Grading Texas

Although it is not all that unusual for legislators to ignore common sense, those who would repeal the important 221 class size cap for K4 are being aided and abetted by some welleducated people who should (and do) know better – school superintendents.
Many superintendents would rather give up that important educational standard than demand that the Legislature pay for quality public schools.

One rationalization, which was repeated by legislators and superintendents alike in the Senate Education Committee hearing this week, was that 22 is not a “magic figure” for an optimum class size. Research, they argue, has shown that you need to have a much smaller cap, about 18 or 15 students per class, before there are proven educational improvements.

Baloney.

Research has shown repeatedly that the smaller the class, the better the outcomes. If you want to take the time to read some of it, click on the link at the bottom of this post. It will take you to a collection of studies put together on the Texas Elementary Principals and Supervisors Association’s website.

It would be great if Texas could limit its primary grade classes to 18 or 15 students. That would give teachers an even greater opportunity to give young students the individual attention they need. But Texas doesn’t have 181 or 151. And, we aren’t going to get it this session. We have 221, and we have had it for a quarter of a century because it has worked. And I would argue with anyone that 221 is better than 241 or 251. So, why retreat?

During the committee hearing, Senate Education Chairwoman Florence Shapiro said a good teacher could do a great job with an elementary class of 35 students. Maybe some good teachers can, but Shapiro misses the point. If a good teacher can do a great job with 35 students, think of how even greater a job he or she can do with 22.

http://www.tepsa.org/displaycommon.cfm?an=1&subarticlenbr=331

If there were any lingering doubts that Gov. Perry and the current legislative leadership are less interested in adequately funding public education than they are in blaming local school officials for the negative results, they should be dispelled by Perry’s comments today about who should be blamed if thousands of teachers lose their jobs because of spending cuts.

“That is a local decision that will be made at the local districts,” the governor said.

This, of course, is the same governor who, so far, is demanding that the Legislature bridge a $27 billion revenue shortfall with budget cuts alone, which means cutting $10 billion from what public education needs to keep up with enrollment growth and meet other funding requirements. He also is the same governor who insisted that lawmakers in 2006 order school property tax cuts without adequately paying for me. That 2006 law now accounts for a huge chunk of the $27 billion budget hole.

Just yesterday, Sens. Florence Shapiro and Dan Patrick, the chair and vice chair of the Senate Education Committee, made it very clear they would rather pass the buck – and the blame for failure to school superintendents by repealing class size limits and other important, quality educational standards rather than paying for them.

Here is an Austin AmericanStatesman item on Perry’s comments:

http://www.statesman.com/blogs/content/sharedgen/blogs/austin/politics/entries/2011/03/09/perry_dont_blame_state_for_tea.html

Sens. Florence Shapiro and Dan Patrick were pretty forthright this morning about why they were sponsoring legislation (Senate Bills 3 and 443) to relax the 221 class size limit for K4 and repeal other important educational quality standards. Instead of paying for quality, as the state constitution requires, they are passing the buck to school districts and setting up local superintendents to take the blame when parental anger grows over larger classes, dropped electives, etc.

“If these decisions result in teachers being fired, courses being canceled, this will be done at the local level, not at the state level,” Sharpiro said during a meeting of the Senate Education Committee.

Patrick said he wanted parents, school administrators and teachers “to make decisions and take them out of the hands of the Legislature, as much as possible.”

Unfortunately, many budgetstrapped school superintendents are alltooeager to wave the white flag instead of demanding more state funding. When they inevitably are forced to fall on their swords, it will be painful, not only for them but for thousands of Texas school children.

Despite all the perceived popularity of “local control,” Article 7, Section 1 of the Texas Constitution makes the Legislature, not school superintendents, primarily responsible for an adequate and equitable public school system.

But legislative leaders are prepared to repeal quality standards – what the superintendents call “unfunded mandates” – while trying to wash their hands of the Legislature’s constitutional responsibility.

Several budgetstrapped school superintendents in Gregg County doubtlessly are grateful that the 19th century drafters of the Texas Constitution created a state Senate as well as a Texas House.

That’s because seven school districts in that primarily rural East Texas county stand to see their educational programs crippled with as much as $28 million in cuts, while their newly elected state representative, David Simpson, persists in doing little more than brewing antigovernment, tea party rhetoric.

On the same weekend that the Longview NewsJournal was reporting the potential effects of spending reductions – including, believe it or not, the elimination of athletics and band programs in one district Simpson was still insisting that the Legislature could bridge its huge revenue shortfall with spending cuts alone.

“The pot is what it is,” he said.

A businessman whose previous political experience was as a small town mayor, Simpson describes himself this way in his official biography: “He passionately supports limiting civil government to its proper role and getting it out of the way of individual liberty and responsibility.”

Simpson obviously is familiar with at least some of the Bill of Rights, but I wonder if he ever has read Article 7, Section 1 of the Texas Constitution, which states, “It shall be the duty of the Legislature of the State to establish and make suitable provision for the support and maintenance of an efficient system of free public schools.”

Producing an adequate, equitable school finance system not only is a “proper role” of state government, it also is a constitutional responsibility. And there is no way the cutsonly approach to budgetsetting can fulfill that responsibility.

The school superintendents, teachers and parents in Gregg County (even tea partiers with kids in the public schools) can be grateful that they also are represented in Austin by a state senator, Kevin Eltife, who is very familiar with his constitutional responsibility and says he is ready to spend at least part of the $9.4 billion Rainy Day Fund and find new revenue to avoid gutting public education and other critical services.

Eltife wants to govern. Simpson and a number of other conservative ideologues in the House (and the governor’s office) are still locked in campaign mode.