Where are we going from here?
GOP seems to be wanting more vouchers, and
the recent election may have given them the power.
https://texasscorecard.com/state/staar-results-show-texas-students-held-steady-academically/

The only thing that is relevant to me about STAAR results is they highlight the differences in schools. You have schools that have virtually 100% pass and that these tests are a joke and you have schools that very few pass. Big part of that is the diversity of Texas and demographics. That said the real argument on vouchers is that if you have them the kids in those bad schools can escape which is better for the kids but likely makes those schools worse as they lose their small number of good students. To me a kid should never be forced to have to be sacrificed simply because they live in an area with a bad school and the parents don't have the money to send them to private.

Of course that will lead to more school closures and other issues as some of the poor performing schools really drop off the table but I see that as a good thing. The key for most of those schools is discipline and lack of either ability or will to remove the kids who have no intention of learning. To me if a kid is a distraction to others and doesn't want to learn they should be sent to alternative school or simply expelled. Education is a privilege not a right and if a kid doesn't want to learn and more importantly is making it so other kids can't learn they need to be gone. Happy to help them find a trade or manual labor job but get them the hell out of schools, especially high schools.

The other dirty little secret is that's the key to keeping great teachers and not money. You can't pay good teachers enough to put up with kids that don't want to learn but you can pay them less if they have a room full of students that are engaged and want to learn with parents that support them. The only people that are in education for the money tend to be Administrators (not all Administrators but that's the only folks who can really make strong 6 figures).

It has been a while since I had a kid in school, but I did form the opinion back then that the small private schools (mostly of various Christian types) had better teachers despite paying less than the public schools.
Basically, some of the public schools were paying people to risk their lives "teaching".

Same with Public schools but in a different way. My son for instance goes to a highly competitive Public. His Physics teacher has a PhD. His Chemistry teacher has a Masters from Rice. Many other teachers are former professionals in industry that moved to teaching with degrees in Engineering or advanced degrees in History or English from good schools. They aren't getting paid anything special but they want to go teach smart kids that actually want to learn.

People don't go into teaching to get rich, they go into it because they want to share knowledge and see kids learn. Make them into babysitters or have to deal with hostile students and the good teachers leave. Of course that requires discussions that people don't want to have about how you can achieve that type of environment in places where it doesn't exist.

The table in the article is good. For a high level (state-wide). What it doesn't show and may not be able to (but has an impact on the process) is that the STAAR test was redesigned and revised twice since 2019. It went online, which is a major change to implementation, the content and types of questions (not content but the way questions are presented) changed. Writing was included (typing but typing isn't taught in most schools). So yes, somewhat easy to attempt to compare apples to apples, but without the context of major changes in the design and implementation it's more like apples and crabapples. All of these changes were mandated by legislative sessions in both 2019 and 2021. Just FYI.

FYI I'm a data geek and like to understand where the data comes from and the context around the numbers. Typically provides a more accurate analysis. In no way am I providing excuses. Just typical analysis you'd do on any set of scores in any application.

Yeah, most teachers don't mind making less $$ if they get to teach quality students who are engaged.

I quit teaching because of the low quality of middle school students I had and the administrators doing nothing about discipline. There is only so much a teacher can do without administrator support (ours did virtually nothing).

Much happier at a university in a management role.

My 5th grader in HISD is doing his part to bring the average up. Hasn't missed a math question the last three years.

Just a short 3-minute clip, but pretty good summary of the problem.