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Best School Districts in Greater Dallas Area

All public schools and school districts in Texas are rated annually by the Texas Education Agency (TEA) as exemplary, recognized, academically acceptable or academically unacceptable. As described on this TEA accountability rating guidelines page, both school district and campus ratings are based on the results of the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS). Additionally, districts and their campuses which serve grades 9 through 12 are evaluated on the completion rate of their previous year senior class and campuses which serve grades 7 and 8 are evaluated on their previous school year dropout rate. In awarding 2010 accountability ratings, the TEA additionally used Texas Projection Measure, Required Improvement and/or Exceptions Provision rating rating improvement standards, where applicable, to increase both district and campus ratings to the next higher rating than school or district would have been awarded if the improvement standard(s) had not been applied.

Only three Dallas Fort Worth school districts, Argyle Independent School District, Carroll Independent School District and Highland Park Independent School District, achieved exemplary ratings for the 2009-2010 school year based solely by meeting all of the TEA's performance standards and also had all campuses within their districts similarly achieve exemplary ratings without any ratings boost. These three school districts top this 2010 ranking of the best school districts in the DFW metroplex.



Top 10 Dallas / Fort Worth school districts


   
average campus accountability rating index
number of campuses rated
1
Argyle Independent School District
3.00
4
1
Carroll Independent School District
3.00
11
1
Highland Park Independent School District
3.00
7
4
Lovejoy Independent School District
3.00
5
5
Sunnyvale Independent School District
2.85
3
6
Coppell Independent School District
2.78
14
7
Melissa Independent School District
2.77
4
8
Allen Independent School District
2.68
20
9
Frisco Independent School District
2.60
42
10
Joshua Independent School District
2.35
7

District rankings and accountability ratings and campus accountability rating information for school districts located in the DFW metroplex are shown at the bottom of this page. Also provided below is a description of the methodology used to develop the average campus accountability rating points on which this ranking of Dallas area school districts is based.


School districts serving the northwest Dallas suburbs

Many of school districts in the DFW metroplex have campuses in more than one city or town. The Lewisville Independent School District, for example, serves not only the seven northwest Dallas suburbs listed in the table below, but also Lewisville, Carrollton, and The Colony. A question I hear frequently is how to do the schools that serve the northwest Dallas suburbs compare to other schools in the metroplex. As is shown below and discussed further on this Northwest Dallas Public Schools page, if the following school districts had campuses only in the northwest Dallas suburbs listed, most would rank among the best school districts in the DFW metroplex.


   
average campus accountability rating index
northwest Dallas suburbs served
1
Argyle Independent School District
3.00
Argyle, Bartonville, Flower Mound
1
Carroll Independent School District
3.00
Southlake, Grapevine, Westlake
6
Coppell Independent School District
2.77
Coppell
7
Frisco Independent School District
2.76
southwest Frisco, west Plano
9
Lewisville Independent School District
2.62
Flower Mound, Highland Village, Coppell, Copper Canyon, Double Oak, southwest Frisco, west Plano
11
Keller Independent School District
2.42
Keller, Southlake, Westlake
15
Northwest Independent School District
2.27
Trophy Club, Southlake, Flower Mound, Keller
21
Plano Independent School District
1.90
west Plano, southwest Frisco
22
Grapevine-Colleyville Independent School District
1.88
Colleyville, Grapevine

Further evidence of the high quality of schools in the northwest Dallas suburbs featured on this website is that ten of the top 20 public high schools in the DFW metroplex are located in this area, as shown on this Best Dallas / Fort Worth public high schools page.


School districts serving the DFW metroplex

This table shows district and individual campus rating information for 52 independent school districts that operate public schools attended by students living in the greater Dallas Fort Worth area.

     
number of campuses rated
 

district rating
average campus accountability
rating index

exemplary

recognized
academically
acceptable
academically
unacceptable
Allen ISD
Exemplary
2.68
18
2
 
Anna ISD
Recognized3
1.73
1
3
Argyle ISD
Exemplary
3.00
4
 
Arlington ISD
Recognized3
1.27
8
31
29
Azle ISD
Recognized3
1.81
3
6
1
 
Birdville ISD
Academically Acceptable
1.46
11
15
5
 
Burleson ISD
Recognized3
1.55
7
2
4
Carroll ISD
Exemplary
3.00
11
     
Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD
Academically Acceptable
1.93
16
17
4
1
Castleberry ISD
Recognized1
1.58
1
2
2
Cedar Hill ISD
Academically Acceptable
1.55
3
7
4
 
Celina ISD
Exemplary1
2.10
3
1
 
Coppell ISD
Exemplary1
2.78
13
1
   
Crowley ISD
Academically Unacceptable
1.00
 
9
8
2
Dallas ISD
Academically Acceptable
1.57
63
62
84
15
Denton ISD
Recognized3
1.69
13
13
3
 
DeSoto ISD
Recognized3
1.47
3
6
3
Duncanville ISD
Academically Acceptable
1.56
7
6
3
 
Eagle Mountain-Saginaw ISD
Recognized2
1.65
7
9
4
Everman ISD
Recognized1
1.30
4
1
3
Fort Worth ISD
Academically Acceptable
1.07
12
37
62
5
Frisco ISD
Exemplary
2.60
37
5
 
Garland ISD
Recognized2
1.75
28
33
5
 
Godley ISD
Recognized3
1.29
4
Grand Prairie ISD
Recognized2
1.79
15
17
5
Grapevine-Colleyville ISD
Recognized
1.88
9
5
3
 
Highland Park ISD
Exemplary
3.00
7
     
Hurst-Euless-Bedford ISD
Recognized
2.25
19
6
1
 
Irving ISD
Academically Acceptable
1.30
2
19
10
 
Joshua ISD
Recognized
2.35
5
2
Keller ISD
Recognized
2.16
24
8
3
 
Kennedale ISD
Academically Acceptable
1.77
2
2
1
 
Lake Dallas ISD
Recognized2
1.67
1
4
 
Lake Worth ISD
Academically Acceptable
1.04
4
2
Lancaster ISD
Academically Acceptable
0.88
2
7
Lewisville ISD
Recognized2
2.29
38
20
2
 
Little Elm ISD
Recognized2
1.87
5
3
1
 
Lovejoy ISD
Exemplary1
3.00
5
   
Mansfield ISD
Recognized2
1.66
11
22
4
McKinney ISD
Recognized2
1.79
10
16
1
Mellisa ISD
Exemplary1
2.77
4
   
Mesquite ISD
Recognized2
1.61
15
27
3
 
Northwest ISD
Recognized2
2.13
12
7
 
Plano ISD
Recognized
2.13
34
26
4
Prosper ISD
Exemplary1
2.10
3
2
Red Oak ISD
Recognized1
1.70
3
4
 
Richardson ISD
Recognized
2.28
42
11
 
Rockwall ISD
Recognized2
2.10
12
5
 
Springtown ISD
Recognized3
0.92
2
3
Sunnyvale ISD
Exemplary2
2.85
3
   
White Settlement ISD
Academically Acceptable
1.46
4
2
2
Wylie ISD
Recognized
1.92
9
8
 
 
Benefited from r ating improvement standard(s) to increase accountability rating
1Texas Projection Measure
2Required Improvement
3Both Texas Projection Measure and Required Improvement


Methodology


Texas Education Agency (TEA) campus accountability ratings for the 2009-2010 school year were used in this evaluation and ranking of Dallas area school districts. While using a single factor to rank the school districts might be considered a somewhat simplistic approach, the criteria used by the TEA to award these accountability ratings are comprehensive and applied in a consistently manner to measure the performance of all public schools in the state of Texas. These ratings have the added virtue of being readily available.

To develop the average campus accountability rating points used to rank the school districts, each campus with an exemplary rating was awarded three points, a recognized rating merited two points, an academically acceptable rating was given one point and an academically unacceptable rating received zero points, provided the school earned its rating based solely on its performance as measured against the TEA's accountability ratings standards. If the accountability rating was increased from what it otherwise would have been as a result of applying Texas Projection Measure, Required Improvement or the Exceptions Provisions rating improvement standard, the points awarded were reduced by 0.5 point. If a school was awarded a higher rating based on application of two of these improvement standards, the points awarded were reduced by 0.8 point. If all three rating improvement standards were required for a school to receive a higher rating, the point reduction was 0.9 point.

All rated campuses within each school district were then grouped by school type and an adjusted average campus accountability rating point total for all campus types calculated. Next, the average adjusted rating points for each campus type was weighted by first multiplying the number of grades being taught by that campus type and then dividing by the number of grades taught in that district. The weighted average rating points of all campus types were then added together to derive the district's average campus accountability rating index.


Source: Texas Education Agency


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