What's next for Laredo Community College?

These are the possible scenarios for our historic Laredo Community College. Representatives from the Southern Association of Schools and Colleges just wrapped up a visit to the college and according to their website, here's what might happen:

Why was Laredo Community College continued in accreditation for good cause and placed on Probation?

 

Laredo Community College was continued in accreditation for good cause and placed on Probation because it had exhausted its two-year monitoring period for complying with the Principles and had failed to demonstrate compliance with Comprehensive Standards

Access the Principles of Accreditation at http://www.sacscoc.org/principles.asp.)

What will happen in June 2013?

SACSCOC Board of Trustees will consider the accreditation status of Laredo Community College following review of a Third Monitoring Report submitted by the institution addressing the standards cited above for non-compliance and the report of a Special Committee that will visit the institution in spring 2013. The Board will have the following options:

 

(1) remove the institution from Probation without a report or with a Fifth-Year Follow Up Report,

 

(2) continue accreditation for good cause and continue Probation, request an additional report, and authorize a special committee visit, or

 

(3) remove the institution from membership with the Commission on Colleges for failure to comply with the standards or failure to meet the provisions of good cause.

 

Commission staff will not speculate on what decision might be made by the Commission’s Board in June 2013.

For additional information regarding the Commission’s accreditation process, access

Compromise keeps South Texas Medical School moving forward

Recent squabbling between different South Texas legislators was threatening to derail legislative efforts to create a top tier medical school in the Rio Grande Valley. Friday, however, proved to be a day of compromise that has kept the process going.  During the last couple of weeks, there had been substantial disagreement over the exact location of the proposed Medical School. The apparent compromise includes language that signals that the Valley will share in where the future medical school will be.

I guess in this particular case, Laredo is not considered to be in the Rio Grande Valley as often has been mentioned. With Hidalgo county figuring to get part of the proposed medical school, and considering that McAllen is in Hidalgo county, is it possible that McAllen is eating our lunch again?

Excerpted from The Texas Tribune

When Senate Bill 24, which contained the original language, was brought up in the House on Friday, an amendment was added that state Rep. Rene Oliveira, D-Brownsville, standing alongside the entire Valley delegation, said was a proposal from the UT System "that cemented us together."

"Like any family, we have squabbles, and like any family, we unite," Oliveira said.

The bill as amended creates an office to oversee undergraduate education in Hidalgo County and an office to oversee graduate education in Cameron County. It says educational programs for the first two years of students' medical education should primarily be run in Hidalgo, and programs for the third and fourth year should be run in Cameron. And it also says that the system must ensure that all existing facilities and resources are fully utilized.

"Ultimately, this leaves enough flexibility for the UT System to have a regional medical school," said state Rep. Eddie Lucio III, D-Harlingen, the author of the amendment.
After SB 24 clears the House, it will go to the Senate, where it is expected to be easily approved. With the support of more than two-thirds of the Legislature, the new university will be eligible to receive money from the Permanent University Fund, a major source of revenue that only certain schools are allowed to tap.

Heritage Foundation to GOP legislators: Don't legislate!

It looks like former GOP Tea Partier Jim Demint is on a roll: a negative roll that is.  A couple of weeks ago, The Heritage Foundation (HF) took quite a bit of fire when it was found that they had hired a eugenics (see: racist) proponent that subscribes to the notion that neither immigrants nor children or grandchildren will ever achieve the same IQ levels of other "Americans".

Now, NBC news has published a letter by their politically active arm, Heritage Action For America, that essentially tells the GOP house leaders to forget legislating and instead keep the spotlight on Obama's recent slew of troubles. 

You can read the letter for yourself below. So much for calling GOP members legislators.

The Honorable John Boehner
Speaker of the House
H-232, The Capitol
Washington, DC 20515

Dear Speaker Boehner and Leader Cantor:
For the first time, the activities of the Obama administration are receiving a sustained public vetting. Americans’ outrage over Benghazi is amplified by the Internal Revenue Service’s intimidation of conservative grassroots organizations and a cascade of negative headlines. There is the real sense the Obama administration has been less than forthright with the American people, the press and lawmakers.

Recent events have rightly focused the nation’s attention squarely on the actions of the Obama administration. It is incumbent upon the House of Representatives to conduct oversight hearings on those actions, but it would be imprudent to do anything that shifts the focus from the Obama administration to the ideological differences within the House Republican Conference.
To that end, we urge you to avoid bringing any legislation to the House Floor that could expose or highlight major schisms within the conference. Legislation such as the Internet sales tax or the FARRM Act which contains nearly $800 billion in food stamp spending, would give the press a reason to shift their attention away from the failures of the Obama administration to write another “circular firing squad” article.

Make no mistake, principled conservatives will still oppose bad policy if it comes to the floor. Rather than scheduling such legislation for consideration, we urge you to keep the attention focused squarely on the Obama administration. As the public’s trust in their government continues to erode, it is incumbent upon those of us who support a smaller, less intrusive government to lead.
Sincerely,

Michael A. Needham
Chief Executive Officer
Heritage Action for America 

Will prospective teachers have to leave Laredo for degrees?

Laredo (LT) - For the last 40 years, Laredo's institutions of higher learning have been producing future teachers.  That era might be coming to an end soon if TAMIU teacher candidates do not fare better on their state certification tests. According to today's Laredo Morning Times, TAMIU failed to have at least 75 percent of its teaching candidates pass the state tests and was place on probationary status in February of this year. Now, the Texas State Board of Education is requiring 80 per cent of students to pass in order for an institution to retain its teacher accreditation.

Since around 1970, Laredoans wishing to become teachers have been able to do so without leaving town. Before that time, it was typical for high school graduates from Laredo and the surrounding area to have to go to Kingsville (Texas A&I) or elsewhere to pursue their teaching certificates.  That changed with the establishment of the education college of Texas A&I at Laredo which later became Laredo State University and eventually, the full-fledged 4 year Texas A&M International University here in Laredo.

Of course, this all looks very bad for Laredo's students. While exact figures are not given, it makes sense that perhaps those TAMIU graduates that DID pass the state exams might have not scored as high as graduates of other state teacher schools.  The recent resignation of an LISD Principal accused of manipulating STAAR test scores speaks to the very notion that our local university might NOT exactly be producing truly highly-qualified teachers.

Mayor, council give $$ raise before looooong break in council meetings

How do you like our new council chambers back there (Fed.bldg) ?

I have to give credit to Laredo mayor Raul Salinas and our city council. Their timing on giving city manager Carlos Villarreal an extremely controversial $37,000 raise was perfectly timed, especially considering our public's very short memory.

Usually, there is about a 14-day break between city council meetings. For the most part, there are two held every month. The exception(s), of course,  are when the mayor and council are up partying it up in either Austin or our nation's capitol.

After the much-maligned raise, however (on April 15th), the subsequent city council meeting is not to be held until at least about 22 days later, around May 6th. On top of this prolonged break working in favor of the unpopular council actions of late, there is always the chance that they will throw in a pseudo controversial agenda item such a beer run ordinance or something.

Our illustrious mayor and council might not learn much in the way of truly being helpful to their community, but they're learning something allright.  

Private Lobbying groups dictating Texas' educational policy?

Former Tx senator $hapiro now part of Tx. Lobbying group

It appears that Texas is planning on adopting an A through F grading system for the state's public schools.  There are many teachers, superintendents and legislators opposed to this idea while most republicans and business interests support it. The idea probably resonates a lot clearer with most of us since that is the grading system we grew up with as students.

Follow the money-makers

The Texas Education agency has a 30-member advisory panel but perhaps surprisingly, the A-F idea did not come from them. As a matter of fact, Alief  ISD superintendent, H.D.Chambers sat in on some of that panel's sessions and, according to the Texas Tribune, had this to say :

"In our opinion that wasn't the best way to create a label to the accountability system to communicate to our community about how our schools were doing. He added that there was "pretty unanimous opposition" to the A-through-F plan among the committee's 30 members over significant concerns about whether it could promote inaccurate assumptions about school performance.

So, who appears to be calling the shots up at TEA if state education commissioner Michael Williams is not taking the advice of his own 30-member panel?  How about  a business-oriented lobbying group named Texans for Education Reform?  This influential group includes former Texas senator Florence Shapiro who played a crucial role in cutting $5.4 billion form Texas schools a couple of years ago as well as former U.S. Education Secretary Rod Paige.

At present, Senate bill 1408, sponsored by republican Dan Patrick calls for the A-F grading system to become the law of the land, awaits action on the senate floor.

Move over LISD & UISD,  Harmony Come on Down!

Patrick is also busy trying to expand the number of charter schools in Texas, an extremely popular GOP initiative. The New York Times reported the following on Patrick:

In January, Mr. Patrick announced the formation of Texans Deserve Great Schools, a nonprofit coalition that includes the Laura and John Arnold Foundation, which has invested millions in Houston and Louisiana charter schools, and the San Antonio-based Brackenridge Foundation, which is part of a $50 million campaign to bring more charters to the city.

Editor's note: No wonder Harmony Science Academy started in good ol' Houston, Texas.

Wade Watch: proceed with caution when crunching numbers

Recently, Wade called these water gourds "maracas', now his math is off.

It has been a while since LaredoTejas' last "Wade Watch" posting. For those who might not remember, WadeWatch deals with statements, claims and/or other assorted views presented by good ol' Tom Wade, formerly of the Wake up Laredo radio show and current regular guest on the Jay St.John radio show which airs daily from 7am to 10am on 99.3FM. Of course, Wade also runs the fast-growing WakeUpLaredo blog.

Today, Wade decided to blog about an article appearing in Saturday's Laredo Morning Times. Specifically, the article dealt with figures on texting ordinance violations  that new LPD chief Ray Garner presented before our city council this past Monday. After crunching the numbers, Wade concluded the following:

"Let's look at the takeaway from this information.

 

To our police officers, go ahead, write the tickets, spend time going to court, but never mind, the court will dismiss the case.

 

To our drivers, go ahead, get the ticket, but never mind, if you in the 95% your fine and ticket will be dismissed.

 

To our community, go ahead, watch an ordinance be passed with great fanfare, see the police pull over a few folks and write tickets. But never mind in the end, because there is no real teeth to the ordinance once it reaches municipal court."
 

 Essentially Wade concludes that citizens should "never mind" because the ordinance has "no real teeth.   In saying to the drivers "go ahead, get the ticket" is Wade in fact "saying go ahead text while you drive?" This would not good for our public safety. That conclusion, however, is misguided.

 The problem is that Wade mis-read the numbers to begin with and so his conclusion is based on mis-information. Wade claims that out of 570 citiations issued in the 4 years since the ordinance took effect (2009), only $6,000 have been collected. He continues on to say that this reflects only about 30 fines and amounts to only about 5 percent of all citations resulting in a fine.

What Garner really said, according to the LMT article, is that while its true that 570 citations have been issued since 2009, the $6,000 collected in fines are only from the period between September 2012 and early April, 2013.  By his own admission, Garner cites that "31 fines have been issued to drivers using hand-held devices in school zones during that period".  That's pretty close to Wade's claim that only 30 drives have been fined. However, Wade's post today wrongly states that only 30 fines ($6,000) have been levied since way back in 2009 when the ordinance took effect.

Nit-picking aside,  LaredoTejas sincerely applauds Wade's expanison of his blog and his regular appearances on St. John's show.  With, our traditional media outlets lack of in-depth reporting on local issues (with some exceptions), local blogs continue to serve a public service. Also, St.John's return to the airwaves provides a more traditional vehicle for providing vital information about many many issues facing our hard-working taxpaying citizens.