COLUMN: A year’s wait can make all the difference for your child
We here at The Dallas Morning News do not, traditionally, consider it our role to dictate the details of your sex life.
But if you want your next spawn to rise to the top of his or her class, here’s a bit of advice: Listen to the mistletoe and snuggle up to your loved one some time around Christmas Day.
That should put your kid on track for a mid-September birthday - and a vastly improved chance at being high school valedictorian.
Confused? That advice is based on a little experiment I did recently on the connection between a child’s birthday and academic success in school. But it has larger implications.
In Texas, kids are supposed to enter kindergarten if they’ve turned 5 by Sept. 1. Individual school districts are allowed to sneak in younger kids, and parents can choose to hold their kids out of school for an extra year. But the vast majority of kids start school in that one-year window.
How do those kids turn out years later, when it comes time for graduation?
The News publishes a list of the area’s valedictorians. I pulled all 207 of this year’s into a spreadsheet and used driver’s license records to look up their dates of birth. (I found 165 of them.)
TEA hears Lancaster’s 4-day school plan, considers audit; District’s finances raise concerns in waiver push
AUSTIN - The dispute over Lancaster ISD’s proposed four-day school week reached Austin on Thursday as supporters and critics aired their views to the state education commissioner.
Meanwhile, the Texas Education Agency is considering whether to send a team of auditors to the school district to check on worrisome financial data.
“It does appear that there is a significant, or has been a significant budget discrepancy,” acting Commissioner Robert Scott said after Thursday’s meeting, which was closed to the news media.
Mr. Scott will make the final decision on whether Lancaster will be granted a state waiver that would allow the 6,000-student district to offer fewer than the standard 180 school days.
After the 90-minute presentation Thursday, Lancaster schools Superintendent Larry Lewis said he felt it had gone “great.”
“I think they saw the benefits for kids, that it wasn’t just about cost savings and that there are some strong instructional reasons for doing this,” he said. “We are real excited about it and look forward to hearing from him. Regardless of what they do, they heard us today, and our kids got the benefit of the hearing.”
