Dallas Morning News: Study shows suburban students lagging (Houston, Fort Worth: school districts, university)

[Lakewooder]

Bush Institute education study shows suburban students lagging | Dallas-Fort Worth Education News - News for Dallas, Texas - The Dallas Morning News

"A George W. Bush Policy Institute study finds that even students in sought-after suburban schools are not competing well with their international peers"

"The report found that performance in even respected suburban schools — including some in the Dallas area — is mediocre when compared globally"

“The larger suburbs that we normally think of as refuges from the ills of urban education tend not to be at the top of the list,” said Jay Greene, one the report’s authors and a fellow at the Bush Institute. “That’s much lower than what we expected and much lower than parents in those districts think.”

[biafra4life]

Lakewooder, you know I consider you a friend, and normally I'm a big cheerleader for the Dallas schools when the suburbites get snippy, but I dont know that posting this is entirely fair on your part. If a suburbite posted some article casting the DISD schools in a bad light, you would be upset...

[Philip T]

You both are sort of missing the point.

Here is the heirarchy of sucks.

In general, on a world scale, US public education sucks.

In general, on a US scale, Texas public education sucks.

In general, on Texas scale, Suburbs tend to suck somewhat less than Cities.

But in all of that Much of the US Sucks, and Most of Texas Sucks.

And you princesses are setting up argue over whether the Suburbs or the Cities of Texas Suck most/least?

Answer: Both suck.

[EDS_]

As I've said until I'm blue in the face our k-12 educational "situation" is trending towards a national security problem.

Regardless of claims to the contrary given the demographics Texas does very well and it does very well while spending a lot less that other places. As an example Wisconsin spends more per pupil. And their HS grads sport better mean SAT scores. However, every cadre in Texas black, hispanic, and white scores better than the same cadre in Wisconsin.

At some point we need to stop screwing around and figure out why hispanics and blacks as groups just don't care about education enough relative to most of the first world.

To a large degree I reject the rich poor cop out. Asians move here with little to nothing all the time and their kids excel in school. A friend of mine arrived here from Cambodia with $17 in his pocket. Through force of will and hard work all four of his kids are now degreed professionals. A long time friend of mine arrived from Zambia at 19yo, pregnant, arrenged local job vaporized, with about $400 in hand. She's now a college professor in California. Another friend WALKED out of Iran after his mom and dad were killed by the local clergy for being intellectuals. Years on this guy is a professor as well.

[Big G]

Before we go down the rabbit hole of racism ...

This is another example of Lakewooder grasping at anything, anything, that cuts down the suburbs and promotes DISD.

Problem is, this article only satisfies half of that.

Lakewooder's chosen tagline is "Suburban students lagging". With, I guess, an implied "relative to Woodrow and their IB program". But that isn't the comparison here. It's to students from places like Denmark and Singapore.

I don't have the study in front of me (given that it's not yet released), but I'll go out on a limb and guess that Philip T's line is correct:

In general, on Texas scale, Suburbs tend to suck somewhat less than Cities.

Meanwhile, the rest of Philip T 's post also stands. It's hardly a newsflash that the US education system holds its kids to extremely low standards compared to much of the developed (and even developing) world. That's not a suburban/urban/rural problem - it's systemwide.

[txgolfer130]

Dallas ISD, the country’s 14th-largest school district, scored in the 30th percentile in math. In a ranking of 30 American urban school districts, 18 others performed better in math than Dallas, including Houston and New York City.
...
As is often the case, the country’s largest school districts, including Dallas ISD (http://topics.dallasnews.com/topic/Dallas_Independent_School_District - broken link), ranked below average.

DISD Math:30 Reading: 33

Allen Math: 70 Reading: 77

Frisco Math: 68 Reading: 73

McKinney Math: 64 Reading 66

Plano Math: 64 Reading 69

Richardson Math: 50 Reading: 46


Seems that contrary to the OP's heading...the "suburbs" are doing disproportionately BETTER than DISD.

[Philip T]

the "suburbs" are doing disproportionately BETTER than DISD.

And they ALL suck on the international level.

Whole thing reminds me of a bunch of Big Loser's contestants (is it still ok to slam fat folks? Gangon don't like nobody picking on the Negroes ) all hanging around saying "at least we are not as fat as so and so . . .)

Real Deal US sucks.

We are the only country with 12 Aircraft Carriers, Troops in damn near every country which the kids cannot even find on a map, taxing working slobs to build Commercial stadium sports shrines, bailing out not only our own slimy bankers but ones around the world, sucking down imported Oil like a pack of crack addicts . . .

AND Still -- not bothering to teach the kids.

The Real Dumb comes from the top.

Quite fitting that GW's "Institute" should be the dim-bulbs to figger this un out, duh-ha.

[Big G]

The other thing missing in these type of country-vs-country comparisons is the relative selectiveness of secondary education in the various countries.

Here in the US, we educate the vast majority of HS kids using a university-prep curriculum. (Whether that's really a good idea is a subject for another debate.) That includes a lot of kids who probably aren't going to be going on to university, and who drag down the average scores for the USA.

That same student in Germany would be shuffled off to a vocational school, and wouldn't be part of this study for his country.

That same student in China very well might get no secondary education at all.


---

Could the public education system be improved? Of course. But the situation isn't as dire as studies like this make it out to be.

Let's take a look at the university systems across these same countries and see who comes out on top.

[GreyDay]

Originally Posted by Philip T

And they ALL suck on the international level.

Whole thing reminds me of a bunch of Big Loser's contestants (is it still ok to slam fat folks? Gangon don't like nobody picking on the Negroes ) all hanging around saying "at least we are not as fat as so and so . . .)

Real Deal US sucks.

We are the only country with 12 Aircraft Carriers, Troops in damn near every country which the kids cannot even find on a map, taxing working slobs to build Commercial stadium sports shrines, bailing out not only our own slimy bankers but ones around the world, sucking down imported Oil like a pack of crack addicts . . .

AND Still -- not bothering to teach the kids.

The Real Dumb comes from the top.

Quite fitting that GW's "Institute" should be the dim-bulbs to figger this un out, duh-ha.

Wow.

Like the post.

But the U.S. primary educational system is a joke on the international level. We pale in comparison to poorer countries such as India, that actually exports many 'skilled workers' on special visas to the US each year.

However keep in mind that pretty much after 6th grade (or its equivalent) most other nations track kids into either trades, crafts and the kids that do better go onto secondary schools and university.

If you've been to Cowboys stadium, it actually provides a myriad of jobs and cash to the city in which it's based. The concessions workers get paid, the walmart across the street gets business, homeowners can charge for parking. Jerry may have cut a sweet deal on tax breaks but the stadium undoubtedly provides much needed jobs. Any job is a needed job.

As for not picking on fat folks...I hope I'm not the firsrt one to tell you that your HMO will soon start deciding your premiums (or more correctly not giving you a discount for being at your ideal weight) based on the delta between your actual and ideal body weight. BMI needs to be 25.

[Dr. Jake Oil]

Originally Posted by ganongrey

We pale in comparison to poorer countries such as India, that actually exports many 'skilled workers' on special visas to the US each year.

Glad you put skilled workers in quotes there to highlight the sarcasm..