HISD’s proposed laptops for all proposal has been scaled back from an 18 school pilot to a ten school pilot in response to concerns that they weren’t quite ready yet for anything bigger than that. Lenny Schad, chief technology officer for the Houston Independent School District, told the school board via email this week that [...]
Posts Tagged ‘high school’
Senate passes amended HB5
The Senate has passed its version of House Bill 5, which makes sweeping changes to standardized testing and curriculum requirements for high school students. Texas high school students would have new curriculum requirements under legislation unanimously passed by the Senate on Monday — but they won’t be the ones the House envisioned when it approved [...]
UIL moves to limit high school football practice time
They are doing it to limit the risk of concussion. Established in 2001, the University Interscholastic League’s Medical Advisory Committee has done its best to be proactive and stay ahead on issues. That’s been the case in requiring schools to have automated external defibrillators, dealing with concussions and establishing protocols. On Sunday, the committee did [...]
School stuff
Just a basic roundup of education-related stories, since there’s so much going on. From the Trib, action in the House on testing in grade school. Elementary and middle school students currently take a total of 17 state exams before high school. They are tested each year in grades three through eight in reading and math, [...]
House passes major changes to testing and graduation requirements
This is a big deal. Texas public high school students would face far fewer high-stakes exams and gain more freedom in choosing courses under a major education bill approved by the state House on Tuesday. Hours of debate among lawmakers centered on whether the state was giving students much-needed flexibility or scaling back too far [...]
How much testing is too much?
There’s not a consensus on the right number of mandatory high school standardized exams, but a lot of people are saying that what we’re doing right now is too much. The number of high-stakes exams in Texas is the most nationwide, according to the Education Commission of the States. Texas students previously had to pass [...]
TAPPS changes its playoff policy
Good for them. The Texas Association of Private and Parochial Schools, which faced controversy last spring in a basketball tournament scheduling issue with a local Orthodox Jewish school, has amended its bylaws to ensure that its statewide high school competitions will not conflict with “the Sabbath and religious days of observance” of member schools. The [...]
Making the case for the HISD bonds
Bobby and Phoebe Tudor, the chairs of the Citizens for Better Schools campaign, lay out their case for the HISD bond referendum in this Chron op-ed. Study after study has shown that children have more difficulty learning in inadequate school buildings. The 21st Century School Fund, a Washington, D.C., nonprofit organization, reports that these inadequate [...]
HISD tweaks its bond proposal
HISD Superintendent Terry Grier presents Bond Referendum 2.0 for your approval. Grier’s amended proposal adds five high schools to a list of 20 that would get new buildings or partial replacements. The additions, originally slated for smaller renovations, are Davis, DeBakey High School for Health Professions, Barbara Jordan, and the Young Men’s and Young Women’s [...]
HISD graduation rate up
Good news. Students in the Houston Independent School District are graduating at a higher rate for the fourth straight year, thanks in part to better tracking and online make-up courses, Superintendent Terry Grier said Monday. The district reported a graduation rate of 78.5 percent for the Class of 2011, up 4 percentage points from the [...]
How big should those high schools be?
This is a question that HISD is asking itself as the Board of Trustees considers the $1.9 billion bond proposal, much of which is to be spent on high schools. A number of HISD high schools have had large drops in enrollment, but many of these schools also have badly outdated facilities and would be [...]
How much would you pay for that high school?
Some cost more than others, but that doesn’t mean they’re not worth it. Supporters of Houston’s nationally recognized High School for the Performing and Visual Arts have lobbied for 15 years for a larger, more modern building. They could get their wish soon. But sticker shock over the $80.2 million price tag – for a [...]
HISD will not raise the tax rate
Instead, they will dip into their reserves to balance their $1.5 billion budget for this year. The amount is about the same as last year, when the district reduced spending by approximately 5 percent to offset unprecedented state cuts. Instead of seeking a tax increase – which the school board has been reluctant to embrace [...]
Are the end of course standards too low?
Beginning this year, high school students must pass new end of course exams in a variety of subjects in order to be able to graduate. These tests begin in the ninth grade and continue through the 12th. The standards will be relaxed for the first couple of years while everyone gets used to them. Some [...]
Are you smarter than a Texas high school student?
Well, why don’t you take this sample STAAR test and find out? It’s very much non-trivial. I got 11 out of 15 correct – I punted on the two physics questions and on the first World History question, though in retrospect I might have gotten it right if I’d thought about it, and I guessed [...]
Catholic schools doing the right thing
I’ve had a lot of disagreements with the Catholic Church on policy matters lately, but this is something I applaud. The organization that represents Texas’ Catholic high schools on Thursday called for a comprehensive review of the Texas Association of Private and Parochial Schools, calling TAPPS’ treatment of Jewish and Muslim schools unacceptable. “Failure to [...]
Texas high school graduation rate improved over the last decade
According to one report, anyway. Texas’ graduation rate for high school students increased 1.9 percent since 2002 to just below the national average, according to a new report by a coalition of education groups. The report found that high school graduation rates rose from 73.5 percent to 75.4 percent between 2002 and 2009, and pulled [...]
Beren
Though they fell short at the end, the boys of Beren Academy had a remarkable and unforgettable basketball season, and I congratulate them. They rested. They reflected. And once the sun set on the Jewish Sabbath, the Beren Academy Stars rushed to Nolan Catholic High to play the biggest basketball game of their lives. The [...]
More on uniform start times and other options HISD is considering
As we know, HISD is contemplating uniform start times as a way to save a few bucks for the next fiscal year. They do have some other ideas going, as well as a possible property tax rate hike, and they would like some input from you. From the inbox, from HISD Trustee Paula Harris: Implementing [...]
Shapiro backs STAAR delay
This was unexpected. Senate Education Committee Chairwoman Florence Shapiro, R-Plano, said Monday in a letter to [TEA Commissioner Robert] Scott that ninth-graders taking the exams this year should be given a reprieve from the 15 percent requirement during the phase-in of the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness. “We strongly support the transition to [...]
On taking AP tests
I guess I’m not clear on what the issue is here. Since 2009, the number of AP exams taken by Houston Independent School District students has almost doubled. And last year the district reached its highest number of passing scores, marking a 36 percent increase from two years ago. Still, most students perform poorly on [...]
On calculating graduation rates
The Texas Education Agency publishes graduation rates for all Texas public schools every year. Some people and organizations disagree with their methodology, saying they assume too many departing students wind up in school elsewhere or are homeschooled rather than counting them as dropouts. One such objector is Children At Risk, and they released their own [...]
Class size issues are everywhere
We know that waiver requests to exceed the 22 student class size limit are way up. But that mandated limit is only for grades K through 4. What about higher grade levels? Patricia Kilday Hart reports that those classrooms are more crowded, too. Lamar High Principal James McSwain estimates his classes are on average 8 [...]
The high school football tax
You may not be paying more in property taxes, but if you have a kid in public school, or maybe if you just know someone who has a kid in public school, you’re probably paying more for something. High school football budgets have apparently been cut (surprise! I know, I’m shocked, too) and players and [...]
Steroid prevalency: Opinions differ
Richard Justice writes about steroids in sports, in particular steroid use among high school students, and quotes a familiar source. [Don Hooton] cites a Procter & Gamble Co. study in which 2,000 kids were asked if an adult, parent, coach or teacher had talked to them about the dangers of using performance-enhancing drugs. Eighty-four percent [...]
Private schools in the UIL
A bill by Sen. Dan Patrick that would allow private schools to compete in the University Interscholastic League (UIL) passed the Senate last week. Texas is just one of three states in the country — California and Connecticut being the others — that have separate athletic championships for public and private schools. [...] For years, [...]
Lege loosens graduation requirements
A sign of the times. The Texas House tentatively approved legislation Wednesday to make it easier for high school students to pass end-of-course exams, a move critics called “a substantial retreat” from school accountability. “This bill creates a clear, understandable path to graduation,” House Public Education Chair Rob Eissler, R-The Woodlands, said of his bill, [...]
Hard times for high school athletics
High school football may be a big deal in Texas, but high school sports are not immune to budget cuts. With school districts across the state facing major budget cuts, members of the Texas High School Athletic Directors Association met for their annual conference with a focus on finding ways to limit expenses. The attending [...]
The audit on HISD’s magnet programs
The long-awaited audit has arrived. Students in Houston ISD’s prestigious magnet schools could find themselves shopping for new campuses if district leaders act on a critical audit that suggests eliminating nearly half the programs. The long-awaited audit, released on Friday, proposes that the district cut 55 of its 113 magnet programs, stripping the schools of [...]
Steroid testing can never fail, it can only be failed
It’s definition of insanity time. Don Hooton’s anti-steroid message aimed at young athletes has never been more in demand. The foundation he started six years ago in the wake of his teenage son’s suicide, attributed to steroid use, has grown to a full-time staff of five. They speak at high schools and colleges across the [...]
Are you ready for end-of-course exams?
A preliminary run of the state’s new end-of-course exams shows that student performance is not where we would want it to be yet. Of the nearly 102,000 students who took the Algebra I test in May, for example, just 57 percent met the passing standard on the 50-question exam. Only 12 percent achieved “commended performance” [...]
Still steroid-free
No juicing here. The University Interscholastic League on Thursday released results of [steroids tests of high school athletes] for the spring semester of the 2009-2010 school year. Of the 3,308 boys and girls tested last semester, all of the student athletes were clean. About 50,000 tests since February 2008 have found only about 20 confirmed [...]
Postseason expansion: Not just for the NCAA
Texas high schools may be getting into the act, too. There is growing support to create a Conference 6A that would send even more Texas high school football teams to the playoffs, the head of the University Interscholastic League said Monday. UIL executive director Charles Breithaupt said “it’s more likely now than ever” that about [...]
Who’s homeschooling?
Are there a lot more home-schooled high school students, or are they just conveniently mislabeled dropouts? You decide. More than 22,620 Texas secondary students who stopped showing up for class in 2008 were excluded from the state’s dropout statistics because administrators said they were being home-schooled, according to Texas Education Agency figures. But that’s where [...]