Grading Texas

The first day of prefiling bills for a legislative session is the statehouse version of turning the kids loose in a candy store, and lawmakers were true to their roles yesterday. Led by certifiably conservative Rep. Debbie Riddle, who camped out over the weekend outside the House chief clerk’s office to be first in line, Republicans filed a long list of proposed laws attacking immigration and abortion, promoting guns and voter ID and generally flexing their new electoral strength.

According to media reports, more than 300 bills already have been filed, and hundreds more will be filed before the session convenes on Jan. 11. Filing a bill, of course, is the easiest step in the legislative process. The real work won’t begin until committee hearings begin in earnest, probably in late January. But many of the conservative priorities will likely win approval, given the big increase in Republican strength in the House.

Most of the legislation that will affect the public schools is yet to come, although a few ideologically tinged bills were among yesterday’s prefilings.

House Bill 22 by Riddle would require school districts to report the number of “illegal aliens” in attendance, and House Bill 79 by Dan Flynn would remove any legal obstacles to posting the Ten Commandments in classrooms.

And, my thanks to Ed Sills of the Texas AFLCIO for pointing out one of the more imaginative (if that’s the right word) bills of the day. That would be House Bill 181 by Rep. Sid Miller to expand the August backtoschool sales tax holiday for school supplies and clothing to also include firearms and ammunition.

The four R’s of education: reading, ‘riting, ‘rithmetic and rifles.

Carlos “Charlie” Garza, the El Paso Republican who unseated longtime Democratic member Rene Nunez from the State Board of Education, hasn’t even taken office yet, but the El Paso Times already has named him to the board’s conservative bloc.

We shouldn’t be surprised, considering Garza’s endorsement, as I noted in a blog posting last week, by the rightwing “Texans for Better Science Education.”

In an interview with the El Paso newspaper, linked below, Garza, an assistant middle school principal, said Gov. Rick Perry asked him to run for the board. Garza said he believes in creationism and wants that theory to be taught alongside evolution in the public schools. He expressed support for most of the changes that the rightwingers made to the social studies curriculum last spring and shares the conservatives’ dim view of Thomas Jefferson as a philosopher. He also is a selfdescribed “fan” of Ronald Reagan.

According to the newspaper, Garza also believes the board should drop world geography lessons from the curriculum and implies that sex education doesn’t belong in the public schools.

Unlike most of the current rightwingers on the board, though, Garza says he has “no problem” with the late farm worker leader Cesar Chavez. That’s because Garza, as a child, was a migrant farm worker. “One thing that I will never do is forget my background,” he said.

Garza’s election will increase the number of Republicans on the SBOE from 10 to 11, while the number of Democrats will drop from five to four.

Two of the Republican conservative leaders will be gone in January. Cynthia Dunbar didn’t seek reelection, and Don McLeroy was defeated for the Republican nomination by the moremoderate Thomas Ratliff, who was supported by TSTA.

Two other incoming Republican members, however, remain largely mysteries. They are Marsha Farney, a former educator, who will succeed Dunbar, and educator George Clayton, who unseated longtime incumbent Geraldine Miller in the Republican primary.

http://www.elpasotimes.com/news/ci_16545864

Despite strong antigovernment sentiment in their state, Florida educators – backed by parents – scored a significant victory on Election Day. They defeated a constitutional amendment, proposed by the Legislature, which would have relaxed limits on class sizes in the public schools.

The limits, which were added to the Florida constitution eight years ago, apply only to core subjects, such as math, science, social studies and language arts, and vary by grade level. Kindergarten through grade 3 classes are limited to 18 kids each; grades 48 classes, 22 kids; and high school classes, 25.

Before this school year, schools could meet the limits by averaging classroom sizes. But now, each individual classroom has to comply with the limits.

Facing budgetary problems, as are most other states, Florida legislators proposed Amendment 8, which would have allowed schools to continue averaging class sizes. Florida’s association of school superintendents supported the amendment, but parent and teacher groups, including the PTA, successfully fought the change and challenged the Legislature to find the money to fund the current requirements.

Come January, educators may be facing a similar fight in Texas. The only class size limit here is the 221 cap on grades K4. It was enacted in 1984 and is widely regarded as an important reform in improving the learning environment for younger students. But some key legislators already are talking about relaxing the limit to help ease a looming revenue shortfall, and some superintendents are likely to support the effort.

And, in Texas, such a change would not require voter approval of a constitutional amendment. The Legislature could make the change on its own.

TSTA is committed to protecting the 221 cap.

An antigovernment mood, meanwhile, carried Election Day in Florida’s top two races.

Florida voters elected Rick Scott as their new governor. Never mind that he was forced to resign not too many years ago as CEO of the nation’s largest hospital chain in the midst of a federal Medicare fraud investigation, which the company eventually paid a record $1.7 billion fine to settle. Yes, $1.7 billion (with a “b”).

How did Scott overcome his questionable resume? He spent $73 million of his own fortune on his campaign and made a strong appeal to conservative activists by labeling his Democratic opponent as an “Obama liberal.” On this Election Day, there were some sins worse than suspected fraud.

Tea Party favorite Marco Rubio, meanwhile, handily won the U.S. Senate race in Florida over two major opponents, including the outgoing governor, Charlie Crist.

Crist, a Republican, ran as an independent. Earlier this year, he angered many Florida Republicans – but delighted teachers – by vetoing a bill that would have linked teacher pay to student test scores and eliminated tenure for all new teachers.

Here is a link to a newspaper article on the Florida class size issue:

http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/11/03/vfullstory/1905847/votersrejectclasssizechanges.html

With the new, 9951 Republican majority in the Texas House, there already is talk about conservative lawmakers dusting off old, hotbutton issues that have failed in the past, including illegal immigration, voter ID and private school vouchers. The Dallas Morning News offers a preview today of what likely will be a very difficult legislative session for educators and other providers of underfunded public services, who also will be battling uphill against GOP plans for huge budget cuts.

Tuesday’s election results didn’t change the fact that Texas needs a new, equitable revenue stream, but that isn’t going to happen, predicted political consultant and wordsmith Bill Miller.

“There will be no tax bills coming out of the House of Representatives,” Miller told the newspaper. “If anything starts with a ‘T’ for tax or ‘F’ for fee, forget it. They’re struck from the legislative alphabet.”

One “T,” however, will keep rising. That’s the “T” for tuition, which two of Miller’s good buddies, Gov. Rick Perry and former Speaker Tom Craddick, put in the unregulated hands of university regents several years ago. Tuition has soared ever since and will continue soaring, while the new antitax GOP majority will pretend not to notice as it hacks away at education budgets.

Meanwhile, with a revenue shortfall that could be as big as $25 billion and public schools already struggling financially, wasting tax dollars on private school vouchers shouldn’t even be part of the discussion. But there is no underestimating ideologues who suddenly find themselves in a political candy store.

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/localnews/stories/110410dntextxxgr.20cde75.html