AISD Going Downhill? (Austin: low income, how much, employment)

[Need4Camaro]

I'm not for defunding the schools, likewise I am not for defunding the police, but I personally have no issue with allowing parents to choose what education system they want their children to be involved in. It should be about the child and what they are garnering from the system, not the school and its performance.

[WRM20]

AISD wasn't helped by having to send the State $500 million per year in recapture(Robin Hood), which meant less money to teach lower SES students, who are harder to teach.

[ScoPro]

Originally Posted by WRM20

AISD wasn't helped by having to send the State $500 million per year in recapture(Robin Hood), which meant less money to teach lower SES students, who are harder to teach.

Well, Ann Richards said in her farewell speech that the so-called “Robin Hood” Plan was the centerpiece achievement of her administration. Unintended consequences & all that.

[Trainwreck20]

Originally Posted by ScoPro

Well, Ann Richards said in her farewell speech that the so-called “Robin Hood” Plan was the centerpiece achievement of her administration. Unintended consequences & all that.

The legislature screwed that up by changing how it was implemented back in the 00s. The concept - equal education regardless of location - is still valid and the concept could easily be made to 'work'. Seriously, if you are going to fund schools via property tax, then you are going to have to redistribute the money to some extent.

The concept of charter schools is fine in theory, but it will all end up with public tax money being shifted to buddies of legislators and any kid who isn't above average will be excluded from the charters and left in a (now underfunded) public education system.

[creepy]

Originally Posted by Austinite101

To be very blunt, wealthy kids will almost always outperform kids from poor areas. The majority of the disparity has nothing to do with teacher quality or "disciplinary" systems.

Obviously there are cases both ways, but probably 80-90% of the time you could guess how "good" it is based on the average family income.

Yes, often, but maybe not for the reasons you might assume.

AISD does the best it can with some really bad support from our legislature. Did you see on the latest news the promises made and the reneging on them?

Some schools that seem average are actually really excellent if you look at all factors. Crocket HS is where my son went and I think it is superior to many schools. It has healthy diversity, the lack of too many rich kids keeps it real and also three is less negative peer pressure as a result. It is also not as huge as some of the high schools and for many kids, giant high schools are not a good match.

The things that need to be fixed are the money that AISD gets intended to fix the unequal system, it uses to pay the teachers in the wealthier areas more money! This is why the rich kids get better educations! This is a crime and AISD has been called out for it by the federal government several years ago, we should be all angry at this and seeking to make the system fair.

Also there is a welfare system and rural areas in Texas mostly white, drain Austin and other cities of their resources. So there is some irony that the rural folks who might often call the big city folks negative names because we are mostly liberal here in Austin, we are paying for their kids educations and many of them are against "welfare".

[ashbeeigh]

Originally Posted by Trainwreck20

The legislature screwed that up by changing how it was implemented back in the 00s. The concept - equal education regardless of location - is still valid and the concept could easily be made to 'work'. Seriously, if you are going to fund schools via property tax, then you are going to have to redistribute the money to some extent.

The concept of charter schools is fine in theory, but it will all end up with public tax money being shifted to buddies of legislators and any kid who isn't above average will be excluded from the charters and left in a (now underfunded) public education system.

Your second paragraph is why charters don’t work. Public schools are required to educate every child, no matter their gifts or their limitations. And they have to find away to work with tough situations, whether it’s behavior, language, physical health needs, or mental health needs. When a charter can’t handle a child’s special needs they are asked to leave and are sent back to their home school and have lost valuable learning time and time to establish needs based on their IEP and special education needs. I don’t fault parents for trying charters and if they work for your kid, great, but some parents bounce their kids around trying to “find” the right education and it makes it even harder for the child to learn. This even happens within public schools when campuses are opened up for “transfer.” That blew my mind when I moved here from San Antonio. The only way you don’t go to your home school in San Antonio is if it happens to be a magnet, your new swank master planned community’s home school is capped due to over enrollment, or your parent is a teacher at another school. From what I recall, a child loses up to a year of developmental progress for every school change they make.

I understand the Robin Hood purpose. It has good intentions, but urban districts like AISD need to keep some of their money to support their high needs populations. And these kids suffer, and then they do what I just talked about.

[creepy]

I had some mistakes in my earlier post but cannot see an edit button today. Great article that explains how complicated hte school funding system is and therefore AISD challenges. https://comptroller.texas.gov/econom...on.php#article

[PurplePunch2017]

Be careful AISD..... you may become like HISD with this particular type of Republican state government.

[ashbeeigh]

Originally Posted by PurplePunch2017

Be careful AISD..... you may become like HISD with this particular type of Republican state government.

I just happened to be in Houston in January when this decision came down and I was glued to the tv regarding this development. AISD isn’t nearly as large and while they’ve made very similar mistakes (looking at the SPED programs) AISD continues to work towards remedying these problems to the best of their ability. (Funding, staffing availability, building limitations to be the biggest barriers).

[kitkatbar]

Originally Posted by creepy

The things that need to be fixed are the money that AISD gets intended to fix the unequal system, it uses to pay the teachers in the wealthier areas more money! This is why the rich kids get better educations! This is a crime and AISD has been called out for it by the federal government several years ago, we should be all angry at this and seeking to make the system fair.

Link to support this statement?