El Paso’s elementary schools given grades

July 28, 2014

The childrenatrisk.org 2014 rankings for Texas elementary schools have been published.  Their methodology has changed from last year and can certainly be argued.

Weighting was evidently applied to scores this year based upon the economic condition of the students.  It appears that if a school had good test scores and the families were relatively prosperous then the school might have been graded down because the students should have done better.  I may have misunderstood the web site’s explanation and would welcome any clarification that the readers can offer.

Without regard to the methodology we do have a consistent perspective on the state’s schools.  There were 4,359 elementary schools ranked this year so a school with a ranking above 2,179 is in the bottom half of the state.

Congratulations to our elementary schools that ranked well!

You can see the chart by clicking on the link below.

2014-ElPaso-Texas-Elementary-School-Rankings-short

Brutus

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Math

July 26, 2014

As with our previous posts about reading and writing I suspect that this one will instigate some discussion.

To me learning multiplication tables is both a right of passage and a valuable investment of time and energy when later  dealing with choices that we all make in life.

Rather than argue the issue,  let me  post this picture that I took in a store recently:

3x5

We deserve better

Brutus

 

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For the “crazies” yet again

July 22, 2014

Our former chief financial officer was a city appointee to our police and fire pension board.

The  last item on the Tuesday, July 22, 2014 city council agenda is hopefully her last gift to us.  The item allows the council to discuss and take action on the 2014 actuarial study for both the policeman’s and firemen’s pension funds.

Fire

The firemen’s fund is underfunded by $114 million.  In 2012 they were underfunded by $108 million so it looks like we are falling behind about $3 million each year.

It looks like there are 871 people being paid out of the fund at the average rate of $61,851 per year, each.

While the payout rate seems high compared for example to social security, be aware that the current contribution rate is 15.28 percent for the employees and 18.5 percent from the city.

Police

The unfunded amount in the police fund is just short of $194 million at January 1, 2014 whereas it was $174 million on the same date in 2012.  Once again we are falling behind, in this case to the tune of $10 million each year.

The annual payout for the 1,052 people receiving checks is $67,317.  Policemen pay 13.89% of their salary into the fund while the city contributes another 18.5%.

Further in the hole

Our former chief financial officer was only one of the voting members of the board.  However,  the “crazies” probably thought she had a responsibility to the taxpayers to let us know what has been happening and get the numbers in balance.

Most private employers match the roughly 7.5% that the average working person is required to put into social security.

The city’s 18.5% is more than twice what private employers are required to contribute.

Why?  Some will say that our uniformed public safety employees are underpaid on an annual basis.  Maybe they are.  Making up for it in retirement is not the answer.

Why don’t we put our new hires into the regular retirement system that most of us must participate in and pay a competitive wage to them during their working years?  What is a competitive wage?  Why not let the market decide like we do with private employers?  If private employers cannot hire the people they need at the pay rate they are willing to pay, they raise the pay rate until they can.

Wouldn’t it be better to have one retirement system for all of us?

We don’t know if our prior chief financial officer will continue to sit on this pension board.  I suspect that she will be replaced when her term expires.

Then we only have to worry about what she does or does not do at EPISD.

We deserve better

Brutus

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Spend your own money to defend your principles

July 13, 2014

According to the Times, the Ysleta Independent School District board has spent more than $30,000 in legal fees trying to fight a law that requires them to make certain financial disclosures.

If I recall correctly the law only applies to school board members in the El Paso area.  Evidently our legislature thought that the law would help clear up corruption problems in our local school districts.

Amazingly it does not seem to apply to our un-elected board of managers at EPISD.

Principles

We don’t know what the board’s motivation is for fighting this law.

From my perspective the board members should have chosen to fight this law with their own money if they object to it.  They could resign if they find it to be a law that they do not want to obey.  They could hire their own lawyers if they think that it is a law that should be changed.

Spending this money that could have been spent educating children seems selfish to me.

I also wonder what the nature of the legal services was that made the bill add up to so much.

Now we see both city council and a school board spending our money to deny  us information that we are legally entitled to.

We deserve better

Brutus

 

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Reading

July 12, 2014

I’ve had the pleasure of speaking with some young college age people recently.

Admittedly these people are focused on science, mathematics and engineering.

All are products of our local school districts.

None of them have ever read a book.  I’m not quibbling about the differences between e-books and paper ones.  No books.

They all use electronic means to look up specific facts.

One even told me he “sees no value in history”.

What has happened to the curriculum at our schools?  Are we spending so much time on tests that we are leaving people behind?  And where were their parents on this?

We deserve better

Brutus

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