LTISD Info

The latest edition of the Lake Travis View contains a “Letter to the Editor” from Chris Wilson regarding the number of National Merit Finalists and Commended students in the LTISD to other nearby districts:

“More scholars needed at LTISD

To the editor:

I wanted to share some information with the Lake Travis Independent School District community regarding my comparison of the Lake Travis High School versus Westlake High School and Westwood High School performance in the most recent National Merit Scholarship Competition.

LTHS, a TEA Academically Acceptable school for 2007-08, produced four National Merit Finalists eight National Merit Commended students, and was announced by LTISD on March 23. Westlake High School, a TEA Exemplary school, produced 28 National Merit Finalists, 48 National Merit Commended students, and was announced by Eanes ISD on Feb. 12.

Westwood High School, a TEA Recognized school, produced 29 National Merit Finalists, 43 National Merit Commended students, and was announced by Round Rock ISD on March 5. Both Westlake and Westwood high schools have seven times as many National Merit Finalists as Lake Travis High School. Westlake has six times as many National Merit Commended students as Lake Travis High School and Westwood has five point three times as many National Merit Commended students as Lake Travis High School. Westlake and Westwood high schools . do not have seven, six or five times as many students as Lake Travis High School even though they are both 5A schools and Lake Travis High School is a 4A school.

Historically, Lake Travis High School students perform very poorly on the written skills portion of the PSAT test that determines the National Merit Finalist and Commended status.

Congratulations to all of the wonderful students that achieved the Finalist and Commended student status.

You are the cream of the crop amongst high school seniors.

This community should be demanding that it is time for Lake Travis High School to see much better results in the National Merit Competition in line with the schools down the road from us.

Chris Wilson
The Hills”

-Lake Travis View, June 18, 2009, Volume 24, Number 25

Good point Chris! But do these districts have a back-to-back championship football team?! I don’t think so. Let’s get our priorities straight now!

Obviously Chris has not read the Wikipedia entry for the Lake Travis High School which is filled mostly with information about the schools past athletic achievements and very little information about academics.

There is only paragraph in the LTHS Wikipedia page regarding academics and it is very amusing:

“Lake Travis High School classroom standards higher than many other high school, and, therefore, are more difficult. For a student to be in the top 20% academically generally requires having a class grade average over 100 while attending virtually all advanced placement (AP) classes. However, despite their apparent intellectual superiority, and the rigor of their elite classes, they can not manage to write a grammatically correct Wikipedia entry.“

Has Chris Wilson endangered herself with the “powers that be” within the district. Things like this won’t get her an invite to the next class of Leadership Lake Travis.

But sometimes, like the child in Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Emperor’s New Clothes,”  someone just has to tell the Emperor that he is naked.

We should read the rest of the Hans Christian Andersen’s great fairy tale (perhaps better categorized as a “satire”):

““But he has nothing on at all,” said a little child at last. “Good heavens! listen to the voice of an innocent child,” said the father, and one whispered to the other what the child had said. “But he has nothing on at all,” cried at last the whole people. That made a deep impression upon the emperor, for it seemed to him that they were right; but he thought to himself, “Now I must bear up to the end.” And the chamberlains walked with still greater dignity, as if they carried the train which did not exist.”