Janine probably attended an HISD high school:
Houston ISD students could earn high school diplomas without taking a single math or science class after their sophomore year under a proposal that is drawing criticism from some national education experts.
Critics say the change will leave students unprepared for college and the workplace.
"I'm surprised they would be considering this move," said Anne Tweed, president of the 55,000-member National Science Teachers Association. "That's a step backward."
Surprised? Texas mandates abstinence-only sex ed and proposed putting BMI ratings on report cards, and it ranks at or near the bottom in high school graduation rates. How can anyone be surprised that the school districts are enthusiastically joining the effort to turn our state into Dogpatch?
Only this time, Li'l Abner and Daisy Mae won't be allowed to wear such revealing clothing.
Superintendent Abe Saavedra wants to do away with a policy that mandates three years of math and science courses for all high school students. Instead, students who pass high school-level courses in the eighth grade would get credit toward a diploma. State law requires three math and science credits to graduate.
Saavedra's proposal, which is expected to win school board approval today, runs counter to a national trend of school systems requiring students to spend more time in math and science classes before they graduate. The decision is even more curious, some education experts said, given the fact that more than two-thirds of HISD's 2004 graduates who enrolled in local community colleges last fall were required to take remedial courses.
Two-thirds just doesn't cut it in today's cutthroat academic environment, dammit. Saavedra won't be happy until 100% of those graduates are forced to spend extra tuition dollars learning subjects they were once taught in public school.
I had to double check to make sure Saavedra wasn't a trustee with the Houston Community College System.
Saavedra told school board trustees earlier this week that the three-year requirement is unnecessary. It was adopted in 2001, he said, because trustees wanted high school juniors taking math and science classes at the same time they take the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills exam, which students must pass to graduate.
The current policy is based more on improving test performance than on academic quality, Saavedra said. What matters, he said, is that students take the necessary courses. "We absolutely are not lowering the standard," Saavedra said.
Still, Saavedra acknowledged that having high school students take more math and science classes would better prepare them for college. "If we required four years of math, it would work toward reducing the remedial requirement," he said. "I'm not telling you I won't come back with that kind of recommendation (in the future)."
He's really earning that $384K salary isn't he? Somebody give him a high five.
[For HISD students, "five" = (the number of semesters of Fundamentals of Math you'll be required to take at HCC) + (the number of shits the superintendent apparently doesn't give about your education).]
The Texas "education" system is beginning to be as appropriately named as the "E! Entertainment" network.
By which I mean not appropriately named at all.
Not like I can cast stones, though, Colorado is hardly known for its school system . . . I'm surprised I made it out with basic spelling and the ability to add fractions.
Ohter states may be working to undermine evolutionary theory by mandate, but in Texas we get at the heart of the problem by making sure the proles don't have the tools to understand scientific theories.
Take that, Kansas...
But at least the California public schools are still aces, right?
Sitting here in my classroom, I can hardly edit my thoughts into anything concise, but think about this.
Not so long ago, when I was a high school student, if you really messed up you got kicked out. If you did no work, you got kicked out. If you wanted to drop out, you dropped out. Now, in Texas, if you are under 18 you must attend school or face fines for truancy. You can't be expelled, only reassigned. One of my students got hauled off in cuffs yesterday for punching a principal. She'll be back in the fall. We must provide opportunity for every knuckleheaded 'tard that isn't in jail. In the school where I teach, we have 8 kids that wear ankle monitors. I have students that have shown up virtually every day that have never turned in a piece of work. If they attend my school, there's a 60% chance that your tax dollars are buying them lunch, instead of them handing you your burger and fries through a window.
The upshot is this: Books that were 9th grade curriculum in this state 20 years ago are now 12th grade curriculum. Not like they read 'em anyway. If you're not depressed, come be my sub for a day. (And I truly love my job. Thanks for the paycheck. I'll think of you all in June.)
Um...not to defend Texas or anything, but I took three years of maths and sciences in high school, and I would have jumped at the chance to take fewer had that been an option. Biology II and Trigonometry have proved less relevant to me than you might expect. Not that I'm saying these are not subjects that deserve respect, but my life is no discernably different than it would have been had I never studied them. I graduated from a reasonably elite liberal arts college, and I'm getting my MA in professional writing next year. I think I'm doing all right.
But would you have gotten into that reasonably elite liberal arts college without an impressive high school transcript? For better or worse, higher education is very competitive. Walking into high school and only aiming for community college is ridiculous. No, knowing pi to 12 digits won't matter in your "real" job, but you've got to play the game if you want to get there. It's getting harder and harder all the time.
I can't really think of a time I have used most of the math and science skills I learned (or at least tried to learn) back in high school. I went to a liberal arts/communications (film, television. writing, radio, theater) college and didn't use them there. I've been working for the past three years (mostly in retail- unfortunately- with the occasional freelance gig) and haven't used the math or science there either. I disagree with the comment that one should study these subjects just to play the "game." That's missing a larger point. I think these subjects are important and should be taught for their own sake, and on their own merits, not on some perceived "societal game".
By studying math and science all four years of my public high school education (up here in Massachusetts, which I think is the requirement- though i am not sure) I cultivated the ability to learn and think, to use my mind in a different way than I did in my more favored english and history classes. To teach math and science isn't just to teach math and science, but to teach how to think, how to use a brain, to use logic and deductive reasoning to come up with the right answer. To have a well rounded education is to be a well rounded person. To not encourage this type of education is to fail the students we are trying to educate. It's no wonder to me that texas is 47th in public education.
No one ever looks back on their life and says, "Boy, I wish I was more stupid."
I cannot agree more with the idea of becoming a well-rounded person and developing all those little corners of the brain(I stress this to my students ad nauseum), but I thought that was an understood for this discussion. I was thinking of the perspective of a huge school district, which is a business measured by the success of its products (yes, this is a crappy analogy, but it's true), and if those products/students can't compete in our uncaring society, being well-rounded is the least of their worries. Trust me, I'm not a part of the problem. I just have a depressingly full perspective.
This travesty is a direct result of the self-esteem approach to education. It's imperative that students never feel pressured, never be required to discipline their minds by reading mandatory literature, never have to do homework, never have to attend class regularly, never have to complete required, state mandated coursework otherwise their fragile, infantile egos will be serwiouswy and irweparabwy damaged. Boo hoo!
Actually, it isn't the kids with the problem. It's the weak-willed, know-it-all parents who foist these mamby-pamby approaches to public education upon administrators and teachers who scramble to meet the needs of their often recalcitrant, manipulative students. How do the parents manage this you ask? It's very simple. They scream "lawsuit" at the tops of their voices and the school districts fold faster than Superman on laundry day (heh-heh, I couldn't resist.)
The students may not know much about history, science, math or English but they do know one thing. They know how to manipulate their weak-willed parents into requiring next to nothing from themselves and their offspring while simultaneously requiring the moon and stars from teachers. The public education system is in its death throes. The only thing left to do is pull the plug.
Babyjane is dead on.
The other day at a school near you: The scene is an evening banquet for athletes. Parents, teachers, and students are in line to pick up dinner plates. Some kids are being rowdy.
Teacher: Hey guys, settle down.
Parent: Hey, leave them alone. This isn't your class time.
Kids: Yeah, ha ha, blahblahblah.
I adore you for quoting Ghostbusters.