Education Week: Texas Battle Looms on Class-Size Limit

“It would give flexibility to superintendents. It strengthens local control and gives them the opportunity to save some dollars,” she said, noting that school officials could decide to keep some classes at 15 students and others at 22 or 25.

Well, she’s got to say something. It was her constituents that were up in arms about UT’s top ten percent rule since their kids couldn’t get into UT while poor minorities or kids from rural schools were. What do you think is going to happen when her constituents find out that their schools are going to be laying off teachers even though they moved into the neighborhood because of the it’s quality schools?

Not that I feel sorry in the least for her constituents. These are the same people who elected Perry and have cheered every time he points out that Texas is doing great because businesses and voters like our low tax rates. In the meantime, the amount of state funding for public schools has been decreasing. And Texas can’t even get help from the federal government because last time Perry used the money to fund other state services instead of education.

Yep, elections have consequences…

MySA.com: Metro | State

AUSTIN — In a surprise move, the Texas House shot down a bill Sunday night that would have limited automatic admissions at the University of Texas at Austin for students graduating in the top 10 percent of their class.

A cheer went up in the chamber with the final vote, 75-64, against adopting a compromise bill that would have let public universities cap admissions of high-ranking students at 50 percent.

Now maybe people can start thinking about what Texas can do to improve the quality of all it’s universities.

As for the brain drain argument, drain away. Maybe all of these people who leave the state will choose to live outside of Texas. Then as more graduates of Texas’ top universities look more like Texas as a whole, these graduates will lead the way to improve higher education opportunities for everyone, not just the children of wealthy parents in north Dallas and the Houston suburbs.

Top 10-percenters may face UT admission limit | Chron.com – Houston Chronicle

After admitting half of its 2008 freshman class under the top 10 law, UT would then be required to admit another 10 percent of the top-ranking high school students using such criteria as college test scores, leadership traits and special talents.

That would leave 40 percent of the incoming class it could admit for whatever reason.

UT President Bill Powers, who directly negotiated with senators in closed-door meetings behind the chamber, helped forge a compromise allowing the cap to expire in eight years.

“We have to keep the onus on the back of universities. That’s why I wanted the sunset,” said Sen. Royce West, D-Dallas, whose allies to block the bill entirely had begun dwindling.

“It keeps the pressure on the University of Texas or any other institution to come back to the Legislature and show that they are doing what we want them to do as it relates to maintaining diversity,” he said.

The bill that emerged after more than two hours of debate would expire in 2015 and give top 10 students at least $1,500 a year in tuition breaks.

The idea to reward top 10 students with tuition breaks was hatched by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Steve Ogden, R-Bryan.

Under his amendment, top 10 students would no longer pay state-set tuition of $51 per semester hour, starting with the 2008 school year.

Even though $1,500 would probably only cover a third of tuition and fees at most public universities, Senator Williams makes it sound prohibitive:

Top 10-percenters may face UT admission limit | Chron.com – Houston Chronicle

Sen. Tommy Williams, R-The Woodlands, said the proposal sounded too expensive. The two-year cost would start at $25 million but balloon to $200 million by 2012.

But lets put this into perspective. Remember the sporting goods tax that wasn’t being used to fund the state parks? The parks were only getting $20 million of the over $100 million generated by the tax annually. Now I’m not suggesting we raid the sporting goods tax to fund colleges. I am suggesting that it probably isn’t that difficult to find the money if we had a little leadership.

And ultimately, $1,500 isn’t enough of a bribe to make these “undeserving” top ten percent go away. Why? Think of it this way. Would all those prospective UT Austin students from Collin county change their preference for UTSA for $1,500 a year? No. In fact, their parents are willing to spend a lot more than $1,500 to send their kids to out of state schools rather than have them go to some other school than UT Austin.

What is needed are some serious improvements in our other state schools to make them as attractive as UT Austin and Texas A&M. Given that UT Austin spends $11, 344 per student and UTSA spends $5,396, I think the state could redirect some of it’s efforts to non-”flagship” schools. Imagine what UTSA could do if it had twice the amount to spend on its students which would be just under $1,000,000. Whatever it would take to get a UT Austin wannabe to enroll in UTSA is what it’s really going to take to change the system.

There is plenty of evidence that the system needs help. Only 37% of the students attending public universities in Texas are at institutions that have a 50% or higher six year graduation rate according to College Results Online. Of the ten most populous states, only Georgia has a lower rate.

But what do you expect? Some very well to do parents got the state to take care of their interests. They don’t have to worry about any tax increases, they actually save money since they don’t have to send their kids out of state. And just how diverse do you think the student population will be at UT-Austin in ten years? I know, I know, the poor people should take their $1,500, be grateful, and shut-up.

Technorati Tags: Tommy Williams, Top Ten Percent, Top Ten Rule, Florence Shapiro, Bill Powers, Royce West, Steve Ogden

At least half of all high school students in the state’s major cities are dropping out of school, creating a crisis that state leaders are not doing enough to address, some education experts say.

This was true when I did my masters report in the 1980′s. This problem spans generations in terms of “alarm” over dropout rates. All of the dramatic reforms of the past thirty years, no pass-no play, increasing requirements, teacher reforms, etc, have proven to be only tinkering on the edges of the problem with no real results. I suspect things won’t change until the state is willing to go to some sort of equitable state wide funding mechanism while allowing more control at the local and parent level.

Right.

What do we have right now–does 4 by 4 ring a bell? No child left behind? Or how about how we handle charter schools?

MySA.com: Metro | State:

Shapiro’s proposed bill would make the closure of a charter school after two years on the academically unacceptable list automatic, removing intermediate steps that have slowed enforcement and helped spur courtroom battles. It would also set an absolute standard that a minimum of 25 percent of a school’s students must pass the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills tests in reading and math. If a school misses that mark two years in a row, it would have to shut its doors.

MySA.com: Metro | State:

Shapiro’s spokeswoman, Jennifer Ransom Rice, said there has been discussion of adding a caveat to the proposed bill that would allow such schools to prove that students are making considerable progress, even if their TAKS scores are sub par, thus saving themselves from closure. Rice said even if that measure is added to the bill, however, it would likely be a one-time-only second chance.

The logic behind this “reasoning” is astounding. First, you have schools taking kids who have managed to fall several/many grade levels behind over ten or eleven years and the school gets two years to bring them up to standards.

Then there is the whole “school choice” aspect of it. No one is forcing parents to send their kids to these schools. If these schools are doing such a terrible job, why are the parents still sending their children there? There are two possibilities.

One, the parent believes that the child is benefiting from the school regardless of what the state standards say. After all, they probably do take into account that their child is six years behind when he started the school.

Or two. The parents really don’t have a clue as to how their children are doing which is probably indicative of their own education experience. Can anyone say “culture of poverty?”

How will increasing standards reduce the dropout rate when part of the problem is that the students can’t meet the existing standards to begin with? How can shutting down a school because it doesn’t meet average yearly progress improve students’ performance if they are simply placed back into the situation that generated the problem to begin with?

Why do we still have a 50 % dropout rate after 40 years of alarm over the issue? Because no one is willing to come out and say resolving it would require spending more on students from poor economic backgrounds compared to those from wealthy, suburban districts. Because it would mean that people in a wealthy district would have to recognize that spending money on poor students is a necessary investment for their own children’s standard of living. It would mean letting go of the idea that somehow “those” students are in such poor schools because they deserve it.