MAS444 said:

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My vote would be for someone that is competent, has no outside self interests and has the best interests of the students, teachers, administrators, community, etc. at heart.

But I realize that's a pipe dream.

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yes, the beast is too big for anyone to fix

atmtws said:

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W said:

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MAS444 said:

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My vote would be for someone that is competent, has no outside self interests and has the best interests of the students, teachers, administrators, community, etc. at heart.

But I realize that's a pipe dream.

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yes, the beast is too big for anyone to fix

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Exactly. Split the district into 10 or 15 smaller ones. Just like the COH. It's getting too big for proper management. Split it up.

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Splitting up a city is disastrous for infrastructure among an entire hosts of other things.

HISD, yes. A city, no.

So Houston Public Media has been promoting a new podcast about the HISD board takeover. Today they announced it will not be released. Weird stuff going on.

that sucks. Sounds like it would have been interesting

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The largest school district in Texas lost its elected leaders in the summer of 2023. In their place a state-appointed board along with a leader unafraid of creating upheaval and massive changes.It's unusual for school districts to lose local control, especially on a scale this large. Suddenly, the Houston Independent School District with its nearly 200,000 students and 11,000 teachers didn't know what would happen next. But the reforms came quickly.What led to the takeover and what's the impact of this whole-scale, test-based reform? We go back decades to understand how a history of high-stakes testing got us here. That pressure to perform trickles down from campus leaders and teachers to students and their parents. The stakes mount as the takeover in plays out and no school is left untouched.The Takeover is a seasonal podcast about power and public education. The first season captures 18 months of on-the-ground, neighborhood-level reporting, enterprising investigative work, and deep context about education policy and history from a range of expert researchers.

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I do not have an opinion on this topic.

MAS444 said:

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Killing the state's public school system is a good thing?

What a world we live in!

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How is it bad? Private options will fill the void and actually have an incentive to provide students with the knowledge and tools to succeed and advance life. If they dont, they will close and others will fill the void. This is called a merit/ capitalist based system. The public option has failed.

All we hear is "oh no! The public option is being killed!" Is that actually bad? The statistics are very poor for the public system. Those are facts being produced by advocates for the public system.

Regular people hate change. Leaders identify problems and make adequate changes to failed systems or to advance successful systems. Thats how actual progress is made. Be a damn leader.

Vast majority of people will not send their kid to a private school anyhow.

BillYeoman said:

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Anastasia Beaverhaven said:

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MAS444 said:

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Killing the state's public school system is a good thing?

What a world we live in!

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How is it bad? Private options will fill the void and actually have an incentive to provide students with the knowledge and tools to succeed and advance life. If they dont, they will close and others will fill the void. This is called a merit/ capitalist based system. The public option has failed.

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Private/Semi-Private schools do not always fill the void.

Even Miles Charter schools are in a deficit situation according to this video.

And I guarantee if vouchers pass….private schools will raise their rates.

Teachers are not the problem. HISD is not the problem necessarily.

Culture is the problem.

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Isn't poor culture partially developed by the school system? Children are most impressionable in their earliest years and they spend most of their time in the public schools. Parents and surroundings are probably the most important.

There shouldn't be vouchers. Eliminate ISD property taxes and you go where you want. The best thrive, the worst revamp or die. Its the natural way of life. We've known this for thousands of years.

Captain Winky said:

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I need people to use the blue star function so I can see which side is the clear winner so I can form an opinion.

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Here's a blue diamond. Worth 10,000,000 stars at HISD.

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And I guarantee if vouchers pass….private schools will raise their rates.

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sure, schools like kinkaid or st. john will

but there are lots and lots of parochial schools in poor parts of town that kids would be able to go to if they had vouchers. for example, our lady of guadalupe in east end would not raise its tuition

So reading the Spectrum article, while it may be bad or even illegal what he did, I don't see any accusations that he's taking HISD funding out of state right? This is all about previous stops.

Am I missing something?

Nope. Just the teachers union and organizations unhappy about HISD having expectations and being cleaned up putting out a hit piece.

BMX Bandit said:

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And I guarantee if vouchers pass….private schools will raise their rates.

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sure, schools like kinkaid or st. john will

but there are lots and lots of parochial schools in poor parts of town that kids would be able to go to if they had vouchers. for example, our lady of guadalupe in east end would not raise its tuition

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Just about all private school tuition would go up. Equal to the cost of the voucher? Some would, most won't. I chaired a parochial school board and we already had these discussions and did higher level planning when school vouchers first came up.

1) Few would pass on the opportunity to add curriculum and additional programs to enrich the kids education without it costing the families more. (One of the biggest differences between private and HISD just trying and failing to do the minimum).

2) There most likely wouldn't be enough spots in private schools to accept all who wanted to apply (and were qualified to be admitted). Assuming vouchers would be guaranteed for a set number of years, most would start a capital program to expand to do their best to add as many qualified kids as reasonable without compromising the quality of the education. The problem being is failed HISD administration and teachers would sue to stop this causing most private schools to wait on expansion. This ultimately screws the kids who could be getting a better education, but now can't because private schools couldn't risk taking on debt and expanding and school vouchers being overturned. If this was actually about the kids best interests, this wouldn't happen. But nothing about how we got to where HISD is today was about the kids best interests. Just lining the pockets of individuals at the kids expense.

School vouchers would be great for the education of 1/3 to 1/2 of HISD kids. Between independent, parochial, and charter schools that many would most likely be getting a better education.

The problem is anyone with an interest in public schools (doesn't have other options of employment or enrollment because of the inability to meet required expectations) would cry this is the deathnail of HISD. And to an extent they would probably be correct. A large number of HISD campuses would need to be closed and sold. The administration and staff would need to be shrunk dramatically. Funding would decrease accordingly. In the short run it would be painful those without options other than HISD.

In the long run, it's probably the only way to clean up the issue with HISD and get Houston kids a decent education.

BMX Bandit said:

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And I guarantee if vouchers pass….private schools will raise their rates.

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sure, schools like kinkaid or st. john will

but there are lots and lots of parochial schools in poor parts of town that kids would be able to go to if they had vouchers. for example, our lady of guadalupe in east end would not raise its tuition

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but as mentioned - would a place like Our Lady want to borrow money to expand buildings and facilities, hire more staff? There's only a finite amount of room inside a church's hallways. It's a major undertaking to expand a lot and places like that might not want the headaches and financial risks. Also mentioned, they might raise tuition rates somewhat comparable to the voucher amount - so they might stay somewhat static in size.

While I'm in favor of vouchers overall, lots of (likely most) private schools don't have the room for a flood of kids coming from public schools with voucher assistance. There goes your smaller class sizes, as well. Someone a lot smarter than I am (low bar, I know) will have to figure out how to make it work over the short term.

I also think part of the idea with vouchers is that if public schools are forced to compete more frequently with private and charter schools they will demand more accountability and achievement results.

Basically, if schools are under threat of lost enrollment and revenue (I read in the WSJ about urban districts like Los Angeles shuttering/consolidating lots of schools) then they will stop tolerating crap teachers and administrators while they get better educational outcomes from students.

chico said:

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BMX Bandit said:

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And I guarantee if vouchers pass….private schools will raise their rates.

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sure, schools like kinkaid or st. john will

but there are lots and lots of parochial schools in poor parts of town that kids would be able to go to if they had vouchers. for example, our lady of guadalupe in east end would not raise its tuition

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but as mentioned - would a place like Our Lady want to borrow money to expand buildings and facilities, hire more staff? There's only a finite amount of room inside a church's hallways. It's a major undertaking to expand a lot and places like that might not want the headaches and financial risks. Also mentioned, they might raise tuition rates somewhat comparable to the voucher amount - so they might stay somewhat static in size.

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I covered it in detail knowing exactly what our parochial school and several others would do.

The reality is none of the "yah buts" are a bigger downside than nothing changing at HISD. My biggest gripe with these arguments is its very difficult to take anyone seriously that defends HISD or blames others for the situation it is now in. It's indefensible and claiming ignorance on the reality of what did take place isn't a good excuse here. And no, many still have no idea how bad HISD had gotten. Because it's a lot easier and cheaper to not know.

Hiding behind the few above average schools in a district isn't a viable position either because it openly admitting you wouldn't want your child in HISD without being completely insulated from the vast majority of it. And those "elite" magnet schools are one of the contributors to why HISD failed.

People want to say Covid is the reason for the private school resurgence around the country. It wasn't the virus per se. Covid was just the avenue for many ignorant parents to see first hand what was actually (or wasn't') taking place in public school classrooms through remote school and live video. Often side by side with other remote kids who were doing online school at private schools when Sally and Beverly got together to drink wine while the kids did school. In the vast majority of the cases classroom management, environment, curriculum, and a lot of other things are very different between the 2. Not understanding or seeing the difference was just removed and eyes were opened to reality.

TarponChaser said:

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I also think part of the idea with vouchers is that if public schools are forced to compete more frequently with private and charter schools they will demand more accountability and achievement results.

Basically, if schools are under threat of lost enrollment and revenue (I read in the WSJ about urban districts like Los Angeles shuttering/consolidating lots of schools) then they will stop tolerating crap teachers and administrators while they get better educational outcomes from students.

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It should if they cared, but I doubt it for the most part.

HISD was under review and warned and threatened for years. To this day there are HISD schools without any formal review of teachers, any clear expectations or repercussions if they are not met, and absolutely no alignment of curriculum. And that's after all the threats and the state taking it over. And the teacher union is doing everything they can to ensure it doesn't happen so they don't lose revenue and voters.

Many of these former great teachers or admins now being told to resign or be fired led a better program than their peers. But they are refusing to want to standardize, improve, or change.

RK said:

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Miles is the best thing on happen to HISD in ages.

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can you elaborate?

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i guess no elaboration was needed