Subdude Posted June 20, 2006 Share Posted June 20, 2006 Is does seem that the college drop-out or non-completion rate would make more sense, but they probably quote a time limit to weed out people that won't say they've dropped out, but aren't realistically going to finish.Sadly, the high school graduation rate isn't just an urban problem. Texas ranked DEAD LAST (50th) in the latest Census data for high school graduation rates. Texas ranks 48th in SAT scores. Thus, it really isn't all that surprising that our biggest cities would rank so poorly.Now those are depressing statistics. How can that be? I would have guessed somewhere like Alabama, or perhaps California due to their level of immigrants that is even higher than Texas. What are we doing wrong? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
713 To 214 Posted June 20, 2006 Share Posted June 20, 2006 What are we doing wrong?Placing a higheer price on sports than education. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Subdude Posted June 20, 2006 Share Posted June 20, 2006 Placing a higheer price on sports than education.True to some extent, but that's not really unique to Texas. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
torvald Posted June 21, 2006 Share Posted June 21, 2006 Bizjournal rankings.29% of adult Houstonians never graduated high school.it would be nice for schools to actually teach children academics instead of just priming them for the TAAS test. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Montrose1100 Posted June 21, 2006 Share Posted June 21, 2006 it would be nice for schools to actually teach children academics instead of just priming them for the TAAS test.It's TAKS now Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
torvald Posted June 21, 2006 Share Posted June 21, 2006 It's TAKS nowi'm outdated. :closedeyes: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KinkaidAlum Posted June 21, 2006 Share Posted June 21, 2006 I totally agree with you, LilyHeights.The 6 year graduation rate isn't the end all be all measure of someone's ability and many public schools like UH do serve many students who have to work their way through college. That said, the statistics show that most people who take longer than 6 years rarely complete their degrees. Life just interferes too much after a certain amount of time.Also, I hate the new testing system in place in Texas especially now that teacher pay is tied to the results. That might seem like a good thing, but it just means instead of teaching kids important life skills like critical thinking, we are simply teaching them how to beat the system. Kids aren't being given the opportunity to be creative or analytical. That's a real disservice! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
musicman Posted June 21, 2006 Share Posted June 21, 2006 The 6 year graduation rate isn't the end all be all measure of someone's ability and many public schools like UH do serve many students who have to work their way through college. That said, the statistics show that most people who take longer than 6 years rarely complete their degrees. Life just interferes too much after a certain amount of time.Now many universities charge higher tuition if you take too long to graduate, including UH. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Subdude Posted June 21, 2006 Share Posted June 21, 2006 Today's Chronicle: Same issue, different numbers. Only 67% of eligible Texans graduated in '03, study saysEducation Week report contradicts TEA's 83% claimBy JENNIFER RADCLIFFECopyright 2006 Houston Chronicle Only two-thirds of Texas' eligible students earned a high school diploma in 2002-03, 16 percentage points lower than the 83 percent graduation rate touted by the Texas Education Agency that year, according to a study released Tuesday by Education Week magazine.Like much of the dispute over dropout and graduation rates, discrepancies arise because of the different formulas used to calculate the percentage. Each state counts and tracks students differently; this report uses numbers from the U.S. Department of Education and uses a "cumulative promotion index," which estimates the probability that a ninth-grader will earn a standard diploma in four years.According to the study, Texas' graduation rate of 67 percent lagged just behind the national average of 70 percent.Texas students are 20 percent more likely to live in poverty and 60 percent more likely to be English-language learners than national averages, according to the report.Link Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest danax Posted June 23, 2006 Share Posted June 23, 2006 Every city, around the world, has the poor, uneducated, trash, etc.To assume that we are "slowly becoming a less-drastic version of a third world mega-city like Rio is a very pessasmistic and poor outlook. Houston doesn't have the second most headquarters of fortune500 companies because we rank 38 on the idiot list. I'm replying to this for the second time, Montrose, not to pick on you, but because I think a lot of us underestimate the potential decline that a lot of uneducated people can cause a large city to undergo. Here's an article called "U.S. losing its middle-class neighborhoods". Middle-class neighborhoods, long regarded as incubators for the American dream, are losing ground in cities across the country, shrinking at more than twice the rate of the middle class itself. So apparently some of the middle class are either in poor or rich neighborhoods. The #1 reason why most middle-class families don't want to stay in the city would seem to be due to poor schools. Old housing stock can be renovated but with poor schools, few consider it. And why are schools so bad? One can arque a lower tax base etc., which surely has some negative effect, but I would say that it is the uneducated parents who produce equally uninterested-in-education children who produce horrible test scores which give school districts bad reputations which drive the middle-class to the far-flung burbs. Those of us who grew up in cities many decades ago know that city school districts didn't always have such lowly reputations. So we could deduce then that the uneducated are one of the first sparks that start the chain reaction that is "hollowing out" the city. Meanwhile, the higher-income people continue to move in, build McMansions etc., in formerly middle-class neighborhoods. The resulting trend would indicate a moving towards a "third-world" setting; ie; a very small middle-class within the city and near metro area. There are only so many jobs for the uneducated, and once the numbers get high enough, unemployment will kick up, crime too. Will that spur many to get college degrees as a way to survive? The tendency towards societal and cultural inertia would indicate no, in the majority of cases. So yes, I am somewhat pessimistic in the fairly long-term. Once the mass of poor/near poor is maybe 3 or 4 times the size of the remaining residents, which could happen in this century or maybe much sooner if someone were to crunch the demographics/birth rate numbers, and then we will resemble Rio. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
houstonmacbro Posted July 1, 2006 Share Posted July 1, 2006 I'm going to make a controversial statement here. After living in the city, off and on for the past 25 years, I don't find the statistic hard to believe....you DIDN'T just go there... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dalparadise Posted July 1, 2006 Share Posted July 1, 2006 ...you DIDN'T just go there...No, he went there a couple of weeks ago. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
houstonmacbro Posted July 1, 2006 Share Posted July 1, 2006 No, he went there a couple of weeks ago.oh ... i am just catching up with my postings... guess i am a little late. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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