Tag Archives: Texas Education

Pope Francis Reaches out to Texas Teen

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Pope Francis has been conducting video teleconferences with parishioners around the world.  He recently connected with a Texas teenager who claims to have lost a soccer scholarship when the school found out he was an undocumented alien.  ABC News has the full story.

Soccer aficionado Pope Francis took a page from his favorite sport’s handbook recently in his message to a young man in McAllen, Texas, who had shared his story of adversity during an ABC News virtual audience with the pontiff via satellite.

Ricardo Ortiz, 19, of Houston, told Pope Francis on Monday that he’d lost a soccer scholarship to college once the school had found out he was not a U.S. citizen.

“They informed [me] that I wasn’t able to attend the university of my dreams,” he said. “I ended up going to a community college, started working full time, started supporting my family.”

When Ortiz was around 17, his father had an accident and nearly lost his leg. He was not able to work.

Thankfully, due to the 2012 immigration law Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, Ortiz attained a work permit and held down after-school jobs.

“That happening impacted my life in a very deep way. I had to become the breadwinner of the family. I had to be the person that supported our family,” said Ortiz, whose family had then grown with three younger brothers. “I never lost faith. I never lost the strength that my father and mother gave me.”

Eventually, his father was able to return to work and Ortiz was able to graduate high school, where he’d picked up soccer in his junior year and excelled. On Monday, he asked the pope what was the solution to the world’s problems.

Pope Francis, a well-known avid soccer fan, expressed admiration for Ortiz and told him Monday that “the match is played between friendship in society and enmity in society.”

“We are all created for friendship in society. All of us bear responsibility for everyone else,” the pope said. “And each one has to make a choice in his or her heart. And we have to help that choice to be made in the heart. Escaping it through addiction, through violence, does not help. Only closeness and giving of myself, all that I have to give, the way you gave everything you could as a boy, when you supported your family. Don’t forget that.”

Mom and Dad Must be so Proud

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A Texas State student in San Marcos is now driving an child’s electric Barbie car after her license was suspended for DWI.  Apparently, walking  or riding a bike was just  too much for this dedicated student who has attracted a lot of attention for roaming the campus and environs in the pink Barbiemobile.  UPI reports on the attention that the carless co-ed is getting. The moral – don’t let exercise get in the way of your abject laziness.

Tara Monroe, 20, a junior studying industrial engineering, said her license was suspended and her father took her car away after she refused a Breathalyzer test during a DWI stop following a Waka Flocka Flame concert.

“Riding a bike around campus sucks,” Monroe.  “Like really sucks.”

Monroe’s solution came in the form of a $60 electric Barbie Jeep she found for sale on Craigslist. She said she named the vehicle Charlene in honor of its previous owner.

Monroe, for her part, seems to be reveling in the attention.

“Most people don’t find the things me and my friends do very funny, just immature, so I didn’t expect to get this big of a reaction,” she said. “People who don’t know me are shocked but my friends weren’t even surprised because I do stuff like this all the time.”

“This is the best way I could have gotten my 15 minutes of fame,” she said. “Basically, it was the best decision I’ve made in college, yet.”

Yes, Mom and Dad must be so proud.

Rick Right-Wing Record

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A recent column by Ted B. Lyon, Jr. in the Dallas Morning News attempts to set the record straight on Rick Perry’s record as Governor of Texas.  Lyon’s ire was raised by a recent Jay Ambrose column that as Lyon put it did  “everything but give Perry credit for talking Sam Houston into attacking at San Jacinto.”

Let’s compare what was written with some facts.

Crediting Perry for holding schools accountable or that he urged affordable college education is misguided at best. Texas parents sure know better.

Perry was so hostile to public schools that over 600 districts — in rural counties as well as urban and suburban neighborhoods — sued him for failing to meet the minimum standard of support required by our state constitution. Exhibit A is the $5.4 billion education cut Perry signed into law. It’s the first time in over two decades that state leaders failed to fully fund Texas’ rapid enrollment growth.

Forget that Perry might have urged making college more affordable. Look instead at what he signed off on: deregulation of college tuition that has been devastating to families with college-aged kids. On Perry’s watch, the cost to send a young man or woman to college in Texas shot up by over 50 percent.

As far as jobs go, the one Perry protected best was his own, and he made sure he got paid pretty well, too. Turns out that Perry was not only earning a full-time salary as governor, he also was double-dipping by taking a state retirement pension. While a lot of new jobs were created in Texas, most of them were due to Texans’ willingness to work more for less pay than people in other states, making it harder to support a family.

Perry actually turned down the biggest new jobs opportunity — health care expansion. Nonpartisan studies show that expanding health care in Texas would create over a quarter-million new jobs and pump billions into the Texas economy. Republican governors all over the country put their personal politics aside to realize this benefit for their states. Perry didn’t have the insight, political courage or plain old common sense to do the right thing for Texas.

Perry backers like to throw around buzzwords like deregulation and trivial lawsuits. That may be music to the ears of insurance executives and nursing home owners, but what has it really meant for Texans? Well, under Perry, Texans have been forced to pay the third-highest home insurance rates in the country. If an elderly parent or disabled loved one dies from abuse in a nursing home, Perry has tied the hands of judges and juries. He’s capped the value of a loved one’s life or disabling damage suffered to $250,000 — less than Perry took home in salary and pension every two years.

There’s no problem with Rick Perry letting everyone know that Texas is the greatest state in the greatest nation in the world. I absolutely agree with him. I also know, along with others who are paying attention, that Texas is a great state despite Rick Perry and not because of him.

We Knew There was a Lot of Bull on Campus

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The San Antonio Express-News reports that a bull was sighted on the Texas State Campus in San Marcos.

Students at Texas State University were surprised by an emergency alert that appeared on campus computer screens, in text messages and emails on Wednesday morning.

The alert warned students and faculty of a bull on the loose near the campus’ family and consumer sciences building, which is adjacent from the student rec center.

We’re No. 30, We’re No. 30, We’re No. 30

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The Houston Business Journal reports that UT-Austin is ranked as the 30th best university in the world – the highest ranking of any Texas school.  The Center for World University Rankings – yes there is such an organization updates their rankings every year.  The No. 30 spot places UT-Austin 6th among Big State Universities behind.  Univ. of California – Berkeley, UCLA, U.Cal. San Diego, Michigan and Wisconsin.

The Statue of Jefferson Davis is very proud.

This Just In – Civil War Not Caused by Slavery

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The Washington Post reports that Texas’ new history books will downplay the role of slavery as a root cause of the Civil War.  When history does not comport with your distorted worldview –  just rewrite it.  As Red has previously pointed out, if you don’t think slavery was the root cause of the Civil War, simply read the racist screed that is the Texas Ordinance of Secession.

THIS FALL, Texas schools will teach students that Moses played a bigger role in inspiring the Constitution than slavery did in starting the Civil War. The Lone Star State’s new social studies textbooks, deliberately written to play down slavery’s role in Southern history, do not threaten only Texans — they pose a danger to schoolchildren all over the country.

The Texas board of education adopted a revised social studies curriculum in 2010 after a fierce battle. When it came to social studies standards, conservatives championing causes from a focus on the biblical underpinnings of our legal system to a whitewashed picture of race in the United States won out. The guidelines for teaching Civil War history were particularly concerning: They teach that “sectionalism, states’ rights and slavery” — carefully ordered to stress the first two and shrug off the last — caused the conflict. Come August, the first textbooks catering to the changed curriculum will make their way to Texas classrooms.

It is alarming that 150 years after the Civil War’s end children are learning that slavery was, as one Texas board of education member put it in 2010, “a side issue.” No serious scholar agrees. Every additional issue at play in 1861 was secondary to slavery — not the other way around. By distorting history, Texas tells its students a dishonest and damaging story about the United States that prevents children from understanding the country today. Also troubling, Texas’s standards look likely to affect more than just Texans: The state is the second-largest in the nation, which means books designed for its students may find their way into schools elsewhere, too.

Should the Chair of the State Board of Education Believe in Public Education?

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Gov. Greg Abbott has appointed Donna Bahorich – a former communications director for Tea Party stalwart Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick – to chair the State Board of Education.  Bahorich home schooled her children before sending them to private high school.  She appears to have little or no experience with the public school system. Even some Republicans are questioning the choice.  Republican State Board member Thomas Ratliff has called the move a mistake.

“Public school isn’t for everybody, but when 94 percent of our students in Texas attend public schools I think it ought to be a baseline requirement that the chair of the State Board of Education have at least some experience in that realm, as a parent, teacher, something,”

Some are wondering why Abbott is kowtowing to the homeschooling lobby. Abbott vetoed Senate Bill 359, which would have allowed physicians to detain patients if they are deemed to be a risk to themselves or others, after it was opposed by the Texas Home School Coalition as an attack on parental rights.

Now Red believes that you should have the right to send your children to public or private school or homeschool them if you don’t think it will drive you nuts, but it seems that the Chair of the State Board of EDUCATION should have at least a passing familiarity with the system that educates the overwhelming majority of our youth.  Just saying.

Teacher Hands Out “Ghetto Awards”

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A middle school teacher in Sulphur Springs apparently has a tradition of handing out “Ghetto Classroom Awards” to students.  The Root reports that the teachers have landed in a bit of hot water over what they claim was intended to be a joke.  Some parents found the awards decidedly unfunny.

Jerrika Wilkins sparked controversy after posting a photo of the certificate on Facebook, explaining that it was part of the “8th Annual Ghetto Classroom Awards,” given to her eighth-grade son at Sulphur Springs Middle School for saying “Huh?” a lot in class, the report says.

 

Wilkins told Fox News that her son was “pretty hurt” by the award. “He feels pretty inferior,” she said. “You know, he want to succeed. You know, it just kind of hurt his feelings.”

The school’s principal called an emergency meeting, at which, Wilkins says, one of the teachers, Tim Couch—who also serves as pastor at the Cross Branch Cowboy Church in Sumner, Texas—apologized. The other teacher, Stephanie Garner, offered to resign, but the family said they didn’t want that, Fox writes. The district also issued an apology to the family.

The family said that they were told the awards went out to all the kids in the classroom as a joke and were not meant as a racial slur.

“‘Ghetto’ was not supposed to be a malicious intent to degrade him,” said Wilkins. “It was supposed to be all in fun. I didn’t take it that way.”

Texas A&M Galveston Professor Flunks Entire Class – Then Quits Class

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Professor Irwin Horwitz of Texas A&M Galveston flunked his entire management class and quit the class.  Horwitz sent an email to the students informing them of their fate.

“I am frankly and completely disgusted. You all lack the honor and maturity to live up to the standards that Texas A&M holds, and the competence and/or desire to do the quality work necessary to pass the course just on a grade level, I will no longer be teaching the course, and all are being awarded a failing grade. . . .  None of you, in my opinion, given the behavior in this class, deserve to pass, or graduate to become an Aggie, as you do not in any way embody the honor that the university holds graduates should have within their personal character,” 

Horwitz related numerous incidents rampant cheating, rudeness and outright disrespect from the class members.  According to Horwitz:

“Since teaching this course, I have caught and seen cheating, been told to ‘chill out,’ ‘get out of my space,’ ‘go back and teach,’ called a ‘fucking moron’ to my face, [witnessed] one student cheat by signing in for another, one student not showing up but claiming they did, listened to many hurtful and untrue rumors about myself and others, been caught between fights between students,”

A&M, for its part, has apparently rescinded the mass failure and the department head will teach the remainder of the semester.  A&M also claims it will investigate Horwitz’s allegations about the behavior of the students.

The National Teacher of the Year is From Amarillo

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Shanna Peeples was named National Teacher of the Year by the Council of State School Officials.     Peeples is the first teacher from Texas to win the award since 1957.  myhighplains.com reports that Peeples is more than deserving of the award.

Peeples teaches at Palo Duro High School in Amarillo, Texas, where she spends half of her day as a high school English teacher and the other half mentoring, coaching and challenging her colleagues to grow in the teaching profession.

At Palo Duro High School, her students come from many different backgrounds. Amarillo is one of several cities in the United States that helps refugees find new paths in life and gain access to critical resources. As a result, Peeples works with many students who speak English as a second language or recently entered the United States from another country.

“My students, survivors of deep and debilitating trauma, have shaped the kind of teacher I am,” she says. “They have taught me to never make a promise I can’t keep because so many already have learned to see the world through suspicious eyes. To be the best teacher to them, I have to remember this and honor their background. I remember so I can gain their trust because I want them to read and write their way out of where they are,” said Peeples.

As the 2015 National Teacher of the Year, Shanna is shaping the conversation in this country about working with students in poverty, and those who have already faced extreme challenges in their young lives. Through a variety of teaching methods, Peeples reaches her students and helps them achieve their full potential far beyond her classroom walls.

On a personal note, the 1957 recipient of the award was Guy Bizzell who taught Red in high school but not in the 50’s.