How Do Dallas-Area School Districts Stack Up Against the Rest of the World?

In a word: fine. They stack up fine. Yesterday, the George W. Bush Institute released its Global Report Card, which compares math and reading scores internationally. Every school district in the United States is accounted for, then compared to a list of 25 developed countries, mostly in Europe. The scores are from 2009, so recent improvements aren’t taken into account.

Dallas-area districts vary greatly, as is the case with most major metropolitan areas (play around with the New York and Chicago maps to see that statement in action).

After the jump I’ve broken down every Dallas County school district, and select districts from Tarrant, Denton, Collin, and Rockwall counties. The best performing districts are (not surprisingly) Coppell, Highland Park, and Carroll. Lovejoy ISD slides into the top four as well, which is surprising to me because it’s the first time I’ve ever heard of Lovejoy ISD and its 1,300 students.

The worst performing districts: Fort Worth, DeSoto, Dallas. Bringing up the bottom (by a wide margin) is Lancaster ISD.

Jump for 34 districts worth of data goodness:

A few words about the methodology, and the table below. The “xx/yy” numbers are the math score, then the reading score. The number:

indicates the level of math or reading achievement by the average student in a public school district compared to student achievement in a set of 25 developed countries. The score represents the percentage of students in the international group who would have a lower level of achievement. For example, a percentile of 60 means the average student in a school district would perform better than 60% of the students in the international group.

The same methodology applies to the national and state numbers as well. The districts are broken down by county, but since some districts cross into multiple counties, look around for yours.