Public education in Texas is a mess. That’s the nutshell version of a straightforward piece in the Dallas Morning News, in which the president of the Texas Association of Business presents sobering statistics to demonstrate that “state government has only compounded the situation with a series of ineffective accountability measures.”
Bill Hammond writes that “Texas high school graduates remain ill prepared for college or the workforce.”
In the last 30 years we have tripled real per student spending in Texas, and yet we have nothing to show for it. But as Hammond points out, “Texas claims that approximately 97 percent of its schools are considered “academically acceptable” or better. By categorizing a school as “academically acceptable,” the state is saying that it is acceptable for 60 percent of any one ethnic group to fail the science section of the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills test and 55 percent of any one group to fail the math portion of the test. Further reducing the credibility of the TAKS test are reports of rampant cheating.”
Public education is much more about jobs for adults than education for children. This eveidenced by the fact that in 1980, we had 5 teachers for every 1 non-teacher. Today, the ratio is 1-to-1.
While taxpayers spend close to $10,000 per child (far more expensive than almost any private school in the state), it’s readily apparent that investment is being wasted.
