HISD proposes $1.9 billion bond to upgrade high schools

One of the projects with this is a total swap of the HVAC systems in favor of more efficient systems. The load this would take off the local power grid is supposed to be quite a bit. Great use of tax payer dollars that would allow contractors a 'stimulus' of sort to fix & update the aging infrastructure. Good project all around that would put a lot of people to work.

 

Inb4 Hightop DESTROY GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS!
LIBERAL DEVILS!

 

How about a pool of money to give bonuses to the best teachers?

DD

 

Unions would never allow this. Ever.

 

spoken by someone who doesn't have a clue what he's talking about.

If the only way to judge is based on test scores then it's faulty, encourages teaching to the test, cheating etc. In addition some tests are not created equally across the board. If a student in 4th grade takes a test designed at the 4th grade level, then when that same student gets to 5th grade and thanks to a design flaw the test there is created at a 6th grade level, scores will almost always go down. This also encourages the best teachers to leave schools where students need the most help because if they teach at already high achieving schools the kids will be more likely to perform well on their tests and earn the bonuses.

The Union will never agree to bonuses under that kind of criteria. However the union in Los Angeles is currently working on a way to do evaluations where student test scores are a part of the evaluation, but not the total of the evaluation. So the Union is actually working on a way that would allow bonuses for student acheivement.

 

delete

 

I hate that crap, then make it a school wide bonus for brining up the overall school situation....and every teacher gets a bump.

DD

 

I edited my post after tal edited his. What you've said is a good idea, but there should be a way to hold teachers accountable as well. It's important.

I like your idea of the whole school going up, then all teachers get a bonus. That will help teachers who teach grades like Kinder that don't take the standardized tests. Otherwise they don't have a chance at earning bonuses. Your idea also would encourage teachers working together and help attract teachers to low performing schools in order to have a greater opportunity for improvement.

 

is anyone else noticing something weird?

"HISD’s last bond issue, for $805 million in 2002, passed by only 51 percent of the vote. It was firmly opposed strongly by leaders of the black community."


dafuq? Why would they oppose something that helps their own community?

 

That money comes from somewhere.

 

It's a lot of money for a lot of people

 

Under the Aspire (HISD) program, teachers and staff from high performing schools or schools that show the most gain in student achievement do recieve bonuses based on school wide success. The difference is that the non-core teachers have a ceiling as to how much bonus pay they can receive, while the core teachers can earn several thousand more. But the whole faculty does earn something.

The problem is that merit pay is tied exclusively to standardized tests.

It is interesting that tax hikes were and are off the table when it comes to saving teacher's jobs, but now they are not. Schools in Houston definitely need upgrade, but perhaps this plan is a bit too ambitious given the economic uncertainty of the times.

 

Being an engineering consultant specifically in the education market this is good news. If it passes it would put a lot of people to work. If I'm not mistaken HISD requires all of their schools to be energy efficient LEED certified buildings. The down side is that I believe HISD requires the architects/engineers to be a minority owned firm which is a different argument.

 

Education is always worth it.

 

This. Same thing in Louisville. A proposal to widen the criteria of evaluation in an attempt to give bonuses to the best performing teachers was shot down due to the teachers union.

The argument is inner city schools, with inner city kids, would never have good teachers simply because they all move to where the kids are more dedicated to class work.

 

yes and no.

Currently in many places, schools in upper and upper-middle class neighborhoods pay teachers a lot less than schools in lower income areas. So if a teacher is interested in higher pay, they teach in lower-income areas..if they want work-satisfaction over pay..they work in higher income areas.

It took my wife 15 years at her upper-middle class school to achieve the same income level teachers start at in other districts. But she has excellent parental support which translates to excellent student performance.
Merit pay is horribly unfair because teachers in lower districts have a much harder job due to the lack of interest in parents & students.

 

I heard from one of the teachers in our district that 2/3rds of the staff in any district is administration, why is it not 2/3rds are teachers?

DD

 

It's hard to get HISD bonds passed. The vast majority of White students go to some sort of private school. During the 2009-2010 school year, "White" students made up 7.8% of the student population. I didn't make that up. So there isn't a "dog in the hunt" for short-sighted White Houston voters (who are more likely to get out and vote, ordinarily), and HISD keeps spiraling down.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houston_Independent_School_District

During the 1990's, Houston voters defeated a $390 million dollar bond proposal, and HISD ended up farming out 250 students to 3 private schools for a while as a result (according to HISD). I'll be shocked if this passes. I hope it does, but I'm not optimistic.

 

I think HISD is just too big. If the district had fewer schools, one would think it could be more efficient in its use of funds. But instead HISD may get even bigger if they decide to merge North Forest ISD with them.