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Texas parents -- new class rank legislation
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Replies to: Texas parents -- new class rank legislation
To "ensure that all Texas students are competing for college admission on equal footing."
It will give a lot more kids the chance to be in the top 10%....above average but not brilliant? smart but don't like to study very hard? Get 100s in your regular courses, and you'll beat all those ambitious super smart kids out of the top 10%. Very democratic. Not wise, but democratic.
I have a very smart 7th grader who is not very interested in academics...she'd much rather be dancing, cheering, tumbling, etc. She would LOVE IT if we let her take all regular classes....she'd breeze through and maybe she'd be the first of our kids to break into the top 10% (under the proposed method.) Then she'd get to college and hit the wall, like most of her other peers who also didn't challenge themselves.
There are some courses at our school where you need to have taken the pre-AP courses to get the AP courses...math comes to mind. You can't get to AP Calc senior year without taking the preAP math courses. So a student would have to bite the bullet and take the unweighted pre-AP math classes. Or, better yet, take three years of regular math, then AP Stats.
But, for example, I think it would be pretty easy for a smart kid to succeed in the AP English and social studies courses (offered only in 11th and 12th grades) while only having taken the regular courses in 9th and 10th....So a student takes the regular courses in 9th and 10th grades to get the sure A.
Enrollment in AP courses with no real prerequisite would sky rocket (AP Art History comes to mind.)
If you don't ever plan to take an AP science, no reason to take the pre-AP version of that science earlier in school. Or, take regular Bio, Chem and Physics and AP Environmental senior year.
Hmmm....I think I have my 7trh grader's high school courses all figured out now....
missypie, interesting thoughts. It will put the onus on schools, I'm thinking, to set up mechanisms for kids to be able to skip the prereqs if they want to.
Also, though, will we need two GPA calculations -- one for Texas top10% and one for OOS?
But the trend is for Texas legislators not to trust the local districts to do anything.
Of course, there may be a lot of horrible districts in the state, so the distrust may be warranted for some.
Tex. Att'y Gen. Op. No. GA-0655 (2008) -- Greg Abbott Administration
So I guess our seniors are safe, contrary to what the newspaper articles say.
According to my friends who teach there, that's exactly what's already happening.
Students who want to go to "other" should take the honors courses that interest them. Their GC will be able to check the "most rigorous curriculum" box on the application (something that matters to "other" colleges), and they will be able to explain their "lower than you would think for such a sharp kid" class rank by saying "I'm from Texas."
This could be interesting.
I think that lots (all? most?) of the state schools in Oklahoma and Arkansas are giving in state tuition for "qualified" Texas students.
Was that right? I was never in a musical, obviously.
So who in state government should be contacted to share concerns about this? Has anyone heard if the proposed methods of calculating GPA have any stipulations about how HS classes taken in MS count in GPA?
The state is soliciting feedback regarding the issue of standard GPA calculations. You can send your comments to Natalie Coffey at the Texas Education Coordinating Board, [email protected]. The deadline for public comment is October 16.
Which also means there is time to urge the state legislature to repeal this. Doubt it would happen, but it's possible. Worst. Texas. Legislature. EVER.
Saying it's the worst Legislature ever....that's quite a statement? Why is this one any worse than any of the others? It's been terrible for so many years....I really think that's the linchpin of their plan to reduce property taxes: Drive almost everyone from public schools, so then they can cut taxes.