Posted on 02/21/2018 5:53:02 AM PST by reaganaut1
Brian Butcher, a history teacher at Ballou High School, sat in the bleachers of the school's brand-new football field last June watching 164 seniors receive diplomas. It was a clear, warm night and he was surrounded by screaming family and friends snapping photos and cheering.
It was a triumphant moment for the students: For the first time, every graduate had applied and been accepted to college. The school is located in one of Washington, D.C.'s poorest neighborhoods and has struggled academically for years with a low graduation rate. For months, the school received national media attention, including from NPR, celebrating the achievement.
But all the excitement and accomplishment couldn't shake one question from Butcher's mind:
How did all these students graduate from high school?
"You saw kids walking across the stage, who, they're nice young people, but they don't deserve to be walking across the stage," Butcher says.
An investigation by WAMU and NPR has found that Ballou High School's administration graduated dozens of students despite high rates of unexcused absences. We reviewed hundreds of pages of Ballou's attendance records, class rosters and emails after a district employee shared the private documents. Half of the graduates missed more than three months of school last year, unexcused. One in five students was absent more than present — missing more than 90 days of school.
According to district policy, if a student misses a class 30 times, he should fail that course. Research shows that missing 10 percent of school, about two days per month, can negatively affect test scores, reduce academic growth and increase the chances a student will drop out.
(Excerpt) Read more at npr.org ...
I truly despise the modern educational establishment.
Every student is not bound for college. Get over it.
We raised four kids. The two oldest have associates degrees and are slowly continuing their education.
The third graduates as an Astronautical Engineer this May.
The fourth is a wise and intelligent young man who wants to work in some sort of trade. He starts his CDL class in March to become a truck driver.
Whether or not he sticks at that as a career, I don’t really care. It is a skill and a credential he can keep lifelong though.
Schools need to get off the college for all mentality.
Re-open vocational education.
And by all means, get rid of compulsory education ages. If a kid is going to be disruptive, jettison him.
Maryland raised their law to 17 a few years ago. What a miserable failure. If a 15 or 16 year old gang-banger wants to destroy his life and the lives of others in school, he shouldn’t be there, nor should the system require him. If he doesn’t show up and do the work, he shouldn’t get rewarded with a diploma he didn’t earn nor care about.
Now, in college, they can cut classes....... especially 8:00 ‘ers
The problem will be inequality. Intellectual inequality will strike and like Anita Hill in Washington, they will be faced with the reality.
So how did they get accepted to colig?
They lied to the student, to the parents, and to the taxpaying citizen.
It’s the norming of ghetto failure.
We used to look down on that, and use it as a cautionary tale for our own lives: “Don’t be an utter loser”, we’d tell our kids.
Now we can’t even point out the Hate Fact that ghetto culture equals failure, lest we be demonized or even kicked to death.
True, but that's looking at it from the viewpoint of the individual.
Obama had a different, longer range plan--giving everyone a meaningless college degree was the first step, and then forcing hiring based on that meaningless credential along racial lines was the second. Anything less would be discrimination.
It was his idea of a public-private partnership--government would force industry to pay for welfare out of private profit by carrying a bunch of ignorant drones.
One could even say that's been partially implemented under the name of diversity. Every white male knows he's got several strikes against him in promotion, hiring, or the grant parade if there's a pool of the politically favored available.
This is why there is such anger and dischord at universities. I used to think that all the whining about racism and marginalization was nucking futz as do you really think racism is worse now than half a century ago? But if you really think about it, we have this giant semi literate group of “diverse” students that were socially promoted through high school but also praised with high esteem. They end up at these universities with free money showered upon them but end up in remedial classes and victim studies majors and they soon realize they cannot compete and everybody knows that they are a subclass that nobody takes seriously and everybody including them knows that they do not belong so friction is the predictable result. The question is is it simply for a bottomless pit of free money or is there even more nefarious reasons?
The one question the article seemed to not even address is how in the h 100% of the kids got accepted at a college. With that kind of H.S. record, what could their SAT scores have been, on average? Or was every one of the kids given an “affirmative action” slot at a college?
I went to school with Pell Grant recipients who bragged about using that money to buy furniture, go on trips and other crap I couldn’t afford.
You’re welcome, you POSs.
I posit that most aren't even nice people. They most likely are threats to society.
WORK!?
That's a demeaning four letter word.
They will try to make it to the first spring break so they can spend the rest of their Pell Grant
We pretend to study, they give pretend diplomas
This. Thisthisthisthis. Not ONLY paid; but some large percentage were worth ENHANCED payments, due to a learning disability diagnosis, etc, etc.
” I give the majority of these graduates no more than 3 semesters before they drop out”
I wonder how many even applied for college? Those that did it would be interesting to know what school. There is a huge financial consideration not to fail these undeserving kids. I have no doubt there are “Special” colleges that will shuffle these kids through to graduation as long as Student Loan And Grant money keeps flowing.
You are so wrong. Colleges are so afraid of disproportionately failing minority students that they find ways to pass them, no matter what.
Once they then slip into the workforce the same happens in terms of employers.
We simply give them a pass through life.
PENAL CODE
TITLE 8. OFFENSES AGAINST PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION
CHAPTER 37. PERJURY AND OTHER FALSIFICATION
Sec. 37.10. TAMPERING WITH GOVERNMENTAL RECORD. (a) A person commits an offense if he:
(1) knowingly makes a false entry in, or false alteration of, a governmental record;
(2) makes, presents, or uses any record, document, or thing with knowledge of its falsity and with intent that it be taken as a genuine governmental record;
(3) intentionally destroys, conceals, removes, or otherwise impairs the verity, legibility, or availability of a governmental record;
(4) possesses, sells, or offers to sell a governmental record or a blank governmental record form with intent that it be used unlawfully;
(5) makes, presents, or uses a governmental record with knowledge of its falsity; or
(6) possesses, sells, or offers to sell a governmental record or a blank governmental record form with knowledge that it was obtained unlawfully.
(b) It is an exception to the application of Subsection (a)(3) that the governmental record is destroyed pursuant to legal authorization or transferred under Section 441.204, Government Code. With regard to the destruction of a local government record, legal authorization includes compliance with the provisions of Subtitle C, Title 6, Local Government Code.
(c)(1) Except as provided by Subdivisions (2), (3), and (4) and by Subsection (d), an offense under this section is a Class A misdemeanor unless the actor’s intent is to defraud or harm another, in which event the offense is a state jail felony.
(2) An offense under this section is a felony of the third degree if it is shown on the trial of the offense that the governmental record was:
(A) a public school record, report, or assessment instrument required under Chapter 39, Education Code, data reported for a school district or open-enrollment charter school to the Texas Education Agency through the Public Education Information Management System (PEIMS) described by Section 42.006, Education Code, under a law or rule requiring that reporting, or a license, certificate, permit, seal, title, letter of patent, or similar document issued by government, by another state, or by the United States, unless the actor’s intent is to defraud or harm another, in which event the offense is a felony of the second degree;
(B) a written report of a medical, chemical, toxicological, ballistic, or other expert examination or test performed on physical evidence for the purpose of determining the connection or relevance of the evidence to a criminal action;
(C) a written report of the certification, inspection, or maintenance record of an instrument, apparatus, implement, machine, or other similar device used in the course of an examination or test performed on physical evidence for the purpose of determining the connection or relevance of the evidence to a criminal action; or
(D) a search warrant issued by a magistrate.
(3) An offense under this section is a Class C misdemeanor if it is shown on the trial of the offense that the governmental record is a governmental record that is required for enrollment of a student in a school district and was used by the actor to establish the residency of the student.
(4) An offense under this section is a Class B misdemeanor if it is shown on the trial of the offense that the governmental record is a written appraisal filed with an appraisal review board under Section 41.43(a-1), Tax Code, that was performed by a person who had a contingency interest in the outcome of the appraisal review board hearing.
(d) An offense under this section, if it is shown on the trial of the offense that the governmental record is described by Section 37.01(2)(D), is:
(1) a Class B misdemeanor if the offense is committed under Subsection (a)(2) or Subsection (a)(5) and the defendant is convicted of presenting or using the record;
(2) a felony of the third degree if the offense is committed under:
(A) Subsection (a)(1), (3), (4), or (6); or
(B) Subsection (a)(2) or (5) and the defendant is convicted of making the record; and
(3) a felony of the second degree, notwithstanding Subdivisions (1) and (2), if the actor’s intent in committing the offense was to defraud or harm another.
(e) It is an affirmative defense to prosecution for possession under Subsection (a)(6) that the possession occurred in the actual discharge of official duties as a public servant.
(f) It is a defense to prosecution under Subsection (a)(1), (a)(2), or (a)(5) that the false entry or false information could have no effect on the government’s purpose for requiring the governmental record.
(g) A person is presumed to intend to defraud or harm another if the person acts with respect to two or more of the same type of governmental records or blank governmental record forms and if each governmental record or blank governmental record form is a license, certificate, permit, seal, title, or similar document issued by government.
(h) If conduct that constitutes an offense under this section also constitutes an offense under Section 32.48 or 37.13, the actor may be prosecuted under any of those sections.
(i) With the consent of the appropriate local county or district attorney, the attorney general has concurrent jurisdiction with that consenting local prosecutor to prosecute an offense under this section that involves the state Medicaid program.
(j) It is not a defense to prosecution under Subsection (a)(2) that the record, document, or thing made, presented, or used displays or contains the statement “NOT A GOVERNMENT DOCUMENT” or another substantially similar statement intended to alert a person to the falsity of the record, document, or thing, unless the record, document, or thing displays the statement diagonally printed clearly and indelibly on both the front and back of the record, document, or thing in solid red capital letters at least one-fourth inch in height.
Acts 1973, 63rd Leg., p. 883, ch. 399, Sec. 1, eff. Jan. 1, 1974. Amended by Acts 1989, 71st Leg., ch. 1248, Sec. 66, eff. Sept. 1, 1989; Acts 1991, 72nd Leg., ch. 113, Sec. 4, eff. Sept. 1, 1991; Acts 1991, 72nd Leg., ch. 565, Sec. 5, eff. Sept. 1, 1991; Acts 1993, 73rd Leg., ch. 900, Sec. 1.01, eff. Sept. 1, 1994; Acts 1997, 75th Leg., ch. 189, Sec. 6, eff. May 21, 1997; Acts 1997, 75th Leg., ch. 823, Sec. 4, eff. Sept. 1, 1997; Acts 1999, 76th Leg., ch. 659, Sec. 2, eff. Sept. 1, 1999; Acts 1999, 76th Leg., ch. 718, Sec. 1, eff. Sept. 1, 1999; Acts 2001, 77th Leg., ch. 771, Sec. 3, eff. June 13, 2001; Acts 2003, 78th Leg., ch. 198, Sec. 2.139, eff. Sept. 1, 2003; Acts 2003, 78th Leg., ch. 257, Sec. 16, eff. Sept. 1, 2003.
Amended by:
Acts 2005, 79th Leg., Ch. 1364 (H.B. 126), Sec. 1, eff. June 18, 2005.
Acts 2007, 80th Leg., R.S., Ch. 1085 (H.B. 3024), Sec. 2, eff. September 1, 2007.
Acts 2009, 81st Leg., R.S., Ch. 73 (H.B. 1813), Sec. 1, eff. September 1, 2009.
Acts 2009, 81st Leg., R.S., Ch. 1130 (H.B. 2086), Sec. 31, eff. September 1, 2009.
Acts 2013, 83rd Leg., R.S., Ch. 510 (S.B. 124), Sec. 1, eff. September 1, 2013.
Acts 2015, 84th Leg., R.S., Ch. 690 (H.B. 644), Sec. 3, eff. September 1, 2015.
My brother brings up this issue. He works in the IT sector in a southern city that has a particular college in town (I won’t divulge the name) where graduates walk easily through, and have a degree. His IT company won’t touch these guys. Resumes will come and they flatly turn them down. As far as they are concerned, these universities have turned themselves into a marginal papermill, and with fake instructors....create a bigger mess later.
He points out...most folks in the area won’t hire these college graduates, and most end up with jobs that used to not require college degrees....like the manager of some car rental shop.
Colleges are dumbed down and you must pass nearly everyone based on a “curve” system. So students can stay in school to pay more tuition. Oftentimes funded or loaned by the taxpayer.
That’s why I no longer formally teach and am considering starting an Engineering “trade school”.
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