Education
According to the 2000 United States Census, 20.5% of all adults over the age of 25 in Amarillo have obtained a bachelor's degree, as compared to a national average of 24.4% of adults over 25, and 79.3% of Amarillo residents over the age of 25 have earned a high school diploma, as compared to the national average of 80.4%.
The higher education institutions in the city are Amarillo College, a two-year community college with over 10,000 students; Wayland Baptist University, a private university based in Plainview, has a branch campus in Amarillo; Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center at Amarillo School of Pharmacy, and Texas Tech University at Amarillo, a branch campus of Texas Tech University that offers selected master's degree programs. West Texas A&M University, a regional university headquartered in nearby Canyon, has a satellite campus in the Chase Tower in downtown Amarillo.
The public primary and secondary education are mostly handled by the Amarillo Independent School District (AISD) and Canyon Independent School District. (CISD) The AISD has approximately 29,000 students in 2004 while CISD has over 8,000 students in 2005. The AISD operates 4 high schools, 9 middle schools, 36 elementary schools, a specialty high school, and an alternative school. While, the CISD has 2 high schools, 2 junior high/intermediate schools, and 4 elementary schools in Amarillo. Randall High School is located on the southern edge of Amarillo. Other school districts in the city are River Road, Highland Park, and Bushland Independent School Districts. Nonreligious and Christian denomination private schools in Amarillo include Ascension Academy, Holy Cross Catholic Academy, San Jacinto Christian Academy, Amarillo Montessori Academy, St. Andrew's Episcopal School, St. Joseph's Catholic School and St. Mary's Catholic School.
From 1922 to 1938, the author Laura Vernon Hamner, who wrote a novelized biography of Charles Goodnight, served as the Potter County school superintendent. She was a ranch historian and radio personality. In her later years, she lived in the Herring Hotel, owned by Ernest Thompson, and was often known informally as "Miss Amarillo".
Read more about this topic: Amarillo, Texas
Famous quotes containing the word education:
“The belief that all genuine education comes about through experience does not mean that all experiences are genuinely or equally educative.”
—John Dewey (1859–1952)
“Infants and young children are not just sitting twiddling their thumbs, waiting for their parents to teach them to read and do math. They are expending a vast amount of time and effort in exploring and understanding their immediate world. Healthy education supports and encourages this spontaneous learning.”
—David Elkind (20th century)
“Those things for which the most money is demanded are never the things which the student most wants. Tuition, for instance, is an important item in the term bill, while for the far more valuable education which he gets by associating with the most cultivated of his contemporaries no charge is made.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)