I have been trying to figure out the issue in Texas State or local government that I most wanted to write about. I even expanded my thinking to "rail" against the metro rail system, or lack of in the Capital City. I started researching the MOPAC toll-roll, and how that is not going to actually solve any of the traffic congestion chocking Austin's roadways.
But as I sit in a dorm room at Southern University for a Phi Theta Kappa, Texas Honors Institute conference I have to reflect on what I learned today. This conference is for members of the National Honor Society(Phi Theta Kappa is the ACC Chapter), to get together and learn more about our Yearly Honors In Action project. The project is for us as a chapter to research a topic that can better our society, and lead to a better future for all of us. Now, I'm a 38 year old man, and most of my colleagues are in their early 20's. So many of the things we are learning about are way outside the scope of what would be interesting for these kids.
But what really stopped me in my tracks was when, during a group discussion, I brought up Juneteenth, and the history of this yearly celebration. Five out of the twelve people in my discussion group had never heard of Juneteenth. I was floored. All five of them were lifelong citizens of Texas, and lived in different regions of Texas. How can this not be a component of the Texas secondary school education. I can understand why it may be omitted from the early childhood curriculum, but surely a teenager that has seen, 12 Years a Slave, or even Jango might be able to handle this history. I guess what I'm saying is, the Texas State educational system is failing it's citizens.
I have a lot of family in Texas, and I grew up in Northern Virginia. Several times during my childhood a cousin would move with their family to Virginia, and my cousin would enroll in a Virginia school. Each time that cousin would have to re-take a grade because they were behind. Several times cousins would move to Texas from Virginia, and they were lucky enough to skip a grade, and graduate early. I also wanted my parents to move to Texas so I could skip a grade.
Texas has historically had a terrible education system. And the worst part, I can't find an article newer than 2012 about the subject. I guess nobody cares. In the past the argument was that all the hispanic kids were bring down the standarized tests. Well I can logically follow that arguement, but that argument was never followed up with a proposed solution. The last I checked there are a few thousand new future foreign-exchange students that are going to be in the system before you know it. We need to teach our citizens. The problems we face on a day-to-day basis in this crazy world are compounded by ignorance. Poverty is a never ending cycle with ignorance, crime as well. It's time for our leaders to commit to a smarter Texas, too.
1 comment:
Very interesting post. Growing up as a child in the Texas public school system I felt like we were always made to believe that we were a little extraordinary. We would spend all year preparing for the TAAS, or the TAKS tests, and when we would do well on it, we would be praised as if we just graduated high school. We only ever heard the positive side of the story, which was good scores on the standardized tests. No one ever told us that if other kids around the country took the same test they would score better than us. We were essentially given an over inflated sense of accomplishment, which doesn’t fix anything. Shortly after high school as I was hearing all of these statistics I couldn’t believe it.
Great post! Great, organized and easy to follow information.
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