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Mel Moy (1960)
In viewing the Wikipedia article about Sam Houston High, it gave a demographic breakdown of enrollment for 2005-2006 and showed 3% White, 91% Hispanic, and 6% Afro-American. I haven't been through the area in decades. Would you say that is representative of the residents in the area today? As Glen (sorry, I initially callled you Gary) just said. Times and people have changed.
I'm happy to learn that they somehow managed to get German into the language curriculum. I would have chosen that over Latin, but might never have had the great pleasure of having Mrs. Dagmar Root as my teacher for so many semesters. And, Glen, you were fortunate and wise to have selected debate. I didn't do that because I wasn't interested and thought it would divert me away from college-bound courses. That was a mistake. I now fervently believe that debate and other activities that train you in public speaking are probably more important than anything else you can do. It is a skill we value in our society, but do little to prepare people. A person who learns how to organize his/her thoughts and can present them well in public will always go far. Public speaking is the greatest phobia people have.
Judy, you mentioned New Math. Well, New Math has been "new" now since before 1960. Like most of you, I learned traditional, practical, computational arithmetic. But I had a lot of exposure to one form or other of "new math". A big problem is that educators thought they could throw a switch--much like they are doing today--and have traditionally trained instructors teach "new math" well before they could fully understand and appreciate what they are trying to teach. You can't share the message if you don't have it to share. Common-Core suffers from that. New Math is the teaching of a subject, not a skill.
When you learn traditional math, you are essentially taught a computational skill. Some people get it, others struggle. Those who are better at it either consciously or subconsciously recognize some underlying characteristics of the number system that help them. New Math was supposed to emphasize those underlying characteristics in hope that more people could benefit from understanding them. But it ended up looking like a lot of hand waving compared to straightforward arithmetic. Who cares as long as you can always come up with the correct answer, right? Why go through that hocus-pocus? And 99% of the time I'll agree. And it may be true 100% of the time for most of you. There is nothing interesting to be gained by New Math for the computations you and I do on a daily basis.
But you may be unaware of the many instances in higher mathematics in which set theory, different number bases, ring theory, topology, etc. are essential to solving problems that directly affect you. The design of computers, power distribution grids, and efficient communication networks are highly dependent on this "New Math".
I'll close with a quick example of where you practice "common-core" math and didn't realize it. Remember complaining about the fact that kids nowadays don't know how to make change without using the register? An item costs $12.15. The customer pays with a $50 bill and 15 cents in change. Without calculating, how should the clerk make change? What you just did was practicing modulo math. Congratulations. Here's your diploma.
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#3811 Judy Maxwell you stated that the school was called Houston High School prior to moving to Irvington, but my mother attended Sam Houston High School in 1934, downtown Houston I am attaching several pics to show as such 
