Texas Education Agency announces takeover of the Houston ISD - 3/15/2023

[Coiled]

Snippets:

In court, TEA asserted that Houston ISD's former [emphasis added] board members engaged in unethical, illegal behavior — like making important decisions behind closed doors. The agency also pointed to public racial tension between Black and Latino board members. But the takeover was primarily justified by years of low standardized test scores and post-graduate performance at Wheatley High School, one of the district's 280 campuses in 2019.

Opponents of the takeover argue Houston ISD has made immense progress since the 2018-19 school year.

In less than 4 years, the majority of the school board trustees lost election or left office, the district hired a new superintendent, and Wheatley received a passing accountability rating.

Texas Education Agency announces takeover of the Houston Independent School District | Houston Public Media

The state-appointed managers will hold immense power. They can control the budget, school closures, collaborations with charter networks, policies around curriculum and library books, as well as hiring or firing the superintendent, among other important decisions.

www.houstonpublicmedia.org

 

[rotor]

Oriental, white, hispanic, and black are pretty much the standings in most high schools throughout the country. Wheatley High School (Houston) is predominately black from what I can gather. Without being racist, why is this and why is it like that almost everywhere? It's the same in NYC and Houston. Everywhere.

 

[Wudidiz]

Maybe the teacher quality would improve if they received a decent salary. Many of the HISD teachers are teaching English and they can’t speak it properly themselves.

 

[oldag]

HISD has been a mess for a long time.

 

[Sasquatch]

HISD has had 12+% turnover of employees in the last year, at least per the last article I read on it. 1/8th the teachers pulling the pin in search of better opportunities - either other, better paying / less stressful school districts, private education, or leaving education entirely and going into a new career field.

While public employees shouldn't be making millions of bucks - teachers and others that require a degree should be able to live comfortably. If necessary - extracurricular programs should be cut, along with unnecessary electives - refocusing on the required core subjects. Athletics gets way too much attention in most schools, while education (the real purpose for schools, allegedly) suffers.

Schools should not be allowed to push forth bond measures to fund athletics, FFA / 4H, or other unnecessary activities if they are not performing to a high level in academics. 99% of those kids in sports aren't going to get scholarships, even fewer have a chance to go pro - yet tens of millions (hundreds of millions statewide) get wasted on athletics. Giant sports-ball stadiums, yet kids are learning in portable classrooms and dealing with massive security issues (assaults, behavioral health issues, bullying to a level not experienced in earlier generations to name a few) - this shouldn't be the case.

Maybe TEA will get Houston schools turned around, but I would not hold my breath. I don't think anyone in a position of power to actually make necessary changes has the balls to propose them, let alone execute any. The demand of better pay does need to be accompanied by a marked increase in academic performance. Yeah, I realize some kids are just dumb - but most are not, they need discipline, structure, and support and they need teachers who know how to teach, not just stand at the head of a class reciting facts. Google or Alexa can do that shit and be just as effective - *Good* teachers have leadership qualities rivaling that of any highly successful business person. They capture the attention and inspire performance. That didn't even fit the description of most teachers when I was in school.

 

[oldag]

HISD has had 12+% turnover of employees in the last year, at least per the last article I read on it. 1/8th the teachers pulling the pin in search of better opportunities - either other, better paying / less stressful school districts, private education, or leaving education entirely and going into a new career field.

While public employees shouldn't be making millions of bucks - teachers and others that require a degree should be able to live comfortably. If necessary - extracurricular programs should be cut, along with unnecessary electives - refocusing on the required core subjects. Athletics gets way too much attention in most schools, while education (the real purpose for schools, allegedly) suffers.

Schools should not be allowed to push forth bond measures to fund athletics, FFA / 4H, or other unnecessary activities if they are not performing to a high level in academics. 99% of those kids in sports aren't going to get scholarships, even fewer have a chance to go pro - yet tens of millions (hundreds of millions statewide) get wasted on athletics. Giant sports-ball stadiums, yet kids are learning in portable classrooms and dealing with massive security issues (assaults, behavioral health issues, bullying to a level not experienced in earlier generations to name a few) - this shouldn't be the case.

Maybe TEA will get Houston schools turned around, but I would not hold my breath. I don't think anyone in a position of power to actually make necessary changes has the balls to propose them, let alone execute any. The demand of better pay does need to be accompanied by a marked increase in academic performance. Yeah, I realize some kids are just dumb - but most are not, they need discipline, structure, and support and they need teachers who know how to teach, not just stand at the head of a class reciting facts. Google or Alexa can do that shit and be just as effective - *Good* teachers have leadership qualities rivaling that of any highly successful business person. They capture the attention and inspire performance. That didn't even fit the description of most teachers when I was in school.

TEA took over Marlin ISD a few years ago. Maybe longer. Never have read how that turned out. Maybe someone here knows.

 

[rotor]

Maybe the teacher quality would improve if they received a decent salary. Many of the HISD teachers are teaching English and they can’t speak it properly themselves.

They average $57,500 per year in Houston, 10% higher than most school districts. Starting pay in NYC is $61+k. Yet the same ratio of student success is oriental, white, hispanic, black. Doesn't matter what the teacher is paid. It is not teacher pay that decides if a student will succeed. It doesn't even seem to matter if they have quality teachers.

 

[Wudidiz]

They average $57,500 per year in Houston, 10% higher than most school districts. Starting pay in NYC is $61+k. Yet the same ratio of student success is oriental, white, hispanic, black. Doesn't matter what the teacher is paid. It is not teacher pay that decides if a student will succeed. It doesn't even seem to matter if they have quality teachers.

Your logic infers that we only need to pay minimum wage to the teachers. A teacher should be a role model. I don’t think we need teachers stating to the classroom: ” Awyte den, we be gonna be do a test today. Know wut I be talkin bout?”

 

[rotor]

Your logic infers that we only need to pay minimum wage to the teachers. A teacher should be a role model. I don’t think we need teachers stating to the classroom: ” Awyte den, we be gonna be do a test today. Know wut I be talkin bout?”

What I am saying is that the variable of all the collected data is the race of the student. Not saying this to be racist but just reporting the facts.

 

[oldag]

Teachers do matter. But the single biggest factor is the home. If the parents care about the child's education, the child will likely succeed.

If the parents are apathetic, the best teacher in the world may not help.

 

[Grumps21]

My Ex is a teacher. Although I can’t rule her profession as the sole reason we are no longer together, it was a strong contributing factor. I guess if teachers didn’t give a chit, then professional life and home life would be a lot easier. There is the regular school day, but add the hours of home time spent grading papers. Summer break is more like just a couple of weeks with the balance being in-service days. The rich schools are filled with little brats and Karens who berate the teacher. The kids attending at-risk schools act out because the single parent is not engaged and treats the school more as a babysitting service. Add, that they have to teach to to pass a test instead of giving personal attention and teaching what really matters, I’m not at all surprised at the outcome. Heck, I work with two ex-teachers in the O&G field because they couldn’t take the BS strangle hold. Politics did not allow them to teach.

 

[mm54943]

Teachers do matter. But the single biggest factor is the home. If the parents care about the child's education, the child will likely succeed.

If the parents are apathetic, the best teacher in the world may not help.

I’m a teacher and this is 100% correct. If parents don’t give a shit about education then it doesn’t matter how great the teacher is. But at the same time high end schools, parents treat graduation and grades like it’s a right rather than something their kids should earn. Kids have become so entitled, knowing their parents will fight for their passing grade. Parents show up for meetings with lawyers ready to go. It honestly isn’t worth the fight.

 

[Texan79423]

We have to regroup and hit the reset button ASAP.

 

[Eli]

This is LONG past due! Houston ISD spends an outrageous amount per student - over $10,000 - and the board has been split between Black and Hispanic factions that hate each other and fight more than anything else.
A huge portion of the student body are either illegals or anchor babies, and Whites avoid HISD so much that 'minority' enrollment is a whopping 90%!
It's long needed to be split into multiple smaller (manageable) districts, and this will likely make that happen.

Eli

 

[mroper]

In my Opinion HISD spends far too much on Admin You would think with a large school dsitrict they could consolidate a lot of purchasing and overehad costs but that does not seems to be the case.

 

[oldag]

In my Opinion HISD spends far too much on Admin You would think with a large school dsitrict they could consolidate a lot of purchasing and overehad costs but that does not seems to be the case.

All the large districts have that issue.

 

[gdr_11]

Most school problems can be traced to the quality of the elected Board members who, in turn, set the district priorities and standards. In big city districts, many of the Board members are worse than Chicago aldermen; idiots looking to pad their pockets and advance their Leftist political futures. Add to that the growing number of pathetic excuses for teachers and apathetic parents and you have a near impossible situation for good teachers and students who really want to learn.

Put that mix into the Houston cesspool and it is a perfect storm.

 

[seeker_two]

Good News: HISD administration is not running things anymore....

Bad News: TEA, the government entity that has ruined public schools across the state, is running the show.....

Now....how do we get TEA thrown out?

 

[andre3k]

Government intervention is never the solution. Unfortunately the blind are leading the blind in this situation.

Sent from my SM-S918U using Tapatalk

 

[Coiled]

Good News: HISD administration is not running things anymore....

Bad News: TEA, the government entity that has ruined public schools across the state, is running the show.....

Now....how do we get TEA thrown out?

Good luck with that!
If you find a list of State employee salaries, a very large portion of the 100 highest paid are in the "education" industry.