Thanks for continuing to report on this issue. Our local paper, The Round Rock Leader, refuses to publish anything critical of the local ISD, and won't even print letters to the ed criticizing the ISD. We need yours and other outlets to publicize the dismal state of the RRISD.

As a former educator (2003-2008), I wholeheartedly agree that the quality of public education is going downhill. In the 5 years that I taught, my last year (07-08) was so bad that I quit. I didn't sign up to just be a babysitter to the discipline problems and an administrator of the TAKS test that is so limited in its measurement of our students that it's no wonder why our kids can't really read. My students that were on target or high were left to help themselves because I had to prove that I was tutoring and focusing on my low students (or the students that were not passing the practice TAKS tests). This annoyed me and the parents. So unfortunately, the solution is not more "accountability" or "funding"; it is having higher students grouped together separate from the lower ones that would be grouped in a smaller setting. Then, your teachers focus on the level of academics and work up rather than "dumbing down" so that the low kids learn in spite of leaving the high kids to fend for themselves. Unfortunately, teachers aren't allowed to separate by grouping in this way because parents don't want their kid to know that they are low. Guess what? They know regardless of what setting they're in.