Feeder schools

July 9, 2013

An interested reader was kind enough to try to correlate feeder schools ratings to the high schools they feed.  He was able to figure out both the Ysleta and Socorro feeder patterns, but not the El Paso Independent School District.  He did not give me permission to use his name, but did freely share his research.

I hesitate to draw any conclusions for the data but print the chart here for your information. I would be interested in hearing from those of you in the know.

High School School District Rating Middle School Rating
Bel Air Ysleta ISD B Hillcrest C
    Ranchland Hills C
Del Valles Ysleta ISD B Camino Real B
    Valley View C
Eastwood Ysleta ISD B Eastwood Knolls B
    Eastwood Middle B
J M Hanks Ysleta ISD C Desert View C
    Eastwood Middle B
Parkland Ysleta ISD C Parkland C
Riverside Ysleta ISD B Riverside C
Ysleta Hs Ysleta ISD C Ysleta C
    Rio Bravo C
Americas Socorro ISD C Capt Walter E Clarke C
El Dorado Socorro ISD C Spec Rafael Hernando B
    Sun Ridge C
Montwood Socorro ISD C Montwood Middle B
    William D Slider B
Socorro Socorro ISD C Salvador Sanchez C
Socorro Middle B

My question is “Why can’t we help our schools to achieve an ‘A’?”

We deserve better

Brutus

2 Comments | El Paso Independent School District | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Roll call

June 27, 2013

Now that we have the TEA imposed board of managers in charge of the EPISD, let’s take a look at the people who compose the board.

We have a lady that was appointed by the TEA to be the EPISD monitor.  We know little about her other than she is a career educator that seems to have made a difference wherever she was.  Other than the fact that she is not an El Pasoan that was elected by El Pasoans I think her appointment was a good one.

We have a former Texas state representative from El Paso who voted to cut $5.4 billion in funding out of Texas public education.  Actually I respect his vote, evidently one made on principle.  For my part I would prefer that the state not get involved in funding education.  Lower the taxes and fees that they take out of a community and let the local residents decide what their education system should look like.  I certainly don’t think that the feral government should be involved.  Of course I doubt that many would support my view on this.

The man who is most responsible for El Paso having one of the best water usage rates and capacities in the desert is on the appointed board.  He is a well known, well respected force in the water community.  He also operated as a tyrant with a “my way or the highway” approach to government.  He evidently saw no problem with his government organization buying major construction equipment from one of his board members.  Yes it was done legally, but that did not make it right.

The chief financial officer of the city, who is also on the The El Paso Firemen and Policeman’s Pension Fund board has also been appointed.  It seems that with both of those organizations the public has had difficulty getting to the truth of their respective finances.  Beyond that we will have the incredible conflict of interest between her duties to the city and to the school district.  I know nothing of her intentions here but do feel that other people without her conflicts should have been chosen.  How will she find time to do her many jobs?

The head of the Region 19 (it used to be Region XIX but during their period of existence public education declined to the point where they changed the name so that the public might understand it) head start program has also been assigned.  I hope she does well.  The matter of her conflict of interest in serving two separate institutions that frequently interact is another disappointment.

We know that government officials do not relinquish power easily.  How long will they stay when we have elected a new school board?  Your prediction is probably the same as mine.  State law gives them two years.  I know of nothing that would keep the TEA from appointing another board after that.

We deserve better

Brutus

3 Comments | City government, El Paso Independent School District, Federal Government, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Middling Schools

June 22, 2013

Let’s move on to middle schools.

Children at Risk also evaluates middle schools in Texas.  This year they ranked 1,841 middle schools using the following criteria:

  • STAAR Advanced Reading (10%)
  • STAAR Advanced Math (10%)
  • Attendance Rate (15%)
  • Retention Rate, Grade 7 (5%)
  • Retention Rate, Grade 8 (5%)
  • Percent Economically Disadvantaged (25%)
  • Reading Gain/Loss (15%)
  • Math Gain/Loss (15%)

Ranked with our best first, their data shows:

CAMPUS DISTRICT 2013 STATE
RANK		 LETTER GRADE
Alicia R Chacon Ysleta ISD 26 A
Bill Sybert School Socorro ISD 114 A
Eastwood Knolls Ysleta ISD 255 B
Hornedo Middle El Paso ISD 306 B
Paso Del Norte School Socorro ISD 320 B
Desert Wind El Socorro ISD 328 B
Socorro Middle Socorro ISD 353 B
Ricardo Estrada J H Clint ISD 365 B
East Montana Middle Clint ISD 369 B
Montwood Middle Socorro ISD 411 B
Fabens Middle School Fabens ISD 414 B
Charles Middle El Paso ISD 423 B
Macarthur El-Int El Paso ISD 450 B
Richardson Middle El Paso ISD 501 B
Anthony Middle Anthony ISD 558 B
Clint J H School Clint ISD 561 B
Wiggs Middle El Paso ISD 576 B
Canyon Hills Middle El Paso ISD 588 B
Harmony Science Acad (El Paso) Harmony Science Acad (El Paso) 612 B
Brown Middle El Paso ISD 649 B
Eastwood Middle Ysleta ISD 656 B
John Drugan School Socorro ISD 670 B
William D Slider Middle Socorro ISD 677 B
Ernesto Serna School Socorro ISD 703 B
Spec Rafael Hernando Middle Socorro ISD 748 B
Lincoln Middle El Paso ISD 771 B
Canutillo Middle Canutillo ISD 774 B
Davinci School For Science And The Burnham Wood Charter School Distri 801 B
Camino Real Ms Ysleta ISD 802 B
Armendariz Middle El Paso ISD 813 B
Rio Bravo Ms Ysleta ISD 850 C
Ross Middle El Paso ISD 929 C
Jose J Alderete Middle Canutillo ISD 956 C
Ysleta Ms Ysleta ISD 969 C
Salvador Sanchez Middle Socorro ISD 997 C
Magoffin Middle El Paso ISD 1,039 C
Jane A Hambric School Socorro ISD 1,049 C
Morehead Middle El Paso ISD 1,060 C
Desert View Ms Ysleta ISD 1,068 C
Guillen Middle El Paso ISD 1,076 C
Terrace Hills Middle El Paso ISD 1,081 C
Col John O Ensor Middle Socorro ISD 1,193 C
Sun Ridge Middle Socorro ISD 1,232 C
Valley View Ms Ysleta ISD 1,286 C
Indian Ridge Ms Ysleta ISD 1,292 C
Hillcrest Ms Ysleta ISD 1,295 C
Tornillo Jh Tornillo ISD 1,311 C
Ranchland Hills Middle Ysleta ISD 1,313 C
Henderson Middle El Paso ISD 1,374 C
Parkland Ms Ysleta ISD 1,381 C
Ann M Garcia-Enriquez Middle Schoo San Elizario ISD 1,401 C
Bassett Middle El Paso ISD 1,442 C
Harmony School Of Innovation – El Harmony Science Acad (El Paso) 1,447 C
Capt Walter E Clarke Middle Socorro ISD 1,470 C
Riverside Ms Ysleta ISD 1,614 C

Any school ranked above 921 is in the bottom half of the state.

Out of 55 schools we only have two that received an “A”.  El Paso Independent School District middle schools averaged 817th place.  Ysleta Independent School District middle schools averaged 985th place.  Socorro Independent School District middle schools averaged 733rd.

1 Comment | El Paso Independent School District | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Talk is cheap

June 13, 2013

Tuesday, June 11, 2013 the appointed board of managers of the El Paso Independent School District voted  unanimously to limit public access to address the board during their meetings.  I wrote about that in No comment allowed.

Watching the video of the meeting I learned that:

The proposal came from both the superintendent and the board of managers.  The superintendent has helped make it more difficult for the public to take exception with his actions.  The only path of appeal that I know of when someone disagrees with the superintendent is to bring the issue to the board of managers.  We previously had a superintendent that had the auditing function report to him and not the the board — look what that got us.  Now our interim superintendent has made it more difficult for the public to bring attention to his actions.

The new policy also forbids those few members of the public that get to speak at the board meeting from using the names of students and employees as well as the positions of the employees.  So if you want to speak about the superintendent you might refer to him as the person sitting three positions to the left of the the president of the board.

No show for show

The board member that is also the chief financial officer of the City of El Paso was absent during that vote.  According to the El Paso Times the chief financial officer was opposed to the agenda item.

Why was she late?  Was she too busy?  Did she want to avoid the issue?  Does she have time to do her job on this board?

If she was opposed to the issue, why didn’t she ask for reconsideration of the item?  If she really felt strongly about the issue why did she remain silent?

Posturing

Maybe her statement to the Times had a different motive.  Her boss at the city is considering moving to Florida.  The Times ran an article this year about how she might be a good candidate to become the next city manager.

Claiming to oppose shutting down public comment while not taking action to preserve it is just plain grandstanding in my opinion.

It looks like this board now ranks worse than the elected board of trustees as far as public access is concerned.

Eternal vigilance is the cost of liberty.

Cato

Leave a Comment » | City government, El Paso Independent School District, El Paso Times, Open Government, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Cato

No comment allowed

June 12, 2013

It seems that the board of managers that the TEA has imposed on the El Paso Independent School District thinks it does not need much public input.

Evidently citizens (known elsewhere as “crazies”) have been showing up at the board meetings to give their input.

The board wants to restrict that input, I guess because it is inconvenient to their schedules.

Among other things the board wants to move the section for public input to the end of the meetings.  That is a shameless attempt to make it less convenient for the public to speak.

They also want to limit speakers to three for an issue and three against the issue.  Wouldn’t you like to live in a world where things are that simple?

They also want to allow members of the public to only speak to the board every 60 days.

Is anything better?

The TEA supposedly appointed this board to provide accountability, transparency, trust and confidence to the public.

We now know for certain how some members of this group want to conduct business.

Business as usual

Only worse.  At least under the old regime the public had an opportunity to vent.  Yes the meetings were long.  The public obviously had a lot to vent about.  If these new people don’t want to spend the time necessary to conduct business in an open and fair manner, they should resign.  Could it be that these people are too busy with other things to do their job right?

Are we lucky or what?

Has the TEA appointed a group of people with the wisdom of Solomon?  Can it be that they know what to do and the public is really just an inconvenience?  Maybe if the board only met every 60 days we would be better off.

It’s the thought that counts

Even if pressure causes the board to backtrack on this issue, we still will know how they think.  This is a genuinely bad idea and should have never been brought up.  Whoever did bring it up clearly is on the wrong side of the issue.

Eternal vigilance is the cost of liberty.

Cato

2 Comments | El Paso Independent School District, Open Government, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Cato

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