Austin Schools Search Austin Real Estate

One of the most frequently questions I get as a realtor is about Austin schools. Parents moving to Austin want to know what kind of school their child will be going to after their house purchase. Additionally investors or buyers interested in resale are interested because they realize the school district will play a role in their ability to sell their house. Below is how different high schools in the Austin area faired with the SAT; it includes: their main Austin MLS areas, a link to the TEA full data set from the Texas Education Agency, the percent of students who took the SAT, and their average test score. The TEA full data set link provides other test score statistics like the ACT, TASP, etc; it's a little overwhelming. I realize that some people don't like the standarized tests and feel they are biased and/or they are a poor indicator of future success. I tend to agree. And if we had a device to look into the hearts and minds of the students at these schools it would be much better. But their isn't so instead here are a bunch of test scores. They are ranked by SAT performance (out of 1600 as best). High School Austin MLS areas Percent that took SAT ( 2002) Average SAT Score(2002) Percent that took SAT ( 2004) Average SAT Score(2004) Westlake (Eanes ISD) 8e,8w 99.4% 1168 98.6% 1186 Anderson (Austin ISD) 1a, 1n 78.5% 1119 82.5% 1124 Austin (Austin ISD) 1b, 6,7,sw,w 84.3% 1116 77.9% 1147 McCallum 1a,1b,2,4 72.2% 1095 69.6% 1107 Bowie (Austin ISD) 10,sw,w 80.3% 1045 85.7% 1063 Crockett (Austin ISD) 10 52% 916 61.6% 947 Akins (Austin ISD) 10, 11, sc, sw 52.5% 954 50.2% 927 Gonzalo Garza Independence (Austin ISD)   28.7% 1013 -- 955 Manor (Manor ISD) 3E, MA, NE   905 Travis (Austin ISD) 10, 11, 6 31.1% 867 53.2% 848 Lanier (Austin ISD) 2, 2n 50% 856 55.9% 846 Reagan (Austin ISD) 3,5,ne 42% 779 53.9% 774 Johnston (Austin ISD) 11, 5 53.4% 1020 -- 753 What does unacceptable, acceptable, or exemplary mean. The short answer is not much. Take Anderson in 2006 Anderson was rated as one of the top schools in America by Newsweek. But was given a rate of unacceptable by Texas. What happened. Well the way Texas ranks schools is it breaks the students into multiple categories and the groups are given ratings. The lowest rated group determines the school ratings. So at Anderson the subgroup of special education students who are given an alternate form of the test received a rating of unacceptable rating and therefore the entire school receives a rating of unacceptable even if other groups were rated as exemplary. By comparison a school where all the categories of students received acceptable would be given a rating of acceptable. Even though if you compared the average of the two schools Anderson would score much higher. Basically the accountability ratings are used to alter behavior. So that schools don't discount or ignore certain categories of students. While that is a noble goal, it makes the ratings less helpful for parents trying to discover the general strengths or weaknesses of different schools in a school district. With that warning, here are 2005 accountability ratings. (Note if you click on the school you can see more in depth testing data) ACCOUNTABILITY RATINGS CAMPUS RATING: NUMBER OF SCHOOLS EXEMPLARY 4 RECOGNIZED 17 ACADEMICALLY ACCEPTABLE 75 ACADEMICALLY UNACCEPTABLE 7 AEA: ACADEMICALLY ACCEPTABLE 3 AEA: ACADEMICALLY UNACCEPTABLE 0 NOT RATED: OTHER 5 TOTAL 111 _______________________________________________________________________________________________ Ok so if you skipped all the data. What is my short opinion of the schools. Westlake used to have the reputation as the far and away the best school in Austin. Westlake was kind of the original and most expensive suburb of Austin. As people have started moving central other schools have risen to compete with Westlake. These include Anderson, Austin and Mccallum. Bowie and Johnston are in the next tier of schools. The rest of the schools are in the bottom.