Houston Independent School District
The Houston Independent School District is the largest public school system in Texas, the seventh-largest in the United States. Houston ISD serves as a community school district for most of the city of Houston and several nearby and insular municipalities in addition to some unincorporated areas. Like most districts in Texas it is independent of the city of Houston and all other municipal and county jurisdictions; the district has its headquarters in the Hattie Mae White Educational Support Center in Houston. In 2016, the school district was rated "met standards" by the Texas Education Agency; the Brunner Independent School District merged into Houston schools in 1913-1914. Houston ISD was established in 1923 after the Texas Legislature voted to separate the city's schools from the municipal government. In the 1920s, at the time Edison Oberholtzer was superintendent, Hubert L. Mills, the business manager of the district, had immense political power in HISD, he had been in the employment of the district over one decade.
By the 1930s the two men were in a power struggle. The number of students in public schools in Houston increased from 5,500 in 1888 to over 8,850 in 1927. In the 1920s, the school district expanded its infrastructure to accommodate a growing number of black students. There were 8,293 students in Houston's schools for black students in the 1924-1925 school year. In 1927, Houston ISD annexed the Harrisburg School District's colored school; the district built new schools such as the former Jack Yates High School and Wheatley High School. The capacity of Houston's secondary schools for black children increased by three times from 1924 to 1929; the original secondary school for blacks was named Colored High School. At the time, the district's three secondary schools for black students had junior high and senior high levels. There were 12,217 students in the black schools in the 1929-1930 school year. William Henry Kellar, author of Make Haste Slowly: Moderates and School Desegregation in Houston, wrote that conditions in black schools "improved dramatically" in the 1920s.
Houston ISD absorbed portions of the White Oak Independent School District in 1937 and portions of the Addicks Independent School District after its dissolution. In the fall of 1960 12 black students were admitted to HISD schools reserved for whites; the racial integration efforts in HISD, beginning in 1960, were characterized by a lack of violence and turmoil as business leaders sought not to cause disruption. Prior to 1960 HISD was the largest racially segregated school system in the United States. In the mid-1960s Gertrude Barnstone and Black board member Hattie Mae White, the sole politically liberal members of the school board clashed with more conservative board members in meetings held on Monday nights. During the 1960s, HISD's school board instituted a phase-in with each subsequent grade being integrated. Local African-American leaders believed the pace was too slow, William Lawson, a youth minister, asked Wheatley students to boycott school. Five days afterwards 10% of Wheatley students attended classes.
In 1970 a federal judge asked the district to speed the integration process. Mexican Americans were being discriminated against when they were being labeled as whites and being put with only African Americans as part of HISD's desegregation / integration plan; this kept both Mexican Americans and African Americans away from Anglos while satisfying integration requirements set forth by the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education court case decision. Many Mexican Americans took their children out of the public schools and put them in "huelga," or protest schools. On August 31, 1970 and organized by the Mexican-American Education Council, they began three weeks of boycotts and picketing; this action lasted three weeks, during which up to 75% of the student bodies of some high schools participated in the boycotts. During the protests MAEC demanded twenty issues to be resolved and HISD began rezoning school areas within its jurisdiction in response. However, this rezoning encouraged "white flight" since minorities were now entering "white schools" in large numbers.
At first the district used forced busing, but switched to a voluntary magnet school program in order to discourage "white flight". The district integrated races in a semi-peaceful manner. River Oaks Elementary School became the first school to implement the HISD's Vanguard Program in the fall of 1972, with a program for 4th-6th graders; this program was named the Elementary School For The Gifted. The Vanguard Program name was adopted a year later. A desegregation busing plan, protested by Anglo White westside neighborhoods not wanting their children bused to predominately black schools, was rejected by the court system but white flight began by the 1970s. In 1987 Olivia Munoz, the district's foreign language director, said that an increase in interest in foreign languages prompted the district to add foreign language languages to four high schools. In 1992, the district, under superintendent Frank Petruzielo, massively rezoned Houston schools, moving students from overcrowded ones to underutilized ones.
Donald R. McAdams, a former HISD school board member and author of Fighting to Save Our Urban Schools-- and Winning!: Lessons from Houston, wrote that Petruzielo accomplished this goal with a minimum of press coverage and controversy by using a participative process that minimized conflict between various Houston neighborhoods. McAdams credits the move with being the catalyst for the 1995 establishment of 11 geographic districts patterned around high school feeder patterns. In 1994
West University Place, Texas
West University Place called West University or West U for short, is a city located in the U. S. state of Texas within the Houston–The Woodlands–Sugar Land metropolitan area and southwestern Harris County. As of the 2010 U. S. Census, the population of the city was 14,787, it is nicknamed "The Neighborhood City" and is a bedroom community for upper-class families. West University Place is surrounded by the cities of Bellaire and Southside Place; as of 2011, West University Place has the state's fifth highest concentration of households with incomes $150,000 or greater. All street names in West University Place are allusions to universities and poets; the city was developed in 1917 by a former Tennessee governor. The name "West University Place" originated from its proximity to Rice Institute, now known as Rice University; the first lots in the community were sold in 1917. Portions of West University were within the Harris County Poor farm, which extended from an area between Bellaire Boulevard and Bissonnet Street, eastward to an area near the "poor farm ditch."In the 1920s, Lillian "Lilly" Nicholson, a Rice University English major, lived with a friend whose father was a city planner.
The city planner asked her friend to name the streets of West University Place. Nicholson took names from her English literature book and gave them to the streets in West University Place; as a result, many West University streets are named after authors, such as Geoffrey Chaucer, John Dryden, William Shakespeare. Cydney Mackey, a family friend of Nicholson, said in a Houston Chronicle article, "Aunt Lilly had always said she wanted to be an architect, unknown for women in that era, this was her way of making a small but lasting mark on our city's landscape." One street, Weslayan Road, is a misspelling of "Wesleyan."The City of West University Place was declared incorporated by the County Judge of Harris County on January 2, 1924. The city incorporated because Houston was reluctant to extend power lines that far from the city center. West University Place, unlike Houston Heights, did not consolidate into the City of Houston; because of the 1923 incorporation, Houston did not incorporate West University Place's territory into its city limits, while Houston annexed surrounding areas that were unincorporated.
In 1939, the municipality refused to consolidate adopting a formal city charter the following year. The city had around 15,000 residents in the 1970s; the city had 12,714 people in 1990. Prior to 1992 West University Place liberalized its development rules; this allowed developers to build new houses within the city. Don Stowers of the Houston Post said that West University Place changed from an "aging middle class neighborhood" consisting of mid-20th century bungalows and cottages to an wealthy community of "dare we say, young urban professionals in their austere red-brick Georgians." As new houses appeared, property values increased and the city began to get more tax money. West University Place ran out of available lots, its construction peaked. Area home buyers began to consider nearby Bellaire because it had more inexpensive and larger lots, amenities described by Stowers as "comparable" to West University Place's amenities. In 2011 the group On Numbers ranked West U as the community in the Southern United States with the highest quality of life.
It was ranked number one in a comparison of regional winners. West University Place is located at 29°42′57″N 95°25′59″W. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 2.0 square miles, all of it land. The City of Houston surrounds much of West University Place; the boundaries are Bellaire Boulevard/Holcombe Boulevard, Kirby Drive, Bissonnet Road, Community Drive. West University Place is 6 miles from Downtown Houston; the city's boundaries are Kirby Drive to the east, Union Pacific St. Louis Southwestern Railway railroad track to the west, Bellaire Boulevard/West Holcombe Boulevard to the south, Bissonnet and Law Streets to the north. Viewed on a map, the city shape resembles a little house, with a "chimney" to the west side, since it surrounds the city of Southside Place, a "door" is formed on the map surrounding Southside Place; the Poor Farm Ditch is a ditch that drains into the Brays Bayou that belonged to the Harris County poor farm. In 1928 the ditch was dredged.
On occasions the ditch still flooded. The commissioners of the City of West University adjourned their meeting so they could dam streets in December 1935; the Harris County Flood Control District, in 1954, widened and deepened the ditch and added a concrete bottom and siding. During that year the district installed a chain link fence. To make the ditch more attractive, the Sunset Terrace Garden Club planted oleanders around the ditch; the West University Garden Club maintained the flowers. A 2001 Edloe Greenbelt proposal called for the removal of the flowers; the typical lot size in West University Place is 5,000 square feet. The original housing stock of West University Place consisted of mid-20th century bungalows and cottages. Prior to 1992 the City of West University place liberalized its development rules, allowing for new houses to be built in the city; as lot sizes were about 50 feet by 120 feet, the houses constructed were Georgian houses described by Don Stowers of the Houston Post as "lot hugging."
Because nearby Bellaire had larger, more inexpensive lots, many area home seekers began to consider Bellaire. In a 15-year period ending in 2002 around half of the existing houses in W
Houston Press
The Houston Press is an online newspaper published in Houston, United States. It is headquartered in the Midtown area, it was a weekly print newspaper until November 2017. The publication is supported by advertising revenue and is free to readers, it reports a monthly readership of 1.6 million online users. Prior to the 2017 cessation of the print edition, the Press was found in restaurants, coffee houses, local retail stores. New weekly editions were distributed on Thursdays; the weekly Houston Press was founded in 1989. Chris Hearne and Kirk Cypel conceived of this news and entertainment weekly after rejecting a business plan to relaunch Texas Business Magazine. Hearne and John Wilburn, who managed the Sunday magazine of the Dallas Morning News, jointly established the magazine. Hearne was Cypel served as the organization's business advisor. Although the paper faced early challenges, the landscape changed when Hearne and Cypel engineered a buyout of 713 Magazine, a key competitor. Once in control of 713, they converted advertisers to the Houston Press.
Thereafter, the Houston Press's advertising and circulation grew dramatically. Prior to the establishment of the Houston Press, the city did not have a major alternative weekly publication, its original cover story was about the election of the Mayor of Houston. For the newspaper's first five years, Niel Morgan served as the investor, therefore the owner. Due to Wilburn's desire to get mainstream advertising, he chose not to run sexually-oriented advertising. After Wilburn and Morgan found themselves disagreeing over aspects of the paper, Wilburn quit. In the period before 1993 the Houston Press experienced financial difficulties; that year Morgan sold the paper, to New Times Media. Sexually-oriented advertising appeared after the sale; the paper's fortunes improved due to the dot-com bubble of 1997-2001 and the increase in advertising. In 1998 Houston Press acquired the assets of an alternative paper, Public News, ceasing operations. Employees of Public News' sales department began working for the Houston Press.
That year Margaret Downing became the primary editor. There were 23 reporters and editors in 1998. Michael Hardy stated in the Texas Observer that the "heyday" of the paper was around 2004. Advertising-related income declined due to the rise of persons reading articles online, as well as the establishment of Craigslist. In 2005, New Times acquired Village Voice Media, changed its name to Village Voice Media. In September 2012, Village Voice Media executives Scott Tobias, Christine Brennan and Jeff Mars bought Village Voice Media's papers and associated web properties from its founders and formed Voice Media Group; the paper's fortunes declined, as Backpage, which separated from Village Voice Media, had contributed significant funding. On November 3, 2017, Voice Media Group announced that it would cease printing of the Press, moving to online-only publication, the paper will only use freelance journalists. Voice Media Group cited Hurricane Harvey as the final factor behind the cessation, Downing stated that a recession in the oil industry and the decline of revenue from advertising contributed to the decision.
The majority of the Press employees, including nine full-time editorial staff members and at least 6 employees on the advertising staff, lost their jobs. Downing and publisher Stuart Folb continued, along with a small advertising staff and marketing manager; the online-only scenario was a compromise reached by Downing and Folb with the owners, who wished to shut the paper down. Hardy stated that the Houston Press, known for its coverage of the culture of Houston, was like a "court jester" compared to the Houston Chronicle being the "king" of Houston's journalism industry, he added that "The Press established a reputation for punching above its weight" in regards to investigative journalism, citing how an article lead to the exoneration of Roy Criner. The publication included John Nova Lomax's articles on the cityscape and music as well as Robb Walsh's articles on the cuisine of Houston; the headquarters of the Houston Press are located in Midtown Houston on 2603 LaBranch Street. Prior to 1998, the Houston Press was located in Suite 1900 of the 2000 West Loop South building in Uptown Houston, off of the 610 Loop West Loop.
In 1998, it moved to a new location in Downtown Houston, which became the Houston Press building and was built in 1927. That building is in close proximity to the ExxonMobil Building. Shelor Motor Company was the building's first occupant and used it as an automobile showroom. Beginning in the 1960s, the facility served as the Gillman Pontiac dealership building. In 1994 Suzanne Sellers painted a 50-foot by 240-foot trompe-l'œil mural, located around two of the building's sides; this mural is visible from Leeland and Travis streets. In 2008 the Houston Press building received damage from Hurricane Ike since the hurricane caused water to go through the parking area on the building's roof into the offices. In 2010 the Houston Press installed new energy efficient windows in place of the original glass windows on the facility's second and third floors. On the weekend after Friday October 25, 2013 the Houston Press was scheduled to move to its new offices in Midtown. Up until the November 2017 loss of salaried staff, the Houston Press
K–8 school
K–8 schools, elementary-middle schools, or K–8 centers are schools in the United States that enroll students from kindergarten/pre-K through 8th grade, combining the typical elementary school and junior high or middle school. As of 2007, many American private schools have K–8 configurations; the "junior high school" concept was introduced in 1909. In the late 19th century and early 20th century most American elementary schools had grades 1 through 8; as time passed, until the 1940s, junior high schools increased quickly. The installation of junior high schools was made in order to provide more academic and social opportunities for adolescent students prior to entering high school. By the 1960s many U. S. school districts separated the elementary and junior high school levels, with seventh through ninth grade students at junior high school. As years passed, the model changed to middle schools serving grades six through eight. By 2007, in some communities, schools in areas where academic performance at the middle school level was low were converting back to the K–8 model in an attempt to increase academic performance.
By 2008 many urban school systems converted middle schools to K–8 schools. Districts moving to K–8 schools included the Baltimore City Public School System, Cincinnati Public Schools, the School District of Philadelphia. Jennifer Radcliffe of the Houston Chronicle said that teachers said that the scenario that "students aren't tripped up during the disruptive year that they transition to middle school" was "ne of the biggest perks" of the conversion to K–8 schools. Radcliffe said that experts told her that "By staying on the same campus, kids can focus on academics, rather than being forced to re-establish themselves socially. Teachers are able to establish solid relationships with families; as a result, parents are more apt to stay involved with the campus through the middle school years". Radcliffe added that "One drawback is that K–8s aren't able to offer the same number of electives or athletic programs as comprehensive middle schools." Wiles, John. Developing Successful K–8 Schools: A Principal's Guide.
Corwin Press, June 10, 2009. ISBN 1412966175, 9781412966177
Texas
Texas is the second largest state in the United States by both area and population. Geographically located in the South Central region of the country, Texas shares borders with the U. S. states of Louisiana to the east, Arkansas to the northeast, Oklahoma to the north, New Mexico to the west, the Mexican states of Chihuahua, Nuevo León, Tamaulipas to the southwest, while the Gulf of Mexico is to the southeast. Houston is the most populous city in Texas and the fourth largest in the U. S. while San Antonio is the second-most populous in the state and seventh largest in the U. S. Dallas–Fort Worth and Greater Houston are the fourth and fifth largest metropolitan statistical areas in the country, respectively. Other major cities include Austin, the second-most populous state capital in the U. S. and El Paso. Texas is nicknamed "The Lone Star State" to signify its former status as an independent republic, as a reminder of the state's struggle for independence from Mexico; the "Lone Star" can be found on the Texan state seal.
The origin of Texas's name is from the word taysha. Due to its size and geologic features such as the Balcones Fault, Texas contains diverse landscapes common to both the U. S. Southern and Southwestern regions. Although Texas is popularly associated with the U. S. southwestern deserts, less than 10% of Texas's land area is desert. Most of the population centers are in areas of former prairies, grasslands and the coastline. Traveling from east to west, one can observe terrain that ranges from coastal swamps and piney woods, to rolling plains and rugged hills, the desert and mountains of the Big Bend; the term "six flags over Texas" refers to several nations. Spain was the first European country to claim the area of Texas. France held a short-lived colony. Mexico controlled the territory until 1836 when Texas won its independence, becoming an independent Republic. In 1845, Texas joined the union as the 28th state; the state's annexation set off a chain of events that led to the Mexican–American War in 1846.
A slave state before the American Civil War, Texas declared its secession from the U. S. in early 1861, joined the Confederate States of America on March 2nd of the same year. After the Civil War and the restoration of its representation in the federal government, Texas entered a long period of economic stagnation. Four major industries shaped the Texas economy prior to World War II: cattle and bison, cotton and oil. Before and after the U. S. Civil War the cattle industry, which Texas came to dominate, was a major economic driver for the state, thus creating the traditional image of the Texas cowboy. In the 19th century cotton and lumber grew to be major industries as the cattle industry became less lucrative, it was though, the discovery of major petroleum deposits that initiated an economic boom which became the driving force behind the economy for much of the 20th century. With strong investments in universities, Texas developed a diversified economy and high tech industry in the mid-20th century.
As of 2015, it is second on the list of the most Fortune 500 companies with 54. With a growing base of industry, the state leads in many industries, including agriculture, energy and electronics, biomedical sciences. Texas has led the U. S. in state export revenue since 2002, has the second-highest gross state product. If Texas were a sovereign state, it would be the 10th largest economy in the world; the name Texas, based on the Caddo word táyshaʼ "friend", was applied, in the spelling Tejas or Texas, by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves the Hasinai Confederacy, the final -s representing the Spanish plural. The Mission San Francisco de los Tejas was completed near the Hasinai village of Nabedaches in May 1690, in what is now Houston County, East Texas. During Spanish colonial rule, in the 18th century, the area was known as Nuevo Reino de Filipinas "New Kingdom of the Philippines", or as provincia de los Tejas "province of the Tejas" also provincia de Texas, "province of Texas", it was incorporated as provincia de Texas into the Mexican Empire in 1821, declared a republic in 1836.
The Royal Spanish Academy recognizes both spellings and Texas, as Spanish-language forms of the name of the U. S. State of Texas; the English pronunciation with /ks/ is unetymological, based in the value of the letter x in historical Spanish orthography. Alternative etymologies of the name advanced in the late 19th century connected the Spanish teja "rooftile", the plural tejas being used to designate indigenous Pueblo settlements. A 1760s map by Jacques-Nicolas Bellin shows a village named Teijas on Trinity River, close to the site of modern Crockett. Texas is the second-largest U. S. state, with an area of 268,820 square miles. Though 10% larger than France and twice as large as Germany or Japan, it ranks only 27th worldwide amongst country subdivisions by size. If it were an independent country, Texas would be the 40th largest behind Zambia. Texas is in the south central part of the United States of America. Three of its borders are defined by rivers; the Rio Grande forms a natural border with the Mexican states of Chihuahua, Nuevo León, Tamaulipas to the south.
The Red River forms a natural border with Arkansas to the north. The Sabine River forms a natural border with Louisiana to the east; the Texas Panhandle has an eastern border with Oklahoma at 100° W, a northern border with Oklahoma at 36°30' N and a western
Typing
Typing is the process of writing or inputting text by pressing keys on a typewriter, computer keyboard, cell phone, or calculator. It can be distinguished from other means such as handwriting and speech recognition. Text can be in the form of letters and other symbols; the world's first typist was Lillian Sholes from Wisconsin, the daughter of Christopher Sholes, who invented the first practical typewriter. User interface features such as spell checker and autocomplete serve to facilitate and speed up typing and to prevent or correct errors the typist may make; the basic technique stands in contrast to hunt and peck typing in which the typist keeps his or her eyes on the source copy at all times. Touch typing involves the use of the home row method, where typists keep their wrists up, rather than resting them on a desk or keyboard. To avoid this, typists should sit up tall, leaning forward from the waist, place their feet flat on the floor in front of them with one foot in front of the other, keep their elbows close to their sides with forearms slanted upward to the keyboard.
Many touch typists use keyboard shortcuts when typing on a computer. This allows them to edit their document without having to take their hands off the keyboard to use a mouse. An example of a keyboard shortcut is pressing the Ctrl key plus the S key to save a document as they type, or the Ctrl key plus the Z key to undo a mistake. Many experienced typists can feel or sense when they have made an error and can hit the ← Backspace key and make the correction with no increase in time between keystrokes. Hunt and peck is a common form of typing in. Instead of relying on the memorized position of keys, the typist must find each key by sight. Use of this method may prevent the typist from being able to see what has been typed without glancing away from the keys. Although good accuracy may be achieved, any typing errors that are made may not be noticed due to the user not looking at the screen. There is the disadvantage that because fewer fingers are used, those that are used are forced to move a much greater distance.
There are many idiosyncratic typing styles in between novice-style touch typing. For example, many "hunt and peck" typists have the keyboard layout memorized and are able to type while focusing their gaze on the screen; some use just two fingers. Some use their fingers consistently, with the same finger being used to type the same character every time, while others vary the way they use their fingers. One study examining 30 subjects, of varying different styles and expertise, has found minimal difference in typing speed between touch typists and self-taught hybrid typists. According to the study, "The number of fingers does not determine typing speed... People using self-taught typing strategies were found to be as fast as trained typists... instead of the number of fingers, there are other factors that predict typing speed... fast typists... keep their hands fixed on one position, instead of moving them over the keyboard, more use the same finger to type a certain letter." To quote doctoral candidate Anna Feit: "We were surprised to observe that people who took a typing course, performed at similar average speed and accuracy, as those that taught typing to themselves and only used 6 fingers on average" Some people combine touch typing and hunt and peck by using a buffering method.
In the buffer method, the typist looks at the source copy, mentally stores one or several sentences looks at the keyboard and types out the buffer of sentences. This eliminates frequent up and down motions with the head and is used in typing competitions in which the typist is not well versed in touch typing. Not used in day-to-day contact with keyboards, this buffer method is used only when time is of the essence. A late 20th century trend in typing used with devices with small keyboards, is thumbing or thumb typing; this can be accomplished using both thumbs. Similar to desktop keyboards and input devices, if a user overuses keys which need hard presses and/or have small and unergonomic layouts, it could cause thumb tendonitis or other repetitive strain injury. Words per minute is a measure of typing speed used in recruitment. For the purposes of WPM measurement a word is standardized to keystrokes. Therefore, "brown" counts as one word, but "mozzarella" counts as two; the benefits of a standardized measurement of input speed are that it enables comparison across language and hardware boundaries.
The speed of an Afrikaans-speaking operator in Cape Town can be compared with a French-speaking operator in Paris. In one study of average computer users, the average rate for transcription was 33 words per minute, 19 words per minute for composition. In the same study, when the group was divided into "fast", "moderate" and "slow" groups, the average speeds were 40 wpm, 35 wpm, 23 wpm respectively. An average professional typist reaches 50 to 80 wpm, while some positions can require 80 to 95 wpm, some advanced typists work at speeds above 120 wpm. Two-finger typists, sometimes referred to as "hunt and peck" typists reach sustained speeds of about 37 wpm for memorized text and 27 wpm when copying text, but in bursts may be able to reach speeds of 60 to 70 wpm. From the 1920s through the 1970s, typing speed was an important secretarial qualification and typing contests we
