failing school districts (Dallas, Austin, Highland Park: renting, crime, home) - Texas (TX) - City-Data Forum

southern living · 08-13-2008, 02:25 PM

according to the latest news,Texas students improve ACT scores for third year | WFAA.com | Texas Southwest (http://www.wfaa.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/texassouthwest/stories/081308dntexact.4463845.html - broken link) only 20 percent of tx students are ready for college! (i dont know why this is not considered a crisis) could this possibly be true? does anybody know what standards are used to determine this?

For those who are home-schooling, what standards do you use and how do you determine that they are adequate or at least higher than the TEKS (texas essential knowledge and skills)?

momof2dfw · 08-13-2008, 02:29 PM

Well............ based on that story I'd say the ENTIRE nation is in trouble. If the National avg is only 21.1 and Texas was at a 20.7.............. no one has bragging rights, imho.

loves2read · 08-13-2008, 02:31 PM

most of this comes from college English and math departments who see a tremendous number of students who cannot go into a freshman level class w/o taking a remedial class first...in TX they have to score high enought on TAKS to show they can move into college level vs remedial courses...
my son taught English in jr hi in the Highland Park ISD Dallas --considered one of top in TX--and then he taught freshman English while working on his MA degree at UNT--a generic state school--where most students are "average" hs students...
most of them had really poor skills for writing and hated to read and interp for essays...
nothing new there--I taught hs students and most of my students who were going to college HATED English
they tried to plagiarize anything they could get away with---
more schools do not take that crime seriously and really punish the kids who do it...

and yes it is a national emergency--but get in line here--we have people who go to bed hungry--senior citizens dying from the heat because they can't afford a/c--millions of dollars going down the drain in Iraq--and lots of other critical needs--
the people who came up with the NCLB act thought that passing that bill was enough to make everyone shape up...
not so....
don't confuse TEKS and TAKS...

billdfw · 08-13-2008, 02:41 PM

A bunch of B.S. What does "not prepared for college" mean?

Every idiot and drunk that I knew during college graduated (eventually). It's not hard to do.

Not everyone is cut out for college anyways.

southern living · 08-13-2008, 02:47 PM

If 80% of students are not ready for college, then that means there are plenty of students from much coveted exemplery and recognized schools who are not making the cut.

meanwhile, TEA is offering schools exemptions to make their performance look better than they really are (and it just happens to be an election year) and margaret spellings the education sec thinks the results are "encouraging"

clearly passing the TAKS does not mean one is ready for college. that means the TEKS standards must be too low. that is why im curious to know what standards home-schoolers use.

loves2read · 08-13-2008, 02:48 PM

consider who hired Margaret Spellings for that job--someone who bragged about being a C student and who never had to worry about grades at either college he went to (UT Austin Law School refused his application--they knew what they would get)...
passing TAKS does not mean one is ready for college--graduating from high school does not mean someone is ready to do college level work either--
but some colleges will admit students w/o an ACT or SAT score simply because they have a high school diploma...
it is not that TEKS standards are too low--it is which ones are emphasized and taught and LEARNED which make the difference

most high school students cannot write an original, researched paper with proper internal documentation/citations that apply to the thesis and prove a point--
teaching skills like that are time-consuming and frustrating--two qualities that most students and teachers find difficult to come by in the modern classroom...
I know--I have tried to teach students how to write a research paper over the years and frankly I wrote one when I was in the 8th grade that was better than most hs juniors could do...
they don't want to do it--even if you show them how--they just want to cut/paste off the Internet...
even the AP students cheat in many cases--justifying it by saying how stressed they are to do all their honors and extra curricular activities...

I would love just once to see an article that assigns half of the responsibility for learing to the students and their parents

getting an education requires effort on the part of the student--it is not like a paper towel blotting up water on the drain board--effortlessly just because the two items are in proximity....
it is not just school districts that are failing--I guarantee you there are plenty of students who are failing and families that are failing as well...

southern living · 08-13-2008, 02:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by loves2read

consider who hired Margaret Spellings for that job--someone who bragged about being a C student and who never had to worry about grades at either college he went to (UT Austin Law School refused his application--they knew what they would get)...
passing TAKS does not mean one is ready for college--graduating from high school does not mean someone is ready to do college level work either--
but some colleges will admit students w/o an ACT or SAT score simply because they have a high school diploma...

I would love just once to see an article that assigns half of the responsibility for learing to the students and their parents

getting an education requires effort on the part of the student--it is not like a paper towel blotting up water on the drain board--effortlessly just because the two items are in proximity....
it is not just school districts that are failing--I guarantee you there are plenty of students who are failing and families that are failing as well...

the problem might not be with the school districts but with the standards that are set. here, it appears the standards have been set too low. passing the TAKS doesnt mean one is ready for college

GHJohn · 08-13-2008, 02:58 PM

There is a simple solution to this issue - Parenting!!!

GHJohn · 08-13-2008, 03:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by southern living

the problem might not be with the school districts but with the standards that are set. here, it appears the standards have been set too low. passing the TAKS doesnt mean one is ready for college

That is putting it mildly. Need to also look at the demographic that is eligible to attend college. I'll wager that a lot of those kids who are eligible (based on academics alone) are asians and upper class caucasians. The reason is mostly because of Parenting and the amount of importance that is placed for education among that demographic.

Schools can teach all they want but if the kids go home and just throw their bags into a corner and get online to chat with their friends about the lasted craze then how can anyone blame the school for that?

southern living · 08-13-2008, 03:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GHJohn

That is putting it mildly. Need to also look at the demographic that is eligible to attend college. I'll wager that a lot of those kids who are eligible (based on academics alone) are asians and upper class caucasians. The reason is mostly because of Parenting and the amount of importance that is placed for education among that demographic.

Schools can teach all they want but if the kids go home and just throw their bags into a corner and get online to chat with their friends about the lasted craze then how can anyone blame the school for that?

it goes beyond just parenting. most of the litrature that ive read states that the US education is almost last when compared to other industrialized nations.