Is Texas Behind in Education?

It has been said that “Texas has four of the 10 least educated cities in the country and only one of the 10 most educated cities in the U.S,” according to a recent study by WalletHub. With these statistics, is Texas falling behind when it comes to education?

In this study, they analyzed and compared the nation’s 150 largest metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs). They looked at the quality of the public systems, education gap, gender, etc. There were four areas that took the four of the bottom nine spots in the rank. These areas include The Brownsville-Harlingen, McAllen-Edinburg-Mission, Beaumont-Port Arthur and Corpus Christi. Why is this happening? What factors contribute to the second largest state in America taking four of the bottom spots on the list? Not acceptable.

Education has evolved over the last decade when it comes to how students learn, and who’s doing the learning. COVID did not help the education system, but even before COVID, there has been a decline in school success rates. We see this happening now with one of our biggest school districts in the state of Texas (HISD) as they were taken over by the state due to low performing schools.

I believe that some of these factors that are hindering our students aren’t new factors. These include limited resources, low income neighborhoods, high turnovers, getting high quality teachers, etc. We can also add to the list high stakes testing, parental involvement, schools maybe not keeping up with updated educational trends, just to name a few. Regardless of the issues that may be impacting, we have to find a way to improve our school systems.

For me, it starts with parental involvement. We need our parents and guardians involved in their child’s education. Children need our support, without it, their success will be harder to obtain. We have a lot of work to do.