Blog comment 2

Kyle Ames’ “House Bill 11 - A Necessary Measure Taken by Governor Abbott” talks about Texas’ initiative to stop illegal immigration from Mexico and why Governor Abbott took the “right move” by passing the House Bill 11. This may be a correct statement, but the reasoning behind Ames’ support isn’t strong. 

The reasons Ames supports this bill are that “these illegal immigrants are increasing crime rates among all the Texas cities that they live in,” they are “stealing jobs,” and allegedly “many of these illegal immigrants participate in both drug trafficking and sex trafficking.” Against the first argument, with higher population comes higher crime rate. To blame the change in crime rate on immigrants specifically is a false cause. That doesn’t mean it definitely is wrong, but it isn’t a fact that the higher crime rate is because of the crime Mexicans are bringing into the U.S., the crime rate is always larger in higher populated areas. In response to the second argument, immigrants don’t steal jobs because the jobs immigrants typically work aren’t jobs that people want or are willing to do. More often than not, these are low paying service jobs that need to be done, but pay is too low to be an attractive job to average citizens, and this is the job market immigrants typically come for. Lastly, Ames states that drug and sex trafficking happen and many of the immigrants are involved in the system. After this accusation, Ames gives no statistics or even a quote from a credible source saying this is true, but just suggests we take his word for it. This statistic could be completely forged with no evidence. 

Of course this blog is opinion based and Ames has every right to believe that House Bill 11 is necessary and productive, but these arguments don’t have me convinced. This article more so makes me further the conversation by asking is the problem illegal immigration or are the immigrants not welcome? 

Top 10% isn't unfair, it makes the system fair

In Texas, a law most commonly known as the “top ten percent rule” requires that public colleges and universities accept students who have ranked within the top ten percent of their graduating high school class. Texas should continue to use this law for its public schools because it is a great equalizer for students at schools that may or may not be considered by certain schools for unfair reasons. 

Opposition to this law say that this rule is unfair based on the idea that there are people who receive a better education in high school by going to specific institutions and therefore deserve to be in the universities of their liking more than those that are in the top ten percent of their class. However, there are two reason why without the top ten percent rule the acceptance system would be unfair. 

For one, students are put in specific high schools based on the area of their city that they live. For example, I know a student who lived close to the border between Akins High School and Bowie High School in Austin, and this student attempted to go to Bowie based on the illusion that it is a better school, but was forced to Akins because of they lived on that side of the district boundary line. Because of this, to deny a student from Akins within the top ten percent of their class and accept a student from Bowie with a lower ranking or vice versa just because of the school’s name is unfair to the students who work hard to do their best regardless of the school they are forced to go to. 

Secondly, under TEC §51.803, the same law that requires automatic acceptance, the student who is within the top ten percent must still meet minimum requirements such as a good score on SAT/ACT standardized tests and a complete and sufficient application. Though Texas has this law, there is still a possibility that the student can be denied acceptance if the student fails to complete these requirements. Also, universities and colleges that must follow this law only have give 75% of their admissions to students who satisfy the automatic acceptance percentile. UT’s admissions website states that they minimize their automatic acceptance to 75%, so their top percent cut off varies yearly. The last few years have went between top 7% - 8%. 

I was accepted to UT for Fall of 2013 based on the automatic acceptance law. I graduated ranked within the top 6% of my class at a high school school that was presumed to be worse off than others. I’m positive that if it weren’t for the top ten percent law, I wouldn’t have been accepted to UT, yet I know peers who went to a high school that was ‘better’ than mine who are struggling and peers who went to a high school ‘worse’ than mine who are excelling. TEC §51.803 gives a chance to students who wouldn’t receive one otherwise. 

Blog comment

Beaudoin’s blog post “Keep Taxes Low By Getting Texas High” makes great points on why Texas should legalize the commercial sale of marijuana. The author does a good job staying on topic and uses good statistics to display the benefits of using marijuana as a good way to receive tax revenue. The legalization isn’t a new topic and has been implemented in other parts of the US, and Beaudoin does a great job of using that information to support the argument. 

However, I did dislike the extreme hypothetical example used to support the argument that marijuana should be legalized. The use of this very far out example makes me step back as a reader after being successfully convinced to agree with the argument. If the author just used a basic example of having that on their record and being held back, that would be a sufficient enough. 

Overall, this blog post was effective despite a minor hiccup.