Prosper ISD school rating DROP (Dallas, Plano: home, to buy, high school)

[mastpunjabi]

Just wondering what happened to Prosper ISD school ratings, they dropped drastically, schools that were rated 10 are now 6 or 7 as per greatschool.

The highschool rating has dropped to 5

We were planning to buy home in Prosper ISD but seems very overpriced for the school ratings.

[EDS_]

Originally Posted by mastpunjabi

Just wondering what happened to Prosper ISD school ratings, they dropped drastically, schools that were rated 10 are now 6 or 7 as per greatschool.

The highschool rating has dropped to 5

We were planning to buy home in Prosper ISD but seems very overpriced for the school ratings.

I'd give Greatschools between zero and very little weight. For whatever reasons its algorithm gives some schools false negative ratings. Others will know more.

[mastpunjabi]

No i dont think its there Algorithm. They rated them highly and suddenly TEA - Texas Education Agency dropped the ratings.

https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/pr...gency/3341226/

[EDS_]

Originally Posted by mastpunjabi

No i dont think its there Algorithm. They rated them highly and suddenly TEA - Texas Education Agency dropped the ratings.

https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/pr...gency/3341226/

1. Thanks for the TEA ratings info. I hadn't heard/read any of that.

2. While obviously an anecdote some friends, both really care about education, have three kids in Prosper schools.....they are very happy. If I have it right the kids are in 7th, 10th and 12th.


Good luck.

[Leonard123]

I didn't see anything about TEA's ratings in the posted article other than some districts were afraid of what it may or may not show. Last I saw, the release was still blocked pending court litigation.

[TeamLynn]

Schools are so much more than a great schools rating.
Prosper schools are as impressive as any of the big districts in the area.
Don't make life decisions based on a one number school rating from an organization where you have no idea how they arrive at that number and probably doesn't affect the education of your child anyway.

Just to give you an example, one of my friends kids came here from Vietnam in 8th grade. She went to a not very nice school in Dallas for 9-12. I'd would guess it was rated a 1, if that. (just looked it up and it's a 2/10 overall 1/10 for college readiness.) When she arrived she did not speak a word of English....I mean probably not more than hello. She graduated valedictorian. She was a very good student, but I would say more hard work than natural ability. Normally she was at a desk for 4-5hours a day after school. Probably a good 8 hours on Saturday. Teachers liked her and she probably got more attention because she made effort and studied and was a good student at school.

I think she ended up with a full ride to MIT, studying math or science.

While I would probably prefer to put my kid in Prosper vs this DISD school she was in. Seen plenty of other stories such as hers. The trick is, you put a great kid in a place like Prosper they might rank down in the 25-50%. They're probably not getting in a Texas state school with that ranking. Hello Oklahoma and Arkansas. Probably not getting a full ride either. They're getting to pay full price. Just some food for thought. I am totally out of that ballgame now, so others can probably shed more light on it and give you better advice. I'm just thinking for overall success if you can afford it, and work from home or don't have to travel 2-3 times a week or drive to downtown Dallas I sure would be looking at Prosper as a great place to live and go to school. 2nd choice and probably a bit cheaper is Frisco...a little further down the list is maybe Plano and Celina.
Go visit the schools and talk to the admins....you might get a whole different prospective.

[NP78]

Originally Posted by mastpunjabi

No i dont think its there Algorithm. They rated them highly and suddenly TEA - Texas Education Agency dropped the ratings.

https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/pr...gency/3341226/

The only thing less useful in evaluating schools than GreatSchools are the TEA letter grades.

You can look into individual schools test scores, demographics, and other relevant data and make your own conclusions from the TEA site: https://rptsvr1.tea.texas.gov/perfre...022/index.html

They don't have the 22-23 reports posted yet, but it is unlikely that Prosper saw a dramatic drop in actual performance between 21-22 and 22-23 (even if TEA grades it differently).

[aggie972]

I like schooldigger.com better than Great Schools for aggregating data and attempting to rank schools based on that data.

[TheOverdog]

You can look into individual schools test scores, demographics, and other relevant data and make your own conclusions from the TEA site: https://rptsvr1.tea.texas.gov/perfre...022/index.html

This. The TEA grade scoring methodology is terrible. And I'm sure TEA scores, along with MAP, and STAAR, due to the school-from-home year in 2021 have fallen. It's still having effects. I'm sure Prosper is still fine as a school.

[Wittgenstein's Ghost]

Originally Posted by mastpunjabi

No i dont think its there Algorithm. They rated them highly and suddenly TEA - Texas Education Agency dropped the ratings.

https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/pr...gency/3341226/

Per your link, it is the algorithm, at least with the TEA grades:

The TEA says they're changing the way they grade, something they do every year. But the changes are more drastic this year and retroactive to the last school year.

So much so that Dallas ISD estimates it will cause 42 schools in the district to drop two letter grades despite improving metrics on STARR and other measures of growth.



Greatschools and TEA are separate grades, though. Greatschools is mostly garbage, and it's become so "equity" focused that it's useless. Right now, Greatschools rates Prosper High School as having a 9/10 test scores rating. But its "Student Progress" category is 3/10, which is what is bringing the overall rating down. But if kids are doing extremely well on tests, is the fact that they are improving at those same tests at a lower rate than other students in the state a mark against the school, or is it just a reflection of the reality that kids who are already doing really well are less likely to improve as much as kids who are doing poorly?

Greatschools' Equity metric is total garbage, too. Either schools don't have enough minorities to even have this portion count or wealthy schools with wealthy minorities look like superstars. Southlake Carroll of all places has a 10/10 for Equity, for example. It's a metric that rewards having high-achieving, wealthy minority families instead of poor black kids. The problem is that the data are presented as though a fair comparison is being made, and this mumbo jumbo gets 20% weighting (test scores themselves only get 21%!). Student progress gets 34%, and college readiness gets 24%.

If you think through some of these factors, you get a clear picture that Greatschools is very bottom-oriented: Significant weight goes toward things like graduation rates (most parents in good districts aren't concerned about whether their kid will graduate), student progress (which favors lower starting points) and equity (which doesn't even measure the thing it's supposed to measure very well).

My opinion is that Greatschools does a terrible job of measuring the effect of the school itself and is therefore no better than just looking at outputs (test scores). I would look at test scores to get an idea of whether I think the school has students performing at a sufficient level, and then I'd do a more qualitative assesment of the school's offerings and culture and pick the one that fits my goals for my kid and my kid's preferences.