Grading Texas

Texas’ public schools lost another champion this week with the death of former State Rep. Ernestine Glossbrenner of Alice. Her passing follows by a few weeks that of former State Sen. Carlos Truan of Corpus Christi, who also worked hard for the public schools and the people who work in them.

Glossbrenner, whose 16year legislative career overlapped with part of Truan’s, was a former math teacher when she arrived in Austin in 1977, and she brought her experience to the legislative arena. Even then, fights for smaller class sizes, stronger learning environments, higher teacher pay and adequate and equitable school funding weren’t easy. But thanks to legislators like Glossbrenner, who gave public schools and teachers more than lip service, public education was a true priority in the statehouse. During her tenure, students, their teachers and other school employees benefited from sound advances in educational policy and working conditions.

Promoting public schools was a given in that era. The questions addressed by Glossbrenner and her colleagues were about how and to what degree the state should invest to improve schools and support educators. Contrast that to today, when the governor and the legislative “leadership” are intent on tearing down the public schools in favor of privatization.

Friends and former colleagues will remember Glossbrenner’s dedication and contributions at a memorial service at 3 p.m. tomorrow (Friday) in the House chamber in Austin. She will be buried in the Texas State Cemetery.

Known as “Ernie” by friends, colleagues and education advocates, Glossbrenner chaired the House Public Education Committee and was a lifetime TSTA member. She was honored with TSTA’s Friend of Education Award and in 1992, on the eve of her retirement from the Legislature, became the first inductee into TSTA’s Hall of Fame.

“What teachers do is so important,” Glossbrenner told the delegates to TSTA’s state convention in Dallas that year. “We cannot have a United States of America if the public schools close. We can’t even have a semblance of freedom if the public schools close.”

She warned TSTA members and other educators to take nothing in the public arena for granted but to remain vigilant and politically active. “We all have a responsibility…(to) do everything we can to see to it that people who will lead public education are elected,” she added.

Her message was important then, and, today, its importance is crucial.

If you will allow me a personal note, I helped my daughter, Taylor, celebrate her graduation last weekend from the University of Texas at Austin, where she earned a bachelor of science in biology. A graduation alone is cause for celebration, but this one was particularly noteworthy to me because it was accomplished in four years and left Taylor debtfree, which is becoming more and more of a rarity in these days of everincreasing tuition, diminishing student aid and recovering economy.

Taylor was in high school when greed, incompetence and malfeasance by people with huge incomes devastated our economy and wiped out a large chunk of her college fund and the college funds of thousands of other young people throughout the country. As a result, many of those kids and their families incurred heavy debt, while others may even have given up on college.

My family was more fortunate than many, and I am grateful. But college is an unnecessarily tough financial struggle for many middle and lowincome families in Texas, where the state “leadership” has chosen to deliberately underfund higher education and slash student aid while forcing university regents to increase tuition virtually every year. (The twoyear tuition freeze recently imposed at UTAustin, although welcome, was largely a political ploy on the part of the governor, not a permanent funding solution.)

This year’s college graduates – and their families – deserve our congratulations. Our socalled state “leaders” deserve a kick in the behind until they enact sound funding policies for higher education that promote, rather than deter, learning opportunities.

His disaster of a presidential campaign notwithstanding, Gov. Rick Perry apparently believes he can still fool most Texans all the time. Consider a dance he had with reporters in San Antonio yesterday when asked about the future job security of University of Texas at Austin President Bill Powers.

The governor denied a report he had tried to have Powers fired because Powers tried to win, over Perry’s opposition, another tuition increase at UT’s flagship. Then he added, “I don’t think it’s any big secret that I’m for keeping the cost of education down, so my suspicion is that no one in Texas thinks that I’m for tuition growth.”

What?

The cost of higher education for Texas students and their families has soared since Perry signed the law deregulating university tuition in 2003. That law was a key part of a deliberate, calculated policy to reduce appropriations for universities and replace it with higher student costs in the form of everescalating tuition.

Tuition at UTAustin has increased by more than 200 percent since the fall of 2003, and regents (Perry appointees who don’t have to answer to the voters) have imposed huge increases at other university campuses as well. And although UT regents agreed to freeze tuition at UTAustin for the next two years, as requested by the governor, tuition will continue to rise at other universities.

Meanwhile, also thanks to Perry’s budgetslashing policy, the amount of financial aid to deserving students continues to fall. Millions of dollars were cut last year from TEXAS grants, the state’s basic financial aid program. That means thousands of students and their families are digging deeper into their own pockets, or going deeper in debt. Still others are being forced to give up on their dreams of a college education.

The minor reprieve at UTAustin to the contrary, Perry is a major reason that many Texas young people are struggling to stay in school – or being priced out before they can get in.

Someone’s pants are on fire.

http://www.chron.com/news/houstontexas/article/WhiletoutinghigheredaccountabilityPerry3561067.php

One of the most overused – and misused – words in the English language, particularly in the political discourse over public education, is “reform.” I misused the word when I was a news reporter, and reporters, among many other players in the political arena, are still misusing it.

Just this week, a good reporter, in an otherwise wellreported, wellwritten story, included these words: “the homeschoolers, business groups, charter school and voucher supporters in the reform movement.” It would be better for all reporters to put the word, “reform,” in quotation marks or, better yet, use the word, “change,” instead.

The groups that were cited above certainly want to change the public education system, but many of them don’t want to reform it. They call themselves “reformers” because that is a positive word that sounds good politically.

According to the dictionary in my office, “reform,” as a verb, means to “change into another and better form.” As a noun, it means a “change for the better.” “Reform” suggests improvement, but many of these alleged public education “reformers” want to do anything but improve the public schools. Many, if they had their way, would weaken and eventually dismantle the public schools.

The vast majority of Texas children will continue to be educated in traditional public schools, not charter schools, not private schools and not home schools. Our focus and our state resources need to remain focused on traditional public schools.

Groups that support the diversion of tax dollars to pay for vouchers for private school tuition do not want to “reform” the public schools. They want to weaken them in favor of boosting private schools, where only a very limited number of children will ever be educated. Transferring tax dollars to private schools would deprive public schools and the vast majority of Texas students of needed resources.

Charter school advocates continue to mislead parents and taxpayers into thinking that charters are a silver bullet that will magically rid the country of its public school problems. Several studies, in fact, have shown that charter schools on the whole are no better or worse than traditional public schools. Some are good, some are bad and some primarily are profit centers for their operators. Is this reform? I think not.

Finally, some business people in Texas are strong supporters of public schools. Others support “reform” as a cover for various privatization schemes, such as vouchers or more testing, to enrich themselves from tax dollars. Other business leaders are hopelessly conflicted. They cry out for education “reform” while continuing to support an antieducation governor and legislative leadership that cut $5.4 billion from the public schools last year and plans to slash more next session.

Groups purporting to be public education “reformers” – even to the point of using the word, “reform,” in their titles – are a dime a dozen. Unfortunately, many don’t live up to their billing. Many others, however, genuinely want to improve public schools. Those who are truly “reformers” should be able to do their work without being associated with those who want to tear down the public schools that are the pathway to opportunity for most Texas children.