In my ongoing effort to help the city council woman who just got elected to the El Paso Independent School District Board of Trustees understand basic arithmetic I offer the following.
Before I do though let me reflect on the fact that the board is longer independent, does not have my trust, and is currently a board in name only. They are from El Paso, but they have nothing to do with our schools right now. Other than that their title is accurate.
Our new trustee-elect saw her fellow councilman and mayoral candidate come in a distant second in the polling. Let’s call him the first runner up. The first runner up got 22% of the vote. The winner got 47% of the vote. What is the percentage difference between the two? Hint, the answer is not almost 200%. I had to look up how to compute it.
First, find the difference. It is 47 minus 22 or 25.
Then find the average. It is 47 plus 22 (that is 69) divided by 2. The answer being 34.5. I left off the parenthesis for elementary clarity.
Now the percentage difference is the difference (step one) divided by the average (step two). We have 22 divided by 34.5. That gives us the answer of .7246.
We will skip the step where we multiply by 100, once again for simplicity.
The percentage difference between the winner and the first runner up was 72.46%.
Can you compute the percentage difference in your race?
More practice can be had here.
We deserve better
Brutus
elpasospeak 
It is ironic that we have a school board trustee and former high-profile council person who can’t do basic math. I wonder what her position is regarding STEM curriculum standards? She is going to guide our school district? Her disregard for math doesn’t instill confidence regarding many of the big financial decisions she voted on during her council regime or for decisions she will make while she is on the school board.
What’s equally disturbing is that we seem to have a number of people like this lady who see local public offices not as public service, but rather as a career track, which they wish to perpetuate by moving from one office to the next. These politicians see themselves as the entitled and privileged. They see these offices as their ticket to the inner circle of wealth and power. They have an inflated sense of self-importance and diminished listening skills. We see how well that has worked out for us on the State and Federal level.
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What I don’t understand is why so many people want a job that doesn’t pay anything. Is everyone on the take ? I mean, Mena was for sure and when you see William’s fight it so hard it makes you wonder why she wants to stay so badly on the board. Will Byrd have control over who gets contracts for EPISD ?
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