The scoop and proposed HB 3403

As I was browsing through “The Scoop” section on the Texas Insider I came across a post by Bill Ames on a new voice of legislation being proposed. HB 3403 proposed by representative Jeff Leach looks to balance out an unbalanced curriculum. The current curriculum portrays an unfavorable almost anti-american view of our country in our early stages as a nation. As a high school graduate of the Texas public education system, I share this claim. Bill Ames argues that it is unacceptable for voters, and more importantly parents, to allow our futures to be indoctrinated by a liberally pessimistic view of our state and country in an overwhelmingly conservative state. As a colleague to the Texas State board of educator’s AD HOC committee project, Bill offers quite a bit of insight to our state education. Bill has also spent time working towards a better social studies curriculum and improved project-based learning implementation. Furthermore Bill occupied a key role in modifying the AP History exam to comply with TEKS standards. Reading further into Bill’s post I learned about the six key elements proposed by HB 3403.

I believe the proposed bill promotes a more positive and equally balanced view of our state and our country’s history. This is important so that future generations can decide for themselves if both views are equally correct. Parents, voters, and fellow students: our countries foundation of freedom and equality should extend right down to our education system. Jeff Leach and Bill Ames are on to something important, improving our futures.

Are Texas public schools an A or an F?

A post on the Austin American Statesmen supports the current Texas public school system and even goes on to say it is necessary. As a current college student and high school graduate in Texas, I personally have swam through the alphabet soup of the grading system in our public schools. I believe the author of this article cannot offer the same insight. There are several complicated issues with our current public school grading system. The first incorrect assumption we make is that every student learns the same. However, we KNOW that's not true. So then why do we test our children as such? I also believe that if you continue to lower the standards we only give up on our the futures of the students. Standards continue to be lowered for profit because the higher percentage of students labeled as proficient, the more profit a school receives. Thats's the key word, proficient. It's cheaper than restructuring statewide testing. A trickle down effect then flows down to our teachers, who in some cases spend about 1/3 or 60 days of the school year on testing strategies and test preparation  To the board of education, I purpose a few solutions. To begin, our educators deserve to be paid for what they really are, leaders. Hiring more educators would allow the flexibility and fluidity to develop more diverse testing methods to accommodate the equally diverse student body. Finally, the No Child Left Behind Act sounds cute, but by moving kids forward before their ready we only set them up for failure. An F. To the board of education, our education system should be as adaptive and creative as we are as individual human beings. To parents, you are the most important piece of the puzzle; the more involved you are in your child's education, the more involved your child will be in their education. Parents are the first educators. It's time to stop investing in the present and start investing in our future.