Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Education in America

I am by no means a traditionalist and certainly question "higher" education at times... I mean, it doesn't take an MBA to ask if you want fries with your meal... Having said that, the trend towards "gangsta" language in our youth and dumbphonics used for texting and internet in general sometime get's my irk.  I know my punctuation is incorrect and I am constantly misspelling words (mainly due to fat fingers!) but I do try to check... And I get over it.

But, last month, as the Texas budget was being considered and schools were facing budget cuts, the Canutillo Independent School District on the west side of El Paso had started laying off teachers come the end of the school year.  With such looming fiscal constraints it made sense on the surface but looking deeper it appeared to be more of a stunt to get voters to pass a bond to increase to property taxes.  Ok, the bond issue passed and the teachers jobs were saved.  YAY!  The kids of Canutillo would not suffer... Canutillo ISD had no schools fail to meet academic requirements for the state standardized TAKS tests (see below).

Then tonight on the news it was announced that Canutillo High School would be installing Blue field turf in their high school stadium.  WHAT?  Field turf?  BLUE field turf?  The thought of blue field turf makes me sick as a Fresno State fan, but for a high school?   Well, I guess field turf is better for the kids.  BUT WAIT A MINUTE... Canutillo High School is in a rural location and a farming community located relatively close to the Rio Grande... But even more ludicrous?  Canutillo High School ALREADY has field turf!  Now proponents are saying that this was included in the bond.   

http://www.ktsm.com/news/blue-turf-coming-to-canutillo

Remember what I said about Canutillo ISD not having any schools not meet the academic requirements in the TAKS testing?  It's probably because they "encourage" students to drop out that don't meet the requirements dropping their failure rate.  And, as is the case with most school districts subject to standardized testing the academic goal is set more to teaching the test and placing so much emphasis on the testing.

http://shapleigh.org/news/print/3863-canutillo-students-asked-to-withdraw

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