Texas students missing out on educational standards

My family moved a lot when I was kid. My father was a chemical engineer who worked as a construction superintendent for a company that built chemical plants. As soon as he finished constructing one plant, we would move to another location to build another one. I went to kindergarten and first grade in New York City, but then the migrations began--to Michigan City, Ind.; Lakeland, Fla.; Richmond, Calif.; New Orleans; Houston; Burlington, Ontario, Canada; and Fresno, Calif., where I completed the junior year in high school I began in Canada. At this point, my father left this employer to join Brown & Root and so we moved back to Houston. I only attended the final semester of the high school I graduated from.

I mention all this because these moves showed me first-hand the disparity of the national primary and secondary educational system. I discovered the best schools were in Canada and California. The worst in New Orleans. Texas was not high on the list. In Canada, for instance, where French was the second language, the requirements for high school graduation included seven years of French (five years of grammar, two of literature), plus two years of another foreign language (either German, Spanish or Latin). When I began high school in Houston the first time we lived there, Spanish was the only foreign-language option available in high school. And even then the Spanish teacher was primarily an algebra teacher who was recruited to teach Spanish because no one else was available. She was learning it the day before she tried to teach it to us.

Finally something is being done to correct this imbalance. Actually, something is being done in 46 states as well as in the District of Columbia, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. These 46 states—representing 80 percent of the nation’s K-12 student population—have formally agreed to join forces to create common academic standards in math and English language arts through an effort led by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers. The four states not participating are Alaska, Missouri, South Carolina and, of course, Texas. Missouri might join as soon as it finds a new state education chief.

The announcement of this process said "A primary goal is to eliminate the patchwork of academic standards across the country that result in students in the same grades learning different things in different states. The effort also is intended to devise a more rigorous common set of academic targets, and then internationally benchmark them."

I find it intolerable that Texas is not part of this coalition because it will put high school students from here at a competitive disadvantage with the other 92 percent of America's high school graduates. Our future depends on the ability of our children and we cannot shortchange their educational opportunities. If nothing else, coalitions like this force educational policy makers from all over the country to come together to share ideas. That has to be a good thing. It's a shame that Texas -- and Texas primary and secondary school students -- will have to lose out.