THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW FROM 2016-2017:
Our school district is trying to slip the stupid idea of "Schools of Innovation" into our Katy schools without so much as one public meeting! This idea is really worthless. The point of SOI is to further remove control of a public school district from the people it serves. If this measure is approved by our local school board, it will allow the administrators who will be controlled by the TASA and TASB, not the public, to further liberalize and communize our children.
Although the claim is that SOI furthers local control, just as it was when Texas legislators passed Senate Bill 1 in 1995, quite the opposite is the intent.
The public and our elected officials need to be vigilant about these tactics. They seem to come one right after another. The State Legislature is remiss in not paying enough attention to these abominable efforts to dumb down our children. One has to wonder just how smart our legislators really are. Or, one has to accept that they too are in on the con.
Just leave the public schools alone. Back off and let teachers teach. Set a quota on the number of administrators* allowed in a school district (one for every three or four hundred teachers would be nice), for they are the problem. Administrators are hired by the carload, they have nothing meaningful to do, so they sit around and dream up dumb stuff to implement.
*An administrator is anyone who makes more than a teacher, but who does not teach students EVERY day.
******************************************************************************************************
The following passage will be permanently on the Reading page elsewhere on this site. It is of importance to anyone with an elementary age child. If your child has finished the first grade, he/she should be able to read fluently the Sunday papers to you. All of them. If that is not the case, you as a parent need to hightail it to the principal's office of your child's school, and demand to see the curriculum being delivered (but not received) by your child. It is vital to your child's future existence that he/she be able to read! You have nothing more important that making certain that he/she can. It is the curriculum being delivered that is the problem. Make certain that your child is taught to read using the phonics method.
The following passage will give you some insight into the problem that we face. Non-readers are at the root of many of our nation's problems. When people can't read, they can't think. It's as simple as that.
******************************************************************************************
|
A Texas reading tutor relayed this experience: "I am tutoring a second grade boy of a friend of mine. She came to pick him up today for his dad. The boy goes to a school here. He could read NOTHING when he could not pass my 1st grade IRI at the time he came to me for tutoring. He could read all but 2 of the Dolch Sight Words List but missed 28 simple phonics words on my dyslexia test. He is an obvious victim of Guided Reading. He is making fabulous progress with me. I struck up a conversation with the kindergarten teacher from the school system where this boy attends school. I mentioned that his teacher had taught the bright boy next to nothing in his Guided Reading classroom. Then she told me something that blew my mind. She said that last year they were told to switch from Saxon Phonics, which they had used very successfully, to the Pinnell and Fountas Guided Reading program. Why on earth would any district with an ounce of common sense switch from Saxon to Guided Reading... Forgive me, but what on earth is wrong with administrators who would switch from an excellent beginning reading program [Saxon] to the absolutely worst reading program [Guided Reading] ever devised by the mind of man? I believe there is a Big Conspiracy afoot. Guided Reading is not only a colossal failure; but it is an incredibly expensive failure, sapping schools of funds that could be spent better elsewhere. It, also, fills the remedial reading classes with students who otherwise would not be there - an added enormous expense. Somebody is using our administrators to subvert good education in our schools. I wish I knew who it was." |
I asked my friend Donna Garner if she had information that would clarify the terms and programs mentioned in this letter. Here is what she sent:
Guided Reading (by Fontas and Pinnell) is another name for whole language/balanced literacy. This curriculum does not teach children to sound out words phonetically by making sure children can do this automatically and fluently.
7.13.16
It is the fault of SB 6 that was passed by the Texas Legislature 6.27.11. SB 6 opens the door for local administrators to purchase instructional materials with taxpayers' dollars -- instructional materials that have not been approved through the public adoption process -- no chance for the public to read the IM's and testify about the mistakes and concerns found in them.
SB 6 is what opened the door for Guided Reading, CSCOPE, Common Core-compliant IM's to be brought into every public school district in Texas even though the materials are not aligned with the present ELAR/TEKS.
SB 6 contains no penalty that requires that these IM's are aligned with the SBOE-adopted TEKS. SB 6 makes it possible for school districts to purchase technology, layers of techie support, teacher training, etc.
TASA/TASB/Texas Legislature colluded together to put SB 6 in place, and this piece of legislation has carried out the 21st century/transformational/visioning mission which has put data tracking of students/teachers/parents into place in Texas.
The SBOE has no control over the way SB 6 taxpayers' dollars are spent; and even though SB 6 says the IM’s should get students ready for the STAAR/EOC’s (which are aligned with the present TEKS), no administrator has even been penalized for using taxpayers’ dollars to purchase IM's that are totally tied to Common Core, whole language, reform math, and all the rest of the Type #2 philosophy of education.
The SBOE needs to make sure that the TEKS in ELAR, Science, Social Studies, and Math follow the Type #1 parameters (traditional, fact-based, academic, grade-level explicit, grow in depth and complexity from one grade level to the next, and are measurable by largely right or wrong questions).
Next, the Texas Legislature should reword SB 6 so that stiff penalties are put in place for local administrators who willy-nilly spend taxpayers’ dollars on IM’s that do not follow the Type #1 TEKS and that do not get students ready for the Type #1 STAAR/EOC’s.
By doing this, Texas public school students would be protected from the Type #2 constructivist, project-based, group-think, social justice agenda found in so many of the IM’s that are presently saturating Texas’ classrooms. Texas students would be taught Type #1 IM’s such as phonemic awareness, phonics, grammar/usage, printing, cursive, spelling, expository/persuasive writing, research skills, classic literature, the time-tested ways to do math, both sides of scientific theories, historically significant heroes/heroines who have made America great.
Taxpayers need to put pressure on the Texas Legislature to clean up SB 6 by adopting changes that would force administrators to use our hard-earned dollars to purchase Type #1 IM’s that would produce graduates who are well-educated and strong patriotic citizens.
Taxpayers should also require their Texas Legislators to pass legislation that would mandate school board members and administrators to use their own money to join TASA/TASB and to pay their own way to conventions. Texas teachers have to pay their own dues and convention expenses if they want to participate in professional organizations. Why should school board members and administrators be treated any differently?
TASA and TASB use the taxpayers’ dollars paid to them by school board members and administrators to turn right around and hire lobbyists to pressure legislators to raise school taxes. This means that we taxpayers are paying to lobby ourselves!
Before the Texas Legislature meets next spring, we Texans need to make our voices heard. The time is now!
SB 6 – 6.27.11 – http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/BillLookup/History.aspx?LegSess=821&Bill=SB6
Record vote: http://www.journals.house.state.tx.us/hjrnl/821/pdf/82C1DAY15FINAL.PDF#page=16
Donna Garner
******************************************************************************************************
What Happens When Your Child Cannot Read By The End of The First Grade?
According to a Pew Research Center analysis of U. S. Census Data (as reported in the August 2016 AARP Bulletin), "for the first time in more than 130 years, adults who are 18 to 34 (32.1 % of all of them) are more likely to be living with their parents than with a spouse or a partner"!
The 19 percent of older millennials, those ages 25 to 34 who are still hanging around, constitute the highest number on record!
The Pew report attributes the significant rise of children remaining at home with their parents to "the recent struggle to find jobs and rising college enrollment."
I beg to differ. The reason about a third of all children in this age group are still at home living off of mom and dad is that they didn't learn to read or do real math in elementary school and were therefore unable to continue with a meaningful academic education. They have no skills that are useful to the workplace.
My conclusion is more logical than the one offered by the Pew Report.
Another result of a poor elementary school education is that "boomer parents are tending to stay in single-family homes rather than downsizing." They have to provide somewhere for that uneducated child to live. That's what parents do!
So get ready to put off your retirement. You're going to have other pressing matters to attend to besides visiting National Parks, taking a cruise, or sitting by your pool. Instead you'll be paying--literally and figuratively-- for your lack of attention to what your children were taught or not taught in elementary school.
The Pew study says that one-fifth of homeowners aged 55 to 64 have adult children living at home. That percentage will continue to grow, in my opinion.
The study also says that "less than 20 percent of newly constructed homes are entry-level properties."
Anyone can see the ramifications of this situation. Housing becomes more expensive, fewer people are available for the American workforce, people will begin to become renters instead of home owners, and jobs they might have had, are shunted off to foreign nations where the populace HAS been educated.
As the cycle continues through time, it manifests itself in a total debilitating effect on the entire American economy. The process has already begun as we are into the third or fourth generation of dumbed down students.
Ask yourself, "Who it is that benefits from people not becoming educated?"
One doesn't have to look far for the answer.
The liberals have seen that the uneducated are easily controlled. They need for them to not be able to think critically about issues of importance. They need their votes and support. When citizens cannot read, they cannot think for themselves.
Only you can stop it.
*************************************************************************************
A Story on Channel 26 Fox News in Houston on August 31, 2016 concerning an alleged cover-up last May of the mistreatment of some very young Katy ISD Special Education students is very alarming. The thought that this would happen and that no one would immediately do something about it chills the hearts of parents of Special Education students.
Go here to see the story on line: http://www.fox26houston.com/news/198360435-story
Or go to Education/Special Education Number 6 to read the story as copied on this website.
This event becomes part of the legacy of former KISD superintendent Alton Frailey if the story is authenticated.
[Perhaps it's time for the current Katy School District superintendent to tell the public what has happened with this matter. Obviously they are hoping that it just goes away and that everyone will forget about it.
How can we forget about the mistreatment of four and five year olds who were at the mercy of this KISD employee? More importantly how did our superintendent and the School Board members forget about the issue? Besides the wrongs that were committed against these children, WHO is still responsible for letting this Special Education employee, who was in charge, just walk away Scott free? The person should be prosecuted, in my opinion.]
*************************************************************************************
Katy ISD is rezoning the Old Katy area because there are new schools that need someone to inhabit them. There's also the thing about Katy High School being the largest high school in the district at this point in time, and that's a problem. If Katy High School has too many students, they might find themselves in the top UIL division of 6AAAAAA Football, and they have seen in the past that they have a hard time winning football games there. In light of the fact that Katy High School did not win their lower 6A division this year, this rezoning effort was necessary, but poorly timed and rushed through, to make sure that UIL rezoning puts KHS in the right place so that they at least have a chance at winning their division. The KISD School Board does everything it can to help KHS win football games, and this was just another one of those efforts.
Here are the enrollment numbers at the beginning of this (2016) school year: KHS 3,623, THS 2,857, MCHS 2,743, CRHS 3,206, MRHS 3,358, SLHS 3,324, and OTHS 2,919.
I rest my case.
******************************************************************************************
Katy ISD is talking about another bond referendum. They're taking applications for members of the "Bond Committee." Their track record of making that committee viable is not so good, in my opinion, so if one is a plain parent and one pays their plain taxes and has no skin in the game, don't look forward to being selected as a member of the committee. After watching the proceedings of KISD bond elections for the last 19 years, it is my opinion that the whole process is fixed--including the composition of the bond committee.
Those of you who choose to be on this committee are foolish for allowing your good name to be used by the school district. In my opinion, NOTHING you will decide after reading reams of material, attending countless meetings, being facilitated by their trained paid facilitators, and being vilified by your friends and enemies, will matter one bit because I'm guessing that the bond stipulations are more than likely already determined.
******************************************************************************************
CHANGING DEMOGRAPHICS
The actual number of new students coming to Katy ISD seems to be dependent on which way the wind is blowing. In 2014 (October) Supt. Frailey announced that PASA President (and on retainer) Pat Guseman had verified that 3,000 new students would be coming to Katy ISD every year. That got a majority of our voters to vote FOR their 2014 bond in the fall after the one in the spring had been defeated.
Then in October 2015, Ms. Guseman quietly verified to the Board that 2,000 new students would be coming to Katy ISD every year. No fanfare about THAT announcement.
In the January 2017 issue of Community Impact, Supt. Hindt has announced that 2,500 new students would be coming to Katy ISD every year.
So which is it? 3,000? 2,000? or 2,500?
Or does anyone really know? And if no one really knows, how do we trust this superintendent and the Board of Trustees to decide just how many schools we are going to need?
The Board and the administration are getting ready to propose another bond, and they need a committee.
I was invited to be on it, and I declined the honor saying something to the effect that I'm not lending my good name to another boondoggle bond committee! So all of you who are jumping at the chance to do what I have declined, have at it.
I realize that it's impossible to predict the future. It would be nice if the superintendent and the Board also realized that fact.
That being the case, perhaps it's not time to pass such huge bonds, especially when the scope of the bond as advertised while they are trying to get us to vote for it, is never what they actually do! Always remember that they asked for bond money for Williams Elementary THREE times before they ever built it. Notice as well that we have property, ostensibly on which to build new schools, that we've owned for ten, eleven, and twelve years now. It's off the tax rolls and just sitting there because there is no need for it! Ms. Guseman and Merrell and Frailey guessed wrong about where schools would be needed. In my opinion they just wanted to spread the tax dollars around.
Perhaps a smaller bond to address immediate needs is more thrifty, responsible and transparent.
Just a thought.
What voters need to keep in mind is that public schools are a government. These are government workers telling us that they need more money! Government workers are notorious for liking to spend OTHER people's money, never taking into account the fact that citizens work hard for their money, and they shouldn't be asked on a regular basis to work harder because governments just like to play with their money.
When they start telling us that they "need" more schools, remind them that we have at least 341 portable buildings which would hold at least 12,790 students if the buildings were used properly, were moved around to accommodate new students before there is the NEED for a new school building, and that they have about 30 million dollars ($30,000,000.00) of bond money ALREADY tied up in portable buildings --which they always include more of, on a bond referendum! There's no telling how these figures have increased in the last three and a half years!
I've also noticed a recent statement that a portable building costs $145,000. That would be 20 thousand more than they've ever admitted to before.
This bunch needs to put on the brakes. Every child moving into the Katy school district does not have a "right" to a public school across the street the minute their parents buy a new house when there are not enough students to fill it up! Let them be bused around like MY kids were when we first moved here.
I promise that being bused around won't hurt them a bit--that is if the schools start teaching an academic, ability grouped, curriculum like they had in 1981! Then all of you, like me, might get to have two children who graduated from Rice University with an electrical engineering degree.
I'm not usually this snippy about this stuff, but I'm just tired of having KISD take us to the cleaners every three or so years.
These apparent errors in fact and judgment would appear to me to reflect the poor oversight being provided by the current school board, and are an excellent reason to consider replacing them.
**************************************************************************************
I receive Real Simple, a left-leaning publication that comes thanks to some other purchase or discontinued magazine that was made or purchased in the past. (And yes, I've asked them to discontinue my "subscription"!)
However, when it arrives, I scan through it, and in the March 2017 issue there is an article based on the Pew Research Study cited earlier on this page regarding the fact that "more 20-somethings are living at home than are married or cohabiting."
Real Simple, being real simple, suggests that this situation exists because of the "$30,000" student loan for the classics degree, the astronomical cost of renting in certain cities, or the long preparation (grad school, internships) now required to start a career in an ever-more competitive world." They also suggest that young adults "seem to feel closer to their parents than previous generations did and consider them good company." The rest of the article is written, not from the point of view regarding how parents are supposed to put up with this bad situation, but from the point of view of the unemployed child who must put up with the situation!
After I finished with my hysterical laughing, I had to just sit for a minute and ponder the silliness of their explanation.
Young college grads (and more importantly those who cannot even get in to a college much less graduate from one) are having to live at home because the public schools that they attended provided them with a sorry education!
When students are not provided with an academic, ability grouped education, they have not much of a chance of success in our modern world. They have been CHEATED out of an education. Their parents are to blame for that situation because they do not pay attention to what is taught to their children, they do not make it their business to figure out what has changed in our public schools, and they do not VOTE in school board elections for people who have academic college degrees themselves and instead vote for those who are for the most part almost all running for the school board for many reasons other than to make sure that our students are educated properly!
Not only has their academic education been denied to them, they have also been brainwashed by the public schools into thinking the world somehow owes them a living! Recall how many times your child was told that "Everyone is the same," and all they have to do is just "try" and they can succeed!
So stew in your own juice, as they say. Forget your retirement. YOU deserve having that kid around for ten or more years to support.
*******************************************************************************************