I grew up across the street from a kid who started going to jail at 14; for selling crack. His mother and step father were poor and uneducated. My parents had built a new house, they rented a poor and run down house. The friend did okay in school till about sixth grade. He could build things. He built skate board ramps out of thrown away wood. He was good at hooking up stereos. Very sad. His mother wasn't on crack, just very uneducated. He never had a shot
Something like bussing is the best solution. The ghetto school will never be a Katy School. Don't hinder the Katy School. Bus on academic potential. I started that thread about minute maid drinks in the school. I've been at the school since. They eliminated the heavy sugar choices, it's in Katy. I went to another new school on Clay and 99. It has world class facilities including a Olympic size swim facility, is it has everything seemingly It's wealthy because it's residents are educated
HISD deals with urban problems, mostly with how the lack of money complicates problems for people. Katy ISD has a lot of affluent, well-educated families. You can probably make a Katy-like school district inside Houston, if you can selectively carve out a geography on the near north and west side where the money is. A small ISD in Kashmere Gardens or East End or Gulfgate will not fare well. They don't have the expensive real estate to fund the district, they will have more poor students who are more expensive to educate, they have fewer affluent kids to stabilize the peer group, and they'd have less economy of scale in their shared resources. So, yes I think your oft-adopted management solution would be an unmitigated disaster. And the Chinese will probably kick our butts no matter what we do.
In that case, be the change you want to see. Move in to Kashmere Gardens. Show the locals how its done: overcome adversity to achieve a lasting education that will catapult yourself into a middle-class life-style. Don't let me and my "don't drag down the other 90% of the school district, so instead break it up"-rhetoric stop you. I'm sure the Chinese are shivering at your new decision.
Sure, and I will elect to pay extra taxes as well since I disagree with the wisdom of the tax cuts. I'm going to put this country on my shoulders and carry it to the finish line.
Grade manipulation in HISD. This individual spent 5 decades with HISD. They also want another $1.7 billion. How is that house hunting in Kashmere Gardens going, @JuanValdez? Would you trust these people with $1.7 billion?
I sent all my money to the IRS to help pay for needed federal programs, so now I can't afford a house in Kashmere Gardens. I'm trying to convince someone to let me use their utility bill to get zoned.
The report card is out. Smaller districts like Katy and Clear Creek have far more outstanding students than HISD. Get this: whites are not even an absolute majority in either Katy or Clear Creek. It’s time we have a talk. http://projects.houstonchronicle.com/schoolreportcard/
What, do you think white people are better equipped for academics than people of other races? Or are you saying that I think that?
I must be mistaken, but I do recall your opposition to my idea of splitting up HISD. Your reasoning was that it would leave fewer white students within certain parts of the new HISD districts. Having x% white students is not a predicate for success as you did state. What kind of society are we trying to build that states “we need white people to be successful”?
What is it about a white student that makes a proximally close non-white student successful? BTW, I never thought we'd have such racist conversations on this forum, but here we are, @JuanValdez.
There are numerous factors. Over-identification for special-ed for minorities, while at the same time receiving under-identification as gifted and talented. We could talk about teachers that aren't trained in teaching Standard English Emersion students, inherent biases in course materials and assessments etc. Discussing ways to overcome the disparity isn't really racist.
You've misunderstood me, or I've expressed myself poorly. Splitting HISD would leave some of the new districts with more of the affluent and stable households than other districts. The reason a suburb like Katy has a successful district has little do with how smart or right-sized their structure is. Families with affluence and stability -- ingredients for a pretty successful school career -- self-select for that district, moving out to Katy specifically to take advantage of the schools there. Economically disadvantaged families don't do that nearly as much because they can't afford the rents, need to be close to work, rely on public transportation, etc. This has nothing to do with race, apart from our legacy of having impoverished minorities with centuries of slavery, decades more of Jim Crow, and presently decades of the new Jim Crow -- the persecution of hispanic families. There does so happen to be a correlation between race and disadvantage; but it's not their race that makes them correlate to disadvantage, it's our history. What you seem to want to do is to perpetuate that history.
Really the whole school funding system makes no sense. Until that changes, we can redraw boundaries all we want. The fact that 75% of school funding is from local property taxes is insane. That guarantees educational inequity. And to top it off, HISD is considered a property rich district (despite 75% of kids being below the poverty line) and has to make robin hood payments.
I agree. The whole state should start over on building a system. But, I get annoyed by proffered fixes that just exacerbate the problems.
I know a statewide income tax is a non-starter but I wish we could just go back to the days when Texas a statewide property tax. That way legislators can't keep cutting funding and forcing local communities to raise property taxes to make up the difference. Institute a cap on local property taxes and re-introduce the statewide property tax. Which then put the onus on Republicans in the Legislature to own the spending of state revenues on education AND the taxation. But the current system where the government can continue to cut education spending while forcing local communities to make up the difference is beyond crazy. How we survived this long with this system is amazing but this has to end asap.
Perhaps I did misunderstand you. If so, I do apologize. However, I had a bit of time to look at the data in the school report link I provided. Bottom 10 ranked schools. ELEMENTARY MIDDLE HIGH Top 10 ranked schools. ELEMENTARY MIDDLE HIGH Look at the addresses of the top 10 elementary schools which are HISD schools. You think those parents are sending their children to public schools past elementary school? I looked it up, and it's like $20k per year at Kinkaid Academy. Think those in River Oaks, Rice Military, West U, and Bellaire can afford it? Look at the addresses of the bottom 10 schools which are HISD schools. Could you explain to a parent whose child goes to one of those schools that remaining attached to the far away River Oaks area is some kind of predicate for the success of their child's school? I can't do it. This is not about "affluence and stability". We can talk about that in a separate thread on jobs and income. But to quickly explore that topic, do you really think that the best way to help marginalized minorities find "affluence and stability" is to have them compete with millions of new bottom-of-the-barrel immigrants every year? Remember what we established about supply and demand.
Lamar and Bellaire are pretty good high schools. Most of your list of middle and high school consist of HISD magnet schools as well. It would be best for income classes to be less segregated but that's not what happens. No, you still haven't responded to my concern about your suppy and demand theory. Fort Bend ISD also is very immigrant fueled, what's going on in Fort Bend?
