Monday, February 1, 2010

Lake Wobegon of Texas-2

"Almost six out of 10 Texas public schoolchildren hail from low-income families, marking a troubling spike in poverty over the last decade, a new state report shows. The increase coincides with a significant jump in the number of Hispanic students, while fewer Anglo students were enrolled last year than 10 years ago, according to the study done by the Texas Education Agency [TEA]. Schools are also educating many more children whose primary language is not English. ... Sarah Winkler, the president of the Texas Association of School Boards ... [said] 'The cost of education is going to go up. Every student has to meet the same standards, and some of those students have never seen a book before.' ... The state's school funding system is set up to pay districts more for their impoverished students, but some believe the extra dollars are not enough. This year, the price tag is $2.8 billion, according to the TEA. Districts also get additional federal funds. ... 'You have more and more kids that are less prepared to do well in school,' said [Rob] Eissler, R-The Woodlands. 'Where the expense comes in, you need teachers that have more qualifications. Maybe we need more and better professional development for our teachers.' ... Steve Murdock, the former state demographer and previous director of the US Census Bureau, has projected that the average household income in Texas will drop in coming decades, pouring even more disadvantaged students into the schools", Ericka Mellon at the Houston Chronicle, 2 January 2010: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/metro/6795211.html.

Said Alice, "stuff and nonsense". Educating 80 and 140 IQ kids as if they are the same. A big problem of schools: dropout rates are too low! Few if any kids with less than a 90 IQ should graduate from high school. But that means ... Yes. We are seeing the Californiazation of the US Southwest. Here's my 7 August 2009 post: http://skepticaltexascpa.blogspot.com/2009/08/lake-wobegon-of-texas.html. "Robin Hood" educational funding schemes are common. New Jersey's may be most costly, my 22 November 2009 post: http://skepticaltexascpa.blogspot.com/2009/11/christies-potential-andrew-jackson.html. Schooling is a massive waste of money.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Insisting all students achieve the same academic standard is much like factory farming.

In factory farming production standards are established and animals are measured to this standard.

Nature creates variability in animals like there is variety in people's intelligence.

This variability maybe the way that a species insures survival.

Assuming that all students must achieve math and reading at a specific level is unreasonable.

More vocational training!!

More plumbers, organic gardeners, massage therapists, senior caregivers needed!

ubu roi said...

More teacher training and longer certification are hallmarks of the educrat racket; you needn't simply know chemistry to teach it competently, you have to demonstrate feeling (to the satisfaction of a semi-literate marm who inexplicably crawed up the public education ladder) for your third-world students who barely speak English and couldn't pass the course if they did. Teaching now requires years of utterly useless and idiotic classes from the teacher certification mafia; they line their pockets and invent work for the 100k plus teachers who used gov't money to get an advanced degrees in "educational theory" or similarly vapid accreditation, the politicians get to crow about "more education", and the credulous public pulls out their checkbook, too mesmerized by the spell of "education" to resist. The opiate of the liberal masses is either shopping or education.