Talk:Westlake High School (Texas)

message: In the future, could everyone explain why they are making changes?  I did go to westlake and I know there are millions of reasons why students love their school, but it would be good if you didn't add more information without sources.  Also, I went to a lot of trouble to arrange things in a logical manner; it would be nice if it could be maintained.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Redraiderbum (talk • contribs) 19:10, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Page Edittig

message: All of them are athletes?  Come on, surely Westlake has produced some other notables.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.110.217.66 (talk) 02:33, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Notable Alumni

message: This text sure does sound like it's pulled off some brochure.  If this is the case, it needs addressing.  If it's not the case, the article still reads like an ad.
-Seidenstud 23:57, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Possible Copyvio?

message: Criticism will need some sources cited.  I do not have the time to fully research this school (that I had never heard of until seeing this article), but I will, for now, go through and remove some of the violations of WP:NPOV and WP:V. These violations include content such as "proud tradition of excellence"  -Seidenstud 04:45, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Inaccurate Advertising

message: And in response to the "if you didn't go there you have no idea comment," I posit instead that "if you did go there you have no idea." Meaning, of course, that Westlake students are sheltered from the real world and are brought up in a homogenous culture that does not reflect the true struggles, or honest triumphs, of the real world. I know many very nice Westlake former students, but it has been my experience that they truly are not taught through Westlake's curriculum nor its student composition "how the other half lives," to quote Riis.
It is also important to note Westlake's academic "success" in comparison to Austin's schools, particularly the magnets. While Westlake may have ranked 72nd at some point, LBJ High School, NOT an affluent white haven, ranked 17th best high school in the nation in the same ranking system. Also, LBJ has outperformed Westlake in National Merit Scholar numbers for years. So even with all of its utopic perks, Westlake cannot ascribe such unbridled academic success to itself when, just a few miles down the road, with no money and rampant crime, LBJ's students still outperform Westlake's. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.108.32.24 (talk • contribs) 
Responding to the above comments:
Westlake's academic prowess is not based solely on financial endowment.  Westlake and Eanes has a culture that values education.  Eanes schools are a selling point for parents moving to central Texas.  They are willing to be taxed at the highest legal rate to support good schools, even when more than half of all tax revenue is distributed to poorer districts.  Fully 60% of Eanes revenue is taken by the state, a percentage that increases each year.  Yet Westlake continues to be one the best schools in the nation.
You want to talk about LBJ?  Don't make me laugh.  That is the most internally segregated school in Travis County, where all the magnet students occupy AP classes and students that go there as a result of geography do not.  The only interactions are in the hallways.  Moreover, you are comparing a magnet school for a district with many times more students to draw from, with a school that is the district's only high school.  Provide the source saying LBJ is the 17th best school in that nation.  I can point to Newsweek's 2006 list showing Westlake as the 71st best, with LBJ coming in a paltry 166th.  Austin High comes in at 447.
The argument about a sheltered high school is weak.  People in any environment can choose to insulate themselves from the world, or seek it out and learn.  Athletics, forensics, UIL, Model UN, band, and orchestra are activities widely participated in at Westlake that bring students into interactions with others.  Citing your own anecdotal evidence just exposes how little you actually know, thus falling back on stereotypes.
Just FYI:
LBJ High was ranked higher than their socio-economic status would suggest because they are the magnet program for AISD.  Even though it is in a poor neighborhood, hundreds of students from all over the city go there for the exceptional magnet program.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Redraiderbum (talk • contribs) 19:03, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Response to Other Comment

message: Suffice it to say that this discussion has grown outside of simply Westlake vs. AISD.  Please go to college and take a sociology class that involves reading books like Ain't No Making It, Random Family, Jocks and Burnouts, American Apartheid, and Streetwise.  Why do you think Eanes families value education?  Do you think others don't value education?  Could it be not that Westlake parents have an inherent superior moral character, but instead that working class families do not have the time for parents to read to their children before bed, coddle them in their elementary school projects, and must instead work long hours?  The children of working class families do not posess the same cultural capital that the children of upper middle class families do.  Of course all families value education--it's a core characteristic of the mythic American Dream and the appearance of an American meritocracy.  But not all families can enable their children to succeed, as Westlake parents can, despite how much they desire solid education and school success.
What I'm saying is that despite the individual experiences of Westlake students, the success they enjoy is predicated on segregation and classism.  Why is Westlake almost all white?  Because the neighborhood is all white.  Why is the neighborhood white?  Because of white flight from urban areas and the federal policy of guaranteeing loans only for whites after WWII, thereby excluding minorities and the underclass from the pampered, suburban American dreamland.  Why can't these innercity students all just do well in life and buy into areas like Westlake?  Because the innercity schools don't have the funding to make up for the lack of cultural capital passed on from parents to children.  Why don't they have this funding?  Because all the big property tax dollars go into segregated bedroom communities who have created their own municipalities in order to hoard tax dollars.  Why doesn't the state reapportion this money?  Because when it tries to do so, all the wealthy people, who have the power in society, cry about it.  But what about Robinhood legislation, doesn't that take money from Eanes and give it to AISD?  It used to, until people cried about it.  But wait, doesn't Eanes still give away a ton of money to the state?  Yes, all districts do so that the state can waste it on beaurocracy and adinistration costs and pork barrel jobs that keep the friends of those in power wealthy.  
It's not just Westlake, and it's not anecdotal evidence; it's the greater structure of inequality in our society. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 66.68.122.186 (talk) 22:44, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Response to Westlake Rebuttal

message: This seems like a reasonable thing to do, as just about half of the text of Eanes Independent School District is about Westlake, and it is more or less overlapping content.  Having the two articles just leads to inconsistencies, etc.  Anyone have an opinion about this?
-Seidenstud 21:04, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merger with [[Eanes Independent School District]] 

message: Most other highschools have wikipedia pages. For example, Austin High and Bowie do. But there's also too much information on the Westlake page to merge it with another page covering other schools as well.
As far as Westlake's reputation of being rich and preppy, we ARE rich and preppy. I happen to attend Westlake and, from what I can see, we are some of the whitest richest streetsmart-less people in existance. I've seen people take out a wad of 50 dollar bills and lay them out on a counter of a crappy resturant in downtown San Antonio, which strikes me as just a bit stupid. People here call themselves "ghetto" because they live in a .5 million dollar house...but it's on Cuernavaca. A few weeks ago we had "country club day" as a theme for one of our pep rallies. Honest to God, I couldn't tell half the people were dressing up. We are pathetic. I've seen students AND PARENTS wave credit cards and cash at other teams during a football game. We think we're better than everyone else and that simply isn't true. No Wikipedia article, whether it exists or not, can change that. This article does not mean anything. Nobody judges a school by its Wikipedia article. I promise. We've already been judged and stereotyped.
--Whs09 13:38, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: While I am aware that many other highschools do have articles, it seems that this is its own case.  Most other high schools are not in such a notable district, that arguably merits its own article, yet whose article consists of a sub-article on the highschool in question and little more than a list of the other schools in the district.  Perhaps merging the District article into this one would make more sense, but either way, I'm pretty sure a merge is appropriate. -Seidenstud 16:58, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merger with Eanes Independent School District

message: I have removed the unsourced line about Westlake being the "model" for the TV show.  According to the Austin Chron,  http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/Issue/story?oid=oid%3A232233, it is some other school, although reading many ghits seems to show that while Westlake has been used for a variety of reasons in the show's production, the show is mainly based on the experience of Central Texas football powerhouse schools, in general.  -Seidenstud 05:55, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That link is in reference to the movie, the TV show uses Pflugerville High School as the model, a suburb of Austin.  The show is shot at the schools football stadium, the uniforms in the show are identical to the teams.  --Holderca1 19:34, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  ''Friday Night Lights'' 

message: There are guidelines for high school articles and what belongs in them.  I just took out the entire athletic section.  I had tried a few weeks ago to re-write it to comply with guidelines, but someone re-added all the promotional junk.  This article is not for promotional tone writing.  It is not for publicizing the school, or any individual students.  Please read WP:WPSCHOOLS/AG before rebuilding the athletic section. Gtwfan52 (talk) 22:02, 3 June 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  this is an encyclopedia 

message: It was here: http://files.eanes.k12.tx.us/supt/Safety/executive.pdf
But it seems to be gone
WhisperToMe (talk) 05:39, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pride Survey 

message: After reading previous comments, I have rewritten the Athletic Section to reflect a neutral POV along with listing appropriate state titles.  All known state titles are listed and backed up with reference links from reputable sources.  Please let me know if this will satisfy the majority who are commenting on this.  Thanks (Midwest High School grad - but I got here as fast as I could!) Indyjrg1762 (talk) 15:16, 18 September 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Athletics Section Revision 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just added archive links to  on Westlake High School (Texas). Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add  after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add  to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/20101203153523/http://swimming.teamusa.org:80/athletes/scott-spann to http://swimming.teamusa.org/athletes/scott-spann
When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.
Cheers.—cyberbot IITalk to my owner:Online 22:57, 15 January 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified 

message: The section on the school newspaper says the paper was founded in 1969, yet the school opened in 1971. This obviously doesn't make sense, and there's no source cited; can someone familiar with the school add information with a citation explaining how this is the case, or remove it if it is in fact in accurate? Thanks TheMrP (talk) 01:39, 29 April 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: Removed. John from Idegon (talk) 02:08, 29 April 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  School Newspaper section