Grading Texas

A health insurance crisis facing employees of GrapevineColleyville ISD is nothing short of a nightmare. And although fingers may be pointing in a lot of different directions, the ultimate responsibility rests with the current leadership in Austin and its neglect of the public schools.

As reported by the Fort Worth StarTelegram, teachers and other workers in the North Texas district will see their health insurance premiums jump by as much as 20 percent next year. The new plan also will increase deductibles, double outofpocket maximums and – in the most widely used option – eliminate caps on prescription drugs.

In approving the plan, district trustees blamed an alltoofamiliar litany of declining revenues, rising costs and frozen state spending. And, the district’s financial plight will worsen (including the elimination of almost 1,000 staff positions next year) if local voters don’t approve raising the district’s maintenance tax rate from the current $1.04 per $100 valuation to $1.17 in an election tentatively scheduled for next June.

The bottom line is the public schools in Texas are significantly underfunded by the state, and they were even before the state spotted a looming $21 billion revenue shortfall. Gov. Rick Perry and the legislative leadership worsened the problem in 2006 by ordering reductions in school property taxes and then failing to fully repay school districts for the lost revenue.

If Perry is still in the governor’s office in January, it will be open season on school districts and educators because Perry, as he already has signaled, will insist that lawmakers bridge the revenue shortfall with budget cuts alone. And, the GrapevineColleyville nightmare will worsen – and spread.

Elections have consequences, folks.

http://www.startelegram.com/2010/10/05/2522276/teacherhealthcoststoincrease.html

Although Gov. Rick Perry insists that the taxpayerfunded Emerging Technology Fund is an important economic development tool, the extent to which it has become a political plaything for the governor has been unveiled in a series of stories in The Dallas Morning News, linked below.

According to the newspaper, Perry (with the rubberstamping of legislative leaders) has awarded more than $16 million from that fund to companies with investors or officers who are large campaign donors to the governor.

Yes, that is a relatively small percentage of the total $173 million that has been awarded to private companies with promising ideas since the fund’s creation five years ago. And, no, abolishing the entire fund wouldn’t make a very big dent in the looming $21 billion revenue shortfall. But there is a bigger issue involved.

Using the fund to supplement the riches of selected, already wealthy donors is an extension of the same taxpayersbedamned attitude that allows the governor to live in a $10,000permonth, taxpayerpaid rental mansion and rack up hundreds of thousands of dollars in security charges for foreign travel, while asking the mere mortals among his constituents to “tighten their belts” during tough times.

Just last month, the Texas Education Agency, to fulfill a Perry request for more budget cuts, proposed slashing $261 million from the next public education budget, including $48 million from new textbook purchases, $35 million from science labs and millions more from dropout prevention and student success programs.

The grant screening process for the Emerging Technology Fund is mostly secretive. So who knows how much dealmaking may go on – with taxpayers’ money.

One $1.75 million grant went to a company in which San Antonio businessman James R. Leininger owned 390,000 shares. Leininger has been a major contributor to Perry and, in case you may have forgotten, has spent millions of dollars trying to undermine the public schools with tax paid, private school vouchers.

Another Perry donor whose companies have benefited from the fund – amongst bankruptcies complained that the Dallas News coverage was “largely a political rant.”

Rant on!

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/100310dntexetfmain.2981294.html

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/politics/state/stories/DNETFdaytwo_04pro.ART0.State.Edition1.332f205.html

The former president who gave us the No Testing Opportunity Left Behind Act is now lending his name to another education initiative, this one allegedly designed to improve the crop of principals heading our public schools.

Former First Lady Laura Bush unveiled the program yesterday in Dallas. The Alliance to Reform Educational Leadership, as it is being called, will receive initial funding of $1 million from AT&T. It will be the first largescale policy initiative of the George W. Bush Institute at Southern Methodist University and will involve educators, nonprofits and businesses in an effort to train half the country’s public school principals over the next 10 years.

That’s an ambitious and potentially scary prospect, given the track record of Bush’s landmark educational product as president.

Initial participants include the Dallas, Plano and Fort Worth ISDs and school districts in Denver, St. Louis and Indianapolis as well as SMU and the University of Texas at Dallas. Nonprofit collaborators include Teach for America, KIPP, New Leaders for New Schools, the Rainwater Leadership Alliance and the Council for Education Change.

Apparently, public school teachers will be eligible to participate. I certainly hope so. But, according to The Dallas Morning News, the program is to develop a fast track into principals’ offices for experienced or promising leaders – including business executives and retired military personnel – who don’t have training as educators.

In other words, let’s see if some noneducator administrators – after some classroom and onthejob training – can do what educators and the No Child Left Behind Act have been unable to do – whip struggling public schools into shape. That seems to be the theory.

I am sure there are some capable administrators out there who can make the transition to a successful and productive educational career. And, there are others who will be miserable failures, taking jobs from career educators who, I fear, will be cast aside for being perceived (unfairly) as part of the problem.

This is strictly hypothetical, but I can easily imagine a retired military officer running a tight ship at his new high school – until the first kids show up for class. One of the worst teachers I ever had during my entire formal education was a retired military officer and newspaper executive (topnotch in both professions) who was a total flop as a college journalism teacher. But, then, he didn’t have the benefit of this upcoming Bush program, did he?

Like everyone else, I will have to wait and see how this initiative plays out. Meanwhile, I will be dubious.

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/education/stories/092810dnmetbush.13bba62b0.html

Emerging from the fog (and house arrest) of a cold, I notice that the most recent U.S. president aspiring to be SchoolSuperintendentinChief thinks it would be a dandy idea to lengthen the school year.

Without debating the educational value (if any) of the president’s proposal, it is safe to assure the school kids of Texas they needn’t worry about sacrificing any additional summer vacation time because a longer school year isn’t going to happen here, at least not now. A longer school year shouldn’t even be considered until our state “leaders” figure out a way to adequately pay for the school year we already have. The last time legislators tackled school funding, they gave Gov. Rick Perry some transitory property tax cuts to brag about during his 2006 reelection campaign but ended up $4.5 billion a year short of paying for them.

Remedial math, unfortunately, is not a requirement for election to the Texas Legislature…or the governor’s office.

The current Texas public school year is 187 instructional days, already significantly higher than the U.S. average of 180 days. On top of that, school districts also offer summer school classes for students needing extra help or trying to get ahead.

Legislative support, however, is lessthanstellar. Texas ranks 38th among the states in the amount of money spent on perpupil instruction and 34th in average teacher pay (as of the 200809 school year), several thousand dollars below the national average. And, yes, higher teacher pay would have to be part of any effort to lengthen the school year.

But there is little need to worry about that fight now, what with the Legislature facing a revenue shortfall in January already estimated at $21 billion today and who knows how much tomorrow.

No, a longer school year is not in the foreseeable future for Texas, and no amount of presidential lecturing is going to put it there.