Texas public education system is something that
needs some attention by those in the Texas government. According to “Texas onthe Brink,” Texas has the 2nd highest amount of public school
enrollees, but the 45th SAT scores and the 43rd high
school graduation rate. One of the worst statistics might be that Texas is 50th,
as in last place, with the percent of citizens twenty-five or older that have received
a high school diploma. This
means that compared to every other state in the US, Texas is one of the least
educated, with one of the highest amount of children enrolled in our school
system. These are unacceptable statistics, and something needs to be done. The Texas Education Agency has made it their
mission “is to provide leadership, guidance and
resources to help schools meet the educational needs of all students.”
They do this by creating things like the TAKS test, which has improved Texas’
graduation rates marginally, but still not enough. There is more that needs to
be done. The TAKS test is meant to replicate the SATs, but another idea would
be have something that replicates a remedial test that students take at a college
level to determine where they should be placed. There are so many students that
are required to take these remedial courses, which should not be necessary because
they are a waste of time and money if only the students had gotten the proper
education in high school. Texas has a huge budget deficit that must be filled
this year, so requiring them to invest more money into our children’s education
system does not seem like a reasonable request. However, the money that does go
into improving our public school education needs to be properly prioritized on
improving their graduation rates and not on other things like sports. Students
need to see that there is a reason that school needs to be a precedence in
their lives and that not graduating is not an option.
2 comments:
Graduating is a MUST!
That's what I like about Texas' blog is about Texas having serious graduating problems. Danielle stated that Texas is ranked 43rd out of the 50 states, this was extremely appalling to me. I cannot believe Texas ranked that bad considering the high school I went to I believe I only knew of a few people that did not graduate, but if you take a few from every high school I guess those numbers add up.
I did a little research on Texas graduation rates and found that "Texas' on-time high school graduation rate has reached an all-time high, increasing 1.6 percent to 85.9 percent for the Class of 2011." It also said that this was the first graduating class that had to take four years of math and science, which Danielle said we need to focus on getting college students away from taking remedial courses I believe this may help in a big way. With high school students have to take more math and science and maybe less of the "office aid" classes it will help keep students up to date in certain areas where there are remedial classes. So in turn the state can put less money toward college remedial classes and more toward higher education classes in high school.
I felt the need to write a comment in regard to a recent post made by one of my wonderful classmates, Danielle. Like myself, Danielle wrote a post titled "Graduating is NOT an option" about the education system here in Texas, only hers had more to do with the graduation rate and less about the money. Danielle mentioned that Texas is the 2nd highest state with the most public school attendees, and ranks 43rd in the nation when it comes to the graduation rate. Talk about some incredibly depressing numbers, and sadly, this isn't news to me. What really surprised me was what Carrie mentioned in her follow-up response to Danielle's blog. She said that the graduating class of 2011 was the first class that had to take four years of math and science. WHAT?! Now paint me gold and call me confused (don't ask me where I heard that, ha ha), but your telling me that kids in Texas weren't required to take math and science classes EVERY YEAR they were in high school? This is ridiculously unbelievable to me, and now I can sort of understand why students here in Texas may be having such a hard time graduating. Danielle mentioned that Texans may need to shift their priorities from sports to things like math and science, and I wholeheartedly agree. Personally, I also believe that if public schools started teaching things like contraception and not just abstinence, more children would not get pregnant and be forced to drop out (in 2011, Texas had the third highest teen birth rate in the nation). Sorry, but I'm a realist, not an idealist. I agree with Danielle and Carrie, but unfortunately don't see the numbers drastically changing anytime soon.
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