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Texas Jeff

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  1. McCallum sounds better than the other AISD bands because the district has designated them as a magnet, so they get transfers for Fine Arts. Bowie sounds louder than the other AISD bands because they have 700 more kids than many of the other schools, and in some cases 2000 more kids. Austin High, Anderson and LASA also have good band programs, they just aren't fine arts magnets or larger schools. At McCallum or Bowie, your somewhat talented kid may find themselves in a lower band or chair because the really talented kids are beating them out. At Austin High, Anderson, or LASA, your kid may be challenged to take a solo or sit first chair. My kids were at Austin High and I often saw kids respond to a challenge by working harder and leveling up. Not just musically. We put kids in charge of trailer crew or game day prep or other leadership positions and watched them mature into the role. The Austin High band programs are double blocked, so the kids see each other every day and band becomes their high school community. If you really want to put your kids in the most award winning bands, McCallum and Bowie and the other AISD bands lose out to Leander, just like the rest of the state. Leander has some structural reasons why they are doing well and AISD doesn't have their advantages. AISD is taking steps, with new instruments and putting turf practice fields on campuses, but they are a generation behind the suburbs. AISD has been lazy, IMHO, by designating magnet schools, and then saying "hey look, wow, they are better than the other schools we have, what a great job we are doing." McCallum and Bowie get the spotlight within AISD, but there are other programs that may be great for your kid and shouldn't be overlooked.
  2. I can add a little more .. what you said is pretty much correct... The College Board supplies the AP content and the exam at the end of the course. The teacher can be straight out of school and needs no special training, but usually they are interest in the subject. The College Board recommends, but does not require, that the teacher have a bachelor's degree in the subject. Students learn the material and spent time taking practice exams to get ready for the test. The test costs about $100 if you are not low income and maybe $20 if you are low income. Students who take the test get a score from 1 (lowest) to 5 (highest). Generally, 3 is a passing score to get credit. Each college has a list of what tests they accept and what score gets you credit for what class. You are not guaranteed to get credit for a class. Some students collect lots of AP credits so that they can max out their college application. Dual credit is usually a community college class (like ACC) or something like UT OnRamps (UT's dual credit offering). The students usually take them in a high school classroom and get "dual credit" for the class, meaning it counts for high school and college. You take the class and you get a grade in the class, credit in the class, and it is on your college transcript for that school. Texas requires universities to accept credit classes taught in Texas and has a standard naming structure for them, so they are easy to transfer. At our kids' school, sometimes the AP teacher was considered "best" and sometimes a dual credit teacher was "better", so ours ended up with a mix of AP and dual credit. The US News "Best schools" list gives a lot of weight to schools that have a high percentage attempt or pass AP tests. You can collect "smart" kids at a magnet and/or max out AP participation and almost guarantee that school will have a high ranking. Do the same with dual credit and your school goes down the list.
  3. It's pretty much that simple, according to the book "Empty Planet". Birth rates decline as women gain access to education and birth control.
  4. If they made the movie today it would be called "Put Down Your Phone We Are Late For Your Soccer Game"
  5. DJT will go to zero, give it time. I worked for a startup for a while. I joined after the IPO and stock crash. We had an actual product and revenue, but an unclear product roadmap. The stock IPOed around 18 and zoomed up to 200. At that point every employee was a millionaire on paper. Six months later, the day I interviewed, the stock was at 51 cents a share. Everyone's options were underwater. The founder and a few early employees made millions. I got a lot of options at the lower price, so I figured it might work out. It did not. My interview was the standard "talk to six people for an hour each" format. One interviewer walked in, said "You want to work here? Sure, whatever..." and walked out.
  6. Austin says "Those are rookie numbers".
  7. Travis County now out. I'm down 17% after being up 90% two years ago. It must be nice to be a county appraiser and just throw random numbers at the wall for a living.
  8. McCallum talk not going away... Here's the latest presentation showing what they are planning (starts around slide 12).
  9. Austin ISD offers at least three ways to get college credit, maybe more. Most are free or cheap and cover the basics for a kid's first year or two of college. Students can take AP classes, and then take the AP test, and maybe get credit if a college offers credit. Austin ISD provides the AP teachers and the class, and the student signs up for the test. The test is $98, but economically disadvantaged kids pay around $21. Students can take ACC dual-credit classes, where the student is enrolled at ACC and high school in the same class. Most of the "ACC" teachers for this are actually Austin ISD high school teachers with the credentials to teach at ACC. The student ends up with high school credit and ACC credit, and the ACC credit can usually transfer elsewhere. I think public schools in Texas are required to accept the credit. Students can take UT On-Ramps classes, where the student is enrolled at UT and the school. UT provides the curriculum. The student ends up with UT credit. It's like ACC dual credit but the kid earns UT class credit using UT content. The district has a number of "early college" high schools, which are mostly the schools with the highest percentage of low economic students. At these schools, students can earn an associate's degree from ACC while still in high school, leaving them with just two years left to complete a degree. Eastside Memorial is across the street from an ACC campus. I think ACC classes are already free for kids in high school, but I can't remember for sure. There's no reason why an Austin ISD student can't knock out most of their freshman year and a big chunk of their sophomore year at almost no cost. The district also has a fire academy, cooking schools, nursing training and bunch of other CTE stuff for kids that are not college bound.
  10. I was near the Georgia border for the last eclipse. Getting to a spot was easy. After it was over, we had about ten minutes before gridlock started. Waze saved us and it routed us some very weird ways, but we kept moving. I had planned a three hour buffer at the Atlanta airport and I ended up walking right on the plane when I got to the gate, but I made it. So when it’s over, get moving as soon as you can, get as far as you can before the rush and have a plan. Or … just be prepared to wait.
  11. I'm sure you know this but I wanted to remind everyone that the way the school gets money is to have students in class. The school has to pay for the teacher, the building, the admin, the custodians ... everyone who keeps the school open. If you miss five class days to go to Hawaii, the school does not make revenue for those days to pay everyone who works there. Each family taking a few days off across the district adds up to a ton of lost revenue. Lots of us donate to our schools above and beyond what is asked, but if you are going to go on vacation and miss school, you might consider asking them what their daily revenue per student is and cutting them a check, just to make up for not being there.
  12. Nobody and I mean nobody wanted Steve Adler in charge.
  13. Well, you can "eyeball" it if you wish... I was surprised with the amount of glare from the sun during the 2017 eclipse, and how dark it didn't get. More like dim. It was tough to tell exactly when it was safe to look, or when the sun was going to suddenly come back. The app gives you some kind of assurance that you are in totality. I waited until the app said I could look, counted to ten, then looked without glasses. I put my glasses back on about ten seconds before the app said it was over. I am paranoid about retina damage, especially for kids who will need their retinas a lot longer than I will.
  14. Consider getting an eclipse app for your phone and practicing beforehand. I just re-downloaded Solar Eclipse Timer that I used in 2017. It's not free but it's not that much: https://www.solareclipsetimer.com/ It uses your GPS location to calculate exactly when the eclipse is starting and stopping and plays some recorded messages during the eclipse to remind you when to look around. I'm not associated with the person developing this app, it's just the one I picked. It's nice to have something to tell you when exactly the eclipse is at 100%, and when it's over.
  15. We used More Than A Teacher in Westlake over a summer and it worked well for us. They have a few locations and they also do some prep classes on campuses. The most useful part of their program was being able to sit for unlimited practice tests. I'm not sure if they still do this or not. We my kids did it, once you had paid the tuition, you could sign up for as many practice tests as you wanted. Simulated "real world" conditions helped my kids get used to the timing and pacing.
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