Texas Ed Spectator

WOAI: San Antonio News – Child Beaten Unconscious On School Bus:

The Northside Independent School District says a fourth grade boy was beaten and kicked in the back of a crowded school bus Friday morning. The students were being taken to McDermott Elementary School off Huebner.

Apparently a 4th and 5th grader beat up the kid. The other kids were nice enough to inform the bus driver that someone was lying unconscious in the back of the bus. I guess peer pressure allowed for that much but wouldn’t allow for anyone to report to the bus driver what was happening when it was actually happening and maybe prevent the kid from reaching the unconscious state to begin with.

What kind of children are we raising so that they are willing to watch two human beings hurt another without saying anything? (To stop it, I mean, rather than encouraging it.)

If TAKS scores go up unexpectedly, you can be flagged for cheating when all you really did was, well, what you were supposed to do:

MySA.com: KENS 5: Education:

For example, Northside’s Pease Middle School was flagged for gains in eighth-grade math. But districts don’t know which individual student scores stood out. “If they gave us the data files, we could link it back to a ton of things our schools did,” said Sandra Poth, Northside’s testing director. At Pease, the district doubled the time eighth-grade students were in math class from the 2003-04 school year to the 2004-05 year. Students went from 45 minutes of math each day to 90.

But then again, there are those who can’t really point to any reason for gains in test scores:

MySA.com: KENS 5: Education:

North East Superintendent Richard Middleton said it’s nearly impossible to police a system that tests millions of students each year. North East had one school flagged — Bush Middle School — for gains in sixth-grade math.

Maybe it’s time to start looking beyond just numbers for both schools and students. Tests are a valuable tool, but they aren’t the complete answer.

Dallas Morning News | News for Dallas, Texas | Texas/Southwest:

In other words, a student who moved to Dallas in June and attended a local school the entire school year would still not be counted in that school’s scores the following spring.

Does this mean that the students who move away from Dallas will be counted in the school’s scores for the next year as well?

PDK International |:

“Take out your classes’ latest benchmark scores,” the consultant told them, “and divide your students into three groups. Color the ’safe cases,’ or kids who will definitely pass, green. Now, here’s the most important part: identify the kids who are ’suitable cases for treatment.’ Those are the ones who can pass with a little extra help. Color them yellow. Then, color the kids who have no chance of passing this year and the kids that don’t count — the ‘hopeless cases’ — red. You should focus your attention on the yellow kids, the bubble kids. They’ll give you the biggest return on your investment.”

Do you know which category your child falls under? The first year Texas started requiring 3rd graders to pass the TAKS, I was contacted by several parents who were told that their child didn’t have a chance of passing so they weren’t going to spend their time on them. Some parents were really surprised because their children received good grades on the report cards.

Grand Avenue Comic, June 7, 2006

http://www.comics.com/comics/grandave/

The setup for the strip, a girl in a lunch room, “The bad news: Grandma still humiliates me in front of all the kids by packing notes in my lunch!”

So this is funny because it society in general accepts that this happens in the lunchroom. Why do kids make fun of the note? Who are the kids making fun of the note? Would you admit to doing it when you were a kid? Would you believe your child is doing it now? So what will the kid do because she feels humiliated? Is this something that you experience at lunch at work? This is the socialization my homeschool kid is missing out on?

Spare me “kids will be kids.” This is mean and cruel and only happens when adults aren’t around. Is this the way a 10 year old is supposed to demonstrate their separate identity from their parents, by humiliating other kids’ relationships?

Warren HS Senior’s ‘Wave’ Gets Her Kicked Out Of Graduation Ceremony:

A Warren High School senior was not allowed to walk across the stage to receive her high school diploma recently because she violated Northside Independent School District policy when she waved and pumped her fists in the air at the crowd.

What I want to know is what incident originated the rule and was this the best option?