Education (Not Just UT)

Mississippi sucks at everything, other than music, freshwater fishing for bass and catfish, and football offense (for now).

However, their education has gone from always at the bottom, to the lower-middle. This is a huge improvement. Whatever they are doing should be studied and replicated. The crappy education states might elevate themselves up.
 
I'm skeptical when Hawaii's public primary and secondary education is ever ranked above anyone but Mississippi or New Mexico.

It sucks beyond description. There's some good football talent per capita out there, though.
 
www.usatoday.com

Aiming for HIGHer education: Top 5 cannabis colleges

We all have different priorities while searching for our dream school. Some students want the most rigorous environment possible, filled with academic go-getters who will inspire them to work hard. Others aim to have a higher education experience...
www.usatoday.com

Top 5 pot-smoking colleges:

1. Colorado
2. Wisconsin
3. Cal-Santa Cruz
4. Hampshire College
5. New College of Florida

Nos. 1, 2, and 4 pictured below:

:cu::wisc:
1726454727891.png
 
I wonder where Texas would stand if HISD, DISD, Austin ISD, SAISD, FWISD and the failed districts they've assumed were taken out of the equation.
 
Chop said:
My take:

The upper end - the education for the top 15-20% of students in Texas is as good, or better, than ever. I say this after looking through my kids' advanced chemistry class, etc. Also, the advanced kids are a year ahead in math compared to what the advanced kids were a generation ago. The top math track at the better large public schools in Texas is:

7th grade - Algebra 1
8th grade - Geometry
9th grade - Algebra 2
10th grade - Pre-Calculus a/k/a Trigonometry
11th grade - Calculus
12th grade - Something else, often something easier like Computer Science or Statistics.

This is a year ahead of the top track a generation ago.

The middle is a little bit worse off than in was in the past. The bottom 33% or so is much, much worse off than in the past.
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I see the same track with my daughters and in Texas we still provide opportunities for high achievers. My son will probably have AI classes in high school.
 
Monahorns said:
I see the same track with my daughters and in Texas we still provide opportunities for high achievers. My son will probably have AI classes in high school.
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High intelligence kids with a decent or better work ethic CAN (but not necessarily will) get a better education than they could get in the past.

I worry for the huge middle-of-the-pack though.
 
There is a "middle of the pack"? Please go tell the egghead elite that run our University. Like I asked Willie Cunningham, how much money do all your foreign students give to the University after they leave? Before you answer that question, disregard your billionaire in Mexico City & your Saudi Prince.

Of course, his answer was, "I don't have that number available". Why the **** not? You are President in charge of kissing their ***.

Answer: Less than $10,000 a year. In the meantime, you're busy rejecting the children and grandchildren of your donors. That's ok, because OU, Arkansas, Ole Miss, LSU, SMU, TCU, & Baylor love you.
 
Chop said:
High intelligence kids with a decent or better work ethic CAN (but not necessarily will) get a better education than they could get in the past.

I worry for the huge middle-of-the-pack though.
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I think in Texas they still will. Life will always be what you put into it, too. But kids have to have parents that teach them the big picture. Daniel learned great things in the school of Babylon and our kids can even learn in government corrupted schools but parents have to explain the game to them. The issue isn't level of intelligence but how much there eyes have been opened to what the system is doing and then using the system for their own purposes. Anyone of any position in American today went through a very biased, anti-god, communistic system, but some where along the line they figured it out and took the things of value and left the rotted pieces.
 
SabreHorn said:
Answer: Less than $10,000 a year. In the meantime, you're busy rejecting the children and grandchildren of your donors.
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I stopped giving to UT (not that my donations amounted to anything) the day they rejected my oldest son's application. When he got a full ride to UNT, my answer to the once endless stream of calls and letters was always the same: my money goes where my kids go.

The calls and letters have all but completely dried up, but it took almost 10 years for UT to figure out I meant what I said.
 
I have refused to donate to the academic side in protest of policies and the parade of unqualified, goofball presidents.

Frank Erwin ran The University with an iron fist and wanted to make it the finest public university in America. That's why he handed George Kozmetsky a blank check to come from MIT. He would not tolerate the liberals attempt to turn The University in a factory turning out Berzerkley eggheads. (three of whom became President of our University)
 
Chop said:
A very important event in the economic history of the State of Texas.
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Frank was a no ******** guy, who loved The University. He was the only one that could/would handle the "transcript debacle", and he handled it quickly because students had job offers waiting depending on his actions. All that while never letting it be public knowledge so the school didn't get the negative publicity. While he really couldn't stand liberals and hippies, he never sought to go after the culprits, but part of that could have been identifying them would have been very difficult.
 
SabreHorn said:
Frank was a no ******** guy, who loved The University. He was the only one that could/would handle the "transcript debacle", and he handled it quickly because students had job offers waiting depending on his actions. All that while never letting it be public knowledge so the school didn't get the negative publicity. While he really couldn't stand liberals and hippies, he never sought to go after the culprits, but part of that could have been identifying them would have been very difficult.
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can you help me understand the transcript debacle? That was before my time.
 
BrntOrngStmpeDe said:
there are 18 "indicators" in that assessment. To me one of the best, is the scores on AP exams because they are all standardized across the country. In AP exam pass rate Texas was 13th. Kids taking AP exams may not be a representative group since only academically oriented kids heading to college tend to take those, but that holds true everywhere. Texas has a particular problem in that we have so many ESL kids (18% =/-). There are only 4 other states in that ballpark.

That site/list had almost all states losing ground from 4th to 8th grade in both Math and English. I wonder why that is?
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Lousy teaching in late elementary and in Jr High.
 
Yet we are willing to pay $25-35,000 in private school tuition, but ***** about a couple of thousand dollars to raise teachers' salaries and attract better teachers to our better public schools.
 
Mona,

That's why I said "better districts". No amount of money will ever fix HISD, DISD, Beaumont, Port Arthur (even the State doesn't want them). Next up in great Houston will be Spring ISD.
 
SabreHorn said:
Mona,

That's why I said "better districts". No amount of money will ever fix HISD, DISD, Beaumont, Port Arthur (even the State doesn't want them). Next up in great Houston will be Spring ISD.
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I think the government could pay good teachers more if they focused on educating students and not creating more jobs for administrators, spending tons of many on new buildings, grifting for relatives selling new programs or curricula, and implementing DEI communism.

I wouldn't gripe about teachers getting more money, but I will gripe about them talking more money from by force.

The number of people spending tens of thousands of $s on private schools is very small and the people are very rich. I've seen this with my own eyes.
 
https://resources.finalsite.net/ima...gim6u1/2023-2024TeacherPayScale-PostVATRE.pdf

Consider this, using the link if you want to verify my numbers.

School districts, in the rush to entice people to go into teaching, have so severely flattened the potential growth curve of salaries for experienced teachers, that they have incentivized people with very little classroom experience to do administrative work instead of remaining in the classroom.

A fresh out of college teacher made $52,400 for Lockhart ISD in 23-24.
A 10 year veteran made $60,495.
A 20 year veteran made $65,445.

So, that's a difference of $810 per year of experience during the first ten, and less than $500 per year for years 10 to 20. This extremely flattened pay scale is the norm for districts all over the state.

If you knew your experience as a classroom teaching veteran was worth a lot less than $1000 a year to your employer, would you stay in that position, gaining experience that would never pay off? Some people do, because they really, really love working with the kids. Those are good teachers. The ones who don't love the job of teaching are incentivized to move out of the classroom, but where they move often puts them in charge of the very people whose job they couldn't do nearly as well. It's perverse.

My suggestion is that nobody can apply for a public school administrative job, or specialist job, until they have had at least 5 years classroom experience for specialists, and 10 years classroom experience for administrators.

That would get rid of the deadwood, because practically nobody who dislikes teaching would wait that long to be an assistant principal. And, those who DO wait will have enough classroom experience to be more effective leaders, mentors, and advocates for younger teachers.
 
Sabre
That has always confused me. Teachers in private schools make less than teachers in public school yet the results are better. It is a combo of private schools can spend more time teaching. Students aren't allowed to rule the classrooms
And most importantly parents who spend money to send their kids to private schools are INVOLVED>
 
Sangre, the administrator head count has to be cut down drastically for any of this to make a difference.

Sure. Incentivize good teachers to stay in class by giving them more money. But salaries are prices just like any other commodity. They are based on marginal utility, which means the increase in value compared to the next best option. The only way you can quantify that is by have a teaching market. The existence of government schools kills that market, which means we have no idea how valuable a good teacher is or isn't. Government teacher salaries are higher because labor unions always increase the price of a product artificially. But still in a private school market the best teachers would bring in the most students into a school and justify paying them more money. You know what else would justify paying a teacher more money? The skill or controlling and teaching a very large classroom. That would be considered a productivity increase which is the only way for anyone to get paid more than they do today.
 
Monahorns said:
The number of people spending tens of thousands of $s on private schools is very small and the people are very rich. I've seen this with my own eyes.
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We've done both public and private schools with our kids. Outside of St. Marks/Hockaday in Dallas, FW Country Day, and St. Johns (and maybe Kincaid) in Houston, very few private school families in Texas are "very rich." Most are "well to do," but "very rich" is not an appropriate label for most of them--these folks are generally working white collar professionals. If they quit their jobs, or their small businesses that they own and work in (for those that are self-employed), their standard of living would take a big hit.
 
Chop said:
We've done both public and private schools with our kids. Outside of St. Marks/Hockaday in Dallas, FW Country Day, and St. Johns (and maybe Kincaid) in Houston, very few private school families in Texas are "very rich." Most are "well to do," but "very rich" is not an appropriate label for most of them--these folks are generally working white collar professionals. If they quit their jobs, or their small businesses that they own and work in (for those that are self-employed), their standard of living would take a big hit.
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I'm going to take a bit of a tangent here...

When I was a younger man, I was learning the ropes of the working world with a late-middle-aged Gent whose 2 kids both went to one of the aforementioned named private schools above. If his family fortune was based only on his work, they'd be "well to do", in his case quite "well to do." Her family, however, had quite a bit of $$$$ from natural gas and oil going back several generations. They were in the right clubs and social circle for people who care about that. In other words they were indeed "rich"-to-"very rich" and connected. Nonetheless, he still wanted to work and make it on his own. (and they would probably have considered him a loser and a bum if he didn't at least try to)

His son loved his expensive and exclusive (in multiple ways) private school, relished it, and went all the way through K-12, then on to an expensive private college. His daughter got plumb sick of the insane social pressure on girls at the private school, and demanded--with threats of running away and hitting the streets--that she be allowed to finish her last 2 years of high school at the local public school. With much consternation, the parents finally relented, and she absolutely loved public school. She thrived, met real friends that she still has, and still got into a good college.
 
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Having served on the board of a private school, I noticed one thing about the vast majority of teenage girls - all those in private school wanted to be in public schools, while all those in public schools wanted to be in private schools. A very wealthy family had two daughters at a private school and "caved" and allowed them to go to Lee back when Lee was a wealthy school (Tanglewood & Briar Grove). I got a call from him asking what he had to do to get his daughter back in the private school. I told him it was done. He said in her two years at Lee, she had not learned "one damn thing".

On the teachers, I never figured out how we got and had some of the best teachers in the country for less money. (particularly Math, Biology, & Spanish). They loved teaching, they loved the safety*, they loved the parental involvement.

*Not so much the day the Texas Rangers & FBI took over the school with snipers on the roof and helicopters circling the school. Assassins draw that kind of attention.
 
Chop said:
We've done both public and private schools with our kids. Outside of St. Marks/Hockaday in Dallas, FW Country Day, and St. Johns (and maybe Kincaid) in Houston, very few private school families in Texas are "very rich." Most are "well to do," but "very rich" is not an appropriate label for most of them--these folks are generally working white collar professionals. If they quit their jobs, or their small businesses that they own and work in (for those that are self-employed), their standard of living would take a big hit.
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Whatever. Jeezus. Upper middle class in a major city is very rich to me.
 
Sangre Naranjada said:
I stopped giving to UT (not that my donations amounted to anything) the day they rejected my oldest son's application. When he got a full ride to UNT, my answer to the once endless stream of calls and letters was always the same: my money goes where my kids go.

The calls and letters have all but completely dried up, but it took almost 10 years for UT to figure out I meant what I said.
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Now that UT has prioritized "first generation students" over actual state residents they'll see how much money comes in from people who don't give a damn about Texas nor the University of Texas. I suspect they'll start seeing older wealthy donors start dying off and donations overall dropping significantly in the next 10-12 years.

My Father in law, mother in law, sister in law and my wife all graduated from UT. My daughter was a solid B+ student and never had a prayer of going to her dream school. I promised her if she took all advanced classes, played the sports she enjoyed and participated in a wide variety of activities it would make for an impressive resume. Well UT admissions can suck it. I no longer give one extra dime to the wealthiest university unless it directly benefits me.
 
Vol,

You are one of the multitude of two generations now suffering because of the Berzerley Syndrome perpetuated by damn Fur-in-nurs in our administration. While little Willie Cunningham didn't attend Berzerkley, he was a Michigan Cow College reject, who brought all "his friends" with him from the frozen north. Look at how department heads he changed to put his buddies in. Student Financial Aid; Housing; Food, et al. Now we are stuck with a school that is 60% female (only thing wrong with that is how it impacts the Athletic Department) and 19% Asian. (Don't go trying to find your daughter the Nguyen or Patel Scholarship)

Dr Boren made out like a bandit as OU feasted on families from Texas and still are. Johhny Tyson only regrets how few Texas kids eat chicken every meal. Ole Miss is the third one that waived out of state tuition. LSU did for a while but has found out they don't have to because out of state is way less than tuition at TCU or SMU.

Several years back, we did a survey of Texas Exes kids and found that OU, TCU, Baylor, SMU, Arkansas, Ole Miss, and LSU were all getting more than Austin. I support your decision to NOT give a dime to the academic side until they get their **** together, which I doubt will occur in my lifetime. I'll support the athletic department, but nothing else. Hook em
 
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