VicMan

Who else supported Riddle?

We need to torment Riddle wherever she goes by convincing people to not vote for her. Her religious beliefs should not be enacted on others.

In fact, I would welcome an ACLU separation of church and state challenge. Anyone?

1. I bet you have not seen a "Young Republicans" club, huh?

Also, the first rule told to children seeking entrance to university and community colleges is that each university is different, and the student has to find the correct fit for himself or herself. You cannot paint all universities and colleges one color.

2. Look through the Super Neighborhoods here: http://www.houstontx.gov/planning/nbhd_svc...ap_w_links.html - There are a lot of blue collar Hispanic areas, yes. But there are also more mixed communities (Alief and Sharpstown come to mind), mostly African-American communities (Greater Third Ward, Sunnyside, Acres Homes, Independence Heights), suburban mixed White and Hispanic communities (Addicks and South Belt/Ellington), and suburban White communities (Kingwood, Clear Lake). Houston has many communities of different shapes and sizes. The demographics site has all of the data you need.

"3-This is not an 'international city' (like why would that be a good thing---we hardly have any American cities left!). Houston is certainly not diverse. It's an American city overrun by anti-American Spanish speakers."

We on HAIF have an issue we want you to resolve. We don't know what you are talking about!

* What is an "international city" (your definitions)?

* What is an "American city" ?

* How and why are Spanish speakers "anti-American" ? Why is this a bad thing?

With that said, HAIF disagrees with your post anyway.

Are you serious? Or was your post supposed to make us laugh?

1- Universities and colleges are not melting pots. You know as well as I that the majority of professors on American campuses have the same liberal agenda and allow no opposition. Noam Chomsky is their hero and everyone else be damned. Perhaps students are melting under that pressure to conform to left-wing ideals...maybe you're right.

2-Houston neighborhoods all have an ethnic majority of Hispanic. Get real. Hispanics--illegal and otherwise-- are the vast majority in Houston except the really rich areas.

3-This is not an 'international city' (like why would that be a good thing---we hardly have any American cities left!). Houston is certainly not diverse. It's an American city overrun by anti-American Spanish speakers.

Finally, diversity is devisive. For the last 30 years, this hateful, racist policy of "embrace diversity" and "multiculturalism" has been shoved down the throats of Americans---don't swallow---it's segregationist and bad for you.

The diversity kick has got to go--it's time for unity.

great post. no ranting whatsoever, just honesty. parents who don't care about their children's education is tragic and unfortunately is all too common. I was speaking with a teacher in HISD this past weekend and the stories he tells are unbelievable.

Please invite him to discuss on this message board - I would like to hear his stories regarding the parents.

And, I heard that parents are often problems - At Waltrip High School some student and her mother assaulted a police officer over a truancy ticket - http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=...&id=4623585

My attitude that school districts ought to be controlled by parents who care about education and control the parents who do not care about education.

IMO the organization you referenced really isn't a neutral party when speaking on this subject but i'll leave it at that. so do you feel this practice furthers a $$ culture in HISD? i.e. they are doing things because they can get money not cause it furthers education?

I suspect that, yes, it does.

I do not know about the attitudes of the administrators within HISD's central administration, nor have I seen an article or another document extensively exploring the inner workings of the administration. I would imagine that at least a chunk of HISD's administration is more concerned about political power and money than on the actual education of children, just like with many large political systems (i.e. the City of Houston, Harris County, etc.). I know that teachers and principals are promoted to administration positions in the central HQ, so the individuals can easily spread the attitude once they become a part of the central HQ.

EDIT: Grammar fix

North Forest is just like the school district I spent most of my time in--almost totally (95%) black and looking hopeless. However, North Forest's problem is not so much the administrators as much as its the parents (same for Cy Fair, HISD, KISD, and anyone else). Parents solve a school system.

Ok, rant over

The parents are unable to elect administrators that at least have some competence of running a school district, then. This is all the more reason for a takeover. While NFISD schools will not become academic Ivy League bastions overnight, this will at least put the schools under the watch of a network of communities (stretching from Dairy Ashford to the industrial Eastside and from Minnetex to Northline Mall) that possess at least some semblance of oversight.

So back to my question. is this improper use of funds? or are the $$ affecting HISD policy?

This practice would be qualified as improper use of federal funds.

http://www.ctkidslink.org/testimony/022807...rnorsbudget.pdf

"Further, data show that concerns about the over-certification of students in the program have been

exaggerated. One research study shows that the number of children approved to receive free meals

exceeded the actual number of eligible children by just 2 percent, and that the number of children

certified to receive either free or reduced price meals was actually 15 percent lower than the number

of eligible children.

7

This suggests that greater dedication and resources directed to outreach may be

key to ensuring the validity of the free and reduced price meal count, more than additional funds for

increased income verification and audits"

This is what I mean.

Okay, first, this topic is about who will become the next mayor of Houston, not an in-depth discussion about illegal immigration. There are threads that discuss illegal immigration, and if you wish to continue this, you are welcome to post a reply in one of them. To find them, use the "search" feature.

It's on topic.

There's approximately 40 million illegal foreign nationals in the United States and Mayor White has been a part of the problem that encourages them to remain on American soil.

As for alleged "unfounded political statements", do you not live in Houston? Please visit. You'll see his statements were right on the money and completely founded. The invasion of illegal aliens undermines American values, language and excellence. Mayor White for all his down home 'ah shucks' persona has failed to make Houston a safe city much less one that is an environment for investment.

Why does Houston continue to deteriorate? Mayor White is one reason.

mandatory proof of income isn't a requirement in HISD. is this improper use of funds? or are the $$ affecting HISD policy?

As far as I understand, the schools that exaggerate numbers of free/reduced price lunches do so to get more money from the U. S. Federal Government (The U.S. government sends money to schools with high numbers of free/reduced lunch kids as part of the Title I program) - I am not sure if this also gets additional money from the state.

I do not know if any schools do this or how many of them do this; perhaps an investigation that reveals cheating to get federal funds would make a good news article.

Sam Rayburn still exists. It just does not serve any portions of the Houston city limits.

An excellent, extensive list! A cousin of mine who now lives in Indiana told me that she went to Sam Rayburn High School in Pasadena. Did it close down? Did its name change as a result of merging with another school?

Vic...comments? i know i have some but would like to hear your take on this.

I remembered hearing from a teacher at Fondren MS at a library computer class that some schools purposefully inflate free/reduced lunch numbers as a way to get more money from external sources. I am fine with mandatory income proof that must be submitted with the free/reduced lunch applications. Also, I would like to see policies of neighboring districts (See if I can find North Forest's) in order to tell if this problem is limited to HISD or if it is a problem in all Texas public schools.

EDIT: Kids, I could not find any information about free/reduced lunch at NFISD. Look at this google search: http://www.google.com/custom?domains=www.n...restschools.org

Spring Branch ISD does not say a lot about free/reduced - all it states is that it has applications: http://www.springbranchisd.com/admin/cn/school/free.htm

sounds like he wants healthier food. when i was in school our only options were milk and water for lunch. HISD did the coke thing to make money, however as children are getting fatter, they've realized that cokes are contributing to the problem. it would be itneresting to see if the children getting free lunch are buying cokes as well. its one of those things that would piss you off if you knew the whole story.

HISD has soda machines in secondary schools for students - In high school, I remembered the cheapest cola can costing 60 cents at first. The price rose to 75 cents by my junior or senior year.

Anyway, fast food tie-ins are there to make money for the schools as well (I believe this is up to the individual school). My high school had Chik-Fil-A sandwiches on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Each sandwich as three dollars, and each salad wrap was four dollars. I paid for sandwiches every Tuesday and Thursday despite the price.

1. I never received free/reduced lunch - At all of the schools I went to, most students paid full price for their lunches.

My father is an executive at an engineering company, so there is no way I qualify for any free/reduced lunch programs.

I do not know the exact salary ranges or formulas for free/reduced lunch, but I bet the information is on HISD's website.

EDIT: I found this: http://www.houstonisd.org/HISDConnectDS/v/...00052147fa6RCRD - But it doesn't say exactly who qualifies. It states that people must complete the process to be counted as free/reduced each school year.

HISD gets money for having this program.

So you receive reduced lunch? how much do your parents make? do you know the salary ranges for the free vs reduced lunch programs?

HISD gets funding for doing this as well.

HISD contracts with Aramark to prepare cafeteria food. Now, my university is using a new food service company (I believe it is replacing Aramark), but I'm not sure if that food service company caters to public school districts.

I never took vegetables in the school cafeteria (I started going to school cafeterias for lunch shortly after I entered River Oaks Elementary) except when I had the vegetable soup at River Oaks. Gosh, I loved it! I also loved the chicken drumsticks at my high school.

Anyway, do you believe that HISD should find a new food service provider?

I'm in great shape. Jumping is fairly easy for me.

As to the healthy, non-tax-raising lunch for kids: Salad. Very American, healthy and easy to pronounce! Or how about tofu? American farmers grow it,high in protein, low if fat. Yummy. Maybe some fish that isn't deep-fried. Perhaps a few veggies and Texas grown rice?!

We don't need Gordon Ramsey to make improvements in the HISD cafeterias--just some common sense and a lot less oil. It'd alos be great if our kids could be allowed to speak English during lunch too.

Hey, maybe I should aim to be a newscaster

Vic are you going after Marvin Zindler's job?

I would say that increasing numbers of administrators is taxpayer waste - several of my high school teachers told me this!

I would coax at least some of the administrators into retiring and them promptly remove their positions.

Now, as for free breakfast, my feelings are mixed. One one hand, it could be used to get food for people who somehow do not qualify for free or reduced lunch, yet still have financial issues in their household (though I do not know how often this happens). On the other hand, I do not believe that many of the non-free reduced lunch kids (such as myself, prior to graduation) are interested in HISD breakfast food. Maybe HISD counts on the second idea as a way to reduce costs after establishing free breakfast, but I have no data about who eats free breakfast and which socioeconomic groups eat free breakfast.

As for bilingual programs, I guess whether this is considered a waste depends on one's position on bilingual education. By Texas law, bilingual education may only be in elementary school (notice the lack of bilingual students in middle and high school). I haven't made up my mind on whether bilingual education should be downscaled or increased - After reading Richard Geib's website, I had the impression that attitudes of the community regarding education were far more important than nitpicky discussions about curriculum.

I agree that the number of administrators should be trimmed in order to make a more efficient HISD.

IMO HISD has changed to where money is more important than education. improperly using taxpayer dollars is another sign. the number of administrators has increased quite a bit in the last 30 yrs which results in the district needing more money. other programs have ballooned as well (free meals, bilingual ed, etc). would this be considered a mismanagement of money? how would it be described in your mind?

Hey, Vertigo, Dallas had a similar issue. Even while Dallas ISD had corruption issues, the Wilmer-Hutchins ISD was considered to be the absolute worst district in Texas (as well as the DFW area). WHISD closed, and DISD assumed control of WHISD's territory.

This really is Houston's worse school district?

Wow what a switch!

They always used to blame the inner-city. So now North Houston stole the title. The winds of change are a blowing people.

Coruption within HISD is systemic and cultural. My examples are not "loopholes" that were abused by individuals but rather a systemic pratice that is the merit pay system!

The HISD policy of merit pay is actually set up to pay principals ten of thousands of dollars! It's codified as part of HISD procedures and is now accepted as the proper way to spend tax money...they don't consider it abuse; it's just new policy!

So, do you have any proof of the teacher merit pay programs being used to increase principal salaries? I remembered my P. E. Coach handing flyers complaining about pay of various principal administrators at schools. I have not heard that merit pay is being used to increase pay of principals.

Now, I know this sounds strange, but when making a claim, it may be a good idea to find supporting evidence (maybe a news article about merit pay being used to increase principal salaries? An HISD document showing principal salaries? Something?)

If you want to assert that this corruption is allowed and encouraged in HISD, you have to give the other members of this forum proof.

My wife said that was one of the big problems with the old principal, my wife's colleagues were telling that principal that the demographic had changed and she needed to adapt, but she stuck her head in the sand about it. General diversity in a school doesn't bother me, but Katrina diversity does. It isn't a race thing, it's a Louisiana culture thing. That entire state has been so corrupt for so long, that even in the school districts there is no accountability.

I wouldn't worry too much about Katrina people. When the NO people came here, they were pleasantly surprised by Texas schools.

As for the crooks, they started getting hit big time by HPD, so many of them are back in New Orleans.

Houston's Noble Experiment: http://www.city-journal.org/html/16_2_houston.html - Wonderful, wonderful article!

There are some whispers that Westchester HS may have to reopen in five years to handle the influx of kids. My husband graduated from there and we would love to make it a generational thing.

Good - This would make Westchester a mixed zoned and magnet school, I would assume.

Since I know SBISD allows some HISD kids to come, this goes further towards the magnet school consortium that I have in mind (along with attendance zones, open enrollment across Houston, with high schools accepting and rejecting applicants).

Is anything going in it's place? Why is it being demoed?

Sefviv's post explains it all

1. This is off topic.

2. I do not consider newsbyus.com, nor this article, to be a reliable source. By the way, I have no way of knowing if Hamilton is really speaking of inner city Houston or if he is simply regurgitating unfounded political statements.

Their Own Stories: Ethnic Cleansing of Americans

By Frosty Wooldridge on Jul 30, 07

Last week, the column on Americans being

I saw a Skylane Apartment complex (like all the others, they look terrible!) at the intersection of I10 and BW8. I'm surprised that it is still there. It should be torn down and replaced with a more beneficial business.

By the way, I know that SBISD accepts HISD students to Stratford High School. One of my friends switched from Westside High School to Stratford (her mom stated that Stratford is a better school). Her younger (middle) sister went from the 8th grade at West Briar Middle School to the 9th at Stratford. The youngest sister, currently at the Village School, will likely go to Statford too.

Toogle, I agree that HISD has some problems, but I disagree with some of your statements.

The new administration building was needed, as the old one was inefficient and more of a waste of taxpayer money. Read about the "Taj Mahal" here: http://search.chron.com/chronicle/openDocu...edPath=Archives

The new admin building is plain-Jane compared to the old one - I visited the old one several times (to take a course on American Sign Language - which my mom and I didn't complete).

"When will Houstonians finally get fed up and say "I'm not going to take it anymore!" when it comes to the substandard school district that is HISD? Other districts across the nation--with the same demographics and same problems--are just doing better. "

Which districts? Which problems? You need proof in order to make this statement.

Hey Toggle, I may wish to clarify some stuff.

" The bigger problem is that HISD is unable to fix itself and the horrific problems of its schools. HISD is all about self-promotion and aelf-aggrandizement but knows nothing about accountability. " - Because a lot of the problems originate from the communities that HISD serves, while a few originate from the HISD administration culture that stems from some of the communities that HISD serves. You try to teach at a low income middle school like Berendo Middle School in Los Angeles. Richard Geib did so in the 1990s and he felt that he was part of an inevitable cycle of failure. Read all about it here: http://www.rjgeib.com/biography/inner-city...s/innerblu.html

However, the one aspect we can control is governance and access to better schools that have not been poisoned by dysfunctional cultures. Houston ISD has various school options on all levels, so if the parent is willing to explore and option, he or she will find one that he or she likes; too many parents in HISD do not shop around because they are too busy working or for some other reason.

North Forest ISD has no options - two AAAA high schools, three middle schools, six elementary schools, and a PreK school - all determined by house address.

"HISD has a culture problem. It embraces the culture of victimhood. It embraces the culture of nepotism. It embraces the culture of diversity and left-wing politics. It embraces the culture of money rather than education." - Okay, it may be true that HISD has some problems, but I do not believe that "diversity" (HISD dropped using race to admit kids to school long before the Supreme Court issued the judgement - and it is too easy to make multiethnic schools without racial quotas) nor "left wing politics" is at fault. "Left wing" is a broad label and therefore is misleading. Why don't we try "urban" - some members of some communities feel entitled to such jobs. This is why Saavedra, hailing from Corpus Christi, cannot remove a lot of administrators.

" It embraces the culture of money rather than education. "

That's a terribly misleading label. ALL schools and school districts have to value money in order to stay afloat. Rather, it's mismanagement of money that is the problem. Read about the charter schools in Texas that had worse mismanagement: http://www.houstonpress.com/issues/1999-07-22/feature_4.html

What you mean to say is that HISD should be concerned about properly using taxpayer dollars. I know HISD has a problem with this because my teachers tell me about how there are too many administrators in HISD.

Anyway, it IS possible to get a good education in HISD (easier in elementary school, more difficult in middle and high school) so long as the parent is able to place his or her child in a good or excellent public school.

These options do not exist in NFISD, AND the politics are completely dysfunctional at NFISD.

On July 2, 2007, the brilliant Chief Justice Roberts said "The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race" and the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the integration plans in school districts in Seattle and Louisville, Ky., that used race as a way to determine which schools students should attend.

Segregation stills happens naturally. Birds of a feather flocking together and all. The bigger problem is that HISD is unable to fix itself and the horrific problems of its schools. HISD is all about self-promotion and aelf-aggrandizement but knows nothing about accountability.

HISD has a culture problem. It embraces the culture of victimhood. It embraces the culture of nepotism. It embraces the culture of diversity and left-wing politics. It embraces the culture of money rather than education.

HISD is corrupt. Board member Kevin Hoffman is the epitome of what is wrong with HISD.

Too bad all the good teachers are leaving and segreagting themselves in other districts.

If I had all of the legal power of England, I would have each "honor killing" family rounded up and "pilloried" - force their mouths taped shut and then have the townspeople of England insult the family and the members repeatedly - after they are all found guilty in criminal court.

I would end a shaming time by announcing "Making an 'honor killing will destroy your family in England. Please, do not destroy your family with an honor killing, because we will punish families that honor kill by destroying their reputations and their happiness." - I'm not sure if this is legal at all, but I would make it clear to families that the state, not individual members of families, has the power to destroy naughty families.

C. E. King is not in the Houston city limits, and it is not in Houston ISD. Also, Smiley and Forest Brook, while in the Houston city limits, are in North Forest ISD.

Bellaire High School is in the city of Bellaire, but it is in Houston ISD.

The following Houston schools are 4A:

District 19-4A: Wheatley, Kashmere, Sterling, Worthing, Jones, Furr, Scarborough

District 20-4A: Yates, Washington, Davis, Reagan, Sharpstown, Austin, Waltrip

District 21-4A: CE King, Forest Brook, Smiley

There's now only one 5A district with HISD schools:

District 20-5A: Lamar, Westside, Madison, Chavez, Bellaire, Westbury, Milby, Sam Houston

North Shore High School is in Galena Park ISD, and it is NOT in the Houston city limits.

The following comprehensive high schools that I will list here ARE in the Houston city limits (As in, THE Houston city limits):

Houston ISD

* Austin High School

* Ch

I was at home when I heard someone (maybe my sister or my mom) state that he died. I was not surprised; pancreatic cancer + old age = almost certainty of death.

http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=...&id=5478841

Zindler died.