199 TX schools labeled "substandard"

Just something to think about if shrub tries to elevate anyone from the Texas education scene...

http://tinyurl.com/4m6ly


AUSTIN – Parents at 199 substandard public schools in Texas will get the option by today to transfer their children to better schools under a federal law aimed at boosting achievement.

A list of schools failing to make the grade – including three dozen regular and charter schools in the Dallas-Fort Worth area – was released Wednesday by the Texas Education Agency. Passing rates on the state achievement test were the main criteria used to assemble the list, which was dominated by high schools.

Under the federal No Child Left Behind Act, school districts must tell parents that they can request a transfer for their child to another public school immediately. The district must provide transportation

Amy Spellings

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

work in businesses and homes of fine citizens in El Paso, for less than minimum wage, and with no employer-provided health insurance?

First of all, this story mentions a large number of schools in Dallas/Fort Worth, where that's not as much of a problem as in El Paso. Second, even in El Paso the white schools are fine, it's the minority schools that aren't.

There's plenty of money, the state just doesn't spend it trying to make the bad schools better. Different schools have different needs, but Texas is more interested in building swimming pools and doing ridiculously expensive landscaping at the rich schools than in finding out what changes would improve the schools in poor districts.

People always want to blame someone who doesn't look like them for all their problems. It certainly shouldn't be done here.

Local bond elections are held to build schools. It's still a problem, as rich districts tend to be able to appeal for more money from their citizens - and the assessed values of rich districts raise more money per mill than poor districts. But it's not a state decision on how to spend the bond money.

The TAKS test is a new test to our students. It is really hard! I think that there are many adults that wouldn't do well on this test. Don't blame this one on Bush.

I fail to see the logic in forcing school districts to pay for bussing everywhere else, instead of holding teachers and budgets for PROPER equiment accountable.

and he's just as bad.

policy before.

Karan, could it possibly be that the test about which you speak is the result of the NCLB policy? All states had to test accountability--that's just the way Texas does it. Even Mississippi has these "really hard" academic standards tests. We don't have that high of a percentage of failing schools, though.

Yes, this is Bush's fault. Require impossible standards from public schools and then refuse to fund the mandate. How can it NOT be his fault?

The latter is more likely.

If you want a REALLY hard standard test get them all to take the IB diploma exams (like i did). Hell, make them do the whole course. If they did, we would have smarter school since anyone below "Damn fucking smart" will most likely drop out during prep year :P

People who take SAT prep courses tend to do better on SATs than people who don't. It doesn't make them more learned on the subject, it just helps them do better on the test. The prep courses don't replace your high school classes, they suppliment them.

When standardized testing started to become the rage, teachers' number 1 complaint/concern was that they were forced to spend far too much classroom time teaching kids to take the tests and not enough time teaching the actual subject.

Taking vitamins with your meals may give you a health boost. Taking vitamins instead of meals won't do a whole lot.

It's a standards-based test. A group of teachers gets together with state admin. and decides where to set the bar for the disciplines and grade levels. The test is administered and each kid is measured against the bar - not against each other.

It is a pretty tough test, as the bar is set high, and it's not just a "come up with the answer" style test. You have to show HOW you came up with the answer as well.

But it's true that a lot of students just don't give a shit about the test. We've had many who just don't show up on those days, who hand in the test early and say they're done, etc.

Uh huh.

Your post reminds me of the top 10% rule in Texas...kids who graduate in the top 10% of their class are automatically admitted to any state university here in Texas, the colleges HAVE to accept them no matter WHAT. Now, "top 10%" sounds good, right?? Problem is, kids were taking "basket weaving 101" and similiar classes thru out school and, lo and behold, they made the top 10%, got admitted to a state university---and then had to take REMEDIAL classes in college cuz they spent the previous 4 yrs in high school learning "basket weaving" instead of taking REAL classes. Meanwhile, the kids taking real classes thru high school either didn't make the top 10% or had a hell of a lot harder time getting there.
So Texas then decided "OH..that's not a good thing". Last I heard there were talks on adjusting the 10 % rule so there would be a set of courses that would allowed in order to use the 10% rule...and basket weaving-type classes are NOT going to be allowed. We'll see of they actually follow thru with any changes, though.

http://www.discriminations.us/storage/002409.html

Texas’s Top 10% plan, under which the graduates in the top 10% of their graduating classes from every high school in the state are guaranteed admission to the state university of their choice, has been roundly criticized on several fronts. Those who prefer race preferences criticize the top 10% plan precisely because it does not take race into account. Others complain that it forces outstanding students who rank just below the top 10% in highly competitive high schools to leave the state, to make room for poorly prepared students from the top 10% of inferior schools.

No Child Left Behind even ALL special ed students have to pass the test?

99% passing rate is ludicrous. Any test on which you have a 99% passing rate means the test is unreliable and invalid as a measure of ANYTHING.

Metronomics much?

This "harder test" doesn't even require them to get 50% of the questions correct....and when the boards don't like their passing stats, they lower the bar even more

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dallas/tsw/stories/110902dntextesting.75816.html


Results showed that 23 percent of those students, or nearly one-quarter, failed the TAKS reading test, using the passing score recommended by the review panel for that exam. The panel suggested that students be required to correctly answer 24 of 36 questions – 67.5 percent of the items – to pass.

Rates by ethnic group
By ethnic group, the failure rates for third-graders on the TAKS were: whites, 13 percent; blacks, 37 percent; and Hispanics, 30 percent.
Those percentages would drop if the board decided to phase in the passing standards, requiring students to correctly answer fewer questions in the first few years of the exam. For example, calling on students to answer 22 of 36 questions drops the overall failure rate to 18 percent, and lowering it to 20 of 30 questions drops the failure rate to 15 percent.

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/metropolitan/casey/2596187

Remember when 70 percent was a passing grade? For juniors this year, the bar was set at about 45 percent

So when they tell us 61 percent of juniors who took the TAKS test passed, they're not telling us very much. We don't know how meaningful it is to get 45 percent right, and we don't know what happened to 12,000 students who were in the class two years ago but didn't take the test.

Just as disturbing is the fact that "gains" in the TAKS test don't show up in college readiness. Texas ranks near the bottom in SAT scores, and scores on the state's own Texas Academic Skills Performance test have actually declined

The guy's a total fcking idiot of a moron and it's HIS bullshit LNCB that's leaving ALL children behind.

No results ever have been released on the TAAS on reliability or validity. The purpose of the test is to make money for the private firm which produces it, and for all those who produce materials for it.

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

Wanna bet? The TAKS test was created in RESPONSE to No Child Left Behind.

Who was behind NCLB?

That's right, your boy, bush.

Now how exactly are we not to blame bush for this one?

so you can get some schools that work. I mean, you are the second largest state in the union afterall. :eyes:

When I started teaching 20 years ago, we had the TABS test (Texas Assessment of Basic Skills) then we went to the TEAMS test -(Minimum Skills) - then we had the TAAS test (Texas Assessment of Academic Skills - now we are at the TAKS test (Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills) This has been an ongoing process for 25 years which is a very long time before NCLB.

ships students out. It's fueling the problem.

But the focus on testing only as a diagnostic gauge of achievement and skills was a Bush policy in Texas during his governorship, and then federally as the theif of the 2000 election.

Here's a really interesting article on the faulty Texas education system, that is used as a model for federal policy. Sad.

http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/Chronicles/September2004/0904Lutz.html

the criteria under TAKS?

It doesn't resemble the criteria used under TAAS at ALL and it is BECAUSE of No Child Left Behind.

http://tinyurl.com/6mduf

Transferring from underperforming schools to better ones is a core element of President Bush's No Child Left Behind Act, but families in Marlin, not far from the president's Central Texas ranch, are learning it doesn't apply to them.

"When there is only one campus in a district, that pretty well makes that option unavailable for a student," Marlin ISD Superintendent Letha Hopkins says of school choice.

The Marlin ISD, nearly 30 miles south of Waco in Falls County, educates about 1,400 students and two of its campuses have struggled to meet state and federal education standards in recent years. It has only one high school.

When Marlin High parents called the campus asking for transfers after its "needs improvement" rating was announced last month, they were told the much-touted federal method of school choice wouldn't be offered, Hopkins says.

The education system is based on local property taxes, with some odd wealth-distribution overlay to try to fund lower income schools. It doesn't work, and the money isn't allocated where it should be. In Austin we have some schools that look like Beverly Hills country clubs, complete with swimming pools and tennis courts and highly paid high school football coaches, and we have other schools that look like war zones, complete with occasional rapes and murders. Austin is not that big a city, and there isn't that big a difference in wealth in th city. It's all about who gets the money, who gets the attention.

If they created a state income tax, the money would still go to the rich schools, and the poor schools would still suck.

Capital funds - the type used to build school buildings - are separate from operating funds - the money used to pay staff and buy materials.

Capital funds are raised through mill levy elections in the local district. Wealthy districts often can raise a lot more money with a lower tax rate (mill levy) than a poor district. In Colorado, it's not uncommon for a wealthy district to be able to build a fabulous new school with a mill levy increase of 7 mills, where poor Conejos county might be able to afford a modular for 30 mills.

Separate from that is the operating money. This is usually distributed from a combination of local taxes and state aid (equalization funding). The state sets a level of funding per pupil for each district, then funds the amount through a combination of local property tax levies and state aid.

Many of these formulas are being challenged in court. 20 years ago, the bases for the challenges were often equity - i.e., the disparity in funding between schools in the state was too wide. Now the challenges are being based on Adequacy - schools just aren't getting enough money period.

I believe Maryland just won a case on this basis, and others are lining up to file. Colorado will file next month.

Yes, it really IS called the Robin Hood plan...

Our district is on the "wealthy" list per the state so we get to send $50 million EVERY YEAR to the state of Texas under the "Robin Hood" plan so they can give it to the poorer districts. Our property taxes have been maxed out under the state limit for property taxes. So every couple years the district gets bonds passed to help build new schools and upkeep the ones that need it. OUR local property tax dollars helped the city next to ours build THEIR high school under Robin Hood. The state can't take money raised by bonds so we get to keep that $$.

Small snippet on the TX school financial problems <this one listed below is my school district>..the link also has a history of the Texas school fund crisis/Robin Hood:

http://www.pisd.edu/news/advocacy/robin.hood.shtml

The next effort at meeting the tests of equity, Senate Bill 7, passed by the Texas Legislature in 1993, was challenged by property-poor school districts as well as property-wealthy districts. Points litigated include the equity issue, the capital financing issues, and issues of adequacy and suitability.


The impact on the operations of the Plano Independent School District of these efforts at equalization has been serious. Cumulatively since the inception of these equalization efforts, the District has purchased over $599 million in attendance credits from the State and other districts within the State. The District is at the tax-rate maximum of $1.50 for the general operating fund. Plano ISD has joined some 100 school districts in the state challenging the law's constitutionality.

The District's financial planning for the next several years takes into account the effects of possible court and legislative actions in order to address the continued impact of recapture of local funds without negatively impacting the quality of the District's educational program. However, due to continued loss of funds, the District reduced staff and made other cuts totaling $17 million in the 2004-05 budget.

From another Plano texan

that's what happend when you let the fundies come n and totally fuck up the place. Maybe the title shoul be changed simply to No Child Left!

is debateable...exemplary to him is correctly pronouncing a word with more than two syllables.

I thought Gov. Bu$h had done wonders for the Texas education system. NOT!