<p>Wow. What a glimpse into Texas’ heart of darkness! </p>
<p>Let me get this straight: The Legislature eliminates dumb graduation requirements (which everyone agrees is sensible), and makes it effective a year in advance. So the People are ready to riot because they WANT the dumb graduation requirements to apply to their kids. Not because they LIKE the dumb graduation requirements – they don’t, they hate them – but because their kids may be disadvantaged relative to other kids who procrastinated on meeting the dumb graduation requirements, or because they have spent money on the dumb graduation requirements and want to get some value – however worthless – out of that.</p>
<p>And, to top things off, thanks to Texas’ top-10% rule and valedictorian rules, the perverse, bass-ackward reaction of these parents is actually-factually RATIONAL. Mind blowing. The legislature should never have even considered making its sensible new policy apply to kids who won’t graduate for two years, because some of those kids have acted in reliance on the existence of the old, dumb policy, and they will lose the leg-up over others they got that way. By all means, out of fairness to them, let’s stay stupid for another two years.</p>
<p>I can’t wait to see how this shakes out. I’ve been OOS and have totally missed this. Ds was going to take speech over the summer, but decided against this and was going to take speech and health in the spring of senior year. Maybe now he won’t have to??? Crazy.</p>
<p>Gotta go with JHS on this one. It would be a different story if they told you that the “dumb” classes no longer count. But simply to no longer require them…well, that really doesn’t seem like such a terrible thing to this outsider.</p>
<p>“But simply to no longer require them…well, that really doesn’t seem like such a terrible thing to this outsider”</p>
<p>For me, the frustration comes because this decision to apply the changes NOW is not how things are normally done and therefore NOT how we - as parents - expected it to come down.</p>
<p>We just moved to Houston last summer after many years overseas. To meet grad requirements, my boys needed Health, Speech, and a technology course. They had (or would easily have) all other requirements needed. My older son took a technology course last year. A complete waste of time but an easy A. I would have preferred him to be in something a little more interesting/challenging. Because his schedule is completely full next year (with 2 classes that are required for graduation and the rest important to him for college/personal interest)…we decided he would take Speech in summer school and Health via correspondence. And because of summer school, he had to opt out of some other activities he would have liked and which would have been beneficial to him.</p>
<p>While I knew at the end of the school year that these changes were coming, there was NO indication that the changed would take place immediately. Had I had ANY idea…I would have opted to have him skip summer school and do something more productive/interesting/beneficial with his time.</p>
<p>So I am torn. I didn’t mind them having to take the classes (and me paying for summer/correspondence school) if they are required, but I am annoyed because they are not classes that are beneficial to my sons and their time (and my money) could have been better spent.</p>
<p>I’m not quite as upset as my df missypie, but I agree that changing the rules in the middle of the “game” is always a bad idea. And for those of you not in a competitive public HS in Texas, you may not realize what a “game” it is. Being in the top 10% is imperative to many so that you have access to UT, be it the culmination of a lifelong goal or just a fabulous in-state academic/financial safety. At ds’s HS two years ago, .001separated the last kid in the top 10% from the first kid in the 11th percentile.</p>
<p>At ds’s school, the kids most concerned about it take speech through the local cc so that it counts as dual credit and therefore gets weighted and then they take health online as pass/fail to meet the requirement but not get dinged with the unweighted grade. Ds hasn’t done either though considered both. I am excited to learn he won’t have to do either of those if he doesn’t want to and won’t have to take the class associated with his sport if he doesn’t want to.</p>
<p>Wow. What a glimpse into Texas’ heart of darkness! </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>You’ve stated your point in an offensive way, but yeah, you get it …</p>
<p>Our public school students are ranked. There is a no. 1 and a no. 600. Students 1-60 will likely get into UT. Student 61 likely will not. Student 120 will be offered $10,000 a year in merit aid from school X. Student 121 will be offered $8,000. </p>
<p>It’s not about the students who took the required courses “losing a leg up”, however. It’s about keeping the playing field even for all students. If you are going to line 600 students up and put them in GPA order, and if that order has a great deal of influence on where they go to school and how much merit aid they receive, then all students should have to meet identical requirements.</p>
<p>"If I were you, I’d be more upset that my kids had to go to school in…Texas. "</p>
<h2>Tell me about it…we were SUPPOSED to be in Moscow!!!</h2>
<p>Youdon’tsay - The online correspondence course that my older son will be (or maybe will be) taking is not pass/fail. He will actually get a grade. Which one did your son look at?</p>
<p>And you’re right - it is a very competitive “game” here. </p>
<p>My son is in the top 20% (with a 3.9 weighted GPA) and we really even aren’t looking at any TX schools - he’s looking strictly out of state. UT has the program he wants. He could “make do” at A&M but is not interested in the school. So - OOS it is.</p>
<p>ms, It was with great pride that I sent the Newsweek top 5% of high schools rating to my family in NE because my son’s high school was on it!</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>What do you mean a year in advance?
</p>
<p>It’s clear that your family is not counting on the money associated with Val/Sal nor the 10% so your kid can go to the school they’ve been promised they could attend for the past three years. Neither is my family. </p>
<p>Perhaps you were the kind of student who would have taken it in stride when your dream school gets knocked off the list or slips out of your family means due to your state lege, but most kids are not that mature yet. </p>
<p>It’s always easy to mock parents, it’s not so easy to explain this stuff to kids who have been playing by the rules for three years only to have the rug yanked out from underneath them.</p>
<p>The “upsetness” comes from following the Texas legislature session after session (THANK THE LORD THEY ONLY MEET EVERY OTHER YEAR!!!) and seeing them do something ridiuculous with the public schools every single session. In the 2007 session, there was a big move to add more PE. In the 2009 session, they almost eliminated it altogether, but then at the last minute just eliminated 1/3 of the requirement. They add the TAKs test then add the requirement that you can’t pass your grade without passing TAKs, then a few years later, decide to do away with it at the high school level and incorporate end of course exams instead. Every two years, there is a radical change, and often a change that is in the opposite direction of the radical change from two years before.</p>
<p>By the way, what is getting the most press is the elimination of Health from the HS requirements. With so much obesity, so many STDs, etc. folks are wondering why the Lege thought students don’t need health class anymore.</p>
<p>When I first heard of these changes, we were told (by our principal) that the changes would be in effect for the upcoming freshman class. All other students (soph - seniors) would still be bound by their current grad requirements. </p>
<p>And based on this statement “… the flexibility in the new HB 3 graduation requirements impacts all high school students beginning with the 2009-2010 school year.” - I am thinking that next year’s graduating students can ALSO graduate without these classes.</p>
<p>Even tho we aren’t worried about the top 10%, what this current action means is that the students in the graduation class of 2010 (and 2011 and 2012) will not be held to equal standards.</p>
<p>Another problem with making this effective immediately from the school’s perspective is that students have already registered for these classes for 09-10. The schools are already locked into hiring/staffing/scheduling decisions based on that. The schools are going to be in a very tough situation if a lot of students want to transfer out of these classes.</p>
<p>oh, manatori, I must be more upset than I realized making such a mistake! ;)</p>
<p>At our school, UT continuing ed’s health class, I think, is considered pass/fail. A friend loaned us her ds’s book and said it was pass/fail, but I never really looked into it. Let me know if you find out I misunderstood!</p>
<p>You said it! Of the students who are signed up to take Health in the fall, how many do you think would have chosen to take it if it was not a required class? Maybe 70 out of the 80 kids signed up to take it will ask to drop the course at schedule pick up and they will be told no - I mean, it’s not as it the health teacher can all the sudden teach Keyboarding or Jewelry Making. I feel the sorriest for all the kids who will have to sit in the no longer required courses all next year, knowing there’s no way they would have taken them if they hadn’t been required. (I also feel sorry for the kids who just finished those classes in summer school, only to have it be announced a day or two later that they needn’t have taken the class.)</p>
<p>And, yes, thank goodness the Lege only meets every two years. What a bunch of goobers.</p>
<p>And like grc, we were OOS because we were looking at schools in part because it’s unlikely that ds will get into UT, which should have been a great safety. Talk about a brain drain for the state. By one criterion he can’t get into the state flagship, so elsewhere he will go. Thankfully, he liked A&M when we visited and he can get in there.</p>
<p>Youdon’tsay - I had slim hopes that DS would like A&M (he could get in with automatic admission) because you have to be part of the military corps to be in the marching band, but I still wanted him to look at it. BUT…A&M is one of those “love it or hate it” type places and he just has NO interest in it at all! He will apply to UT - but we’re not even thinking of it as an option.</p>
<p>Looked at Penn State on Tuesday and it was fabulous! Still need to see Purdue, and still trying to decide about Auburn.</p>