Grading Texas

Anyone doubting that our alleged state leaders in Austin who love to talk Aplus on public education are still delivering Dminus should take a look at the 2010 edition of TSTA’s survey on teacher moonlighting and morale. If you haven’t seen it, check it out on our website:

http://www.tsta.org/

It already has received some media coverage, with most of the attention focused on the 40.8 percent of teachers who have to take extra jobs during the school year to make ends meet and the 46.7 percent who have considered leaving the teaching profession.

Both figures are the highest since TSTA started commissioning the biennial survey by Sam Houston State University 30 years ago, and they represent a strong indictment of state government’s inferior support of the public schools.

Another survey item that hasn’t received much attention but is another strong indictment in itself is the finding that the teachers who responded to the questions spent, on average, $564 a year out of their own pockets for supplies and other schoolrelated expenses. That’s about $63 a month during the ninemonth school year.

A lot of people incur occasional, workrelated expenses for which they don’t bother – or forget – to seek reimbursement. But most professionals make more than teachers. Many professionals make much more. And teachers have to spend their own money because the state has a policy of inadequately funding public education.

The average annual salary for respondents to the TSTA survey was $50,019, and they had worked, on average, 17.7 years to reach that level. Overall, the average teacher salary in Texas is $47,157, based on the 20082009 school year, the most recent data available. That is 34th among the states.

Texas has approximately 330,000 public school teachers. If each one is spending $564 a year from his or her own pocket on workrelated expenses, that’s a tidy $186 million subsidy for the taxpayers.

I know virtually nothing about Robert Nelsen, the president of the University of TexasPan American, but he understands math, particularly subtraction.

After listening to countless newspaper editors, corporate CEOs and governors blab about “doing more with less” during years of downsizing and budget cuts, it was almost refreshing to notice Nelsen pointing out the obvious – “less is less” in an article in the McAllen Monitor over the weekend.

The article, nevertheless, was a sad recitation of the program and job cuts in store for UTPan American and other campuses in the Rio Grande Valley, stemming from spending cuts ordered by state leaders in anticipation of next year’s $18 billion revenue shortfall.

According to a recent report, the supply of school teachers, nurses and civil engineers from UTPan American and the nearby University of TexasBrownsville already is failing to meet the Valley’s annual job openings. And that shortfall likely will worsen as Nelsen has all but ruled out curriculum expansion, including programs in the fastgrowing medical industry.

Thanks to deregulated tuition, UTPan American students will pay 4.9 percent more in tuition and fees this year, while the university suffers an anticipated reduction of $21.8 million in state funding.

“My biggest concern is in doing less, we have to make certain that we always keep the student at the forefront in every decision we make,” Nelsen told the newspaper. “It’s easy to not do that.”

And, it’s a lot easier, unfortunately, in Austin.

http://www.themonitor.com/articles/font40948stylespan.html

State officials in Maryland, including Gov. Martin O’Malley, are promoting a proposal to make environmental education a requirement for high school graduation in that state, according to an article in Education Week. If the idea is adopted by the Maryland State Board of Education this fall, it apparently would be the first time a state has imposed a graduation requirement focused on environmental literacy.

The proposal wouldn’t require students to take a particular course but would ensure that environmental literacy is “threaded through” the curriculum.

I have difficulty imagining Texas following Maryland’s lead, and maybe we shouldn’t, at least not until we have a different State Board of Education to write our curriculum standards. As long as conservative ideologues keep driving the SBOE train here, I can easily imagine “environmental” curriculum standards such as the following:

# Global warming is a fairy tale.

# Cap and trade is the work of the Devil.

# Carpooling is a form of socialism.

# Rapid transit spreads disease.

# Every Texas family should drive at least two SUVs, and preferably three. Biggerthanlife people need biggerthanlife cars, and the busier our refineries, the healthier our economic environment.

# Water pollution is harmless because you can buy the bottled variety at the store.

# The BP oil spill was an act of God.

# And, BP CEO Tony Hayward was an environmental hero for sacrificing a large chunk of his life to help feed the nosy media’s morbid curiosity.

Some education supporters may have breathed a little easier this spring when Marsha Farney of Georgetown, a former teacher and school counselor, defeated Brian Russell for the Republican nomination for the District 10 seat on the State Board of Education.

Russell clearly was a rightwinger, eager to join in the ideological mayhem that ultraconservative board members have been inflicting on the public schools for the past several years. He even had been endorsed by incumbent Cynthia Dunbar, who is stepping down from the board after being an outspoken leader of the rightwing pack.

Farney, however, remained something of a mystery, at least until recently. On her webpage, she promises to work for a strong curriculum and quality education, but that doesn’t tell us very much. She declined to respond to a candidate questionnaire from TSTA, which is supporting Democratic nominee Judy Jennings in the district, which stretches from north Austin to the Houston suburbs.

TSTA believes Jennings, a former employee of the Texas Education Agency and longtime worker in the education field, is a strong supporter of the public schools.

Now, teachers, parents and other Texas taxpayers who would like to see the State Board of Education work to improve the public schools rather than promote political viewpoints have even more reason to be leery of Farney.

According to an item in the Austin AmericanStatesman, now making the rounds of the blogosphere, Farney showed up at Tea Party rally on July 4, where she told the conservative crowd that she would rather be there “than with those Americabashing Democrats.”

Americabashing Democrats?

Sounds like the message Cynthia Dunbar and the other ultraconservatives on the SBOE have been dishing out for quite a while now. And, it sure sounds more ideological than educational.

http://blogs.chron.com/texaspolitics/archives/2010/07/americanbashing.html