Dallas schools dominated an annual list of Texas' best-performing campuses as ranked by the advocacy group Children at Risk.

Topping most of the lists were specialty schools in Dallas, but DISD also had the most neighborhood elementaries -- 48 -- earn Gold Ribbon status, which is awarded to traditional neighborhood campuses in high-poverty areas that far outperform their peers.

"Dallas' magnet schools continue to be some of the absolute best in the state," said Kellie O'Quinn, director of research for Children at Risk's Center for Social Measurement and Evaluation. "Going over the lists, there are a lot of Dallas ISD schools up there."

Children at Risk's full report, which is largely based on how well students perform on STAAR tests, is expected to be released next week.

Irma Lerma Rangel Young Women's Leadership Academy was ranked No. 1 in both the middle and high school categories. The School for the Highly Gifted in the Grand Prairie school district was listed as the state's third-best elementary campus, with Dallas ISD's William B. Travis Academy/Vanguard for the Academically Talented and Gifted right behind at No. 4.

But while Dallas ISD has been touted as a state model for academic gains, the rankings show that more work needs to be done, particularly among middle schools, of which only two -- Rosemont and Sanger preparatory middle schools -- received Gold Ribbon status.

Improving middle school performance is key as those tend to be the "make it or break it" years for students, DISD officials have said.

Research shows that if a sixth-grader fails math or English, misses a lot of school or misbehaves in a core class, he or she only has about a 25% chance of graduating on time.

So DISD wants to spend about $10 million on improving some of the city's lowest-performing middle schools.

The new Achieving in the Middle initiative, or AIM, will focus on 24 middle school campuses, providing them more assistant principals and counselors as well as additional academic resources. The initiative will also focus on social and emotional support, such as expanding restorative discipline practices, in which students work as a group to talk through issues.

During a budget workshop Thursday, DISD administrators asked trustees to allocate another $2.5 million in 2019-20 to help an additional 16 middle schools that have so-so academic performance.

"We're trying to go from good to great. ... We're trying to shore up the middle and ensure that everyone gets resources to grow and develop," Jolee Healey, deputy chief of school leadership, told DISD trustees at the workshop. She added that on average, middle schools are performing about 20 points below high schools.

Children at Risk uses a ranking system that's similar to the state's academic accountability system. However, the advocacy group found numerous instances of schools earning higher points on state accountability versus Children at Risk's rankings.

That's because the Texas Education Agency grades schools based on the best two out of three domains -- student achievement, school progress and how well campuses close academic gaps between various student groups -- while Children at Risk takes all those into account.

The group's report is based on data from the 2017-18 school year. In August, the nonprofit will release another round of rankings based on the 2018-19 school year, alongside the Texas Education Agency's release of its A-F grades for campuses.

Other takeaways from the Children at Risk report:

* About one-third of North Texas magnet programs that serve low-income students earned a D or an F.

* More than half of North Texas charter schools serving predominantly low-income families earned a D or an F. That's worse than the showing by such charters in most other regions of the state.

* About 20% of North Texas elementary schools in high-poverty areas earned Gold Ribbon status. That's a dramatic increase from about 5% in 2016.