Racism in the 'burbs? reality or myth (Dallas, Plano: appointed, apartment complex)

[Acntx]

Originally Posted by TXRebel

I am not sure how nice Desoto and Lancaster are, but I believe both have a significant African American population.

Both are middle class communities with nice neighborhoods and housing typical of that found in other DFW area suburbs. African Americans are a majority of the population in both cities, although there are sizable numbers of Whites, Hispanics, and other ethnicities. Cedar Hill is quite diverse as well. While they are smaller than many of the suburbs north of Dallas, they are among the fastest growing cities in Dallas County. I've lived in this area for much of my life without any real racial issues.

To the OP: Just as your family would be welcomed in most northern suburb neighborhoods, the same can be said for those suburbs located to the east and south of Dallas.

[txgolfer130]

Originally Posted by Big G

OK, who had "6" in the "number of posts before Lakewooder chimes in to denigrate the suburbs" pool?

Must have been slacking...I for sure thought "2" or at the least "3".

[FarNorthDallas]

Ironically, I live in the city of Dallas and my street and neighborhood is almost exclusively white.

The problem with Lancaster is the schools are extraordinarily bad, probably worse than Dallas ISD schools.

[Acntx]

Originally Posted by FarNorthDallas

The problem with Lancaster is the schools are extraordinarily bad, probably worse than Dallas ISD schools.

Thats your opinion. I wasn't even recommending the southern suburbs to the OP as a place to look because they seem set on Plano, Frisco, Allen, etc. I was just trying to describe the area to TXRebel. Speaking as someone who has a brother attending Lancaster schools, you can get a good education there. He's a senior and is doing quite well. In the end, I doubt that the colleges/universities he is applying to are going to care more about the TAKS rating that a school/district receives than how well he performed individually throughout his four years of high school. Lancaster schools aren't all "extraordinarily bad." There is room for improvement, especially at the middle school, but the elementary schools are fine and the high school has made significant progress in recent years. A motivated student with involved parents and good teachers will do well here just like anywhere else in the area. Schools in the southern suburbs are always looked down upon, no matter how well they do or any achievements they make. Sadly, demographics play a defining role in the perception of a school as well. Even when parents and relatives closely involved with schools in the area say that they are satisfied with the level of education their child/relative is getting, its never enough.

Lancaster and the other southern suburbs are still nice communities. Just because we choose to live outside of the "it" suburb/school district of the moment doesn't mean that there are many positives about our cities.

[FarNorthDallas]

Find Lancaster High on this list:
Dallas, Texas Area School Information: Class of 2008 - Percent of AP Tests Passed by Students - Listed by High School

Find Lancaster High on this list:
Dallas, Texas Area School Information: 2008 Dallas Area School Districts SAT Averages

How does Lancaster ISD rate on these other lists?
Dallas, Texas Area School Information: November 2009

No matter which stats you look at Lancaster ISD doesn't come out looking very good.

[Acntx]

Originally Posted by FarNorthDallas

Find Lancaster High on this list:
Dallas, Texas Area School Information: Class of 2008 - Percent of AP Tests Passed by Students - Listed by High School

Find Lancaster High on this list:
Dallas, Texas Area School Information: 2008 Dallas Area School Districts SAT Averages

How does Lancaster ISD rate on these other lists?
Dallas, Texas Area School Information: November 2009

No matter which stats you look at Lancaster ISD doesn't come out looking very good.

Again, you have the right to your opinion. I have first hand knowledge about what goes on here. I don't want to turn this thread into one about Lancaster ISD when I was just describing the cities of DeSoto and Lancaster to TXRebel based on an earlier comment. I didn't recommend even looking at the communities south of Dallas. All I said was that the OP would be welcomed in other communities outside of the northern suburbs as well. The OP was asking about northern suburb school districts, those labeled "good" and recommended day-after-day-after-day by the many residents living in those communities who post here. As the ONLY regular poster from Lancaster, I only recommend my city or any of the other suburbs to those people in which the option would be a viable one. It wasn't in this case, so I didn't do it.

No matter how you feel about a particular school district, kids in McKinney, Frisco, or Plano are no better than those in Lancaster, DeSoto, Dallas, or any other district. The focus always seems to be on a district as a whole without examining schools individually. Its easy to just say that Lancaster schools are "extraordinarily bad" instead of taking the time to examine each of its nine individual campuses that serve around 6,000 students. Dallas schools are judged this way, along with suburban districts like Irving and Grand Prairie, as if there are no good schools in any of them, which is false.

I've always been polite on this forum and try to shy away from some of the more controversial or heated threads, but when there is something said about my community that I disagree with, I will continue to express my opinion in a respectful manner. I don't like to get into arguments with other poster's on this forum because we are all here to help newcomers to the area and share our opinions with them.

[FarNorthDallas]

I totally agree with you that there are plenty of good areas in the southern half to live in. I know folks who live all over the place in the southern sector and are happy - they are in Cedar Hill, Lancaster, Red Oak, Waxahachie, Mansfield, Midlothian, Duncanville, DeSoto, Pleasant Grove, Glenn Heights, Ovilla, Oak Cliff so I totally agree with you that any relocators would be welcome in any of those communities. No doubt in my mind.

[Lakewooder]

Believe me I know about all schools being judged by the district. There's a post in the DMN today about how somebody heard that all you have to do to get an "A" at North Dallas High School is to show up; ergo the whole DISD "is messed up". I used to hear that from people in Lake Highlands back in the 70s "Oh I make 'B's at LHHS but if I went Woodrow I would probably make straight 'A's". Little did they know we had a super competitive group and for rankings they had to go back to elementary school grades. One guy in our class finished top in his class at the Naval Academy and he came in 17th in our class of approximately 250.

Anyhow, some of this talk is just so amazingly similar to those days -- such as this post from another thread:

Originally Posted by Big G

Sort of.

First off, the black population and how it gets distributed, as far as I know, has never been an issue at all.

If you want to believe it's race-related, at least refer to the correct race. From that viewpoint, it's all about the Hispanics, in particular the ESL kids.

My personal view is that it's all about the Benjamins. Richer people don't want to go to school with poorer people, if they can help it.

Since the original story broke, the school board has gone in a dramatically different direction, so much of the original debate is moot.


Anyway, here's the backstory :

Under some of the original proposals, Williams HS would have had a much larger number of both Hispanics and economically disadvantaged (i.e. "poor") kids, compared to McMillen HS. It would not have been mostly poor and Hispanic (c'mon, this is still Plano), but there would have been a significant underclass at Williams.

Under other proposals, the two high schools would have had more evenly balanced numbers of Hispanics and poor kids, relative to each other.

The main problems with those other proposals were
1) the boundaries were gerrymandered, at least to a degree; and
2) the balancing would occur ONLY between those two schools. Other PISD schools, such as Jasper and Shepton, would continue to have both very few Hispanics and very few poor kids.

The PISD board received a legal opinion that any boundary decision being made for the purpose of socio-economic integration would have to be applied across the entire district, not just the east side.

The board had no appetite for that (rightfully so IMO), so then they were back to using proximity for the boundaries.

This is where they got creative. The board has (well, not officially, but almost certainly) decided to just close Williams HS altogether, and open it at a later date as a magnet school.

What does that have to do with the price of bananas? Well, by wiping that school off the map, the "closest schools" for the poor and Hispanic populations can be redefined. The kids who would have been at Williams can be split between two other high schools (McMillen and Clark) without having to call it socio-economic engineering. They're now just attending their closest school, several miles away.

Never mind that huge building just down the street. That's no longer a regular high school. The board has managed to spread the (lack of) wealth across two of the high schools, while leaving the other 3 unchanged, in a manner that can (probably) withstand legal challenge. Of course, there's the whole issue of what happened to that 6th high school the voters approved.

That's the Cliff's Notes version. I left out a lot of details and an entire political subplot. You can look up the postings of my much more antagonistic and ridiculously over-the-top alter ego on the DMN blogs for all that.


Ironically, the supposed "racists" in this equation are the people of the PISD portions of Murphy and Richardson, who were, again supposedly, trying to avoid having to go to school with residents of east Plano. So it's non-Plano residents giving the city a bad name.

From my vast experience of 35 years, I can tell you that this is the turning point where most people will not want to investigate, visit, peruse, reason or any of that...they will just see a jumble of words and think "NO".

[Big G]

Originally Posted by Lakewooder

I'm sure you are aware however that a large portion of people moved to those places originally to avoid sending their kids to school with minorities.

Really? When? 1972? I seriously doubt that any of the OPs peer group - those with children born in this decade - were part of any "white flight" movement.

I would guess 80%+ of Plano's current population moved there in the 1980s, 1990s or 2000s.

[Lakewooder]

I don't really remember a lot of people complaining about Plano until one of my marketing professors called it 'the tundra' in about 1979. I think that was the same year the EDS Real Estate VP came out to our SMU Real Estate Development class and outlined their plans to create a corporate 'campus' up in Plano. He said it was because all the schools in Dallas were bad. Unfortunately for him about 1/3 of the class graduated from DISD schools - Hillcrest, White, Sunset and there were four of us from Woodrow. We took him to task and he turned beet red.

I remember driving out to "Willow Bend" as late as the mid-1980s and there were still country roads with flashing red lights and stop signs.