Spring football camps

Spring high school football camps have started here in Texas. As far as I can tell, if you expect to play in the fall, you better be at the camps in the spring. They even “ask” promising eighth graders to join the spring camps so that they will have a head start on the fall.

So do you think that the advanced placement teachers have a spring camp for those planning on taking ap classes in the fall? I know band is pretty involved, do they have spring practices for the football marching season? How about the debate team?

My contact with high school athletics is only tangential in that I see it effecting everything else in the community that has to do with sports. Do high school athletics truly develop the athletic potential of students? No. What they do is generate businesses for various private athletic training programs. You want your daughter to make the volleyball team, better have her do some strength training at one of these private businesses. Your son wants to play baseball? Better get him some hitting lessons because everyone else who wants to make the team does.

High school athletics is in no way a level playing field with everyone having a shot at the team. How can it be when not only does it cost money to play on the team, it costs money to prepare to even have the chance to play on the team?

Nor is this about having “well rounded” student-athletes. How many 5a football players are involved in any other extracurricular activities? How does demanding total time commitment to one activity better prepare our students? Ultimately, high school athletics is about exclusivity and it’s affects reach far beyond the school walls.

Enough said

MySA.com: Metro | State:

The classification system that long has arranged Texas high school football programs by enrollment size for the purpose of competitive parity may be on the verge of its most radical alteration ever.

University Interscholastic League athletic director Dr. Charles Breithaupt said his organization’s legislative council will be presented in June with a formal proposal that would carve all UIL classifications into two divisions for football competition only.

The proposal, Breithaupt said, would achieve an even higher degree of competitive balance by grouping more school of similar size together.

Frontpage, above the fold news for the San Antonio Express News.

How it all starts

High School Students Upset Over Holocaust Assignment | WOAI.COM: San Antonio News:

Students and teachers said the students tagged as Jews were forced to stand against the wall as those portraying Germans passed by in the hallway. The Jewish students were also the last to eat lunch and had to pick up everyone’s garbage, the station reported.Some students said the exercise got out of hand when the German students spat on or hit the Jewish students. “They would spit on them.

They would push them down the stairs. They would be really rude,” student Tiffany Zimmerman said. “I think it was too rough and over the edge.”

Aune said this was the fifth year the school has run the Holocaust exercise. He said he had not received any reports of students spitting, pushing or tripping one another.

“I think that some of the kids were kind of harsh, but it taught us a little bit about how it was back then,” student Trevor Smith said.

I think that this exercise was more revealing than most realize. The lesson isn’t about how Jewish students were treated, the real lesson is how easy it is for people to start treating people badly on the slightest premise. You wonder how the Holocaust happened, look at how easy it was for students to start spitting on others given the excuse.

Preventing increases in the rate of deaths among high school students

Given the obscure definitions used by the Texas Education Agency to calculate the high school dropout rate, I can understand why the legislature might feel the need to explicitly define who is a dropout. But I have to wonder about the following requirement:

80(R) HB 3621 – Introduced version – Bill Text:

(e) Each school district shall cooperate with the agency in determining whether a student is considered a dropout under this section. The agency shall require that a school district provide at least the following documentation regarding a student who dies or who leaves school but is not considered a dropout under this section:

(1) for a student who dies, a death certificate;

Maybe I’m wrong and it’s no big deal, but it seems to me that requesting a copy of a child’s death certificate from grieving parents would make the hall of fame for insensitive, bureaucratic, and unnecessary policies. Perhaps the state will come up with a way for officials to by-pass the parents.

It would seem that the TEA should be able to trust the schools to list students as being deceased appropriately. Unfortunately, experience has shown that without requiring some sort of verification, some administrator will start listing students as being dead rather than admitting that they dropped out or have no idea of what happen to them.

Just as an aside, the bill once again unnecessarily distinguishes between withdrawing a child to enroll in another school and withdrawing a child to homeschool. Since homeschools are private schools in Texas there should be no difference. In these situations, it’s generally a case of ignorance on the part of the author. But there are times I wonder if there is this inclination to specify homeschoolers separately from private schools because if the state did decide to increase regulation over homeschoolers, it wouldn’t have to go back and make changes every time a law talked about private schools. But then I realize how little evidence there is of such forethought by our legislature and rest easy again.

Dual Credit Student Ineligible for UIL?

Here’s another bill to file under “you’ve got to wonder…”

80(R) HB 208 – Introduced version – Bill Text:

Sec.�33.087.��ELIGIBILITY OF STUDENTS PARTICIPATING IN JOINT CREDIT OR CONCURRENT ENROLLMENT PROGRAMS. A student otherwise eligible to participate in an extracurricular activity or a University Interscholastic League competition is not ineligible because the student is enrolled in a course offered for joint high school and college credit, or in a course offered under a concurrent enrollment program, regardless of the location at which the course is provided.

So did someone somewhere try to get a student disqualified from a UIL competition? Did some school accuse another school of having an ineligible player because he or she was taking a history class at the local community college? Sigh… do I even need to ask?

Will 4 by 4 Solve Ysleta’s Problems?

El Paso Times – 90% of YISD students need remedial college math:

Students in the 12th grade will take the Accuplacer test and administrators hope to improve on past performances.According to Ysleta records, more than 90 percent of the students taking the Accuplacer would need to take remedial classes in math before enrolling in college level courses. The figures are better in English and reading, but the percentages are still high.

So does this mean that only 10% of Ysleta students are taking advanced post Algebra II math? According to the advocates of the 4 by 4 plan for Texas high school graduation, all those students would be ready if only they had taken a fourth year of advanced math. Do you think anyone is interested in finding what percentage of students who took the fourth year of math fall into the 90%?

El Paso Times – 90% of YISD students need remedial college math:

District officials said theAccuplacer will help them gauge readiness and develop intervention plans.

Silly Ysleta officials. Don’t they know that defining a problem is so not the Texas approach to education issues?

El Paso Times – 90% of YISD students need remedial college math:

Ysleta this year developed an Accuplacer Academy with the help of the University of Texas at El Paso. It also started other partnerships with El Paso Community College that officials hope will help improve scores.The academy provides training for teachers, counselors and other administrators to help students be ready to take on the exam and have the knowledge necessary to tackle college-level courses.

Now this is a waste of money since we all know all they have to do is require a fourth year of math for the students.

4 by 4, a Solution in Search of a Problem

Looks like high school students are going to have to take more math and science in order to graduate. Now I’m not saying this is a bad thing, I just want to know why did the legislature require it?

Having not really paid attention to House Bill 1 at the time, I’m assuming it has something to do with “college readiness.” I figure some legislators got together and figured out that Texas students weren’t doing so well and that increasing the requirements would address the situation.

So just what was it that told the lawmakers that something had to be done, although as usual, they don’t seem that interested in paying for it? The number of high school students unable to graduate because they hadn’t pass the TAKS? Oh, wait, it couldn’t be that since according to recent newspaper reports, we don’t know how many students fall into that category.

Maybe it was the number of students requiring remediation when enrolling in college? But did anyone actually check to see what courses these students have taken?

It could be that they were reacting to a change in the admission requirements of Texas state colleges and universities. The colleges could have been demanding a more rigorous preparation and increased the number of credits required for admissions. Except, there hasn’t been any such increase. Texas A&M requires three science units and only two have to be Biology, Chemistry, or Physics. UT only requires two science credits although it recommends three. I couldn’t find the requirements for UTSA, apparently all they require is a certain SAT or ACT score.

In general, I would say that taking more math and science would be a good thing. But here’s my problem with this “solution,” I don’t think anyone can actually say what it is a solution to. In other words, nobody can say when we have 80% of high school students passing the science TAKS test, we have solved our problem. How many people are passing the test without taking the extra classes? As usual, the fact that the state has implemented a solution is more important than whether or not it actually solves anything.

It’s kind of like saying that if all basketball players practice free throw shots 30 minutes a day, they would have a 90% accuracy in making free throws. There are going to be some players who can achieve that with only five minutes a day and some that still wouldn’t make it even with a hour a day but still somehow make it to the NBA. And then there are those who will never play in the NBA anyway.

A Flexible 4 by 4

MySA.com: Metro | State:

AUSTIN — High school students will face a tougher curriculum beginning next year, but likely won’t have to take the highest level of math and science to meet the new fourth-year requirements.

A blow to full employment for Physics and Pre-Cal teachers, a blow against watering down their class content.

MySA.com: Metro | State:

Drew Scheberle with the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce said he doesn’t think the new curriculum will better prepare students for college.”We’ll give more credits for the same content,” he said.

First of all, we were probably already doing that which caused this problem to begin with. Second, nobody is preventing students or the parents of students from taking more demanding classes. Don’t parents work in the same world that needs these more advanced classes?

MySA.com: Metro | State:

The plan still would allow students to take algebra 1 in middle school, meaning they could avoid any math during their senior year. Some speakers had urged the board to count only math classes taken during high school.

Aren’t most students who take Algebra I in middle school college bound? If they don’t take math in their senior year, don’t you think they and/or their parents have good reasons for doing so? But what really bugs me about not counting Algebra I in middle school is that I’m willing to bet that the number of students who took Algebra I in middle school and subsequently end up taking remedial math in college is far lower than those who don’t take Algebra I until high school. Has anyone bothered to check on this? No. But that won’t stop people from dictating policy anyway.

MySA.com: Metro | State:

Board member Terri Leo, R-Spring, argued that the integrated class should be phased out because it is not sufficiently challenging. Mary Helen Berlanga, D-Corpus Christi, said the class can be a “bridge” that allows students to succeed in other science courses.

Again, does either side have any evidence for their case? Texas is supposed to have one of the better data collections on students in the nation, why don’t we use it? Oh, yeah, we wouldn’t want anything like facts to get in the way of decision-making.

For the record, I took Algebra I as a freshman and then took the first semester of geometry in summer school so that I could catch up to the math standards of the magnet school I was transferring to. I took Physics and Chemistry my junior year (so they wouldn’t count because I didn’t take a science my senior year?) and I took calculus my senior year which made taking it in college much easier. I made my son do Algebra I as a eighth grader and he’s doing geometry and biology as a freshman this year.

However, I don’t think it’s necessary for everyone to follow that track. My cousin went for air condition installation/repair instead of college. He owns his own business as a contractor and employs more people than I ever will. And I’m pretty sure he didn’t need pre-calculus to do it.

Football heresy in Texas

I’m not against paying football coaches for more hours but this justification is ridiculous.

Texas football coaches winning the wage war over teachers:

“And the return on the investment of football coaches is well worth it,” Neeley said. “I know Coach Aymond doesn’t make enough for what he does. Just look at how many scholarships he’s gotten kids over the years.”North Shore has had 36 players earn Division I-A college football scholarships this decade. Texas sends hundreds of football players to top programs across the country every year.

So four kids a year get a scholarship from football? How does that compare with the AP Calculus teacher? I suspect with the amount of money spent on football, it would be cheaper for the school just to fund four scholarships a year and do away with the program.

But wait, football coaches do more than that.

Texas football coaches winning the wage war over teachers:

“I believe a coach has two tasks,” he said. “One is a minor one, and that is really teaching techniques of the game and skills of the game. The major task is the intangibles that coaches bring to the table. Good coaches teach leadership skills and sacrifice and dedication and unselfishness.”

If football is really about developing the leadership skills, etc. of the students, then why isn’t available to all students? Rather than schools play each other, why don’t high schools form intramural teams within the schools to play each other?

Granted, not everyone can or wants to play football just as not everyone who wants to take AP Calculus can because of the lack of skills or desire. However, why doesn’t someone do a return on investment of equipment, facilities, instructors for football compared to the AP classes? Which do you think would be serving the bigger population of students? Oh, but then you can’t cheer for your team during an AP exam.

I know a high school algebra teacher who initially thought that football coaches must be talented in motivating their kids to practice and keep up their gpa. She thought that she could learn something from them to help her unmotivated students. After talking to some of the football players and observing a practice, she realized it had nothing to do with the coaches ability. If the kids didn’t want to practice, they were simply cut from the team. She didn’t have that option.

A local Little League baseball team was doing extremely well and was one round away from going to the world championship. This happens in August. One of the starting pitchers was told by the football coach that he wouldn’t be playing quarterback and could expect to sit the bench if the kid missed a practice to pitch in the next game. He was the next pitcher in the rotation but decided to stay in town so that he wouldn’t loose his starting job in football. I don’t know how the football team did but the baseball team lost the game.

Another middle-school kid has been told he’ll sit the bench if he takes time off to rehab his knee which he strained outside of school. The doctor would like to remove some of the fluid on his knee and see if anything else is damaged. The decision is ultimately the parents but it’s nice to see the coaching staff so supportive.

Don’t get me wrong. There are some excellent football coaches out there who develop their team members as well rounded individuals and they do put in a lot of hours. But lets not pretend that this isn’t about cheering on a winning football team.

You can get socialization in the comfort of your own home

‘Bully’ hits schoolyard, for good or bad – Yahoo! News:

Hopkins, 15, is the central character in Bully, a PlayStation 2 game from Rockstar Games, the company that created the ultra-violent, ultra-popular Grand Theft Auto titles.

Is this the socialization they’re talking about?

‘Bully’ hits schoolyard, for good or bad – Yahoo! News:

Rockstar’s Rodney Walker acknowledges that some parents will say the game is inappropriate for children because it explores unpleasant parts of childhood. “School is tough sometimes,” he says. “School is not always straight A’s.”

We all know that–we just don’t want to admit it. We much rather go with the rose-tinted view of football games, proms, and hanging out by the lockers.