The left column is the one from a visual for ALL of the customers for high school education (a visual that attempts to focus on ALL of the customers for education), click here for the chart for high school and here for that same chart with the Higher Education column for comparison.
|
Customers
(Users, Clients, Stakeholders) and Issues |
High School Education |
Details in the
News about High School Education |
Full Title If
Not in Prior Column (and Direct Link If Available) |
Date |
Source/Author
(and Direct Link to General Website) |
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1. Customer as user? |
Student |
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a. Commitment by the user? |
a. Varies |
“majority of Texas districts have policies mandating minimum grades —
typically a 50” (ended by TEA) |
“Houston-area
districts sue over grading policy They say state education chief has wrong
idea about ‘honest grades’ law” |
11/19/2009 |
Houston
Chronicle online; author Ericka Mellon (For related articles from 2009 and 2010, click
here.) |
|
b. Preparation of the user? |
b. Varies |
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c. User as part of product? |
c. Almost always |
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2. Customer as who pays? |
Student, parents |
70% of parents -“things ‘are fine as they are now.’” |
“Important, But Not for Me” (Overview or to
download the full report) |
9/18/2007 |
Public Agenda (For parents’
views in 2010 and later, enter the word parents
in the Public Agenda search field.) |
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3. Customer who may help to pay the bill? |
Almost always taxpayers |
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4. Customer as creator of the product/service |
Mixed—teachers, testing, vendors, districts, SBOE |
“Driving a No. 2 pencil into the heart of testing monster” |
– |
5/2/2012 |
Houston
Chronicle; B3, B7; author Patricia Kilday Hart |
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5. Customer as the field of knowledge behind the product/service? |
Mixed—teachers, testing, vendors, districts, SBOE |
“SBOE determines what millions of students learn in public schools” |
“Seize chance to shape Texas education policy” |
5/25/2012 |
Houston
Chronicle editorial; B9. |
|
6. Customer as the regulator (such as a certifier, accreditor, or
standards organization)? |
Mixed—testing, vendors, districts, SBOE, NCLB |
“Education Inc. How private companies are profiting from Texas public
schools” |
– (Read
online) |
9/06/2011 |
The Texas
Observer; author Abby
Rapoport |
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7. Customer as the region? |
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|
|
|
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a. Need for qualified workers? |
a. Often to Always |
- “Rate of Hispanic dropouts cause for waves of worry” |
– |
5/27/2012 |
Houston
Chronicle; B10 |
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b. Need for good jobs? |
b. Often to Always |
- “Business group joins suit over school funding” |
– |
5/3/2012 |
Houston
Chronicle; B4; author Gary Scharrer |
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c. Need for safe communities?
|
c. Often to Always |
- “…they can’t even fill out an application. They can’t spell. They can’t
read and write. But yet they got this diploma.” |
Hiring and
Higher Education: Business Executives Talk about the Costs and Benefits of
College (Overview
or to download the full report) |
2011 |
Committee for Economic Development
(CED) and Public Agenda; “lead
author” Steve Farkas |
|
d. Need for a solid tax base? |
d. Always |
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8. Customer as the nation’s economic competitiveness? |
All customers above |
- “Science a sore subject in U.S.” |
Subtitle: “Most students of all ages show lack of proficiency” |
1/26/2011 |
Houston
Chronicle; A6 |
|
- “Business group wants better math curriculum” |
– (The article is from Austin.) |
4/19/2012 |
Associated Press (Houston
Chronicle; B3) |
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9. Customer as the nation’s decision-making in a republic? |
All customers above |
Justice O’Connor – “no testing”/”no funding” - NCLB’s “unintended
effect” – “squeezed out civics education” – |
“Former Justice Promotes Web-Based Civics Lessons” (Read online) |
6/09/2008 |
New York Times; author Seth Schiesel (For the
full quotation, click here.) |
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10.The product/service is |
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a. For short-term use? |
a. Occasionally |
Same as 7 |
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b. For long-term use? |
b. Almost always |
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c. On-going but changing? |
c. Almost always |
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11. Measurement of the user as part of the product and of the
product/service is? |
Intransparent and in transition |
- “Study: School spending tough to track” |
– |
3/28/2012 |
Houston
Chronicle; B2; author Gary Scharrer |
|
- “Clear Lake High begins crackdown on cheaters” |
Subtitle: “At least 60 students being disciplined over answers texted
to them before final” |
3/28/2012 |
Houston
Chronicle; B1; B10; author Monica Rhor |
||
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12. Rewards of success go
to? |
All customers above |
“Grier says cheating inquiry on his agenda…HISD links bonuses to
higher scores” |
– (The second part of the title is on B4.) |
3/26/2012 |
Houston
Chronicle; B1, B4; author Ericka Mellon |
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13. Risks from failure go to? |
1st
To business, higher education |
- “A Stronger nation through Higher Education” |
3/2012 |
Lumina Foundation |
|
|
-“The value of blue collar work” |
– (Covers skilled worker jobs without college, but also reveals some
of the complexity of meaning.[i])
|
5/27/2012 |
Houston
Chronicle; editorial B1; author Scott Braddock |
|
Full Title (and
Direct Link If Available) |
Date |
Source/Author |
Example of
Usefulness |
|
“Former Justice Promotes Web-Based Civics
Lessons” (Read
online) |
6/09/2008 |
New York Times; author Seth Schiesel –
interview with Justice Sandra Day O’Connor |
Justice O’Connor: “One unintended effect of the No Child Left
Behind Act, which is intended to help fund teaching of science and
math to young people, is that it has effectively squeezed out civics
education because there is no testing for that anymore and no funding for
that,” she said. “And at least half of the states no longer make the teaching
of civics and government a requirement for high school graduation. This
leaves a huge gap, and we can’t forget
that the primary purpose of public schools in America has always been to help
produce citizens who have the knowledge and the skills and the values to
sustain our republic as a nation, our democratic form of government.”[bold added] |
|
“School
board going to court against state” |
11/23/2009 |
Houston
Chronicle online; author Robin Foster |
“The Alief Independent School District's board of trustees voted 5-2
last week to join other school districts in the region in a civil lawsuit
challenging the Texas
Education Agency's interpretation of a state law that applies to
their grading policies.” |
|
8/24/2010 |
Houston Chronicle online; author Ericka Mellon |
“The group of Texas
school districts that lost a court battle in June over a new
grading law has decided not to appeal the judge's decision that bars them
from forcing teachers to give students grades they didn't earn.” |
|
|
“What's
Trust Got To Do With It? A Communications and Engagement Guide for School
Leaders Tackling the Problem of Persistently Failing Schools” |
2011 |
“The rationale for taking bold action on the nation’s persistently
failing schools can be summed up in one dramatic and disturbing statistic:
half of the young Americans who drop out of high school attend just 12
percent of the nation’s schools.” |
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|
“New state exam has schools juggling” |
3/28/2012 |
Houston
Chronicle; B1. |
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|
“Business precepts may not cure schools but could help….Hart: Business
world offers ideas on educating with less” |
4/1/2012 |
Houston
Chronicle; B1, B2; author Patricia Kilday Hart |
“[W]hen some expert inevitably mentions how businesses measure the
cost of producing widgets. Any public school teacher reading this right now
will immediately recognize the flaw in this comparison: A factory manager
gets to select his raw materials…. [Widgets] do not bring cellphones to the
factory and play with them….” “We need to figure out where and how money spend on education produces
better results.” |
|
“STARR chamber: With so many standardized tests, do our schools have
time for education?” |
4/1/2012 |
Houston
Chronicle editorial; B11. |
“Even Education Commissioner Robert Scott, usually a proponent of
standardized tests and school accountability, has been widely quoted
discussing the ‘perversion’ of those tests’ original mission, and decrying
the ‘military-industrial complex’ that’s grown up around test prep.” |
|
“Board of Education: The Chronicle endorses these common-sense
candidates in contested local primary races” |
5/25/2012 |
Houston
Chronicle editorial, B8 |
Brief description of the issues with the SBOE and Texas textbooks |
For information or problems with this link, please email using the email
address below.
|
WCJC Department: |
History – Dr. Bibus |
|
Contact Information: |
281.239.1577 or bibusc@wcjc.edu |
|
Last Updated: |
2012 – 06/04 |
|
WCJC Home: |
[i] Braddock uses as an example a skilled-worker
grandfather who “read the encyclopedia for fun,” who “often worked on complex
farm equipment,” and who “essentially trained himself.” His grandfather “spent”
a “good portion of his day … learning exactly how something was put together
before he could even start the back-breaking work of repairing it.”
Braddock
quotes Mike Rowe, “host of ‘Dirty Jobs’ on Discovery Channel,” who said “We
talk about creating millions of shovel-ready jobs for a society that doesn’t
really encourage people to pick up a shovel.” He also quotes state senator Dan
Patrick who said “Everyone should have the option to go to college. But not
everyone should be tracked to go to a four-year university…. We need to value
what I call blue collar work.”
The complexity is that Braddock’s grandfather represents the self-teaching reader who is first of all able to figure things out for himself and secondly who is willing to get dirty to get a job done—not just shovel where they are told to shovel. The division may not be between those who go to college and do not, but between those who know how to figure things out and act to get work done.