Stage 5: Original Comentary or Dear God! What's Happened to our Schools?

The education of our young is a truly important endeavor. With children who are educated well, our future is bright and successful. Unfortunately the trends don’t seem to be going that way. Regardless of what Governor Perry might have to say about schools in Texas, they are declining. In the past semester this fact has been brought to my attention several times. In my TX Government class, my professor had shocking statistics at how poorly we’re doing as a state when it comes to educating our children. I also had a more personal example of this when I had to read some of my fellow students’ writing to complete some of these blog assignments.

My professor introduced me to a yearly publication put out by Texas Senator Shapleigh called, Texas on the Brink. This document is a collection of stunning statistics and figures comparing Texas against the rest of the country. The latest edition, from 2009, revealed that Texas is ranked dead last when it comes to the percentage of people 25 and older with a high school diploma. That means we have less people per capita with a high school diploma than ANYONE else in the country!!! Scary stuff!

The thing that really illustrated just how poorly the schools in Texas are doing was getting to read some of my fellow student’s work. To say that it was largely a disappointing shock is putting it lightly. I understand that in this situation you have to take into account the fact that most of these kids are getting a taste of freedom for the first time, with no one but themselves encouraging them to work, but I don’t think it entirely justifies the poor quality of work displayed by so many. My conclusion: they just didn’t learn it in high school. I am sad that this seems to be the case, but I feel for my poor professors even more. I can only imagine how painful it must be to slog through poorly written, un-proofread garbage that gets turned in anytime they assign an essay project.

I'm sure that there have to be other students who can put together a decent sentence and take the time to look over their work before they turn it in, but I get the impression we are almost an endangered species. That being the case, I wonder what the future of our state will be if we turn out this caliber of student regularly?

Whatever the anser is, grate job state! Keep up the grate wurk!