Grading Texas

Much has been written about the 500 or so school districts that have sued the state, seeking to force improvements in the school finance system. Expectations have been raised, but nobody can predict whether the Texas Supreme Court, which will issue the final order some months from now, will try to rescue the public schools or complete the demolition job started by the governor and the legislative majority. This Supreme Court, in many respects, is a different animal than the Supreme Court that issued the first ruling for school equity in the landmark 1989 Edgewood case.

But, let us assume that the court does order the Legislature to improve the school funding system. In that case, any celebrating still could be premature, as Wayne Pierce, the executive director of the Equity Center, which organized one of the school finance suits, pointed out yesterday in Edinburg at a town hall meeting on education.

“Even if these (school) lawyers do a fantastic job and win in court, we still have to win in the Legislature,” Pierce was quoted in the McAllen Monitor. And, he is correct.

Remember 2006? The Texas Supreme Court had issued the most recent school finance order, and school officials were optimistic that they had scored a victory. But Gov. Rick Perry turned the ruling into an opportunity to win legislation (in a reelection year special session) that slashed school property taxes by onethird. The Legislature only partially restored the lost funding with extra state money, creating an annual $5 billion “structural deficit” in the public education budget. Then, last year, Perry and the legislative majority cut $5.4 billion from the public schools.

Public school advocates have to keep the heat on the Legislature and, beginning with this year’s primaries, have to start electing legislative candidates who actually will vote for the public schools and for adequate school funding, not just make flagwaving, political statements about “supporting” public education.

And, we need to keep pressuring Gov. Perry to call the Legislature into special session now to spend $2.5 billion of the Rainy Day Fund to restore the cuts made from the 201213 education budget. We can’t wait for a court ruling and a morepermanent school finance fix to stop the school bleeding now.

State Sen. Eddie Lucio, DBrownsville, who arranged the town hall meeting in Edinburg, signed TSTA’s petition demanding the special session. Thousands of other concerned Texans have done the same. If you haven’t, you can find the petition by clicking on this link:

http://www.tstaweb.net/forms/2012cutsPetition.html

The many school districts, parents and other plaintiffs filing multiple school finance lawsuits against the state over the past 30 years have tried to force the Legislature to improve the public schools. A motion filed late last week in the latest round of litigation has a different smell to it. It seeks to hasten the job of dismantling public education.

If the latest plaintiffs, a group calling itself Texans for Real Efficiency and Equity in Education (or TREE), have their way, the attack on public schools, already being waged at the statehouse by Gov. Perry and the legislative majority, will continue in the courts. These plaintiffs aren’t interested in boosting public resources to improve educational opportunities for all students. They want instead to divert tax dollars to make it easier for a relatively small group of parents to send their children to charter schools and maybe private schools as well.

Austin businessman James Jones, one of the leaders of the group, admits to being inspired by Waiting for Superman, a documentary that came out a couple of years ago suggesting (wrongly) that problems with public education could be magically solved if more children would win lotteries for admission to charter schools. What the movie failed to point out was that charters, as a whole, are no more successful than traditional public schools. And, the vast majority of children will continue to be educated in traditional public schools, regardless how many charters of varying degrees of quality pop up on the landscape.

The group’s vice chairman is former State Rep. Kent Grusendorf of Arlington, a strong advocate of siphoning tax dollars for private school vouchers who wore out his welcome with his former constituents a couple of elections ago.

And, the group’s supporting cast is infiltrated with former staffers for Gov. Rick Perry and the Texas Public Policy Foundation, both of whom insisted on the $5.4 billion in cuts that the legislative majority inflicted on the public schools last year. This cast of characters wants to give the Texas Supreme Court, which ultimately will decide the school finance litigation, the opportunity to complete their public education wrecking campaign.

“Our suit is about the outcomes for the children rather than just the inputs to the system,” said Chris Diamond, one of TREE’s lawyers. What he and his clients won’t admit, however, is the more tax support the charter and private school advocates take from the public schools, the more the outcomes (i.e. quality preparation for the future) for the vast majority of Texas children will suffer.

http://www.texasobserver.org/snakeoil/schoolchoiceadvocatesenterthesschoolfinancefray

You may have noticed that Gov. Rick Perry did a round of interviews with Texas news reporters this week, apparently in an effort to keep anyone from applying the “lame duck” tag to a governor whose educational “policies” would be lame if they weren’t so harmful.

His main educational “policy,” if you want to call it that, has been to slash and burn public education, beginning in 2006 and then to an even greater degree last year. Yet, Perry continues to insist that Texas is spending plenty on our public schools.

“We’re still spending approximately $10,000 per student in Texas,” he claimed.

Actually, Texas spent $9,446 per student in 201011, according to new state education rankings from the National Education Association (NEA). And, NEA estimated, that amount plummeted to $8,908 per student (a decrease of $538) during the current 201112 school year, which absorbed the initial impact of $5.4 billion in education cuts approved by Perry and the legislative majority last spring.

These figures are based on average daily attendance (ADA), the standard by which school districts receive state aid. The national average for ADA expenditures for 201011 was $11,305. Texas ranked 41st among the states then and is probably even lower now, because while Texas’ average was dropping, the national average was rising to $11,463 for 201112. Texas is now more than $2,500 per student below the national average in ADA spending.

If you calculate the per student expenditures on enrollment, Texas fares even more poorly. On that basis, Texas spent $8,751 per student in 201011, ranking 42nd. The national average was $10,770. And, according to NEA, Texas’ per enrollee expenditure dropped to $8,265 (a $486 decrease) in 201112. The national average, meanwhile, rose to $10,976.

Guess what, folks? Those expenditures, either way you calculate them, are going to drop even more for 201213, unless the governor and the legislative majority heed TSTA’s call to stop the bleeding now. There is more than $7 billion of taxpayers’ money sitting in the bank in the Rainy Day Fund, doing nobody any good. It is time for the governor to call the Legislature into special session and spend $2.5 billion of that amount to restore the budget cuts for 201213. The economy is improving, and the fund will continue to replenish itself, leaving enough money for other state emergencies.

Perry, who hints at another reelection race in 2014 or even another presidential campaign in 2016, apparently feels the need to rehabilitate his political reputation following his recent, embarrassing presidential stumblethon. He should start by repairing some of the damage he has inflicted on our schools.

Tell the governor to stop the bleeding and restore the education cuts now by signing TSTA’s petition. You can find it by clicking on this link:

http://www.tstaweb.net/forms/2012cutsPetition.html

If the Texas Association of Business really wants to rid this state of obstacles to educational quality, it needs to start by looking in the mirror. At almost every opportunity, the business group tries to portray itself as a champion of good public schools, but its political record screams just the opposite.

TAB is not part of the solution. It is a big part of the problem.

Just this week, in Central Texas alone, at least three more school districts were in the news because of continued fallout from the deep damage that Gov. Rick Perry and the legislative majority inflicted on the public education budget last spring. Waco ISD is considering the closure of several neighborhood schools, Killeen ISD may eliminate 35 teaching positions and Hutto ISD $1.2 million short for the next school year may ax some elementary music and art teachers, increase class sizes or charge students to ride the bus.

But what has TAB President and CEO Bill Hammond been complaining about? He is upset that the state education commissioner may give ninth graders a oneyear reprieve from a requirement that the new STAAR endofcourse exams count toward 15 percent of their final grades. That would be only fair for the students, since they and their teachers – thanks to $5.4 billion in state budget cuts have fewer resources to prepare for the tests and, more importantly, maintain a strong learning environment.

In a letter to legislators this week, Hammond criticized any effort to delay the impact of the unproven new tests.

“Texas is on the road to ruin if we do not raise our standards in public education,” he wrote to lawmakers. Last week, his group took out a newspaper ad to champion the new testing system.

Teachers and parents certainly support higher standards, but achieving those standards requires much more than another standardized test. Despite Hammond’s protests, delaying the full implementation of a dubious “accountability” system for school children is going to have almost no impact on educational quality. Of far greater impact are the $5.4 billion in cuts to education funding imposed by the governor and the legislative majority, whom Hammond’s group refuses to hold accountable.

TAB’s political action committee, in fact, is a longtime supporter of the governor and, during the 2010 election cycle, supported Perry’s reelection and the election of many of the legislators who voted for the education budget cuts, while leaving more than $7 billion of taxpayers’ money unspent in the Rainy Day Fund.

If Texas is “on the road to ruin,” as Hammond claims in his letter to legislators, it isn’t because ninthgraders may get a break on a test. It is because Gov. Perry and the legislative majority continue to slash away at public education (there also were significant cuts in 2006), while continuing to enjoy political support from influential business groups, such as TAB.

If the Texas Association of Business really wants to make a positive difference for the public schools, Hammond and its other leaders can start by joining TSTA and demand that the governor call a special session now to appropriate $2.5 billion of the Rainy Day money to restore cuts for the 201213 school year. Several thousand teachers already have lost their jobs, and more than 8,200 elementary classes are larger than the limit allowed by state law. More classes will become overcrowded, and more schools will be closed if the bleeding isn’t stopped now.

Then, in the nottoodistant future, TAB should demand that the Legislature enact a morepermanent, adequate school finance system with an equitable revenue source that grows with the state’s economy. Texas’ future business workforce, after all, is at stake, and how it turns out will depend on much more than a new standardized test for children.

During last year’s legislative session, Hammond, to his credit, proposed that the Legislature spend $6 billion of the Rainy Day Fund. But Perry and the lawmakers that TAB helped to elect ignored him and spent only about half that much, while slashing the budget. Now, Hammond should repeat that demand.

TSTA’s stopthecutsnow petition can be found at this link:

http://www.tstaweb.net/forms/2012cutsPetition.html