<p>Daily Texan Opinion column:
Viewpoint: What if the state controlled UT?</p>
<p>
[quote]
Considering how the state of Texas works, we can only imagine what the Texas State Legislature would do if tuition were to be re-regulated ...</p>
<p>Develop major in creationism</p>
<p>Build border wall between Six Pack and business school</p>
<p>Put delinquent students on death row rather than academic probation</p>
<p>Use student activities fees to rebuild Governor's Mansion</p>
<p>Allow livestock to graze in Disch-Falk Field to gain state's agricultural exemption</p>
<p>Replace Cesar Chavez statue on West Mall with Exxon Oil Well</p>
<p>Seize underclassmen found cohabiting with fifth-year seniors in San Jacinto Dorm</p>
<p>Establish squirrel-and-pigeon hunting season from March through June</p>
<p>No, that is what a Republian legislature would do if tuition were re-regulated. Which is sort-of oxymoronic, because the Republican party doesn’t believe in providing government services like healthcare and education, it belives in stripping down government to a bare minimum to benefit wealthy white Christians.</p>
<p>Tuition was regulated during the control of New Deal and progressive Democrats (God I miss Pete Laney and Bob Bullock) who actually cared about the people of this state and not just their campaign donors.</p>
<p>No, that’s not my Austin side. I don’t show different sides in different places–my politics remain the same wherever I am. And the fact is that I am damn proud of them.</p>
<p>I’m sorry if it came off as harsh, and likely could have been slanted a little less, but the fact is that in the past 6 years the Lege has done more to harm the people of this state than it had in the previous 70. There are almost a half million Texans living in colonias with little access to clean water and electricity. Almost half of our ninth graders are dropping out before they graduate. Tuition has increased something like 200% since tuition was deregulated. Our government has always been small, but this regime has taken it to a new level.</p>
<p>It was a little too cutting, and I apologize for the tone. But I won’t apologize for the content because it is absolutley true.</p>
<p>In the state with the most uninsured children, with one of the worst public school systems in the country, that has left more children behind since NCLB than before it, that has almost half a million colonia residents who don’t have clean water and electricity, that tried to keep elderly nuns from carrying out their civic duty, there is no way you can defend the current leadership of the Lege. It’s something I wish would change, and something I’m very hopeful will change this fall.</p>
<p>Wost public schools in the country. I don’t know where you live, but in my district the curriculum is about the same as in New York, in fact to prepare for our taks test we took a New York state test, bc it is the exact same material. I think that quote really needs to be placed in context, bc Texas education is world class. Need we forget that UT is a PUBLIC texas school, yet one of the best in the country.</p>
<p>That list is dumb, especially the major in creationalism bc that would be included with the religion major. And moreover the Republican government does participate in education bc a) it is a state program (so therefore regulated) and b) we need a high education base for our state to succeed. </p>
<p>Texas does well compared to other states educationally our national merit cut off is 214 and new Yorks is 217. So that is pretty comparable.</p>
<p>I live in the Dallas Independent School District. There is a very good reason I did not attend high school in DISD: the schools that were acceptable to my family (the magnet schools) aren’t located conveniently for a lot of the district and also don’t offer full high school services like sports, and the local comprehensive schools are quite frankly a joke, nowhere near comparable to the private school which I attended. When a school is more focused on dropout prevention and making sure they make AYP on the TAKS, then they don’t focus on preparing their students to be successful in college or on learning for the sake of learning.</p>
<p>National Merit recognition only measures the success of the very top few students at a very small number of high schools, and is in no way a measure of the strength of a student’s high school curriculum. It’s a measure of how well the student knows how to take a standardized test: the skills measured are all very basic and taught in even the worst of public schools. It measures who can apply that knowledge at a breakneck speed to finish the test while still being dead-on-balls accurate. That’s why you have a few students at small rural schools and inner-city schools who are successful. The largest number of NMSFs, however, come from elite private schools and suburban public schools where parents can afford to give their kids test prep courses and where the kids are taught SAT skills at school rather than the even more basic material on the TAKS test.</p>
<p>If you think Texas public education is at all comparable to the level found in New York State on the state level you really don’t have contact with reality. Our public school curriculum is a joke, and it’s not anywhere near the level required to pass Regents exams in NY. We have a lot more dropouts and kids that are failing the easy minimum-skills test we have. In addition, they have a legislature that tends to actually fund education in their state, rather than repeatedly slashing funds as ours has.</p>
<p>That list is satirical, it’s not meant to suggest those things actually would happen. The author is poking fun at the GOP government which places those things, rather than education, at the forefront of its agenda.</p>