Keller ISD after tax vote fails (Fort Worth: house, public school, buses)

[mudbelly]

The current traffic is mostly from those living within 2 miles - when you add the rest of the students, the condition will deteriorate exponentially. We do drive on occasion (usually to let the kiddos sleep in), but I can't imagine how much it would suck if EVERYONE was driving in. Our elementary route is completely full (there are at least 10 at my stop alone). My kids love to ride the bus as it allows for social interaction with children away from the parents (something overbearing parents do not realize they are attenuating).

While KISD is acclaimed for its efficiency, there was never a need for this tax hike. You better believe people look at the tax rates when comparing homes, and we are already at the top. The most specious argument here is the claim that more money equals better education. Keller has the least per student in the area, yet still claims an exemplary high school (for now). I'm not too worried about my kids, genes are just as important as anything else, and my kids are lucky there . In Carroll, you must take all the additional stuff just to keep up with the competition. What a beating...

[LuvsFW]

Originally Posted by mudbelly

Wow, seriously, wow. Padcrasher, don't assume your precious Carroll has cornered the overbearing parent market - there are plenty here in Keller as there were in Colleyville when I lived there. We too have an over-abundance of non-working, sinewy white moms who look like Madonna (in a bad way) pushing their kids into every imaginable activity as well. What a lousy life for a kid. Unfortunately, you are at a disadvantage: a single B could bar your child from his first choice Texas school like UT with all that 'competition' in Carroll (10% rule burns Carroll students much worse than KISD); you got a better chance in Birdville actually. But then again, with all your riches, you can just endow a new building somewhere and get junior his education of choice...

I totally agree with you! The same could be said for Paschal in FW...many helicopter moms and so many high achieving kids that a few kids in Top 10%, one who was a National Merit Scholar, could not get into UT.

Same could also be said for all the private schools in FW. Many FW kids transfer to Arlington Heights so they can be in the top 10% and go to UT.

[expatChicagoan]

Originally Posted by 5stones

This is the first place I have lived where parents choose to drive thier kids when there is bus service.

My son would have ridden the bus if it were an option, but we live 1.8 miles from the intermediate school. I will not allow my 11 year old to cross N. Tarrant alone; it's not that I don't trust my son; I don't trust the adults on the road to follow the road rules - I can't tell you the number of times I have seen cars go through an intersection while there is still a child crossing the street...

[loves2read]

part of the issue is also that school like UT takes TOO MANY students from out of state and out of the country and can't take enough of students from inside our state--
I understand the need to have variable demographics within a college campus--
but much of what drives UT Austin's enrollment policy is the money that out of state students and out of the country students generate

[Mommy24kids]

[quote=mudbelly;19951865]The current traffic is mostly from those living within 2 miles - when you add the rest of the students, the condition will deteriorate exponentially. We do drive on occasion (usually to let the kiddos sleep in), but I can't imagine how much it would suck if EVERYONE was driving in. Our elementary route is completely full (there are at least 10 at my stop alone). My kids love to ride the bus as it allows for social interaction with children away from the parents (something overbearing parents do not realize they are attenuating).

So driving your kids to school = being an overbearing parent???????

[mudbelly]

No I didn't say that, but I do think my kids benefit from it. Most parents pick and choose their kids playmates; the bus is a place where kids are on their own. Independence is an important trait to develop early. We actually have kids from within the 2 mile zone ride the bus with our kids just for the fun of it (buses today are much nicer than the ones I grew up with). We will be in expatChi's predicament in a few years, as we too are too close to the intermediate school. Might be dragons by then (as I already am)...

[stan4]

Originally Posted by loves2read

at least I did not throw money to defeat the Keller tax initiative like the guy from Southlake Carroll did--
bet he is a TeaParty radical...who says one thing and does another

my point was that some parents are no help in getting students involved in a positive way--

and I think many of the voters have even less of a connection or desire for quality schooling in Keller than I do--admittedly I live in another ISD but firmly believe in the necessity for and postive impact of quality PUBLIC education--
and I would vote for tax increase in MY ISD if needed

Please. I understand and respect your feelings towards this, but spending more money isn't always the answer. In fact, we spend more money per student in this country that most other countries do...and you see where we are.

People who vote against blanket tax increases as the answer to everything (throw money at it! throw money at it!) don't realize or don't want to admit the true problems - rampant waste, pointless inefficient bureaucracy, and a shift away from educational priorities (by the average american).

Btw, 1.53% is still ridiculously low in the scheme of the entire metroplex.

[stan4]

Originally Posted by loves2read

part of the issue is also that school like UT takes TOO MANY students from out of state and out of the country and can't take enough of students from inside our state--
I understand the need to have variable demographics within a college campus--
but much of what drives UT Austin's enrollment policy is the money that out of state students and out of the country students generate

I'd rather they take better qualified out of state candidates than poor in-state candidates.

You know what makes Harvard 'better' than UT Austin? It's not that they have some secret knowledge there that they teach their kids. It's not like they have better books or even necessarily better profs. It's that they have better students. Better students improve the environment for everyone at the school. It enriches everyone. I can't tell you how frustrating it was to be at UT and be surrounded by both brilliant people and by total morons. I am glad that it has gotten tougher and tougher to get into that school. That kind of competition will only make the school better.

There are other colleges in this state for people who can't compete at that level. Let's make UT truly as bad-ass as it can be.

[loves2read]

much of the money that has gone into education in the past 10 yrs has been tied to "high stakes testing"
writing tests/spending money for tutoring to help kids pass the tests/hiring consultants to teach you how to teach for the test
printing tons and tons of prep material for pre-tests and post-tests
do away with that and you would see significant cost savings in local schools because the state ManDAtes all this testing but gives NO extra funding to support it
just like many of the state's other initiatives for education--
make a law that requies the local districts to spend more money in certain areas--BUT give them absolutely NO more money to enforce it or carry it out--
that means reducing other program areas OR higher taxes from the local residents
THAT is how the state can actually raise taxes w/o passing a new tax bill--
it just shifts the burden onto the backs of the people who have to pay to have those requirements put into force

[hal2814]

Originally Posted by loves2read

much of the money that has gone into education in the past 10 yrs has been tied to "high stakes testing"
writing tests/spending money for tutoring to help kids pass the tests/hiring consultants to teach you how to teach for the test
printing tons and tons of prep material for pre-tests and post-tests
do away with that and you would see significant cost savings in local schools because the state ManDAtes all this testing but gives NO extra funding to support it
just like many of the state's other initiatives for education--
make a law that requies the local districts to spend more money in certain areas--BUT give them absolutely NO more money to enforce it or carry it out--
that means reducing other program areas OR higher taxes from the local residents
THAT is how the state can actually raise taxes w/o passing a new tax bill--
it just shifts the burden onto the backs of the people who have to pay to have those requirements put into force

The state mandates such rigorous standardized testing because they do get federal money for participating in NCLB. If Texas were to pull out of NCLB compliance (which it very much can do), the state will lose roughly $2 billion in federal funding. That Title I money ISDs get, the Teacher Improvement grants, the Impact Aid program, the federal money that "saved" all of those jobs in Keller... that's all money that school districts get in exchange for their standardized testing.

That being said, I'm not a fan of our current testing-obsessed system. We need to trust teachers to tell us who is qualified to pass a class and who is not, and we need administrators to stay out of their way in that regard unless there is clear evidence the teacher is acting in bad faith. And if we are going to evaluate schools and teachers based on some metric of performance, that metric needs to relative to each individual child's abilities, not some arbitrary one-size-fits-all baseline.