TAKS Scores Make Sales: Hebron and West

I met a gentleman on the way to Texas Tech recently. We were both taking a child to Lubbock for the freshman year at Tech. He was moving his family to North Texas from Houston and chose his house location based on TAKS results. This is a wise choice.

He found that Hebron High School was ranked Exemplary by the TEA while Plano West was ranked Recognized, so he purchased a home in the Hebron attendance zone. Plano lost a home sale because of TAKS scores!

Hebron High School is a fine school. I have had an opportunity some years ago to visit it and was impressed, but I noticed then that it did not match up to Plano West. But now it truly is ranked Exemplary. Here are the ratings over the years.



You will notice that Plano West has been Recognized 67% of the time and Acceptable 33% of the time. Hebron has been Expemplary 17% of the time and Acceptable 83% of the time, but now is Hebron's time to shine!

Healthy competition makes us stronger. I hope the Plano ISD can study what Hebron H.S. did to move up to Exemplary and make similarly effective improvements.

Robert Canright

PS
You can go to this webpage and click on links to all the TAKS results, 2004 through 2009. Look for the section entitled, "The TAKS: Viewing School Results".

One needs to study the TEA report details to see if the TAKS scores alone make the difference between Exemplary and Recognized, or if other factors are responsible. The data is available online for anyone wishing to study the details.