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I am a bit amazed but heartened to see so many schools listed from Texas. Dont jump me, you smart Texas kids, until you finish reading this.
I am old (have kids in high school and college) and both are of the AP bent. We have been in Texas for 4 years now. One of the first things I was astounded at when we moved here was the general lack of knowledge or awareness of anything in the world outside the usual OMG dating drama, and the low level of personal responsibility and maturity of the high school kids I was meeting. Some are clueless as to the English language, many appear to feel they are entitled to the world without effort and have maturity levels of what I previously saw in middle school kids elsewhere.
Then I met the parents. Apparently a very large number of parents feel their kids are idiots, are incapable of making any decision above whether to wear socks or not, and will immediately become pregnant drug addicts if let out of sight for more than an hour, or are allowed to choose classes, reading material, media etc. on their own. Speaking with their kids amounts to checking for "lip", and "whoopin 'em" when they are "out of line".
And in recognition of all this, the local high school well known for budget, athletics, high test scores, etc. has fewer than 60% graduates who have any plans at all after high school.
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kq: they likely thought you were, its a common misconception. Also, they might want to discourage taking AP tests as a way to get out of classes -- just sign up for some, then don't show up. Costly, but effective.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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*sigh* I think crapping on Texas is the last acceptable prejudice.
Amazingly, in a humongous state in area, population and demographic, there's going to be some variation in experiences. My high school in Texas had a high graduation rate and 97% of the class of 1992 went to college.
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And Texas is the only state whose residents get stereotyped and poked fun at? Please, I grew up in California. Posts: 1681 | Registered: Jun 2004
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I'm not going to get into a contest of who is more persecuted.
I'd just like to see the vaunted humanistic open-mindedness apply to states people don't like as well.
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Almost all the controversy has been centered on the inner city schools in Houston's school district. Most of it has been quite provable, and has more to do with Houston being touted as an exemplary school district by the sitting President and then-Secretary of Education than any particular yen to knock on Texas. That school district was one of the shining examples of the success of a NCLB-like system that the Bush administration put forward. After it became clear the extent of the cover up there, Houston and the education secretary were dropped like hot potatoes by the Bush administration.
And you know well enough that aspectre knocks on everybody . Nor does he claim "humanistic open-mindedness" as far as I recall; I think he's quite willing to assert his biases.
I know there are plenty of very good schools in Texas; heck, I have some cousins who went through one or another of them and seem to have turned out halfway decent (don't ask me which one, somewhere in Austin is all I know). Houston, though, is a legitimate example of a troubled school district where fraud and shoddy records keeping covered up those perfectly understandable troubles in an attempt to reflect improvements that were not there, coincidentally covering up any improvements that might have actually happened.
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I didn't take any AP tests, but I did CLEP out of some English classes just last year. It was great - saved a ton of money because one test was $50 and counted for two semesters of English composition. At UAB's prices, those six hours would have cost me $889.
Another way to get a head start on college is dual enrollment - the junior college I attended allowed this, I went to class with a girl in high school. She was enrolled in a public high school and took online and weekend classes at the junior college. With those classes plus her AP credits, she was going to graduate from high school with most of her core curriculum courses finished. She said she was going to be only six hours shy of being a college junior at her high school graduation. Pretty cool.
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My boyfriend started college as a sophomore because of AP tests and it was invaluable to him. It meant by the end of his first year he had junior standing, and could get good internships. So he was able to get into a very competitive and highly paid summer internship for the government that he would never have been applicable for otherwise.
And he also took several AP tests without having taken the class, so it certainly is possible.
Posts: 4655 | Registered: Jan 2002
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Three of my cousins went to public high schools in Texas, in Houston actually, and my aunt teachers 9th grade there. They all came out very intelligent, not to mention stuffy and arrogant, but I blame that on the fact that they're rich Republicans with a Big Texas Complex.
Though it's not entirely a fair argument FOR the Houston education system. They actually live in Kingwood, which is an insanely rich suburb of Houston that was more or less annexed by Houston, and it not administrates it, collects taxes from it and it's officially part of the school system. That's an extra five or six thousand kids to keep in mind when you're talking about Houston's school district.
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Hey...that was my high school. Kingwood High School, in the development just north of Houston. It was a great school, academically. Not everyone in the boundries for that school was rich.
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Musta been a big city then, every house I saw the few times I've visited has a garage with more square footage than my house and garage combined. The median price for a house in that city is like three times than what the median price is for a house in my neighborhood, and I live in a rather nice off middle class city myself in a Detroit suburb.
Regardless, I never said the whole district was rich, it very well may not be, but my cousins, who I was referring to, certainly are. Even so, calling it a rich city wouldn't be an unfair labeling for a city known for luxury waterfront houses and golf courses.
The school system there is very nice, and I commend it, but as it is officially part of the Houston school district now, I think that many students has a way of offsetting the numbers for the Houston school district unfairly.
Where in Kingwood did you live? When did you go there? Just curious.
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In response to previous posts on the subject: my higschool graduates only about 2/3s of the entering Freshman, the rest mostly leave for other schools, but is one of the best in the city of San Antonio (you won't find it on the Newsweek list, but the SA Express News listed it as one of San Antonio's élite schools.) Of course, it isn't Public, but should Public schools really be held to such a diferent standard than Private schools. Perhaps the state of education would be better in this country if more under-performing students were asked to leave formal education.
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quote:Originally posted by Pelegius: In response to previous posts on the subject: my higschool graduates only about 2/3s of the entering Freshman, the rest mostly leave for other schools, but is one of the best in the city of San Antonio (you won't find it on the Newsweek list, but the SA Express News listed it as one of San Antonio's élite schools.) Of course, it isn't Public, but should Public schools really be held to such a diferent standard than Private schools. Perhaps the state of education would be better in this country if more under-performing students were asked to leave formal education.
Well, that is a very condesending, arrogant statement.
Move to Japan, you will fit right in with their tracking system for schooling. In THIS country public education is just that...public.
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The list of countries which share my "very condesending, arrogant" view of education is quite long: Austria, Finland, Greece, Germany, Italy, Poland etc. The system in the U.S. is anomalous, not the norm. Indeed, it may be you who are being "very condesending, [and] arrogant" in your assumption that the way in which things operate in your country is axiomaticly better than all other systems in operation.
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quote:Perhaps the state of education would be better in this country if more under-performing students were asked to leave formal education.
You do realize that argument assumes that the educational system and all its participants are without reproach and cannot possibly be the case of a student's underperformance, right?
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It most certainly does not, it does, however, state that students often represent part of the problem.
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It still protects and values the system and the educators over the students unless your policy has it that if students should be asked to leave the system, so should under-performing teachers and administrators.
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While I understand the dangers in saying that underperforming students should leave formal education, it is just as dangerous to say that all students should be forced through a formal education.
I'm talking here about trade schools.
In the formal academic public school world, trade schools are often looked down upon. In the past, I understand, trade schools were sometimes seen as a dumping ground for students who didn't do well academically. However, it seems trade schools have been dismissed almost out of hand these days, the attitude being that students should be educated for college instead of a trade.
While the danger of college-interested students being pushed out of formal education programs into trade schools does exist, the bad wrap trade schools get is undeserved.
Our public education system has ignored the trades in the last decade or two, dropping trade programs within their schools such as woodshop, autoshop and metalshop. These programs are becomign scarce as money is funneled into computers and math/english standardized test areas.
To put it simply, though, four years of college after a standard public secondary experience does not make you a better or worse person than four years working in the trades after a trade secondary school.
I think teachers should have more leeway to suggest trade schools to parents earlier on, and the stigma the schools place on this option should go away.
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My cousin just spent half a year in the german version of college. She had the same thing to say about it as ever other exchange student I haave spoken to in the past 15 years; with very few exceptions, college overseas is no better than a community college over here.
DESPITE a formal tracking system that starts years before any of ours do.
It is not a mistake that people from all over the world get their degrees here in the US. Far more than Americans do overseas.
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quote:While the danger of college-interested students being pushed out of formal education programs into trade schools does exist, the bad wrap trade schools get is undeserved.
I could not agree more. We need to start recognizing that as the number of people skilled in the trade goes down, the average salary of a skilled tradesperson is going to go up.
I know a lot of people in the trades, obviously as my husband is one of them. I also have friends who work in professions that traditionally are thought to be good wage-earning jobs. Engineers, pharmaceutical sales, computer/IT, CPA, etc. I don't know how much everybody makes per year but if you look at lifestyle, like how expensive a home people own and whether or not people own second vacation homes and boats or other luxury items - guess who's doing better? The tradespeople. I know for a fact that several of the contractors we know are millionaires. One had his business for sale and we looked into purchasing it and saw the books for the last few years - he was bringing in between $600,000-$750,000 NET, not gross, annually the last 3 years.
I know finish carpenters that bill themselves at more than $100 per hour, and they have so much work backed up they may never get to it all. I won't go into what my hubby bills out, but suffice to say that if I do graduate and get a teaching certificate and work as a public school teacher, my annual salary will be considerably less than what he makes as a plumber - part-time.
I don't know what type of aptitude my son will show, he's just in kindergarten, but if he ever came to me and said "Mom, I don't want to go to college, I would rater learn a trade" I would not think less of him at all and would try to find a good finish carpenter for him to apprentice with.
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Belle, you are correct about some tradespeople being well off. My mom is always in the process of rennovating and some of our carpenters and roofers will show up in really expensive sports cars. I know our electrician type person is single-handedly financing his 6 children through college. And, obviously, the auto mechanics who fix those expensive sports cars aren't exactly poor either.
Posts: 484 | Registered: Feb 2006
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quote:I think teachers should have more leeway to suggest trade schools to parents earlier on, and the stigma the schools place on this option should go away.
Hear, hear! All through high school I very much wanted to take practical trades-based classes and sign up for the senior year apprentice-type program the high school ran with local businesses, but I was bright and college-bound, and the counselors made it clear that those classes were intended for the students who were one step away from dropping out.
So I went and spent $120,000 on a fancy Ivy League education, and all I really learned during those four years was a) what I wanted to do for a career, and b) that I'd need to go to a trade school to learn to do it.
And here I am, finally, in a trade school, learning a specific skill alongside people from all backgrounds, many of whom probably couldn't write 25 pages on the relative merits of humanism vs. antihumanism, but amazingly enough still have a whole heck of a lot to offer the world. Posts: 1681 | Registered: Jun 2004
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Three kids in my family- I am in grad school getting a phd, my sister is a lawyer and my brother construction. My sister and I are in debt, my brother makes double my sister's salary, four times mine. When I graduate, this will still be true. A lot of kids in high schools get frustrated because it does not pertain to them. They have decided that they are going into auto repair. Why do they care about calculus? We need cars fixed. It is a reputable career, so why should we look down on it? Why not let them do trade schools for half day, normal school the other? They are more engaged, getting the knowlede they need for their future plans. The kids then are better behaved during the "academic" portion and grades improve. I think that some kids though should not be in public schools. My husband was a teacher and was assaulted in the classroom. I firmly believe that the student should have lost the right to an education in that moment. You come to learn or don't come at all.
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I know a guy who went to a trade school and apprenticed to become an electrician to put himself through college and med school. Once he finished med school and did his internship, though, he realized that he really liked the idea of being a doctor, but couldn't handle the reality.
So he went back to being an electrician, and makes very good money at it.
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My mom, with umpteen years of college and a bunch of (thoroughly impractical) degrees, now works at a state trade school and likes it best of all the colleges and universities she's attended over the years. What she likes about it is that people are going to school for the specific purpose of learning a trade so they can work.
Many of the programs at this school have waiting lists, and graduates have a very high employment success rate.
Posts: 5948 | Registered: Jun 2001
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Kwea, WHAT? Oxford, Cambridge, the École Normale Supérieure, Sciences-Po and Tokyo University are all equivilent to community colleges? That would explain why the Rhodes Scholarship program has no applicants from the U.S., who would never go to an educational backwater like the U.K. to go to school.
I find your comment increadibly offensive, and I am a U.S. citizen.
Posts: 1332 | Registered: Apr 2005
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I do think trade schools are encouraged to some extent. The public school in the town I grew up had classes such as shop and wood-working and auto mechanics to prepare students for trade schools, and it was hardly a blue collar town. My boyfriend is from middle-class Minnesota and says his high school also had a broad selection of trade classes.
However, I do think they are encouraged as an option after graduation rather than something to pursue in lieu of obtaining a high school diploma.
I guess then the question boils down to what extent should public education be mandatory and for how long.
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quote:The public school in the town I grew up had classes such as shop and wood-working and auto mechanics to prepare students for trade schools, and it was hardly a blue collar town. My boyfriend is from middle-class Minnesota and says his high school also had a broad selection of trade classes.
That's good to hear. In New Jersey, these programs are disappearing rapidly. Schools are cutting shop programs because of the expense of providing materials and insurance, along with increasing need for space coupled with towns so taxed they won't pass budgets for expansion.
At the middle school I worked at, the shop teacher had been teaching for 38 years. He said he would teach as long as he physically could, because when he left they wouldn't replace him and the shop would close.
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My dad always encouraged us to have a trade and an education. I think the ideal career he would want us to have would be to be both an electrician and an electrical engineer. The oldest two haven't done it at all, but there's a chance the middle child will.
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In Houston, I don't get the feeling like trade schools are encouraged (could be school based). The closest they had was programming, CAD.
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quote:Kwea, WHAT? Oxford, Cambridge, the École Normale Supérieure, Sciences-Po and Tokyo University are all equivilent to community colleges? That would explain why the Rhodes Scholarship program has no applicants from the U.S., who would never go to an educational backwater like the U.K. to go to school. I find your comment increadibly offensive, and I am a U.S. citizen.
Breathe, Pelegius. He said with very few exeptions, not all.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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It was still incredibly insulting and false, Britian can claim, in adition to Oxbridge, the following world-class universities: Imperial College, London University, Manchester University, Kings College, University of Nottingham, University of Birmingham University of Glasgow, University of Leeds, University of Liverpool, University of Sussex, Cardiff University, East Anglia University, University of Leicester, University of Southampton, London School of Economics, Queen Mary University, Queen's University, University of Dundee, University of Durham, University of Lancaster, University of Newcastlse, St Andrew's University, University of Warwick and University of York.
France has the Sobborne, the Grande Écoles and Lyon among many others. I could go on for some time (Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland and the Scandinavian countries are quite well endowed.)
The fact of the matter is that many Americans go abroad for Graduate school, hence the proliferation of Rhodes and Fulbright scholers among the brightests students, and the claim that "with very few exceptions, college overseas is no better than a community college over here" is completely groundless.
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Just to throw my hat into this ring, I studied abroad my junior year at the University of Galway in Ireland, which is one of the better schools for liberal arts in the country - behind Trinity of course.
Quite frankly, it was a joke compared to Rutgers in NJ, and the classes were a breeze. Most were midterm final only, and for semester courses that meant one test for the entire course. If they weren't midterm final, there were two papers a year - again, one if it was only a semester course.
Maybe the graduate programs were more strenuous or in depth, but the undergraduate program was pretty light.
A friend had a similar experience at the University of Glasgow during his semester abroad from Duke.
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Hmm, I'm certainly not saying you're wrong FlyingCow, but I'm not sure how requiring just one exam at the end means the class is easy. That depends entirely on the expectations the professor places on that final exam. Sure, if the expectation is only regurgitation of cursory knowledge, that's easy. But if knowledge of the entire set of material with thorough analysis is expected, that can be harder then several tests along the way. I'm thinking of law school exams I just took. ;-)
As for only one paper, again that depends on what is required for that paper. I would think well researched paper of say 20-25 pages would be plenty for an undergrad course. Maybe even 15 depending on the subject and how closely the professor monitored research methodology. I'm guessing they were short papers at Trinity?
At any rate, I never studied overseas, so I have no basis to really compare American vs. foreign universities. I suppose I'm just not getting a clear picture of what the different levels of expectations were at Rutgers vs. Trinity, and I'm interested to hear why Rutgers was harder. Would you be willing to comment on that?
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On the other hand, I know of a lot of community colleges of a reasonably high quality--they just cater to part-time adult students.
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My father did work on his PhD at Trinity and certainly believed it compared favorably with the University of Washington and the University of Texas.
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I resurrect this thread to contribute to a larger point I am trying to make: we live in a culture of mediocrity. The lowest common denominator, which is very low indeed decides everything.
quote: to honor schools that have done the best job in persuading average students to take college-level courses and tests.
Heaven forbid that any school have good programs for the gifted. What is important is that the lowest common denominator be raised as high as possible, even if that means neglecting everything above that. AP tests are not for the average student, and were never intended to be. My school, rightly to my mind, discourages students who are unlikely to make a four or a five on an AP test from taking the class. Why? Because it is grossly unfair that, in a gifted class, the teacher should have to spend half an hour explaining the basics Marxism to people who, in the Tenth grade, were totally unfamiliar with the term.
Meritocracy through equality of opportunity is the goal towards which we should strive, not equality of intellect based on a false system.
We have become so anti-élitist that we fear even an élite based on talent, indeed, I would say we fear this more than any other élite. Note that, in the United States today, the word "intellectual" is almost universally used as a sneer, while the "average joe" is raised to the level of demigod, or, at least, President.
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I wouldn't worry, Texas has plenty on there, and I don't think anyone is going to start celebrating our great educational system anytime soon.
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"Hope you're smart or your parents have connections, otherwise you're screwed." With the addition of lucky to that list, I would say c'est la vie. Really, what is so wrong with a system that acknowledges that some students are, in fact, more intelligent, or better at school? If we say that this is not so, then we are lying to our students and to ourselves.
A society which considers total equality, rather than meritocracy, to be the goal, even at the expense of real progress, is doomed to fail.
We should, must, allow the talented to rise while providing a safety net for those who lack talent or luck. We should not, cannot, attempt to make them equal, anymore than we can make three equal to nine. There are wrongs which we cannot right, and should not even attempt to do so. Perhaps the day shall come when science can change the intelligence of an individual, but this will not be the course of the near future. Even if this were possible, I am far from sure that it would be desirable: Stephan Hawking, rightly, points out that creating super-smart humans creates a special difference which would ultimately lead to the demise of humanity through its metamorphoses into post-humanity. Do we really want this?
Even if we answer that this course of events is good and right, what system of belief argues for the pretense that something which has not happened has?
In the meantime, we must accept, and teach our children to accept, that humanity, while glorious, is limited, and individual humans, while potentially more glorious, are more limited.
Or education system fails students, for, when they learn that they have been taught lies, will rightly ask what sort of a society teaches lies to the young and this shall lead them to question whether any society based on lies can or should survive. We must change our educational system, and our society without, until truth is the basis. How will our governing élites answer the statement, so often heard from the mouths of the most intelligent youth: Pas de replâtrage, la structure est pourrie? We not replaster, but replant, else our society be uprooted and flung into the abyss. Revolutions do not save societies, but they occur only when a society needs saving.
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I fear we underestimate the exent to which a society is formed in its schools. To what degree are world views formed at the university, and, especialy, secondary school levels? The answer is that the world views of individuals within a society, and thus the nature of the societ, are almost universaly formed at these levels.
Posts: 1332 | Registered: Apr 2005
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Interesting to see people from my neck of the woods (Kingwood to be precise) on here. Kingwood always seemed pretty good academically to me, but then again I was in all AP classes so I might have a distorted view. Of course Kingwood's academic excellence may slide next year when they start this new "family" system nonsense.
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(don't ask me which one, somewhere in Austin is all I know). Houston, though, is a legitimate example of a troubled school district where fraud and shoddy records keeping covered up those perfectly understandable troubles in an attempt to reflect improvements that were not there, coincidentally covering up any improvements that might have actually happened.
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