What do ya' think about this.........

[TexPx 2309]

How do they survive?

See edit above

[Samson's Wig 3167]

Something that should give every Texan pause is the fact that Florida has really good public schools while our system is a national laughing stock (even at the insanely overfunded suburban schools the education is shit).  Recapture and a love affair with football are big reasons why.  Fundagelicals are the other.  But Florida.  Fucking Florida.  It's embarrassing. 

[bolverk 29258]

I *think* I found a way to find out how much a district receives from Robin Hood, but unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a quick and easy list by district. From what I can gather from the TEA website, recapture dollars go into the Foundation School Program and then get allotted to the various districts.

I'm most familiar with school districts out in West Texas, so I picked one that I knew was property poor to see how much they get. Here are the results for Plainview where there's a rolling recalculation of around $31-32 million funds allotted to them.

https://tealprod.tea.state.tx.us/fsp/Payments/Ledger.aspx?district=095905&year=2024&ledger=1&data=1

 

But if you change the drop-down menu to "recapture," you get this error message:

It'd be a huge pain in the ass to check all the districts, but if I'm understanding it correctly, this is how you can check individual districts.

 

Prosper doesn't pay in.

 

But they appear to receive more than $100 million.

 

https://tealprod.tea.state.tx.us/fsp/Payments/Ledger.aspx?district=043912&year=2024&ledger=1&data=1

 

 

Edited September 21, 2023 by bolverk
Prosper link added

[KCMasterpieceof 24]

41 minutes ago, TexPx said:

What’s interesting is that Frisco built Memorial Stadium in 1986 when there was one high school.
There are now 12( I think) 5A high schools. Guess how many new football stadiums FISD has built since?

Zero. They entered public/private deals with the Cowboys and FC Dallas to use their facilities for athletics, graduations and a bunch of other FISD events.

I wonder if this is because there is no room! Where are they gonna build it? Up North of Panther Creek? That's Universal Studios now anyways. 

I think those deals with The Star and FDC Dallas is better for everyone involved.

[Samson's Wig 3167]

14 minutes ago, bolverk said:

I *think* I found a way to find out how much a district receives from Robin Hood, but unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a quick and easy list by district. From what I can gather from the TEA website, recapture dollars go into the Foundation School Program and then get allotted to the various districts.

I'm most familiar with school districts out in West Texas, so I picked one that I knew was property poor to see how much they get. Here are the results for Plainview where there's a rolling recalculation of around $31-32 million funds allotted to them.

https://tealprod.tea.state.tx.us/fsp/Payments/Ledger.aspx?district=095905&year=2024&ledger=1&data=1

 

But if you change the drop-down menu to "recapture," you get this error message:

It'd be a huge pain in the ass to check all the districts, but if I'm understanding it correctly, this is how you can check individual districts.

 

Prosper doesn't pay in.

 

But they appear to receive more than $100 million.

 

https://tealprod.tea.state.tx.us/fsp/Payments/Ledger.aspx?district=043912&year=2024&ledger=1&data=1

 

 

Thank you. And fuck Prosper.  If we can't get rid of recapture, the least that can be done is that hot women in these communities can come on down and service those of us who actually paid for their big-ass football stadium.  It's only fair.

Edited September 21, 2023 by Samson's Wig

[ABSR 5286]

2 hours ago, KCMasterpieceof said:

Isn't Allen the city that wrote into it's laws to only have 1 highschool (for football prowess purposes) and now it's so large it has Freshman A, B, C and D teams and a Marching Band that's larger than most smaller towns highschools with an 8 figure commercial kitchen for home-ec?

This is from 2018. I'm sure it's just gotten larger. All in the service of being a juggernaut in high school football:

 

The Allen HS band has over 800 kids.  Just the Allen band students would qualify them as a 4A school.

[Jameslaw121 4440]

9 minutes ago, KCMasterpieceof said:

I wonder if this is because there is no room! Where are they gonna build it? Up North of Panther Creek? That's Universal Studios now anyways. 

I think those deals with The Star and FDC Dallas is better for everyone involved.

I think most of the high schools have a small stadium on campus as well

[Covri 6225]

3 hours ago, KCMasterpieceof said:

Have a family member who is renting out new builds in Melissa and making a killing. Apparently it's so far north that even 5 years ago nobody was considering it but he was prescient. You would be shocked how much it is to rent a single family home in Melissa. It's almost Plano prices and it's in South Oklahoma dang near.

I read yesterday Melissa will have the unique distinction of being the only city in Texas with two Texas-based, cult-brands: Buccee's and H-E-B (coming).

Fun fact, Melissa currently doesn’t even have a grocery store in its city. But has three different ones slated to open in the next year or so.

[Captainant 27249]

33 minutes ago, bolverk said:

I *think* I found a way to find out how much a district receives from Robin Hood, but unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a quick and easy list by district. From what I can gather from the TEA website, recapture dollars go into the Foundation School Program and then get allotted to the various districts.

I'm most familiar with school districts out in West Texas, so I picked one that I knew was property poor to see how much they get. Here are the results for Plainview where there's a rolling recalculation of around $31-32 million funds allotted to them.

https://tealprod.tea.state.tx.us/fsp/Payments/Ledger.aspx?district=095905&year=2024&ledger=1&data=1

 

But if you change the drop-down menu to "recapture," you get this error message:

It'd be a huge pain in the ass to check all the districts, but if I'm understanding it correctly, this is how you can check individual districts.

 

Prosper doesn't pay in.

 

But they appear to receive more than $100 million.

 

https://tealprod.tea.state.tx.us/fsp/Payments/Ledger.aspx?district=043912&year=2024&ledger=1&data=1

 

 

Holy fucking shit that's ridiculous. North Dallas suburbs just getting stolen money from urban school districts, who are struggling to pay teachers and meet minimum standards. 

[C-Man 26929]

3 hours ago, KCMasterpieceof said:

Have a family member who is renting out new builds in Melissa and making a killing. Apparently it's so far north that even 5 years ago nobody was considering it but he was prescient. You would be shocked how much it is to rent a single family home in Melissa. It's almost Plano prices and it's in South Oklahoma dang near.

I read yesterday Melissa will have the unique distinction of being the only city in Texas with two Texas-based, cult-brands: Buccee's and H-E-B (coming).

My former in-laws invested with a buddy of theirs on highway-adjacent property in Melissa when I was with my ex-wife 20 or so years ago. I wonder if they sold it yet. I'm sure it was/is worth a fucking fortune now.

[Samson's Wig 3167]

4 minutes ago, Captainant said:

Holy fucking shit that's ridiculous. North Dallas suburbs just getting stolen money from urban school districts, who are struggling to pay teachers and meet minimum standards. 

Many of our state leaders come from that neck of the woods.  Texas Senate District 8 is notoriously one of the more corrupt legal jurisdictions in America (and the system that has protected Paxton's sorry ass for so long).  That their communities profit off the backs of poor minority students in urban centers should surprise absolutely no one.

[Covri 6225]

@sidis went over prosper isd in the Austin thread a month or so ago, basically prosper is gaming the recapture system in a way that they basically get back what they pay in and have been lowering tax rates to stay that way. He can probably explain it better.

[Deej 76395]

7 hours ago, jimmyjazz said:

Here's what I think:  my kids' old high school in Austin is infested with raccoons and the AC doesn't work in many classrooms, but I'm paying over $19K per year in property taxes so towns like Prosper and Manor have badass sports facilities.

I'm glad to hear the great great great great great great great grandbabies of the McCallum raccoons from when I went to school there are thriving. 

[Captainant 27249]

13 minutes ago, Samson's Wig said:

Many of our state leaders come from that neck of the woods.  Texas Senate District 8 is notoriously one of the more corrupt legal jurisdictions in America (and the system that has protected Paxton's sorry ass for so long).  That their communities profit off the backs of poor minority students in urban centers should surprise absolutely no one.

BuT tHeReS nO mOrE rAcIsM!!!

[Judge Roybeanbag 11771]

As long as dipshits keep being dipshits this is what we get

[Deej 76395]

Just now, Judge Roybeanbag said:

As long as dipshits keep being dipshits this is what we get

As long as there no constitutional amendment to keep aggy from running for office. 

[TexPx 2309]

I think most of the high schools have a small stadium on campus as well

Yes. Practice facilities.

[Helobious 9465]

That’s a lot of money just to routinely get skullfucked by a bunch of south dallas black kids in the playoffs (Duncanville beat prosper 42-0 in the semis last year)

[Samson's Wig 3167]

20 minutes ago, Helobious said:

That’s a lot of money just to routinely get skullfucked by a bunch of south dallas black kids in the playoffs (Duncanville beat prosper 42-0 in the semis last year)

But they get to go home knowing those South Dallas kids paid for their stadium.  What a world.

[TexPx 2309]

I wonder if this is because there is no room! Where are they gonna build it? Up North of Panther Creek? That's Universal Studios now anyways. 
I think those deals with The Star and FDC Dallas is better for everyone involved.

Nah. They’ve had enough property to build a couple of stadiums they just decided to go this route. They also have use of the new PGA facilities and the Comerica center, which is The Stars facility. Not sure what else.

City of Frisco, FEDC and FISD partner with the private entities.

[KCMasterpieceof 24]

30 minutes ago, TexPx said:

Nah. They’ve had enough property to build a couple of stadiums they just decided to go this route. They also have use of the new PGA facilities and the Comerica center, which is The Stars facility. Not sure what else.

City of Frisco, FEDC and FISD partner with the private entities.

I was at Dallas Startup week last week at UNT Frisco…surprised how small and quant it is

[TwiceHorn 31069]

The problem isn't recapture, per se, it's relying entirely on property taxes to fund public education. https://www.texastribune.org/2019/01/31/texas-robin-hood-recapture-villain-texas-fix-school-finance/

It's inherently biased in favor of property-rich school districts, and unconstitutional under the Texas Constitution, but not the US Constitution.

If we get rid of recapture, we're going to have a problem as long as we rely on property taxes.

[luke duke 6366]

There were less kids at SMU when I was there. 

*fewer

[bolverk 29258]

10 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

The problem isn't recapture, per se, it's relying entirely on property taxes to fund public education. https://www.texastribune.org/2019/01/31/texas-robin-hood-recapture-villain-texas-fix-school-finance/

It's inherently biased in favor of property-rich school districts, and unconstitutional under the Texas Constitution, but not the US Constitution.

If we get rid of recapture, we're going to have a problem as long as we rely on property taxes.

Oh, I think we're all aware of the inherent faults of funding schools through property taxes,  but our voters have made the one other method that most states rely on as "unconstitutional" within this state.

If we're stuck with property taxes, I'd favor school district consolidation (we have 1,200!), allocations staying within TEA regions, or some combo to spread the property tax burden/benefits around. Hell, maybe even set the rates at the regional level to eliminate gross disparities when you cross the street into a different district.

TEA regions

[bluto 4861]

What’s gonna be real fun is 2025 when the surplus funding for the state buy down of the isd tax rates isn’t there. In typical Tx fashion, they just yolo’d ~12bn of the surplus on a 2 yr buy down of 10.7cents. There’s no way they let the rates bounce back up and I can’t see the state having 30bn surplus again. 

[F250 28622]

7 hours ago, KCMasterpieceof said:

North of 380 is growing like crazy-- Prosper and Celina is where all the early movers to Frisco in the late 90s and 2000's are going to a) sell their houses they bought $300k  for $1-2mm to the upwardly mobile minority community because of the past reputation of great public schools (you can see the tons of Indian food and Teslas in Frisco these days) and b) get a ton of land, acre, house for the comparative cheap. 

Coach Prime was an early investor of a ton of land in Prosper back when it was all horse pasture, I wonder if he held or made out well. Dude Perfect lives up there and Dak Prescott's mansion is up there.

Oh and their cafeterias look baller:

The Iron Skillet.

"That's a name I haven't heard in a long time." - Obi Wan Kenobi

 

[Texas Jeff 1930]

Last year, Lake Travis ISD had a bond proposal to build $93.8 million in athletic facilities.  They are opening a new school and want to revamp their old stadium at the original high school, plus build a new stadium for the new school.  They lost the vote with about 63% against.  At the same election, they did approve $609 million for schools, just not for stadiums.

So hey, now it's 2023.  And Lake Travis ISD has a bond proposal to build the same stuff, but a year later it's $143 million.  Inflation is rough...  Also they are sick of losing to Westlake.

Lake Travis is about 1/5th the size of Austin ISD, and in about 10 years they will be between 1/5th and 1/4th the size.  If you scale up the LT proposal to Austin ISD, this would be like Austin ISD proposing a $600-$750 million bond just for athletics facilities, mostly for high schools.

 

[KCMasterpieceof 24]

10 minutes ago, Texas Jeff said:

Last year, Lake Travis ISD had a bond proposal to build $93.8 million in athletic facilities.  They are opening a new school and want to revamp their old stadium at the original high school, plus build a new stadium for the new school.  They lost the vote with about 63% against.  At the same election, they did approve $609 million for schools, just not for stadiums.

So hey, now it's 2023.  And Lake Travis ISD has a bond proposal to build the same stuff, but a year later it's $143 million.  Inflation is rough...  Also they are sick of losing to Westlake.

Lake Travis is about 1/5th the size of Austin ISD, and in about 10 years they will be between 1/5th and 1/4th the size.  If you scale up the LT proposal to Austin ISD, this would be like Austin ISD proposing a $600-$750 million bond just for athletics facilities, mostly for high schools.

 

So are you saying they should have done it when it was 45% cheaper?

[CooterBrown 17850]

Glad to see the massive amount of recapture dollars going from Austin to build this edifice in Prosper. 
 
I look forward to a future bond proposal to bring AISD facilities to minimal adequacy while further raising property taxes. 
 
rinse repeat 

McCallum HS had water for half the day today. What more do these entitled kids need?

[Beau Vine 53842]

22 minutes ago, Texas Jeff said:

Last year, Lake Travis ISD had a bond proposal to build $93.8 million in athletic facilities.  They are opening a new school and want to revamp their old stadium at the original high school, plus build a new stadium for the new school.  They lost the vote with about 63% against.  At the same election, they did approve $609 million for schools, just not for stadiums.

So hey, now it's 2023.  And Lake Travis ISD has a bond proposal to build the same stuff, but a year later it's $143 million.  Inflation is rough...  Also they are sick of losing to Westlake.

Lake Travis is about 1/5th the size of Austin ISD, and in about 10 years they will be between 1/5th and 1/4th the size.  If you scale up the LT proposal to Austin ISD, this would be like Austin ISD proposing a $600-$750 million bond just for athletics facilities, mostly for high schools.

 

LT has a remarkably mediocre football stadium.  

[Texas Jeff 1930]

4 minutes ago, KCMasterpieceof said:

So are you saying they should have done it when it was 45% cheaper?

I think they lost the election and said "Hey, maybe we can win if we add even more stuff in".  It's kinda crazy that you can just vote for stuff year after year until one side wins.

Meanwhile, tonight across town, Austin ISD's board of trustees approved their tax rate.  Under Texas's Robin Hood plan, Austin ISD will get to keep 45% of the tax raised and 55% will go to the state.

I'm not bashing LT for building stuff -- mostly poking fun, but it is absurd that a school district can build crazy athletic facilities if they wish, but can't raise and keep funds for teachers and staff.

[bolverk 29258]

29 minutes ago, Texas Jeff said:

I think they lost the election and said "Hey, maybe we can win if we add even more stuff in".  It's kinda crazy that you can just vote for stuff year after year until one side wins.

Meanwhile, tonight across town, Austin ISD's board of trustees approved their tax rate.  Under Texas's Robin Hood plan, Austin ISD will get to keep 45% of the tax raised and 55% will go to the state.

I'm not bashing LT for building stuff -- mostly poking fun, but it is absurd that a school district can build crazy athletic facilities if they wish, but can't raise and keep funds for teachers and staff.

At what point does contributing more than half of local property tax dollars to the state's Foundation School Program legally constitute a "taking"? I know it doesn't really work like that, but it certainly feels like it.

If you counted that 55% of my AISD property tax bill last year as a separate line item, it would have been higher than any other entity to which I pay property taxes:

• Obviously higher than AISD itself
• 24% higher than second place City of Austin
• More than double Travis County
• Five times higher than ACC
• Six times higher than Travis County Healthcare District

All told the portion of my total property tax bill (again, from all taxing jurisdictions) that goes to other school districts is 29%. Almost a fucking third.

For those who complain about high property taxes in Austin, there's your damn culprit.

Edited September 22, 2023 by bolverk

[Patricio Swayze 17058]

Priorities in this state are embarrassing.

[tx 3 putt 75955]

8 hours ago, Pescado_Rojo said:

6,700 students? Gotdamn! Assume for simplicity's sake they are relatively evenly distributed across 4 classes, that's a Sr class of 1,675 students. Fuck going to that graduation ceremony, holy shit. 7% rule would get 117 students auto-admitted to UT Austin. 

 

bigger than my college

[futureman 22382]

15 hours ago, AUS-97HORN said:

this fucking thing is only going to hold 8,000- which according to the article is a 4,000 seat REDUCTION on their existing stadium, which cost $53M and I believe its less than 15 years old.

the internet says it’s less than 5 years old.

[Grade of D as in David 13253]

So the Prosper stadium build is 94 million, is that before or after crack remediation due to faulty aggy engineering?

[Frank Drebin 5616]

14 hours ago, Samson's Wig said:

Something that should give every Texan pause is the fact that Florida has really good public schools while our system is a national laughing stock (even at the insanely overfunded suburban schools the education is shit).  Recapture and a love affair with football are big reasons why.  Fundagelicals are the other.  But Florida.  Fucking Florida.  It's embarrassing. 

Texas seems to always do very well in NAEP tests when you adjust for demographics.  I’d dispute that our public school are a joke.  

[Captainant 27249]

22 minutes ago, Frank Drebin said:

Texas seems to always do very well in NAEP tests when you adjust for demographics.  I’d dispute that our public school are a joke.  

Ok sack, YOUR silver spoon gang may have access to good schools - but y'all have been active in making sure schools are focusing on everything but education. Stoking fear of gay folks and taking a stand against critical thinking will pay off academically at some point I guess?

[Frank Drebin 5616]

 

[irishtexan 11435]

If a district is receiving recapture, then any local bonds passed (to fund stadiums and other unnecessary bullshit) reduce the amount of recapture funding by the corresponding amount. Get $100m in recapture but pass a $50m bond? You only get $50m in recapture now. Take care of your own first. Fiscal responsibility and all that.

[Samson's Wig 3167]

NAEP is a joke, and the data is commonly wildly misconstrued and used to draw boneheaded conclusions.  Most prominently, it was used by morons like Betsy DeVos to argue for school vouchers. 

It's also the only single metric that demonstrates Texas students are doing okay.   The only one.   

 

[Samson's Wig 3167]

9 hours ago, Beau Vine said:

LT has a remarkably mediocre football stadium.  

To be fair, they're pulling from a uniquely entitled and pampered group of kids who have been protected from the dangers of things like books their entire lives.  It's hard to find the requisite amount of grit to win football games in that situation.

[Frank Drebin 5616]

9 minutes ago, Samson's Wig said:

NAEP is a joke, and the data is commonly wildly misconstrued and used to draw boneheaded conclusions.  Most prominently, it was used by morons like Betsy DeVos to argue for school vouchers. 

It's also the only single metric that demonstrates Texas students are doing okay.   The only one.   

 

The arguments here are a joke.  They are made by a bunch of reddit type dorks who hate Texas politics so they want to shit on everything about the state so they can exercise confirmation bias.  These are not just NAEP scores.  They are NAEP scores adjusted for demographics by the Urban Institute, which is a liberal think tank.

https://apps.urban.org/features/naep/

Often called the “nation’s report card,” the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) reading and mathematics assessments are administered to a representative sample of fourth- and eighth-grade students in each state every two years. NAEP scores offer something rare in education policy: data that are standardized across states and across time. Policymakers and pundits seize upon these data as evidence to support their preferred policies. But comparing NAEP scores assumes that states serve the same students—and we know they don’t.

A better way to compare and talk about NAEP performance is to use adjusted NAEP scores that account for demographic differences across students in each state. These adjusted scores allow for students to be compared with their demographically similar peers using factors such as race, receipt of special education services, and status as an English language learner. These are factors we know can affect test results, yet they are not shown in NAEP scores. The interactive tool below brings those adjusted NAEP scores to life.

Edited September 22, 2023 by Frank Drebin

[Frank Drebin 5616]

2 minutes ago, Samson's Wig said:

To be fair, they're pulling from a uniquely entitled and pampered group of kids who have been protected from the dangers of things like books their entire lives.  It's hard to find the requisite amount of grit to win football games in that situation.

Yes, we know kids at Lake Travis do not read and are just stupid.

[cactusflinthead 27588]

Sack and his same adjustments. Just go ahead and let it all out.

 

[Frank Drebin 5616]

8 minutes ago, cactusflinthead said:

Sack and his same adjustments. Just go ahead and let it all out.

 

The Urban Institute, a liberal think tank, does the adjustments, not me.  Do you think raw scores are a better indicator of teacher and school performance than adjusted scores?

You want to compare Eanes' raw NAEP scores to HISD's to determine which schools are doing the best job educating or do you think adjusted scores would be better?

What is your specific objection to adjusted NAEP scores other than hating the results?

[boilerhorn 1298]

8 hours ago, Texas Jeff said:

I think they lost the election and said "Hey, maybe we can win if we add even more stuff in".  It's kinda crazy that you can just vote for stuff year after year until one side wins.

Meanwhile, tonight across town, Austin ISD's board of trustees approved their tax rate.  Under Texas's Robin Hood plan, Austin ISD will get to keep 45% of the tax raised and 55% will go to the state.

I'm not bashing LT for building stuff -- mostly poking fun, but it is absurd that a school district can build crazy athletic facilities if they wish, but can't raise and keep funds for teachers and staff.

LT bond writers and/or proponents ignored recent cautionary tales if they put everything in 1 or 2 bonds.  RRISD set the example on how to do this around 15-20 years ago.  A few years after the ~$36mm bond to build "The Palace on Parmer" (Kelly Reeves Athletic Center), darn near every bond failed.  Someone on the school board or at the administration office (impossible that it was one of the superintendents, as they were mouth-breathers) had an idea to (1) split into many bonds and (2) make sure each bond impacted EVERY school in the district in some fashion.  Johnny's middle school gets new carpet.  Sally's elementary gets a revamped cafeteria.  Holly's high school gets a new performing arts center.  etc.  From memory, I can think of few bonds that have failed in RRISD since.  I concede that I could be misremembering details and that some bonds could have failed...

Prosper receiving $100mm from recapture is insane.

[Frank Drebin 5616]

This is old data but the results of current data is similar.  Here is a blog post explaining the reasoning for adjusting NAEP scores, and NAEP scores are the only standardized tests between the 50 states for public schools:

Longhorns 17, Badgers 1

Please pardon this brief departure from my normal folderol, but every so often a member of the chattering class issues a nugget of stupidity so egregious that no amount of mockery will suffice. Particularly when the issuer of said stupidity holds a Nobel Prize.

Case in point: Paul Krugman. The Times' staff economics blowhard recently typed, re the state of education in Texas:

And in low-tax, low-spending Texas, the kids are not all right. The high school graduation rate, at just 61.3 percent, puts Texas 43rd out of 50 in state rankings. Nationally, the state ranks fifth in child poverty; it leads in the percentage of children without health insurance. And only 78 percent of Texas children are in excellent or very good health, significantly below the national average.

Similarly, The Economist passes on what appears to be the cut-'n'-paste lefty factoid du jour:

Only 5 states do not have collective bargaining for educators and have deemed it illegal. Those states and their ranking on ACT/SAT scores are as follows:

South Carolina – 50th
North Carolina – 49th
Georgia – 48th
Texas – 47th
Virginia – 44th

If you are wondering, Wisconsin, with its collective bargaining for teachers, is ranked 2nd in the country.

The point being, I suppose, is that unionized teachers stand as a thin chalk-stained line keeping Wisconsin from descending into the dystopian non-union educational hellscape of Texas. Interesting, if it wasn't complete bullshit.

As a son of Iowa, I'm no stranger to bragging about my home state's ranking on various standardized test. Like Wisconsin we Iowans usually rank near the top of the heap on average ACT/SAT scores. We are usually joined there by Minnesota, Nebraska, and the various Dakotas; Vermont, Maine, New Hampshire...

... beginning to see a pattern? Perhaps because a state's "average ACT/SAT" is, for all intents and purposes, a proxy for the percent of white people who live there. In fact, the lion's share of state-to-state variance in test scores is accounted for by differences in ethnic composition. Minority students - regardless of state residence - tend to score lower than white students on standardized test, and the higher the proportion of minority students in a state the lower its overall test scores tend to be.

Please note: this has nothing to do with innate ability or aptitude. Quite to the contrary, I believe the test gap between minority students and white students can be attributed to differences in socioeconomic status. And poverty. And yes, racism. And yes, family structure. Whatever combination of reasons, the gap exists, and it's mathematical sophistry to compare the combined average test scores in a state like Wisconsin (4% black, 4% Hispanic) with a state like Texas (12% black, 30% Hispanic).

So how to compare educational achievement between two states with such dissimilar populations? In data analysis this is usually done by treating ethnicity as a "covariate." A very simple way to do this is by comparing educational achievement between states within the same ethnic group. In other words, do black students perform better in Wisconsin than Texas? Do Hispanic students perform better in Wisconsin or Texas? White students? If Wisconsin's kids consistently beat their Texas counterparts, after controlling for ethnicity, then there's a strong case that maybe Texas schools ought to become a union shop.

Luckily, there is data to answer this question via the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). The NAEP is an annual standardized test given to 4th and 8th graders around the country to measure proficiency in math, science, and reading. Participation is fairly universal; if you've had a 4th or 8th grader in the last few years, you're probably familiar with it. Results are compiled on the NAEP website, broken down by grade, state, subject and ethnicity.

So how does brokeass, dumbass, redneck Texas stack up against progressive unionized Wisconsin?

2009 4th Grade Math

White students: Texas 254, Wisconsin 250 (national average 248)
Black students: Texas 231, Wisconsin 217 (national 222)
Hispanic students: Texas 233, Wisconsin 228 (national 227)

2009 8th Grade Math

White students: Texas 301, Wisconsin 294 (national 294)
Black students: Texas 272, Wisconsin 254 (national 260)
Hispanic students: Texas 277, Wisconsin 268 (national 260)

2009 4th Grade Reading

White students: Texas 232, Wisconsin 227 (national 229)
Black students: Texas 213, Wisconsin 192 (national 204)
Hispanic students: Texas 210, Wisconsin 202 (national 204)

2009 8th Grade Reading

White students: Texas 273, Wisconsin 271 (national 271)
Black students: Texas 249, Wisconsin 238 (national 245)
Hispanic students: Texas 251, Wisconsin 250 (national 248)

2009 4th Grade Science

White students: Texas 168, Wisconsin 164 (national 162)
Black students: Texas 139, Wisconsin 121 (national 127)
Hispanic students: Wisconsin 138, Texas 136 (national 130)

2009 8th Grade Science

White students: Texas 167, Wisconsin 165 (national 161)
Black students: Texas 133, Wisconsin 120 (national 125)
Hispanic students: Texas 141, Wisconsin 134 (national 131)

To recap: white students in Texas perform better than white students in Wisconsin, black students in Texas perform better than black students in Wisconsin, Hispanic students in Texas perform better than Hispanic students in Wisconsin. In 18 separate ethnicity-controlled comparisons, the only one where Wisconsin students performed better than their peers in Texas was 4th grade science for Hispanic students (statistically insignificant), and this was reversed by 8th grade. Further, Texas students exceeded the national average for their ethnic cohort in all 18 comparisons; Wisconsinites were below the national average in 8, above average in 8.

Perhaps the most striking thing in these numbers is the within-state gap between white and minority students. Not only did white Texas students outperform white Wisconsin students, the gap between white students and minority students in Texas was much less than the gap between white and minority students in Wisconsin. In other words, students are better off in Texas schools than in Wisconsin schools - especially minority students.

Conclusion: instead of chanting slogans in Madison, maybe it's time for Wisconsin teachers to take refresher lessons from their non-union counterparts in the Lone Star State.

https://iowahawk.typepad.com/iowahawk/2011/03/longhorns-17-badgers-1.html

[gmr548 16427]

I think it perfectly epitomizes the priorities of this state in general, and the associated priority of public education specifically 

They’re doin’ too much learning in them schools.

Is Prosper really getting recapture money?  My kids' schools are in similar shape, roaches infest the locker rooms, AC doesn't work in half the building currently and we're going to have to pass a $100MM bond to get those things fixed.  Infuriating 

I haven’t seen a list of numbers but I’d bet yes. Prosper ISD is property poor - real estate out there is cheap.

[gmr548 16427]

Holy fucking shit that's ridiculous. North Dallas suburbs just getting stolen money from urban school districts, who are struggling to pay teachers and meet minimum standards. 

No one loves and benefits from socialism more than those at the top