junk food, and sometimes it's so bad at home the electricity is turned off. This doesn't even take into account the poor students in both areas who also battle with abuse, alcohol & drugs, or gang activity in their own homes. Poor isn't any "prettier" in Plano or Frisco or McKinney than it is in East / South/ West Dallas. The edge a poor suburban kid has is *generally* better quality teaching & resources than urban schools, coupled with a completely opposite economic student body (<20% poor vs in suburbs vs <20% affluent in urban schools), which could account for the variance in SAT scores in this demographic.
Although many have referred to "Woodrow boosters," I think every reader of this board recognizes that Woodrow is blessed with the indefatigable efforts of one particular booster, and I'm a little surprised that Lakewooder hasn't turned up yet on this thread. I believe Lakewooder's efforts have put Woodrow in everyone's mind in a way that other comparable schools are not. In a few years of reading here, I don't believe I've ever seen anyone stick up for W. T. White or Hillcrest, or for that matter Plano East, in the same way.
After reading a few dozen of these threads, I can summon up a number of defenses of Woodrow that don't depend on its SAT ranking. I don't even agree with all of them but they are worth considering. In fact, I don't even know if they're all true -- I just think I've read Lakewooder or others make such arguments on the internet.
* Academic preparation is the most important, but not the only important, function of school. Extracurricular sports, arts, and community service are also important, and Woodrow is strong in these areas.
* Because Woodrow has a greater contrast and concentration of wealth and poverty than most other schools, students are more likely to share extracurricular experiences with peers from very different economic class backgrounds, and that is valuable. Ethnic diversity is getting to be common at all economic levels, but real economic diversity within a given school is rare.
* Woodrow is a school with generations of history and tradition, and it's part of a neighborhood, Lakewood, with generations of history and tradition, that most suburban schools lack.
* Woodrow is a rare or sole good "inside the loop" public comprehensive option for the significant number of people who want to live in the city and can't afford HP or privates.
There has been a black/Hispanic achievement gap that policymakers have been trying to address since LBJ. It's beyond the scope of a post here to get into why it might exist, but there is absolutely value in breaking down numbers by subgroups, both to look at successes as well as failures.
pretty obvious to me. I'll simplify as much as possible. The key to reducing the gap is to create boarding schools, where these kids are at for 9 months out of the year...away from the negative influences at home. At these boarding schools, provide mentors who can give the positive role models needed for these kids. Expecting kids to go home from school every day to violence, gangs, drug use and other vices and turn out as NMSFs is crazy. Not going to happen. Oh sure, you will have an outlier here and there who will defy the odds and make it, but for the majority? you will see exactly what we see now. For some reason the nuclear family is broken in the black community. This has had and continues to have a negative effect on the kids not just academically but in all facets of life. Providing some semblance of stability is the only way. Will it work for every single person? no. But I'll bet it would mark a huge improvement over what we currently have.
I don't believe I've ever seen anyone stick up for W. T. White or Hillcrest, or for that matter Plano East, in the same way.
I totally agree with you on this point. Plano East is doing a fabulous job of maximizing the potential for their underprivileged demographics, much better than others but it never gets any recognition for that. Just because Plano West & Plano Senior are outstanding schools, Plano East has to take the back seat. All of their good results aren't coming out of a IB Academy, rest of the school is doing a pretty good job as well.
After reading a few dozen of these threads, I can summon up a number of defenses of Woodrow that don't depend on its SAT ranking. I don't even agree with all of them but they are worth considering. In fact, I don't even know if they're all true -- I just think I've read Lakewooder or others make such arguments on the internet.
The thing is, none of these reasons are "unique" to Woodrow (other than it's long-ago history) and none of them are valid selling points that can be backed up with facts. Most of Lakewooder and other booster's posts are all about emotions and "feelings" that the school is going to become a break-out awesome choice. Let's be clear; I'm not writing about Lakewood Elem or Stonewall Jackson Elem, which for all I can tell ARE great neighborhood choices.....it's when a chunk of the Lakewood kids get shipped off to private or move out of DISD + the other feeder elementaries come together that the wheels fall off.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Walter Benjamin
* Academic preparation is the most important, but not the only important, function of school. Extracurricular sports, arts, and community service are also important, and Woodrow is strong in these areas.
Totally agree that being well-rounded is far more than just academics. But no amount of entertaining Woodrow musicals can make up for the fact that the average Woodrow student taking the SAT doesn't even score at the 25th percentile when stacked against this year's freshman classes at UT-Austin, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, or University of North Texas. They are 200-350 points below the 25th percentile for these schools- yikes! Another overlooked fact is that only 73% of Woodrow seniors took the SAT.....the ones not on the college track are already weeded out. Plus, the "acclaimed" white students don't meet the 25th percentile at UT; they're about 70 points below that benchmark. If they are the cream of the crop of this school (and this schoool is in fact a good one), they should be scoring around the 50th percentile.
Furthermore, almost all schools promote well-roundedness (academics, sports, arts/theatre, and community service). These things are absolutely NOT unique to Woodrow, nor is Woodrow a standout in ANY of these facets of school life. Another fact that is often overlooked.
Let's take academics:
Even within DISD's neighborhood high schools, Woodrow is NOT the highest performing school. The TEA rates the % of seniors who are "college ready" using exit level TAKS (STAAR now) or SAT/ACT. Here is how the north & east Dallas schools rank based on college readines:
1. WT White - 54%
2. Bryan Adams - 51%
3. Hillcrest - 50%
4. Thomas Jefferson - 43%
5. Woodrow - 42%
6. Conrad - 38%
So when it comes to all students, the only school Woodrow can beat is Conrad (which mostly pulls from the really high crime, low income, immigrant filled Vickery Meadow / Five Points neighborhoods in NE Dallas. Woodrow does rank #1 for white students (80% college ready), but the other 80% of the student body suffers.
For economically disadvantaged students, here is the ranking:
1. WT White - 51%
2. Bryan Adams - 50%
3. Thomas Jefferson - 43%
4. Hillcrest - 40%
5. Conrad - 36%
6. Woodrow - 35%
For Hispanic students (the bulk of the population at these schools), here is the ranking:
1. Bryan Adams - 54%
2. WT White - 52%
3. Hillcrest - 47%
4. Thomas Jefferson- 44%
5. Conrad - 43%
6. Woodrow - 37%
So I guess at Woodrow everyone is so concered with being friends with students of different colors and of less affluent backgrounds but not enough people are concerned that these students SERIOUSLY LAG BEHIND their counterparts at every other North & East DISD school....well, they are close to Conrad with economically disadvantaged students, but that is nothing to brag about.....
I found these stats pretty interesting, so I started digging into some of the really crappy DISD schools' TEA report cards. I found that most of them were the same or even better than Woodrow at getting Hispanic & Economically Disadvantaged (ED) kids ready for college. South Dallas' Carter HS has an overall college ready score of 36%, with Hispanics at 44% and ED at 32%. Oak Cliff's Sunset HS has an overall rate of 49%, Hispanics @ 49%, ED @ 50%. Madison HS has an overall 43% readiness score, 47% Hispanic, 46% ED. Only when I got down to Kimball and Wilmer-Hutchins did I find schools who did a worse job than Woodrow. Wow!! Truly, that was eye opening, but facts are facts.
SAT scores were in line with the college-ready results for Hipsanics & ED. Here are the ED scores:
1. Hillcrest - 1260
2. Thomas Jefferson - 1242
3. WT White - 1235
4. Woodrow - 1227
5. Bryan Adams - 1218
And then the "outlier" white student scores (compared to student body), where Woodrow comes in 2nd:
1. Hillcrest - 1612
2. Woodrow - 1599
3. WT White - 1531
4. Bryan Adams - 1439
5. Conrad - 1332
TJ - not enough whites for the score to register.
And remember, we're not even examining Woodrow against competitve high schools; we're comparing it against the bottom 1/3 of schools in the DFW area.
We can play this same "game" with athletics, too, if you'd like:
Woodrow's final ranking in the DMN's DFW area Class 4A football this year was #17, far behind other area schools that also have better academics like HP, Frisco, & Frisco Centennial, in addition to annual urban standouts like Carter and South Oak Cliff. 17 out of about 70 schools isn't bad, but it isn't the glory days of the 1930's like Lakewooder would like us to believe. In football, it seems the team is good enough to make the playoffs in most years, but only wins a playoff game about 2x/decade in recent history.
Woodrow fares better in basketball, ending last year with the #4 DFW rank, right behind DISD's Carter and Lincoln basketball powerhouses.
No ranking at all in Baseball, Soccer, Volleyball, etc in the past year.
In summary, Woodrow seems to have a decent athletic program, although in recent years they have only excelled in basketball in a meaningful way.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Walter Benjamin
* Because Woodrow has a greater contrast and concentration of wealth and poverty than most other schools, students are more likely to share extracurricular experiences with peers from very different economic class backgrounds, and that is valuable. Ethnic diversity is getting to be common at all economic levels, but real economic diversity within a given school is rare.
I assume that these students can share extracurricular experienes with peers from different backgrounds at dozens of area high schools, most of which have better overall academic results than Woodrow. Woodrow is hardly an anomoly in that affluent & less advantaged students of many colors attend the same neighborhood high school --> Richardson ISD's Lake Highlands HS is only 1/3 white and is 45% ED; while Richardson ISD's JJ Pearce HS is about 45% non-white and almost 30% ED. Plano Senior is also 45% non-white and about 13% ED. McKinney HS is also 45% non-white and about 25% ED. All of these areas have a mix of expensive housing ($500k+) with inexpensive multi-family options. Now I haven't read all of their student handbooks, but I would be shocked (sarcasm....) to find out the poor Hispanic students in McKinney aren't allowed to be on the soccer team with the affluent white kids. Or that black girls are not allowed to try out for the Lake Highlands drill team. So, really, it's not hard to find a diverse high school where your kids will mingle with kids from many different backgrounds. DFW is a pretty diverse place!!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Walter Benjamin
* Woodrow is a school with generations of history and tradition, and it's part of a neighborhood, Lakewood, with generations of history and tradition, that most suburban schools lack.
Woodrow had a storied history and many unique tradtions; I won't and can't take that away!
I only quasi-agree that it is a part of the Lakewood neighborhood since Lakewood is only one of 6 elementary schools that feed into Woodrow and a significant chunk of Lakewood Elementary's students don't end up matriculating into the middle or high schools. Geographically, the school is in the Junius Heights neighborhood, right? It's attendance zone extends south past I-30, west to 75, east to the middle of Tennyson Golf Course, and north up to Northwest Highway / Lovers. Not to mention the growing number of students coming from all across the district for the IB program! Can't the dozens of other neighborhoods who feed into Woodrow like Swiss Avenue Historic District, M Streets, Cochran Heights, Munger Place, etc "claim" Woodrow as their own, too? I think if we also had a poster or two who lived in a different part of Woodrow's zone and personal history with the school, we would get a VERY different perspective.
Second, re: suburban schools. Every school was once new, including Woodrow. It certainly takes time to develop a legacy and traditions. But tons of the schools around the metroplex opened before most parents of students that age were born! Plano Senior, Lake Highlands, Richardson ISD, Highland Park, Coppell, Hillcrest, WT White, etc all have long & unique histories. Hillcrest is famous for it's homecoming mums and has a rich history as "Hebrew High" based on its proximity to all the major Jewish temples. Plano Senior was at the center of some of the best high school football games EVER back in the 1970-1980's. I actually learned that Richardson ISD has existed since the 1850s!
Each of these schools has it's own unique homecoming traditions, senior "priveledges", long-time student hangout spots, beloved mascots/drill team/ bands, etc. Even the new high schools are making a mark; it's hard to ignore the success several of the Frisco schools have had in 4A athletics across mulitple sports. Nothing rallies a community's support like an annual football playoff run.
Yes, it would be REALLY difficult to be the first couple of graduating classes in a high school, but aside from a few rapidly growing districts like Frisco, most DFW suburban schools have been open for at a minimum 10-20 years now.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Walter Benjamin
* Woodrow is a rare or sole good "inside the loop" public comprehensive option for the significant number of people who want to live in the city and can't afford HP or privates.
The unwritten phrase behind that sentence is "if you're white." If you're not white, you're actually better off academically at Bryan Adams, WT White, Hillcrest, or TJ when looking inside the 635 Loop. Or Lake Highlands HS.
I'm not going to rehash all the scores & rankings, but I would say after doing this in-depth "research" project on Woodrow, I'm less convinced than ever before that Woodrow is a good public option, even a "decent" one. I don't want to support any school who treats whites like special citizens while their supposed "friends" are struggling with high school academics & college prep more than any other public school north of I-30. The more I look at the numbers, the angrier I got.
I keep repeating this on multiple threads; I'm 110% behind Woodrow's potential. However, POTENTIAL and ACTUAL are two vastly different things. From all my research, Woodrow is an urban school whose biggest recent success has been increasing the graduation rate to 87% (+13% in the past two years). That is a fantastic feat considering 60% of their students are at-risk economically. To become truly attractive, the school needs to win on two fronts: 1) greatly improve the success rate of it's most at-risk students, and 2) provide a challenging & competitive academic environment where the bright students can be pushed to the kinds of success that their alleged "peers" in HP, Coppell, Plano, Flower Mound, etc have (minimum 1.75% of senior class named NMSF, white SAT scores that are in the T15 in DFW, etc).
Great public schools, whether it's just elementary or K-12, are GREAT for neighborhoods, GREAT for home values, and GREAT for the city of Dallas as a whole.
PS - My new year's resolution is to not ever spend this much time on Woodrow Wilson HS again. This exercise has proved it's simply not worth the effort. I'll keep checking the NSMF and whenever the school has .5%, then 1.0%, etc of class making NMSF, it will be time to check back in on a deeper level
Last edited by TurtleCreek80; 12-30-2013 at 12:36 AM..
well I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. If you expect me to give Highland Park High School props for turning out top scores when its students come from 6 and 7 figure income house holds, compared to Woodrow whose kids come from the reduced lunch/esl groups, then it's not going to happen. I would expect Highland Park scores to be some of the highest, certainly much higher than those of Woodrow...it's the equivalent of praising the guy who has a ferrari for winning a race against the other guy with a bicycle. Defies logic in my view. YMMV.
I guess I am just looking at the big picture- which is the best school based on objective criteria: SAT scores, NMSFs, college matriculation. I am not rating schools on how they are doing with "what they got." WW might be doing a fine job educating the kids based on the obstacles they face, but that does not mean it is a "great" school.
My philosophy is consistent with colleges as well. I don't rate UNC as a better college than OU based on the amount of funding from the state, the size of endowments, etc. (resources they receive) Instead, I rate UNC as a top public school based on objective criteria.
Under your philosophy, Tech might be the best public college in Texas since they have less resources than UT and A&M, but still do a pretty good job of educating their students.
TC80, that was an extremely persuasive and thoroughly researched post! Thanks and good luck with the New Year's resolution
Second that!
We all know that the standard "school metrics" we measure (avg SAT score, AP tests, whatever) are heavily influenced by demographics - kids from well-off families on average perform a lot better than kids from disadvantaged backgrounds for a slew of different reasons.
In the end, all we as parents want to know is "how well will MY kid(s), with their particular background/skillset/our parental involvement, etc, do at School X compared to School Y or School Z? What is the BEST choice for my kid?"
I suspect that the differential for any one kid between attending a very good school and a not-very-good school is less than we suspect. Even looking at the differential between Woodrow's "white" students (1599 SAT total) and Plano West's (1715 SAT total), [where we're using race as a proxy for socioeconomic status, which is imperfect but let's just ride with it for now], at least some of that difference is selection bias - parents who put a higher priority on academic achievement including high test scores will seek out Plano West, whereas many of the same parents in the Woodrow feeder will instead choose to send their kids to private schools. Certainly there are parents who prioritize education and are perfectly happy with Woodrow for a variety of reasons, but there's a substantial percentage who aren't.
And all this means that much of the variation in metrics is self-perpetuating. If you can afford it and it's important enough to you, you're going to live in areas with "good schools", as measured by absolute test scores. So areas with "high test scores" attract a more affluent demographic which drives (or keeps up) home prices (yes, there's likely also other biases at play as well, although it looks like less than in the past), which effectively screens out less afluent people, yaddayadda and so on and all that.
Anyway, all discussions that repeat themselves here regularly. Kudos again to TC80 on another great post that attempted to work some apples-to-apples comps of various groups (granted, they may be Braeburns to Fujis to Honeycrisps)
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