How is it possible to enter high school

zork

zork

2,500+ Posts
How is it possible to enter high school not being able to read much less graduate high school without that skill?
The Link

If english was not their first language I could understand in some ways. Is this real? What are the stats in Texas?
 
Zork
??
NY spends over TWICE as much per pupol as Texas does
and
DAILY all we hear is how far behind we will fall in educated students compared to states like NY
Libs accuse Texas of hating kids since we spend so much less than states like NY

Maybe some who thinks spending more per student is the measure of success can explain how this can happen
NY spends about 17.5K per student
Texas spends about 7.9K

Hmm MAYBE it isn't all about money afer all
 
I have no dog in the hunt, and I am adding no opinion on whether more or less should be spent on schools... but that is just BAD journalism by the CBS-affiliate website. Here is what the article says:
In reply to:
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Have to agree with the point about journalism. I see a lot of articles, too, where the writer will say "scientists say...," without any attribution to which scientists. Both my parents were journalists in a time when there was a strong professionalism to that career. Now, it is hardly more than raw opinion based on not much. If I truly trusted a particular journalist, maybe I could give credence to "a source close to the situation says...." As it is, even the vaunted NYT cannot be trusted.
 
The biggest problem with education is the 1 size fits all requirements. Not everyone needs to get a classical education and go to college. More pressure should be put on teaching the kids that can't pass the tests into something that they CAN do and that will provide them a living. Instead we spend more money trying to get everyone to reach a minimum level.
 
BI
So you really think the typing errors were because I didn't know how to spell pupil or after?
Do you really think you have never posted errors? is there a poster who has not made errors.

Should I have paid closer attention? Undoubtedly. Do I make more errors than others? Maybe
It is amusing that you chose to try to denigrate me this way.
Have fun.

My point amid all the errors is that money spent per pupil is not a measure of success.
 
Well you can thank John Dewey (1914) and a century of government-supported schools that cranked out several generations that (a) taught the teachers of today, and (b) filled state and federal legislative houses that continued to propel schools funded and therefore controlled by government. This includes all the social engineering ideas pushed onto the school systems.
In reply to:
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It's not all money. You could to spend four times as much per acre on seed and fertilizer trying to grow corn on the Cap Rock than you would in Nebraska, but you'd get a helluva lot higher yield up north. Flower Mound High School isn't nearly the biggest 5A school in Texas, but it produced 42 national merit scholar finalists this year, second in the state. First was Plano High. The schools have great facilities, highly paid teachers (at least by Texas standards) and stellar resources for sports and other extracurricular activities. As good as the schools are, take the same facilities, teachers, etc. and educate 4000 Dallas ISD students and you'd be lucky to get 3-4 national merit scholars. It's not a matter of genetics, it's growing up in a culture that encourages achievement. Eagle Scouts, award winning musicians, etc. abound around here.
 
I think that's pretty ticky-tacky, BI. The point of these posts are that the cost of education does not correlate with the quality. Cutting out a lot of the administration would help. I think it would also help if more people went into teaching as a second career. I've spoken with numerous teachers who are quite frankly not qualified for their job. Of course, just trying to find someone to teach in the inner cities might be somewhat of a challenge. And I probably have unrealistic expectations regarding the quality of teachers obtainable. I still think overall we could do better, though. It would be nice to have some retired Chem Es teach science and math and some retired accountants teach business and personal finance.
 
One big failing in assessing educational quality is judging a system by averages. The college preparation of folks getting into UT and A&M is vastly higher than when I enrolled 40 years ago. I think I could have still made in into UT with the current standards ... but I would have had to taken more hard high school classes, pushed for AP education (not commonplace in the 1970s) and taken practice tests and actively prepared for ACT/SAT tests. Kids now spend days on this kind of stuff, instead of getting 30 minutes worth of test taking strategies from the counselor a week before the tests like we did back in the day. The thing is that my kids and the kids of my affluent community are getting great public school education. You can talk about "systemwide" failures based on average numbers, but for people who value good k-12 education the kids do great. For the ones who don't care ... that's a damned hard problem to fix and I think at least part of that fix involves money to get skilled teachers skilled at not only teaching, but coaching effort from folks when everyone else in their culture is trying to drag them back down. Substitute teach in an inner city public school and you'll quickly find and there's a helluva a lot more peer approval for confronting teachers and disrupting class than there is topping out academically.
 
Hunger should never be an issue. That is why we do and SHOULD provide free breakfast lunch and after school snacks. in many districts all year round
Plus with nearly 48 million on food stamps there is money for even a single parent available to spend on food.

In what may have been a sincere effort back then I wish we had not created so many programs for single mothers.
If you look at the big waves of immigrants who came with nothing and had to work long hours at menial jobs but made sure their children learned English and studied in school
and you look at the black families who up until the late 60's valued dual parent families AND education for their children;
if you look at that and compare it to the sadly high percentages of single parent homes and the large parcentages of familes who apprently have not made learning English a priority you can see some( not all ) but some of the problems teachers face today.

I think we might need a 10th amendment type protection for teachers. Stop infringing on their ability to teach.
Get out of the way. I bet most would end up with students who actually learned something
 
The TEA rep, last year when asked about the low test results indicated test scores are low due to a "changing demographic." Which is true and probably the eight hundred pound gorilla in the room.
 
Get the Federal Government and most of the state out of Public Education. Leave it up to the local government.

The financial savings would be astroniomical, can you imagine if the Fed and the State had limited access to Education Funds? How much more money could be poured into the local school districts that did not have to go through the sticky fingers of the Fed or State governments.

The Fed involved in education has been the beginning of the down fall of education in this country.
 
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