*S*T*A*A*R*

Education in Texas has always been known to not necessarily be the best in our country if anything one of the worst. Better yet to put things in simpler terms we are just not that bright. Well there's plenty the state could do to change that like instead of making budget cuts on education providing more money towards schools. That would give the schools the opportunity to allow more programs for students to attend in and learn in or just providing better materials for their core classes. Our graduation rates in Texas have always been low, and instead of trying to make them higher I feel as if the state is trying to make them lower and is about to start the decrease in 2012. According to the new State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR) students in grade levels 3-8 will continue taking their 4 core class exams, but high-school students will be taking 12 end-of-course assessments in Algebra 1, geometry, Algebra 2, biology, chemistry, physics, English 1, English 2, English 3, world geography, world history, and U.S. history. Wow! Long list that I feel is definitely unnecessary. Well the only good news in it for me is that I won't be having to deal with any of it.

However, I do feel that the students who graduate will be smarter due to those exams than those who graduated just based off of the TAKS, but there will be a lot of students who won't be able to graduate because they will not meet the new standards, but would of met the standards of TAKS. So  it all comes down to this: Texas graduates will be smarter than the previous generations, but for awhile it will look as if Texas just keeps going downhill when we really are not. Well at least not in my opinion. Texas needs to combine all resources and not cut budgets on education and that with the STAAR testing combines should hopefully keep us in the game. If they cut the budget and then add a whole new system of testing I'm just scared to see how our state will end up.

I guess we are just going to have to sit back and watch the mistakes be made by the TEA. The STAAR testing system I feel is over the top, but if the state wants to succeed they should provide more money for the schools to be able to keep their students up with the standards. If they plan on cutting back the funds for schools then why change the testing system. Seem extremely pointless. 

So what will the state of Texas do for 2012?

Rick Perry ... Bad for Women?

Going through the lists of blogs I read one that just really caught my eye, Mean Rachel: What a Rick Perry President would look like for women. This editorial is not poorly written, but i just feel as if she's just against Rick Perry in general and is just trying to find anything that would make him look like a bad guy. The editorial is very bias. It's as if she got angry at him one day and decided to write a hatred letter that was never really suppose to be publicly read. Rachel, the author, only focuses on all of Perry's "wrongs" as she sees them because technically they could be a good in someone else's eyes. Rachel's primary intended audience is definitely women. She talks about how Perry is so old school that she even placed him in the category she has the cassette player and an AOL subscription, and how Perry feels that taking care of children is a women's job. In my point of view however there is a controversy on birth control and abortions even within women. I would say that on both topics it is 50 50. Some women are strongly against abortions and would say that Perry's proposals are brilliant and will help the life of women, as for Rachel on the other hand and the women that are for pro choice think differently and fear for Perry to win Presidency someday. They feel as if Perry's proposals to make women that are 8 to 10 weeks pregnant and seek abortion to have to mandatory transvaginal sonograms is just awful and wrong.   Perry also highly emphasizes that we need to practice abstinence and is planning to roll back on health insurances that cover birth control.
I don't necessarily agree with Rachel, but I don't disagree either. I just feel though her credibility through the whole article could go either way, and nothing she said made me feel as though Perry was old school or a bad representative for women. Her argument is very vague and open for very many different interpretations. There will always be people both women and men on either side of her topics such as birth control and abortions. Religion also plays a major factor in some of her arguments because many people are against both topics because it goes against their religion. I have my own opinions on Perry, but nothing in this blog editorial made me think that Perry was wrong for women. Whether he is a wrong for people in general is a different story but that I'll keep to myself for now.