Best School Districts in 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 2011 accountability ratings, the TEA additionally used 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. Accountability ratings for 2011-2012 were not issued by the TEA due to development of a new state and federal accountability system that is being implemented in 2013.

Only two Dallas Fort Worth public school districts, Highland Park ISD, which serves most the park cities, and Lovejoy ISD achieved exemplary ratings for the 2010-2011 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 two school districts top this 2011 ranking of the best public school districts in the DFW metroplex.

As might be expected, many of DFW's best known private schools have chosen over the years to locate their campuses in the north Dallas area. While there are private schools located in the northwest Dallas suburbs, they are not nearly as numerous as in north Dallas. These private schools are not evaluated or rated by the TEA.

Top 10 Dallas Fort Worth public school districts

		average campus accountability rating index	number of campuses rated
1	Highland Park Independent School District	3.00	7
1	Lovejoy Independent School District	3.00	5
3	Sunnyvale Independent School District	3.00	3
4	Carroll Independent School District	2.92	11
5	Frisco Independent School District	2.50	48
6	Coppell Independent School District	2.49	14
7	Allen Independent School District	2.34	21
8	Argyle Independent School District	2.23	4
9	Prosper Independent School District	2.21	6
10	Lewisville Independent School District	2.04	62

Public 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
4	Carroll Independent School District	2.92	Southlake, Grapevine, Westlake
5	Coppell Independent School District	2.47	Coppell
6	Lewisville Independent School District	2.46	Flower Mound, Highland Village, Coppell, Copper Canyon, Double Oak, southwest Frisco, west Plano
8	Frisco Independent School District	2.44	southwest Frisco, west Plano
9	Keller Independent School District	2.38	Keller, Southlake, Westlake
11	Northwest Independent School District	2.31	Trophy Club, Southlake, Flower Mound, Keller
12	Argyle Independent School District	2.23	Argyle, Bartonville, Flower Mound
17	Grapevine-Colleyville Independent School District	1.88	Colleyville, Grapevine
21	Plano Independent School District	1.69	west Plano, southwest Frisco

Public 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	Recognized	2.34	12	9
Anna ISD	Recognized1	1.46	1	2	1
Argyle ISD	Recognized	2.23	3		1
Arlington ISD	Academically Acceptable	0.98	2	22	39	5
Azle ISD	Academically Acceptable	1.57	1	6	3
Birdville ISD	Academically Acceptable	1.23	4	14	11	2
Burleson ISD	Academically Acceptable	1.58	3	6	5
Carroll ISD	Exemplary	2.92	11
Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD	Recognized	1.86	12	19	6
Castleberry ISD	Academically Acceptable	1.46	1	1	3
Cedar Hill ISD	Recognized3	1.62	3	5	6
Celina ISD	Recognized2	1.54	2	2
Coppell ISD	Recognized	2.49	9	5
Crowley ISD	Academically Acceptable	0.85		4	12	5
Dallas ISD	Academically Acceptable	1.20	30	69	91	33
Denton ISD	Academically Acceptable	1.54	8	13	9
DeSoto ISD	Academically Acceptable	1.31	1	6	5
Duncanville ISD	Academically Acceptable	1.12		9	7
Eagle Mountain-Saginaw ISD	Academically Acceptable	1.24	3	12	5	1
Everman ISD	Academically Acceptable	1.31	3	1	3	1
Fort Worth ISD	Academically Acceptable2	0.88	6	33	61	21
Frisco ISD	Exemplary2	2.50	34	14
Garland ISD	Academically Acceptable	1.59	17	34	14	2
Godley ISD	Recognized	1.85		3	1
Grand Prairie ISD	Academically Acceptable	1.38	7	15	9	4
Grapevine-Colleyville ISD	Recognized	1.88	10	3	4
Highland Park ISD	Exemplary	3.00	7
Hurst-Euless-Bedford ISD	Recognized	1.98	9	15	2
Irving ISD	Academically Acceptable	1.05	1	12	20
Joshua ISD	Recognized	1.48	1	4	3
Keller ISD	Academically Acceptable	1.74	11	15	9	1
Kennedale ISD	Recognized2	1.52		4	1
Lake Dallas ISD	Recognized	1.85	1	3	1
Lake Worth ISD	Academically Acceptable2	0.41			5	1
Lancaster ISD	Academically Acceptable	1.12		6	3
Lewisville ISD	Recognized2	2.04	26	21	15
Little Elm ISD	Recognized2	1.81	4	3	2
Lovejoy ISD	Exemplary	3.00	5
Mansfield ISD	Academically Acceptable	1.51	7	16	15
McKinney ISD	Recognized2	1.52	10	6	12
Melisa ISD	Recognized	2.04	2	1	1
Mesquite ISD	Recognized1	1.51	11	20	14
Northwest ISD	Recognized	1.96	6	13	1
Plano ISD	Recognized2	1.88	25	22	18
Prosper ISD	Recognized	2.21	3	3
Red Oak ISD	Recognized3	1.56	1	4	2
Richardson ISD	Recognized	1.99	20	28	5
Rockwall ISD	Academically Acceptable	1.65	6	6	5
Springtown ISD	Academically Acceptable	0.83			6
Sunnyvale ISD	Exemplary2	3.00	3
White Settlement ISD	Academically Acceptable	1.15	1	5	1	1
Wylie ISD	Recognized	1.69	2	15		1
TEA accountability rating improvement standard(s) applied to raise district's rating one level from what otherwise was earned
1 Required Improvement
2 Exceptions Provision
3 Both Required Improvement and Exceptions Provision

Methodology

Texas Education Agency (TEA) campus accountability ratings for the 2010-2011 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 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 both of these improvement standards, the points awarded were reduced by 0.8 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.