Highland Park High School and the Dallas school district’s Townview Magnet Center are again among the best public schools in North Texas. That’s according to the education nonprofit Children At Risk, which has ratedsome 1,600 schools across Dallas-Fort Worth.
CEO Bob Sanborn says too often schools with low-income children get low grades on the Children At Risk report card. But his organization found 61 North Texas elementary schools doing exceptionally well – these are schools where at least three quarters of the families are low-income. Sanborn calls them “gold ribbon” schools.
“That’s more than we’ve ever seen before,” Sanborn says. “For some of these schools we’re moving in the right direction. But frankly there are still way too many schools where there are too many kids from these D and F schools. And we’re seeing some turnaround, but we’re not seeing enough turnaround.”
Some of those top Dallas schools include Holland Elementary in Oak Cliff and Sam Houston Elementary in Oak Lawn. Children At Risk rates schools with letter grades and Sanborn says too many Dallas schools are failing its families.
“We found 58 percent of the schools -- this was not good finding -- that got a D or and an F, this is in DISD,” he said. “25 percent got an A or B and 15 percent got a C. As you can see there’s a lot of work to do in this area.”
Some other top high schools include Westlake Academy, Lovejoy High, and among charters, Uplift North Hills Prep.
Find your school’s ranking from last year here. The complete 2016 listing will be posted in early June.
