Grading Texas

There are more, but I had to stop somewhere.

# Flunking math His 2006 property tax cuts left an annual $4.5 billion shortage in the state budget because he didn’t fully pay for them. Now, school kids and educators are paying the consequences with outdated textbooks, crowded classrooms and pink slips.

# Starving public education He wants to hold teachers and school kids accountable for their performances but refuses to hold himself accountable for an underfunded school finance system. Under his watch, Texas’ perpupil expenditures are 38th in the country and average teacher pay is 34th, several thousand dollars below the national average. The rankings will sink even lower if Perry, as he has promised, gets to slash and burn his way to “curing” a $21 billion revenue shortfall next year. His handpicked education commissioner already has proposed $261 million in additional cuts from the public education budget.

# All hair and no cattle He talks a good game of economic development and job creation, but underfunded public schools and universities undermine Texas’ ability to adequately prepare young people for the jobs that will make or break the state’s future.

# Payforplay governor – While school districts struggle with their budgets, Perry doles out millions of taxpayer dollars to private startup companies belonging to some of his highdollar political contributors.

# Twilight Zoner He pretends that the dropout rate – one of the state’s most pressing social and economic problems – is much lower than the onethird or more that it is. And, he vetoed a bipartisan prekindergarten bill that would have helped encourage many youngsters to stay in school.

# History class clown One of his former State Board of Education chairs was a leader of the rightwing clique that ravaged social studies curriculum standards, much to the delight of latenight TV comedians. Interjecting their own religious and political beliefs, the rightwingers tried to rewrite history, downplaying the roles of blacks and Hispanics, elevating Confederacy President Jefferson Davis and trying to demote Thomas Jefferson. Perry refused to “second guess” their antics.

# Still in the 19th century – Perry’s refusal to repudiate secession at an antigovernment Tea Party rally also prompted national ridicule, and his erroneous claim that Texas had the right to secede demonstrated an alarming lapse in his own knowledge of Texas and American history.

# The buckpasser – The tuition deregulation law, which he signed, is passing more of the higher education costs to students and their families and pricing more and more young people out of college.

# The bureaucratic meddler – He tried to impose a poorly conceived, onesizefitsall executive order that 65 percent of a school district’s budget be spent on classroom instruction. The Legislature axed it. He also has led efforts to impose a merit pay plan on teachers, despite evidence that such plans waste taxpayer dollars.

# The Bahama beachcomber – He invited two of the biggest enemies of public education – private school voucher advocate James Leininger and antigovernment guru Grover Norquist – to join him in the Bahamas for a few days of sand, surf and stiffing the public schools.

Early voting started today. This is your chance to do something about it!

Gov. Rick Perry, in an Internet interview today with the Texas Tribune’s Evan Smith, made what may have seemed, at first blush, a strange statement.

“We don’t have a revenue problem in this state in the upcoming budget,” Perry declared.

But what happened to the looming revenue shortfall that, according to other projections, could be as high as $21 billion?

Perry continued to downplay that figure, saying he believed the actual shortfall will be lower, although he declined to kick around any figures. Then, he reminded us why, in his mind, there won’t be a “revenue problem.”

There won’t be a “revenue problem” if Texas is still in the grip of “Perryworld” come January because Perry will insist that the Legislature, in lieu of raising taxes, cut deeply into state programs and services to fit whatever revenue is available. And, then he will brag about it later, while kicking back in his $10,000 a month, taxpayerpaid, rental mansion.

If you are a school teacher, counselor, nurse, principal, bus driver, cafeteria worker or anyone else in public service, you better be concerned about the outcome of this election. Some of those cuts will be your jobs.

I don’t pass along political videos very often because that could be a fulltime job, but this one is an exception. I don’t know who produced it, but I thank my friend, Ed Sills at the Texas AFLCIO, for passing it along to me. Everyone who thinks times are tough now should take a few seconds to check this out.

If this doesn’t motivate politically rational people to vote, I am not sure what will. And remember, early voting starts Monday (Oct. 18).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DRkUUqhjk

I am no longer waiting for “Superman.” I saw the longanticipated oversimplification (it is, after all, a movie) of the nation’s public education problems at a screening hosted last evening by Austin ISD.

As you may have heard by now, “Waiting for Superman” is partly a cruel drama endured by several families who believe their children’s futures rest on the luck of the draw – their ability to win longshot lotteries for admission to highquality charter schools.

In the process, it strongly implies (wrongly) that teachers’ unions are undermining educational quality and strongly suggests (also wrongly) that charter schools may be some sort of magical solution to poorly performing public schools. In truth, charter schools are a mixed bag, and for each one of the successes depicted in the movie, there are many others that are failures.

The movie does include the disclaimer: “Great schools won’t come from winning the lottery. Great schools won’t come from Superman. They will come from you.”

But how?

The director, Davis Guggenheim, fails to answer that question. I think I read somewhere that he wanted to promote a discussion instead. (That sounds better, of course, than wanting to just sell tickets.) But this discussion has been going on a long time, and teachers and their moviemaligned unions have been right in the middle of it.

Welcome to the discussion, Mr. Guggenheim.

Good charter schools have a place in our educational system. But one thing this movie won’t change is the fact that the overwhelming number of children in this country will continue to be educated in traditional public schools, many of which are very good. Many, however, are not, and that problem must be addressed.

The answers are more obvious than most of our state policymakers want to admit.

The keys to success in public school classrooms are qualified, dedicated teachers with enough resources to do their jobs. Those resources start with an adequate, equitable school finance system funded by the state. In that respect, Texas is woefully lacking, ranking 38th among the states in perpupil spending on instruction. And, many of the districts with the highest dropout rates and other educational problems are those with the least financial resources.

Texas doesn’t lead the country in the percentage of adults without high school diplomas because it doesn’t have enough charter schools. It leads the country in that dubious category because it doesn’t adequately pay for its public schools and aggressively attack its serious dropout problem.

Beginning with our leaders in Austin, we must work harder in Texas to improve our public schools with smaller class sizes, improved teacher mentoring and professional development programs and professional educator salaries. All schools should have the tools and resources necessary to help all students succeed. Students shouldn’t have to rely on getting lucky in a lottery to get a quality education preparing them for success.