Archive for the ‘education’ Category
Death threat as a motivation technique
May 23rd, 2008
No charges will be brought against New Braunfels Middle School Principal John Burks for allegedly threatening to kill a group of science teachers if their students’ standardized test scores failed to improve, although all four teachers at the meeting told police investigators Burks made the statement.
Now imagine if some student at the school had said something along the same lines in a writing assignment. We would be hearing about zero tolerance all over the place. The student would be out of the regular classroom so fast it would make your head spin.
The sad part about this is that I bet if a mere, ordinary teacher were to have made some similar statement, he or she would be treated more like the student rather than the principle.
What is being taught? What is being learned?
April 21st, 2008
Students at Medina Valley High School in Castroville say more of them spent the day in in-school suspension than in class because they chose to wear the color green to school after being told not to.
So now we know what’s important to students and that the school administration is more than capable of making a mountain out of a molehill.
“I wore green because they told me, ‘well, you can’t wear green’ and seeing as how wearing green is not against the rules, I’m gonna do it just to make you mad,” Holloway said.
Some suggested links for the students and administration:
It had to come from an educrat
April 14th, 2008
With the Top 10 % Rule, obviously more people are paying attention to how schools rank the students.
Catherine takes mostly AP courses, and under the district’s system those courses earn more points than regular classes. But for three years of soccer, she earned no points at all.
North East adopted its rank point system in 2003 because district officials said under the GPA-based system, students could make it to the top of their class simply by doing well in basic courses. They wanted the top-ranked students to be those who were most prepared for college, so they devised a system intended to encourage students to challenge themselves.
I’m astounded at this incredibly bizarre system. Apparently, the district thought it was better for students to accumulate points for the various classes rather than do a weighted average for gpa. I can see where they might go down this path. Theoretically, a senior could just take one AP class and no other classes and have a higher weighted gpa than someone who took six AP classes as a senior. But by giving absolutely no points for certain classes, the student who takes PE, Art, and Theater Arts (I’m just guessing at what might be no point classes here) is no better off point wise than the student who didn’t take any classes. Who came up with that system?
Did anyone stop to think which system, a weighted GPA system or an accumulated point system had more “non-deserving” students in the top ten percent? Given the importance of class rank, would it have been that difficult for the district to apply the various systems to past classes to see who it would sort out?
Apparently, it was so obvious to some decision makers that a weighted gpa would be more unfair than a point system that there was no question of which way to go. I just wonder how many other school districts in Texas thought it was obvious to use such system?
Technorati Tags: Class rankings, calculating class rank, Texas, gpa
If you can’t join them, sue them
April 8th, 2008
Now they’re suing UT for considering race in the admissions that fall outside the top 10 percent.
UT sued for considering race in admissions
“But for her race and ethnicity, it is our belief she would have been admitted to the University of Texas,” said Edward Blum, director of the Project on Fair Representation, a legal-defense group that fights the use of race and ethnicity in public policy.
What exactly is this “belief” based on? Do Hispanics and African-Americans make up a larger percentage of the non-top ten percentage admits than Anglos (excepting athletes in money making sports, of course)? Are individuals from these groups being admitted with lower SAT scores than Anglos? How about those with a lower class rank? Is playing the cello supposed to be considered part of the admission process? If so, how does that compare to getting merely decent SAT scores at a poorly funded and poorly performing high school?
I have to admit that this is a change from the usual “my child scored 1400 on the SAT but can’t get into UT because she’s not in the top ten percent” complaint. Fisher’s SAT scores would put her in the bottom of the middle 50% for UT. It would be nice to know why they think she would be admitted under “race neutral” conditions.
Technorati Tags: UT Austin, admissions policy, racial preferences
