Grading Our Schools

The Texas Education Agency (TEA) released "What If" A-F grades for schools across Texas. The ratings are based on student achievement/progress, closing performance gaps, post-secondary readiness, and community and student engagement. The RISD received a "B" in each of the four domains.

The ratings are new, not yet finalized, and only "what if" at this time, but they've caused quite a stir around the state. Richardson ISD Superintendent Dr. Jeannie Stone released the following statement:

Assigning a letter grade, based substantially on the outcome of a standardized test taken on one day of the year, simply can't capture the year-long efforts of students, teachers, principals and everyone who supports teaching and learning. Entire school and communities will be painted with the brush of a single letter grade, even though individual students perform across a wide range of achievement levels on a number of different indicators. The A-F concept has been attempted - and has failed - elsewhere. We owe our students, teachers and communities better than this system.

Source: RISD.

I have two problems with this statement.

La La Land (2016)

IMDB

La La Land (2016): Hollywood can still make feel-good musicals, an art form worth saving. Not Astaire/Rogers, but good. Emma Stone++. A-

POTD: Birdman?

From 2016 09 09 Quebec City

Today's photo-of-the-day is from the Rue du Sault-au-Matelot in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada. It's a photo of...well, I don't know what. I didn't see a sign. Google didn't help me.

Closeup photo after the jump.

13th (2016)

IMDB

13th (2016): Criminalization of race is the new Jim Crow. The new slavery. The same old evil, erupting in new form each generation. Wow. A+

This documentary did something great movies (or books) do — force me to reconsider a long-held belief. Since my teens, I've believed in that quote by Martin Luther King, Jr., "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice." After watching "13th" I have to consider the possibility that the arc bends back on itself in an endless cycle of fighting the same old evil. Racism is a disease. Just when we think it's vanquished (13th Amendment, Civil Rights Act, Voting Rights Act), the evil metastasizes and erupts in new form (criminalization of race, mass incarceration). Now, in the early 21st Century, the arc of the moral universe has bent back to its starting point once again.

Upcoming Local Elections

The federal and state elections are history and the governments in Washington and Austin are beginning to take shape. That means it must be time to turn our attention to local elections, scheduled to take place May 6, 2017. The deadline to file to run is over a month away, February 17, 2017 at 5:00 p.m., so it's still way early, but here is a look at the early field.