Good Judgment
I READ ABOUT YOUR DECISION TO STOP THE DIStribution of D Magazine because of unacceptable advertising. 1 applaud you for such a courageous decision and am proud to be a subscriher to a magazine with a “stand up” publisher. Thanks for your efforts to make Dallas a better place to live.
TEDDIE GARRIGAN
President. Seaborn Communications
I JUST WANTED TO LET YOU KNOW THAT AS AN advertiser, I appreciate your commitment to integrity. I was so pleased to read that you recalled and reprinted the September issue because an ad was questionable. With decisions like that, you can count on our support.
BARB MITCHELL
Vice President of Marketing
GroceryWorks .com
I APPRECIATE YOUR WILLINGNESS TO MAKE A lough decision. We have a responsibility to make the world we live in a better place. Thanks for doing it.
VlNCE PUENTE SR.
Southwest Office Systems
AS A FORMER REPORTER AND PUBLIC RELAtions counselor, allow me to say thanks. All of us who are concerned about the coarsening of our society owe you a great debt.
CHRIS KLOSE
Washington. DC.
I HOPE OTHER MAGAZINES FOLLOW YOUR example. Thank you for your courage. I’m sure you’ve gotten a lot of flack.
SUSAN PRICE
Dallas
WE APPRECIATE YOUR CONCERN FOR THE quality of your product. Do these companies think they are appealing to consumers’ tastes?
BRIAN AND MICHELLE BUTLER
Dallas
EDITOR’S RESPONSE: Our thanks to the many, many readers who wrote or e-mailed their support. Please send in those subscription renewals. We need the money.
Check Your Facts
AS SUPERINTENDENT OF THE MANSFIELD Independent School District, let me assure you that your readership is alive and well in our school community. We have heard from many of them regarding your article, “Our Best Public High Schools,” that states Mansfield High School does not offer AP classes.
Mansfield High School does indeed offer AP classes, and approximately 17 percent of our students participate in them. Additionally, our qualifying students have the opportunity to take dual-credit classes at Tarrant County College Southeast Campus, allowing them to earn high school and college credits concurrently. MHS is especially proud to be the only high school in the state to have been selected as a Texas Mentor High School for two consecutive terms, an honor based on innovative learning opportunities for our students.
Vernon Newsom
Superintendent of Schools
Mansfield ISD
FIRST, LET ME CONGRATULATE YOU ON WRIT-
ing an article about high schools and the AP program. I am the principal of Rowlett High School. We were selected by Newsweek last year as one of the top high schools based on the number of our students who are not only enrolled in APclasses, but who also take the AP exam. Last year, we had the greatest number of students take the test in our district, with 264 students taking the tests and 548 individual tests administered.
Since our students are on the trimester schedule, not all of our students begin their AP course at the beginning of the school year. The trimester is a three-term year and some begin first term and end second; others may begin an AP course during second term, and others, if it is a one-term course such as AP government and AP psychology, may not have these courses until third term.
I believe your numbers are incorrect. Once again, I applaud your efforts to communicate information regarding the AP program and believe that you would like to base your information on correct statistics.
MARLENE CARTER, ED. D.
Garland ISD
your article about the best public high schools was based on the percentage of students enrolled in the AP program, based on the theory that AP classes cannot be dumbed down and they prepare students for the college experience. I would like to point out thai the AP program is not the only college prep program in our public schools, and basing the “best schools” on AP enrollment is flawed. Another more rigorous program in schools like North Garland and Piano East, called International Baccalaureate (IB), prepares students for college even more thoroughly. perhaps, than the AP program. It should be taken into consideration of the best schools in the area along with the AP program.
MEGAN SMITH
Piano
IN YOUR ARTICLE ABOUT THE BEST PUBLIC HIGH schools, we reported the number of students taking AP courses as 1080, which is 38 percent. Marcus High School should be ranked fifth according to the data you used for ranking, i.e. the percentage of students taking AP courses. The number reported in your article was 601. This was the same as Lewisville High School, another high school in our district. GALE LADEHOFF
Lead Counselor, Marcus High School
Having just read your article about “The Best Public High Schools,” and being a high school teacher of 13 years myself, I am compelled to respond to this very poor article.
The article implies that taking AP courses is the only way to gauge whether or not a high school is good or bad. But what about all of the extracurricular activities offered in a typical high school, such as band, athletics, Academic Decathlon, student council, etc., all of which help to prepare a student , for a college curriculum and college life? Your article relegates all other programs to being secondary. What about our Gifted and Talented students? Many will say that the needs of these students are met through the AP program, but to anyone with GT training, this is not the case. These students learn differently from others, and AP, while in itself a great program, has a set curriculum that must be followed, does not allow for differentiation, and does not allow for in-depth exploration by a student who may be interested in a particular topic.
I would not send my daughter or son to about half of those schools, including the top one on the list. Cedar Hill. I have taught in the DeSoto ISD, and now in the Red Oak ISD, and I know the reputation of all of the school districts around here. There is much more to a high school than just AP, and I would have thought your editors would realize this. If you are simply going for sensational journalism, then you have succeeded. If you really want to figure out which schools are the best, do some more research.
James Herrod
Physics, IPC. Academic Decathlon Coach Red Oak High School
I’M WRITING IN RESPONSE TO THE COMMENT
made by a suburban superintendent about how embarrassing it was to be ranked lower than Bryan Adams, considering where they came from. What’s that supposed to mean? If he means that living in a suburb makes one smarter and more likely to perform better on national examinations, I would have to say that is absurd.
TED C. HOWARD
Dallas
