By Dane Anderson, Staff Writer

A recent national Diplomas Count study conducted by the Education Week’s Editorial Projects in Education Research Center offered some good news for Texas educators, showing that state school districts have improved graduation rates in the 10-year time period from 1996 to 2006.
That positive trend holds true for the Eanes school district, according to the 2008 Education Progress Report issued by the Austin Chamber of Commerce. It also bodes well for the district on the eve of the annual Texas Education Agency ratings concerning graduation rates across the state, which will be released Friday.
The Diplomas Count study showed an overall state graduation rate of 65.3 percent in 2006 compared to a 58.5 rate in 1996. The most recent statistics available from the Austin Chamber of Commerce show the Eanes school district outpacing state counterparts by a significant margin.
“The Chamber’s Progress Report Task Force can report that Eanes ISD students are scoring at the top end of all performance indicators,” the 2008 report stated in its overview on the local school district. “Ninety-eight percent of the Class of 2007 passed their graduation TAKS, 96 percent of the Class of 2007 graduated in four years and 93 percent of seniors who graduated in 2007 enrolled in college by fall of that year.”
Even taking into account the different standards used in graduation measurement in the two studies, the Eanes school district runs at the front of the pack when it comes to getting students into high school and graduating them in four years. Jeff Pilchiek, Westlake High School college and career counselor, said that graduation rates at the high school have run consistently high throughout the last 10 years. He said the graduation rate for 2009 was estimated at 99 percent.
According to Pilchiek, Eanes not only does a good job of getting students through high school successfully; it graduates them well-prepared for continuing education. The number of students continuing on to colleges or universities after graduating from WHS have also been high, approximately 94 percent during recent years, Pilchiek said.
“We expect the number of students continuing their education to be closer to 98 percent for the Class of 2009,” Pilchiek said. “WHS students were admitted to all eight Ivy League colleges (last year). I have never had that happen in 20 years as a high school counselor.”
Pilchiek said that WHS students were very successful in gaining acceptance into many competitive universities like Massachusetts Institute of Technonlogy, the California Institute of Technology and Stanford.
“Our community places a high value on education, including many who say they moved here specifically so that their children would get a quality education,” said district Superintendent Nola Wellman. “It therefore follows that the community and parents have high academic expectations for children. Coupled with a very strong curriculum and instruction from kindergarten to 12h grade, students get a consistent message about the importance of college preparedness.”
WHS Principal Linda Rawlings said that increasing the number of advanced placement classes available to students helps ease entrance into college life and increases interest in further study. Students who successfully complete AP classes in high school earn college credit for those courses.
“Within the past several years, we have increased the number of college credits that students have received while in high school,” Rawlings said. “We have always had a strong advanced placement program, and I am pleased that more and more students are taking AP courses and exams that often result in college credit.”
Last year, WHS administered almost 2,800 AP exams, and an additional 552 students received credit at Austin Community College for career and technology classes they took at WHS.
“When students earn college credit in high school, they are much more likely to attend college.”