Posted on 06/22/2011 8:13:43 AM PDT by george76
When it come to excellence in education, red states rule—at least according to a panel of experts assembled by Tina Brown’s Newsweek.
Using a set of indicators ranging from graduation rate to college admissions and SAT scores, the panel reviewed data from high schools all over the country to find the best public schools in the country.
The results make depressing reading for the teacher unions: The very best public high schools in the country are heavily concentrated in red states.
Three of the nation’s ten best public high schools are in Texas—the no-income tax, right-to-work state that blue model defenders like to characterize as America at its worst. Florida, another no-income tax, right-to-work state long misgoverned by the evil and rapacious Bush dynasty, has two of the top ten schools.
...
It is becoming harder and harder to find evidence of any kind that teachers’ unions help either taxpayers or kids; surveys like these hasten the day when real reform comes to the American educational system.
The rise of the red states is one of those stories that the mainstream media—which views the world through blue-tinted lenses—doesn’t like to think about.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
Please read post #38.
Not true....people who live in Red States are stupid....at least that’s what I was told....:)
County by county folks, that is a much more reliable indicator, both within a state and for the nation as a whole.
Why doesn’t this guy actually provide a link to his source? I also wonder why he defines red and blue states by the results of the 2004 election. In that case Bush won 31 states and Kerry 19. In 2008 Obama carried 28 and McCain 22; would this author’s interpretation of the data be different using the more current result? This whole thing reads like boosterism rather than any kind of serious analysis. And for all the praise he heaps on Texas, that state still only ranks 34 in graduation rates, 4th in teenage pregnancies, and 1st in minimum wage jobs. Way to go.
Never mind excluding magnet schools, exclude the democrat leaning counties in Texas! There are plenty of areas of Wisconsin and New Jersey that vote more conservatively than the border counties. Breaking out the areas with the smaller demographic will give you a better idea of how politics effects education.
The Palm Beach County School Board on Wednesday will vote on whether to fire five employees, including a principal accused of stealing furniture from her school, a janitor caught naked in a school storage room and a female reading teacher who is accused of having sex with an 18-year-old student.
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/palm-beach/pb-school-board-advance-20110621,0,2985975.story
There are other, more telling metrics. Back during Wisconsin's collective bargaining war, a blogger named Iowahawk analyzed SAT scores from Texas and Wisconsin. His conclusion: if you look at aggregates, collective bargaing states like Wisconsin do better on SAT/ACT scores. If however you look at individual ethnic groups (whites in Texas vs. whites in Wisconsin, Latinos in Texas vs Latinos in Wisconsin, etc,), Texas has higher scores. You can read the whole blog post here: Longhorns 17 Badgers 1.
Of course the unspeakable fact is that on average minorities tend to score lower on the standardized tests. When there's a disproportionate number of them in a certain population, the minority scores drag down the average. That's not bigotry or racism on my part, just a measurable fact. (For the record, I don't think standardized tests are the last word on someone's intelligence or character). In the end, Iowahawk's point is this: if you control for ethnicity, Texas outperforms Wisconsin in 17 out of 18 areas.
The post by Iowahawk is especially delicious because it's in a response to an article by Paul Krugman. Iowahawk eviscerates Krugman's arguments.
too bad no one hears about much of this due to the MSM keeping a lid on it
yes and it might shut up Tommy Lee Jones when he sees that the DISD has improved it’s graduation rates too. These are pulbic schools Dallas can be proud of - oh and they get lots and lots of private foundation money or donors to make them this great.
You’re right. Do a school-district by school district breakdown and compare that to the red/blue breakdown from 2000/2004/2008 elections.
I’d bet that red would run away with it.
I'll bet it is not on the east side of IH 35. If there was one in the Austin area, I'd have to say Westlake ISD.
You couldn't be more wrong.
Its the Liberal Arts and Science Academy 7309 Lazy Creek Drive, Austin, TX 78724.
Which is basically the LBJ High School Campus, about as far away and deeply removed from Westlake as you could get in Austin.
Grammar begins at home. :)
Well, wonder just what the criteria was to rate the schools? Any time I see the words liberal arts, I have to think it is nothing but far left wing trash.
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