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Thanks for sharing that, very interesting, not what I would have expected. What do you attribute the better outcomes in Texas to? The state has some education c

Thanks for sharing that, very interesting, not what I would have expected. What do you attribute the better outcomes in Texas to? The state has some education challenges I'm aware of, but I do't know about their successes. Texas seems to be pretty successful up to high school, but why don't they succeed for higher ed as well? I'm always reading about attempts to put extreme conservatives on the state school board and restrict discussion of evolution and also avoid discussing uncomfortable issues around slavery and the founding of the country - that must not have had much impact. For housing, I kind of understand why Texas is much less expensive to live in, partly because they have those endless cities across the plains.

burlesona 8y ago
One thing is TX has the “Robin Hood” rule, which essentially is that rich school districts have to transfer money to the poor ones. I think another thing is that there’s a lot of natural lived diversity. What I mean is, for example, my parents middle middle class neighborhood street looks like: black family, white family, Indian family, Hispanic family, European first generation family, just all in a row. And that’s pretty common. I think in part getting back to the housing thing, it’s within reach of most people. As for the “extreme conservatives,” I don’t know. I think it’s one of those things that the media likes to pounce on and blows out of proportion. Yeah sometimes they do dumb stuff but generally speaking radically conservative proposals get floated by fringe political folks in red states just like radically liberal proposals get floated in blue states, then never goes anywhere. I think it’s more fodder for the news-tainment industry than actual policy making.
xemdetia 8y ago
Texas for better or worse is extremely prideful that education is baked into their state constitution from very early on so I feel there is just more state identity tied to education at many levels compared to some of the surrounding states (article 7). While I agree with others that the current outcome is not really desirable and all of the other issues going on it is a top level part of the conversation where I feel like in surrounding states it easily become a B or C priority in discussions.

burlesona 8y ago

One thing is TX has the “Robin Hood” rule, which essentially is that rich school districts have to transfer money to the poor ones. I think another thing is that there’s a lot of natural lived diversity. What I mean is, for example, my parents middle middle class neighborhood street looks like: black family, white family, Indian family, Hispanic family, European first generation family, just all in a row. And that’s pretty common. I think in part getting back to the housing thing, it’s within reach of most people. As for the “extreme conservatives,” I don’t know. I think it’s one of those things that the media likes to pounce on and blows out of proportion. Yeah sometimes they do dumb stuff but generally speaking radically conservative proposals get floated by fringe political folks in red states just like radically liberal proposals get floated in blue states, then never goes anywhere. I think it’s more fodder for the news-tainment industry than actual policy making.

xemdetia 8y ago

Texas for better or worse is extremely prideful that education is baked into their state constitution from very early on so I feel there is just more state identity tied to education at many levels compared to some of the surrounding states (article 7). While I agree with others that the current outcome is not really desirable and all of the other issues going on it is a top level part of the conversation where I feel like in surrounding states it easily become a B or C priority in discussions.