Grading Texas

Teachers and other employees of Lufkin ISD obviously appreciate the sentiment of a strongly worded resolution the Lufkin school board adopted this week, condemning the school funding disaster being perpetrated in Austin. But I wonder, “Where has this board been the past five months?” This outrage didn’t happen overnight, and it is well down the road now.

I don’t know about Lufkin specifically, but the sad truth is that school boards and superintendents – at least the organizations that represent them in Austin – told the Legislature, in effect, that they were giving up on having an adequately funded school finance system in January. That’s when they started pressing, instead, for legislation to allow them to shift much of the looming cuts onto teachers in the form of larger classes, pay cuts and furloughs – the kind of poor educational policy that is scheduled for debate on the House floor tomorrow.

Instead of asking for budgetary “flexibility,” as they called it, the school boards and superintendents should have been joining TSTA and other teacher groups in demanding that the Legislature find new revenue for the public schools. There should have been 1,000plus strongly worded resolutions – once from each and every school board – sent to the governor, the lieutenant governor and every legislator in January, demanding that lawmakers fulfill their constitutional responsibility to the public schools. And, followup visits and phone calls to lawmakers’ offices.

School board members and superintendents are not without influence with their local legislators, but most chose to use that influence to the detriment of teachers and school kids rather than stay in the Legislature’s face over adequate funding.

The belated Lufkin resolution most likely was prompted by the distribution formulas now being considered by legislators for doling out the funding cuts. Perhaps Lufkin’s hit is worse than anticipated.

“My school children are going to suffer from the elimination of basic programs,” Lufkin Superintendent Roy Knight told the Lufkin Daily News.

So, are tens of thousands of other Texas kids, whose local school officials were more interested in accommodation than confrontation in Austin.

http://lufkindailynews.com/news/local/article_6399fb74916011e0bede001cc4c002e0.html

Gov. Rick Perry, Texas’ chaplaininchief, has invited other governors to join him for a “solemn gathering of prayer and fasting” in Houston in August, according to the news item linked below.

Although the event is described as apolitical, Perry’s participation, of course, has politics written all over it. I encourage the governor to pray, however, and pray particularly hard for the poor people who will lose health care under his politically contrived, scorched earth budgetary policies, the school teachers who will lose their jobs (and family income), the school kids who will be jammed into overcrowded classrooms and the high school graduates who no longer will be able to afford to go to college.

All the people left out in the cold by the mean budget that Perry insisted the Legislature enact also can pray for the governor to change his mind about leaving $6 billion of their money unspent in the Rainy Day Fund.

http://www.statesman.com/blogs/content/sharedgen/blogs/austin/faith/entries/2011/06/06/gov_perry_calls_for_prayer_ahe.html

Bills considered by the Legislature often have titles that are incomprehensible (except to a few lawyers) or misleading, but whoever drafted House Bill 33, a private school voucher bill by Rep. Sid Miller, came up with a doozy.

The caption identifies it as a bill “providing for efficient government resource allocation.”

Yeah, about as efficient as someone dipping his hand into the government till every other day or so.

This is a bill that would divert untold millions of state dollars from public schools that already are losing $4 billion under the new state budget. And, voucher recipients in this program wouldn’t be limited to lowincome kids from failing schools. Any family, regardless of income, could apply for tax dollars to send their children to private school.

The legislation was concocted by one of those groups that think government is here to help the rich get richer. Unfortunately, it’s the kind of message that appeals to many of Texas’ current crop of legislators.

If you want to testify against this bad bill, it is scheduled for a public hearing on Monday before the House Government Efficiency & Reform Committee in Room E2.012 of the state Capitol extension. The hearing will begin at 3 p.m. or upon adjournment of the House that day.

Miller, the sponsor, is a Republican from Stephenville.

The idea also cropped up during the regular legislative session and went nowhere. But now it gets another chance. So watch out!

The Legislature, by imposing deep budget cuts on the public schools during the regular session while leaving $6 billion of the taxpayers’ money unspent in the Rainy Day Fund, already has neglected its constitutional duty to adequately fund the public schools. And, it may stray even farther from its duty during the special session, thanks to a governor and a legislative leadership that put ideology above school kids.

As has been reported previously, the new public education budget is the first in 27 years that fails to fully fund school finance formulas and meet anticipated enrollment growth.

Now, to make matters even worse, as the Austin AmericanStatesman points out, the school finance plan being considered in the special session also would wipe out future guarantees that school districts would get enough state funding to provide a basic, foundational education for each student. Instead, the plan stipulates that future school finance appropriations would depend on how much money is available rather than how much is needed.

Sen. Dan Patrick, RHouston, defends the effort to cut what he calls an educational “entitlement,” applying the politically negative spin to the word.

“There are no guarantees, and for a Legislature to say we can guarantee this forever is not being straightforward to the people,” he said.

Patrick and every other member of the state leadership need to read Article 7, Section 1 of the Texas Constitution, which makes clear the Legislature’s responsibility to “make suitable provision for the support and maintenance of an efficient system of public free schools.”

Yes, Dan, the school kids of Texas have an educational “entitlement.” The Texas Constitution says so. And, I doubt that anyone who really values public education (beyond the lip service stage) would find the financial support provided to the public schools in the new state budget even close to “suitable.”

Patrick needs to spend more time complying with the Texas Constitution and less time making politically charged speeches exaggerating the states’ rights implications of the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. He needs to be “straightforward” with the taxpayers of Texas.

http://www.statesman.com/news/texaspolitics/onschoolfundingnoguaranteesanymore1513394.html