This is the kind of government we get when the only realistic primary threat you might face would come from the right wing of the Republican Party.
Should we restrict people from making judgements/laws/rules/votes/etc via any political/social method on public schools if they don't put their children in public schools? That is going to be a rough quorum call in DC. I guess the POTUS doesn't get a say either. http://www.donna4texas.com/blog/page/2/ http://www.donna4texas.com/donnas-family/ BTW, their three children graduated from , Rice, Rice, and UT-Austin. So they, presumably she, did something right educating her kids. Maybe only people with three children graduated from Tier 1 universities can hold the position?
I think in legislative/board member roles diversity of experience and opinions can be healthy. I'd like for the person in charge to be a subject matter expert.
A home school parent who worked for Dan Patrick. Not sure why anybody would be shocked. A lot of republicans won't stand up to the idiots of the party until it's too late. "Referring in part to Gov. Abbott’s veto of this bill, Rep. Jimmie Don Aycock (R-Killeen), chair of the House Public Education Committee, said the governor was catering to “paranoia that is driving education policy in the state,” which Aycock deplored as “toxic and counterproductive.” Aycock, who is not running for re-election, expressed the hope that “Texans will reject the Tea Party mantra that educators are ‘godless socialists’ and that children are ‘trapped in failing schools’ and instead pull together to support and improve our public schools.” Nice to say that about your own party only after you retire. No speaking up when it mattered.
Gail Lowe who also home schooled her children and called public schools a "deceptive tool of perversion". Hardcore creationist and birther as well. You know, a typical perry appointee.
Fwiw, before Lowe was McLeroy whose main issue was forcing creationism into the science curriculum. He has a lot if teaching experience......in Sunday school. He was a ******* dentist.
Getting your own kid into rice is impressive. She clearly did well academically with her kids. I care much more about what she will do for the 5 million kids in public schools.
Zork, Does politics play a role in this? You bet your *** it does. Larry might disagree with me, but most teachers are Left-leaning, and most of those who are politically active are staunch liberals. If Bahorich was liberal, most teachers wouldn't care what her qualifications or background were or that she was a homeschooler. Very true. Nevertheless, suppose there was a regulatory agency that dictated how you did your job and that the people who ran it had little to no experience or knowledge of your work, yet despite their lack of experience or knowledge were extremely suspicious of and borderline hostile to you and how you did your job, and advocated policies to regulate your work that went against everything you were taught in your own education and training was the correct way to do your job simply because those policies were consistent with their political crusade. You wouldn't like it. Well, that's why even conservative educators like Larry aren't going to big fans of people like Bahorich. And no, it doesn't help that she trumpets the fact that she was a campaign manager for Dan Patrick. That just exposes her as someone who got her appointment by being a political hack rather than being qualified. I'd be embarrassed of that fact. I wouldn't celebrate it. Personally, I don't have a problem with boards having people who aren't experts. I think it's good to at least have the perspective of outsiders. However, a regulatory board should consist mostly of experts, and those who are not should usually (though not always) be deferential to them. They certainly shouldn't be hostile or carry a bias.
There is a lot of stuff with respect to much of the government that I don't like. If I am working in the government, which I never have, it would seem to me that I would understand that I am at the whim to a certain degree of who is elected and how they appoint whomever. I didn't pay attention, for whatever reason, to the specifics of who was on the SBOE till this thread. Before this thread I didn't know the chick who the thread was about nor her predecessor. It seems many are up in arms about their creationist tendencies among other seemingly right wing, or religious, leanings. Clearly there is no litmus test to get into UT-Austin or Rice that your mom had creationist tendencies, went to Liberty U., etc, etc. You have to be very well educated to get in to those Universities and she produced 3 kids who got in. The first post on this thread mentions that she home schooled them or that is the implication, right? Does it give her any credence that maybe her way of home schooling was as successful as you can possibly be? Maybe there needs to be more of an influence like she provides, or will provide, not less? Maybe she can use her good judgements that provided the successful mentorship with her children to get them into Rice and UT to foster the same successes as she leads as the chairperson of the 15 members of the SBOE? Clearly Wheelchair thinks she is the right person. Just like President Obama thought his nominees were right for their positions. More importantly, was she confirmed or is she up for confirmation or is it automatic? She is not the emperor of Education in Texas even if she is chair of the SBOE.
That article doesn't look too fondly on the Texas Board of education. It has bias all over it though.
I didn't necessarily agree with much of the article but thought it was interesting enough to post. The part about the Texas vs Cali books was the most interesting to me.
Agreed. When I hear that "Texas dominates the text book industry" I'd often wondered why California didn't have an equal effect pulling them left. Now I understand why. Texas centralization of the funding mechanism means that a text book salesperson only needs to sell to ~20 people on the Board of Education as opposing to the hundreds of school boards throughout California. Can you imagine how much the Texas BoE gets lobbied or wine-n-dined?
some of the stuff for hospital staff has changed on how much they can accept.($5 per occurrence now I believe) Not sure if the same rules apply for SBOE committee personnel? If you are trusting the school to be the arbiter of what your child learns they are going to be in a sad state in my opinion. They are at the mercy of the teachers but as parents we supplement or add value that can help them succeed in the world, even if there is religion involved. Knowns vs unknowns, fate vs reality, faith vs non-faith, objective vs subjective, etc, etc, are very important nuance to be taught starting at a young age a little at a time and growing more specific as time goes on is how we are doing it for our two kids. We are teaching them to be decision makers and thinkers about everything they encounter while trying to let them have as much fun as possible in large doses.(especially this time of year as we get ready to gear up for the next school year in about 3-4 weeks so they are ready for the grind in late August) Of course getting them to answer open ended questions about "what they did in school today" is not always successful.(or other variants) People on all sides of these topics need to chill.
I'm just going to put this here because I don't think we need a new education thread and this on has my name in the title Anyway, TEA just released it's snapshot data for the state and I thought it was worth looking at the comparison of charter vs isd public schools. For the record, I am fine with charter schools, but feel that they are under regulated considering the state money that they get. Many are amazing schools and many are absolute dumps. When you look at the numbers, I don't think they are the solution they are cracked up to be. Dropout and Graduation Rates: ISDs had a dropout rate of 1.5%, charters had a 5.5% dropout rate ISDs had a 4-year graduation rate of 91%, charters had a 60.6% rate ISDs had a 5-year graduation rate of 92.9%, charters had a 70% rate Academic Performance: ISDs outperformed charters on 3 out of 5 STAAR tests (Math, Science, Social Studies) ISDs matched charters on the other 2 out of 5 STAAR tests(Reading and Writing) ISDs tested 64.5% for college admissions, charters tested 44.2% ISDs average SAT score was 1422, charters average was 1412 ISDs average ACT score was 20.6, charters average was 19.7 Staff expenditures & allocation: ISDs spent 57.4% on instructional expenses, charters spent 50.9% ISDs spent 6% [on] central administrative expenses, charters spent 13% ISDs had 3.8% of employees in central or campus administrative roles Charters had 7.6% of employees in central or campus administrative roles Teacher salary/experience/turnover and class size ISDs average teacher salary was $49,917, charters average was $43,669 ISDs had 15.3 students per teacher, charters had 16.8 ISDs had 32.1% of teachers with less than 5 years experience Charters had 75.2% of teachers with less than 5 years experience 24% of ISD teachers had advanced degrees, charters had 17.4% ISDs had a teacher turnover rate of 15.6%, charters had 36.7%
Larry, Respectfully, these numbers don't tell the story on charter schools, because they include data from public schools that the charters aren't intended to compete with. If I was a state legislator studying the issue, I'd want to know how the charter schools measure up against the public schools their students would be attending if the charter schools didn't exist.
There is always more to the story and we don't have all of the relevant data as you stated. The only way to really figure it out is to follow each kid and track their performance once they leave a public school and enter a charter. I just think public perception is a little twisted on the issue where people think charter schools are some gold standard where all the kids magically become rocket scientists.
People who think that are obviously wrong, and I'm not sure why they would. Keep in mind how charter schools came about. They were a political compromise - formed by a coalition of Republicans who wanted vouchers and Democrats who wanted to offer some alternative for students in bad schools but couldn't quite swallow a voucher program. As with most compromises, it's going to have its problems in both directions.
