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Think about it with open mind, why would you be picky about every aspect of the house but when it comes to school district then suddenly top quality is overrated and basic is more than enough.
I never said any such thing. My point is that "top quality" is very tough to discern, and the typical metrics that are used to do it, such as SAT scores, do it very poorly. Obviously, everyone here agrees that great schools are a good thing. I am only pointing out that the typical numbers we use to determine which schools are great are actually more a product of the students in attendance than the quality of the schooling.
In some ways, this should come as a relief to parents: good enough probably is good enough. I'm not advocating sending anyone's kids to truly bad schools, but the notion that school A is better because it has a 1750 average SAT and school B's is only 1675 is silly, particularly if school A has a higher average income and more white kids.
Edit to add:
There is a large amount of self-selection going on here as well. Families who care greatly about education are far more likely to search out schools that they believe offer better education. The result is that test scores go up. Did the school itself improve? Probably not, but the influx of students from high-income, educated families who care about education certainly did make a difference.
I see a lot of threads here where people seem to assume that a school's metrics such as SAT scores and NMSF numbers are indicative of better education quality at that school. I do not believe that is necessarily the case, and I think posters here sometimes reduce something that is inherently complex and difficult to measure down to a few statistics for the purpose of simplicity. The result is an arbitrary ranking or comparison that should mean little to a person trying to decide which district is right for him or her. ...
The bottom line is that parents who are looking for a school for their children must not confuse better metrics at a given school with a higher likelihood that their child is going to perform better at that school.
Agree in general, that people (foolishly) tend to use minute differences in rankings, SAT scores, etc., as a definitive measure of one school or district vs another.
But, will specifically disagree, to the extent that these measures do give a parent a ballpark idea of what schools and districts are likely to provide a "better" education. Top 10-20% of schools ought to be sufficient for any bright child to excel academically.
There are many other factors that go into a child's academic success that don't get / cannot be measured, many/most of which are in the parents' control, as already articulated here... //www.city-data.com/forum/dalla...l#post39180689
I never said any such thing. My point is that "top quality" is very tough to discern, and the typical metrics that are used to do it, such as SAT scores, do it very poorly. Obviously, everyone here agrees that great schools are a good thing. I am only pointing out that the typical numbers we use to determine which schools are great are actually more a product of the students in attendance than the quality of the schooling.
In some ways, this should come as a relief to parents: good enough probably is good enough. I'm not advocating sending anyone's kids to truly bad schools, but the notion that school A is better because it has a 1750 average SAT and school B's is only 1675 is silly, particularly if school A has a higher average income and more white kids.
Edit to add:
There is a large amount of self-selection going on here as well. Families who care greatly about education are far more likely to search out schools that they believe offer better education. The result is that test scores go up. Did the school itself improve? Probably not, but the influx of students from high-income, educated families who care about education certainly did make a difference.
Or, simply put, higher academic achievement correlates with higher socioeconomic status because higher socioeconomic status correlates with higher academic achievement. And yes, lots of self-selection.
The reason Plano gets a lot of props is because its %age economically disadvantaged is low but not very low (low to mid teens for West and Senior IIRC, about 30% I think for East?) but it puts up top notch metrics. Similar thing for Pearce in Richardson. The HPs and Carrolls and Coppells and FMHS's of the world - you expect them to put up great metrics, because you've got kids with parents with scads of resources (not just money, but knowledge and education of their own) who also are pretty likely to prioritize directing those resources towards academics.
My guess is that if you traded out the teachers and staff and administrators at one of the Usual Suspects with those at one of the below-median schools, you'd see some change in performance overall but not much.
As you say, a school that is "good enough" to not impose obstacles on a student looking to succeed is, well, good enough. But as noted, this is Dallas, and we navel-gaze about this even more than most cities.
Or, simply put, higher academic achievement correlates with higher socioeconomic status because higher socioeconomic status correlates with higher academic achievement. And yes, lots of self-selection.
The reason Plano gets a lot of props is because its %age economically disadvantaged is low but not very low (low to mid teens for West and Senior IIRC, about 30% I think for East?) but it puts up top notch metrics. Similar thing for Pearce in Richardson. The HPs and Carrolls and Coppells and FMHS's of the world - you expect them to put up great metrics, because you've got kids with parents with scads of resources (not just money, but knowledge and education of their own) who also are pretty likely to prioritize directing those resources towards academics.
My guess is that if you traded out the teachers and staff and administrators at one of the Usual Suspects with those at one of the below-median schools, you'd see some change in performance overall but not much.
As you say, a school that is "good enough" to not impose obstacles on a student looking to succeed is, well, good enough. But as noted, this is Dallas, and we navel-gaze about this even more than most cities.
Good post. I think I might have some insight on why Plano has been able to do a bit better in these numbers than other districts. I believe Plano has a lot of people who are either first- or second-generation immigrants, many of them Indian. In my past experience as director for a test prep company, we had a very disproportionate number of students who were Indian, and many of them did not necessarily come from families with a lot of money. I really developed a respect for a lot of the families I encountered who lived in either apartments or modest homes but really prioritized their children's education. They would spend several thousand dollars on tutoring, and I knew that their ability to do so was only a result of significant saving and sacrifice. These students invariably went above and beyond in their "homework" outside of tutoring, and they almost always saw significant score improvements. Anyway, I think Plano attracts a lot of folks of that stripe.
Good post. I think I might have some insight on why Plano has been able to do a bit better in these numbers than other districts. I believe Plano has a lot of people who are either first- or second-generation immigrants, many of them Indian. In my past experience as director for a test prep company, we had a very disproportionate number of students who were Indian, and many of them did not necessarily come from families with a lot of money. I really developed a respect for a lot of the families I encountered who lived in either apartments or modest homes but really prioritized their children's education. They would spend several thousand dollars on tutoring, and I knew that their ability to do so was only a result of significant saving and sacrifice. These students invariably went above and beyond in their "homework" outside of tutoring, and they almost always saw significant score improvements. Anyway, I think Plano attracts a lot of folks of that stripe.
Also, the Chinese community in Plano. Similar concept. Strong focus on academics and additional study/coursework (including weekend Chinese school) outside of the baseline provided by the public school.
Which really brings it back to your original point, commonly cited school metrics primarily tell us about the students and their families rather than the educational content provided by the school itself.
Why not? Did you read my post about the Indian families to which I'm referring?
I did. Do you have any evidence that the families were economically disadvantaged, or did you just think that because their addresses were apartments?
Here's the Plano demographic maps for Asians & percent of households earning under $50k. I'd say the correlation between the two groups is incredibly weak at best. The households under $50k are central & East Plano. Asian households are north central and west. In the darkest green areas (census-designated areas over 50% Asian, the income category is between 0-10% and 0-25% earn leass than $50k. So I'm sure there are some poor Asians who live in apartments and get really high scores in school, but they aren't a majority in Plano. The majority of Asian households in Plano are relatively high earners.
However, even if your theory were accurate, Plano has had strong schools since the 1980s-1990s when Plano was a much more generic upper middle class white suburb. The people you are referring to didn't create Plano's strong schools, they are followers who are maintaining its reputation.
Most Indians come here with tech companies or for medical residency and no matter how frugally they live, they are usually pretty well off.
They are usually saving for buying a house, paying off a house, starting a business, cushy retirement and children's college tuition. In their culture they are financially responsible for their parents until they die and kids, until kids get gainfully employed. Many also support poor siblings back in India.
A small percentage seems disadvantaged that probably comes on family visa but it doesn't take them long to become independent. My friend once bought a house from an Indian in NJ, house was immaculate because they only entertained guests upstairs but whole family lived in basement so they can sell house for maximum profit.
I see a lot of threads here where people seem to assume that a school's metrics such as SAT scores and NMSF numbers are indicative of better education quality at that school. I do not believe that is necessarily the case, and I think posters here sometimes reduce something that is inherently complex and difficult to measure down to a few statistics for the purpose of simplicity. The result is an arbitrary ranking or comparison that should mean little to a person trying to decide which district is right for him or her.
Let's take SAT scores and NMSF totals, for example. These two are essentially the same because the PSAT is almost identical to the SAT. Student outcomes on these tests probably tell us almost nothing about the education quality at a given school. These tests are too strongly correlated with things like IQ, income and race (all of which are correlated with each other as well) to assign a major causal role to school quality. If one understands the nature of these tests, that claim isn't surprising. The SAT does not test any advanced concepts. In fact, most juniors or seniors who are good students will be far more likely to have forgotten a concept than to have not yet learned a concept. The SAT is a reasoning test that aims to take content everyone should already know and test it in a way that calls on students to exercise critical and creative thinking. It is no surprise that IQ (a mostly genetic consideration) correlates well with SAT scores, and it is also clear that it makes no sense to chalk a good SAT math score up to having a good math teacher in high school.
My point is simply that many of these metrics correlate too strongly with things like income, race and parental education (again, all of which correlate with each other) to assign a major causal role to school education quality. If you take a given student and place him in Highland Park, is he or she likely to do significantly better on the SAT than he or she would have in Grapevine? Probably not, if we are assuming equal resources to pay for test prep, tutoring, etc. At the end of the day, the information we have available to measure schools simply doesn't allow us to say that one school is the eighth best in the metroplex, whereas another is the fourth, so the latter is a better school. That just isn't justified. We may, however, be able to adjust for demographic information and determine which schools perform surprisingly well relative to the socioeconomic makeup of the student body. That would be an interesting endeavor.
The bottom line is that parents who are looking for a school for their children must not confuse better metrics at a given school with a higher likelihood that their child is going to perform better at that school.
A. I'd generally agree with a good bit of that. Motivated kids are likely to do well across a wide range to good to great schools. The home environment and expectations are key drivers associated with kid's academic success.
2. I'd argue strongly that learning from great math teachers is strongly associated with high math SAT, ACT, PSAT, SAT subject test scores etc.
D. I'd also argue a couple of other points. The SAT/PSAT etc. metrics so often derided as poor indicators of a school's strength remain the best hard metrics we have. Most other "indicators" involve feelings and soft data points such as where graduates attend college.
5. I liken the race for great k-12 schools to team sports. A kid wanting become the best possible soccer player s/he can be should play on the a team of players that are mostly better than s/he is. Competition kicks in - s/he tries hard - and s/he gets better fast. I'd guess most people would agree with me at lest generally.
R. Like it or not graduating well from a great high school helps come college time.
13. Back to 5. Some of it is self-fulling prophecy type stuff - smart/driven/long term thinking kids tend to congregate at certain schools for all kinds of reasons. However, it seems to me some schools set the table for the kids to flourish.
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And yes, lots of self-selection.
