Area To State

[king_leonides]

The real question is this: who gets stuck with HISD?

 

 

The music programs in Houston ISD are weak. And that is the most sensitive way I can put it.....

 

 

It is the largest school district in the state. But only 1 of its high schools made it to area finals (Westside). And in previous years, they have sent no bands to Area E finals. That's almost unreal.

 

 

Music education in that district is really appauling. I am sorry, it is. And what is the practical result? Region 23 gets stuck with that district. Area E is stuck with that district. But it produces virtually bands, to expand the field at area competition, so only 3 or 4 bands make it out of Area E to state. (Meanwhile, up to 8 bands qualify from other areas.)

 

 

 

That's real fair. Wait, no it isn't.

 

 

 

Whoever is in charge of music education in that district should really be ashamed of themselves. Sorry, but it's true. I know that district has serious problems. But honestly, could you produce more than 1 program that can qualify for area finals, please?

[herpaderp]

Part of the issue is that the big metro areas have the strongest programs, period. Certain areas are always going to be harder to get out of. Smaller areas with high numbers of great groups ( won't be easy to get out of. Bigger areas that are just stacked like D aren't easy either.

 

The only way to make it "fair" with having State made up purely of the objectively (heh) best programs/performances from across the state would be to have a pre-State competition where everyone that makes it out of region goes to one place and gets judged by the same people. Obviously this is infeasible, so you have two options:

 

a.) Raise the standards for getting out of Region significantly so that this is a manageable number of people. I think this should be done to some extent anyway. The reason being, with higher initial standards, the pools for Area advancement change to better reflect the overall quality of programs in the area. It normalizes it a bit for the small, densely concentrated talent areas.

b.) Align the areas as fairly as possible.

 

I think the best solution, as said before, is to make a new area from parts of D and G, creating what is essentially a San Antonio area. This would give the Area G bands some better top dogs to aspire to, raising up their level. Meanwhile Area D would be a little less tight, giving more room for great programs to go to State.

 

The situation with B and C is a little less familiar to me so I'm not really sure how to rectify that. They could really use an extra advancing slot each. IMO it's inexcusable that, for instance, Richland, Flower Mound, Bell, Marcus, Hebron, Plano East, and Haltom are all battling over just five slots - and it used to only be four! Any of them would make it out of at least 4 of the other areas with no problem.

 

 

And yeah, TMEA areas are crazy. E has most of the Austin schools except RR and Leander schools, along with a good chunk of Houston (Cy-Fair schools mostly) and all the heavy hitters from from San Antonio (Churchill, Reagan, Johnson). The North Texas areas are insane to get out of as well. TMEA districts need redoing much more than the UIL ones IMO.