2. Discuss and examine public education in Texas. What is the purpose and function of an I.S.D. What are the purposes of the SBOE and the TEA? In your opinion, is the TAKS
test good for educating students in Texas? If the Legislature eliminates the TAKS test, then what should it be replaced with?
Texas education, much like the education in the United States as a whole, faces a crisis in meeting the requirements of a global community. The United States is being far surpassed by competing international educational systems. A study was conduct by the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) which looked at the educational systems in developed countries across the planet. The educational system in the U.S. ranked surprisingly low when compared against other countries.
The PISA studies fifteen-year-old students across the globe on three different subjects. The test given is similar to the Texas TAKS test but maintains the benefit of being compiled by experts worldwide. The test is broken down into three main categories; reading literacy, mathematics and science. The reading literacy test was conducted in the United States in the year 2000 and when compared to the other twenty seven countries who participated, the U.S. ranked fifteenth. In mathematics the U.S. ranked twenty fourth out of twenty nine and in science the U.S. ranked twenty one out of thirty countries surveyed.
It is clear that the U.S. is no longer the world leader in educational matters. Gone are the days in which the U.S. stands as a lone super power that leads the world in most metrics. Now the U.S. within the country has received unworthy emphasis by the Board of Education, Texas Education Agency, and by the Independent School Districts across the state.
It seems like a more worthy approach to consider why the superior models that have been developed internationally have exceed our own educational efforts. Our own model has been proven to be lacking in the quality of education it provides. Others models have been shown to provide superior results. All states within the United States, including Texas, should take note of the situation and look to other models to fill in the voids that exist in the current system. To achieve this we, as a nation, should model our own system after other systems that are currently utilizing teaching methods that produce better results.
In my opinion, the TAKS should be replaced with something that is developed in a standardized manner but consistent with global metrics. Texas cannot rely on the greater U.S. To provide the answer because it is evident that they do not current have the solution either. Instead, we should look to educational systems such as those implemented in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, and Finland to provide insights into what may produce superior results.
Bibliography
Execute the Guilty. Honor the Innocent. Educate the Uniformed. . (2010, May 27). Retrieved May 27, 2010, from Pro-Death Penalty: http://off2dr.com/modules/cjaycontent/index.php?id=21
Texas Department of Criminal Justice. (2010, May 27). Retrieved May 27, 2010, from Executed Offenders: http://www.tdcj.state.tx.us/stat/executedoffenders.htm
(Texas Department of Criminal Justice, 2010)
(Execute the Guilty. Honor the Innocent. Educate the Uniformed., 2010)
From 1977 to 2007, the number of death sentences per capita was as follows: Alabama .89, Oklahoma .818, Mississippi .558, Nevada .546, Delaware .497, North Carolina .481, Florida .463, South Carolina .422, Arizona .412, Arkansas .399, Texas .379, Louisiana .342, Missouri .313, Pennsylvania .277, Ohio .270, Tennessee .270, Idaho .267, Georgia .236, Illinois .233, California .219, Kentucky .193, Virginia .192, Oregon .184, Indiana .148, Nebraska .147, Wyoming .134, Montana
Death Penalty as Retribution The Retributive Nature of the Death Penalty The peaceful fabric of society is torn whenever a crime is committed. In the case of murder, the suffering of the victim's loved ones can be unbearable and last for a lifetime. The destructive ripple effect of these tragedies cannot be compensated for in any way, not even by the capture, conviction, and execution of the killer. However, many states still
As such, it is unlikely to change in light of knowledge or information about the death penalty and its administration" (Vollum & Buffington-Vollum, p. 30). Furthermore, "those who scored higher on value-expressive attitudes were less accepting of information critical of the death penalty and, in turn, less likely to change their views in light of the information presented." Thus, the widespread support of the death penalty in the face
Capital Punishment in Texas Khalil, Samy. "Doing the impossible: Appellate reweighing of harm and mitigation in capital cases after Williams v. Taylor, with a special focus on Texas." Texas Law Review, 80(1): November 2001. Proquest Database. In this article, Khalil examines how state and federal courts have overturned death sentences, from a period covering the reinstitution of the death penalty in 1976 to 2001. The author focuses on sentences that have been
A good example is the 1985 murder of convenience store clerk Cynthia Barlieb, whose murder was prosecuted by a district attorney bent on securing execution for Barlieb's killer (Pompeilo 2005). The original trial and all the subsequent appeals forced Barlieb's family, including four young daughters, to spend 17 years in the legal process - her oldest daughter was 8 years old when Cynthia was first shot, and 25 when
The study also made an assessment of the 14 countries who eradicated the capital punishment. Murder went up by 7% from five years prior to the abolition period to five years following the abolition claimed by the study. Besides, researches were conducted by Prof. Issac Erlich from the years 1933 to 1969. He came to the conclusion that "An added execution per year might bring down the number of
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