Grading Texas

Public education isn’t a partisan issue, or at least it shouldn’t be. But that is exactly what Texas Gov. Rick Perry and Texas Republicans in Congress are intent on making it. Texas’ public schools are substantially underfunded, and Texas educators are underpaid.

Yet, even in the face of an $18 billion state revenue shortfall next year, Perry snubs his nose at $830 million in additional federal funds to help save teacher jobs and assist school districts struggling with tight budgets. With other state Republican “leaders” chiming in, the governor says he doesn’t want to accept the money because it would commit the state to keep up its own share of funding for the public schools.

That’s a pretty weak rationale, when you think about it, about as weak as Perry’s commitment to school teachers and school kids. Perry also claimed the requirement was unconstitutional, but people with more legal expertise have pretty much shot down that argument.

Despite Perry and Texas’ Republican congressmen, the U.S. House today gave final approval to a $10 billion package of emergency education funding worth $830 million to our state, saving perhaps as many as 14,500 educator jobs here. The bill accomplishes that without adding to the federal deficit. It is fully funded by various budgetary offsets.

All the House Republicans from Texas (except Randy Neugebauer of Lubbock, who didn’t vote) voted against the bill. If you are an educator or a parent or a taxpayer who cares about the state of your public schools, remember their names: Joe Barton of Ennis (the BP apologist), Kevin Brady of The Woodlands, Michael Burgess of Lewisville, John Carter of Round Rock, Michael Conaway of Midland, John Culberson of Houston, Louie Gohmert of Tyler, Kay Granger of Fort Worth, Ralph Hall of Rockwall, Jeb Hensarling of Dallas, Sam Johnson of Plano, Kenny Marchant of Coppell, Michael McCaul of Austin, Pete Olson of Sugar Land, Ron Paul of Lake Jackson, Ted Poe of Humble, Pete Sessions of Dallas, Lamar Smith of San Antonio and Mac Thornberry of Clarendon.

Both U.S. Sens. from Texas, Republicans Kay Bailey Hutchison and John Cornyn, already had voted against the bill when it was before the Senate last week.

All the House Democrats from Texas (except Ruben Hinojosa of Mercedes, who missed the vote but issued a statement endorsing the measure) voted for the bill. They are Henry Cuellar of Laredo, Lloyd Doggett of Austin, Chet Edwards of Waco, Al Green of Houston, Gene Green of Houston, Charlie Gonzalez of San Antonio, Sheila Jackson Lee of Houston, Eddie Bernice Johnson of Dallas, Solomon Ortiz of Corpus Christi, Silvestre Reyes of El Paso and Ciro Rodriguez of San Antonio.

Is the governor still going to try to snub the money?

Members of Congress vote. So do school teachers, and a very important election is drawing near.

Arizona’s sunstroke over immigration may soon exact a financial penalty from students in one of that state’s larger school districts.

Tom Horne, Arizona’s superintendent of public instruction, backed a new state law designed to ban ethnic studies in the state’s public schools. It was signed by Gov. Jan Brewer a few weeks after the state’s more widely publicized antiimmigration statute, and it stems from the same political phobia.

Now, Horne is threatening to withhold 10 percent of basic state aid from the Tucson Unified School District when the new law goes into effect Dec. 31, according to an article in Education Week.

The education law prohibits public schools from providing classes designed for a specific ethnic group, advocating ethnic solidarity or promoting resentment toward a race or group of people. Horne contends that the ban applies to ethnic studies courses offered at Tucson Unified, a claim denied by Tucson Unified, which intends to continue offering the classes.

Horne also asked the district to videotape all of its ethnic studies classes during the fall semester, a “Big Brother” intrusion that Sean Arce, the district’s director of Mexican American studies, also plans to ignore.

“The classroom is the domain of the teacher and student,” Arce said.

This controversy probably will simmer for a while, long enough to boost Horne’s conservative support for his campaign for the Republican nomination for Arizona attorney general.

His superintendent’s term expires at the end of the year. It is unfortunate, perhaps, for Arizonians that he is running for attorney general. Texans are fortunate, though, that he didn’t move here and run for our State Board of Education, where he probably would feel right at home.

http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2010/08/11/37arizona_ep.h29.html?tkn=ZPTF5z8CEYT5qb6NvlBDjukb6zKI6YUWWkOH&cmp=clpedweek

Gov. Rick Perry is still trying to win reelection by kicking Washington. That’s a lot easier, of course, than running on his record.

But he also is kicking Texas educators and school kids with his opposition to the emergency education jobs funding bill that is set for a vote in the U.S. House on Tuesday. The measure includes $830 million in extra federal funds for Texas’ public schools. The governor should be turning handstands. Instead, he is playing politics.

Perry objects to a provision in the bill, inserted by U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett and other Democrats, that would force Texas to actually spend the money on its intended purpose – education instead of using it to patch other holes in the state budget.

Doggett doesn’t trust the governor and the Republican legislative leadership – and with good reason. They diverted billions of federal stimulus dollars to other purposes last year to help balance the current budget, and that temptation may be even greater in the face of Texas’ anticipated $18 billion revenue shortfall for 2011.

This latest round of federal funding is intended to save educators’ jobs, and that’s what it should be spent to do. Perry should be welcoming the money instead of trying to throw up roadblocks.

It’s interesting that the governor and his fellow Republicans started publicly complaining about the education funding restrictions about the same time the federal government announced its latest school accountability ratings. According to the Texas Education Agency, about onefifth of the state’s school districts failed the federal threshold of making adequate annual progress on specified goals.

That’s a worse showing than the state accountability ratings announced a week ago, but the fed standards are tougher than Texas’ rating system.

The governor obviously doesn’t like trying to explain the federal accountability showing. It’s easier to kick Washington (and school kids) instead.

Despite Gov. Rick Perry’s delusional denial, one of the more critical issues facing Texas’ public schools – and threatening the state’s future economic growth – is a school dropout rate that experts estimate at 30 percent or higher. Particularly affected are Hispanic young people who will soon make up a majority of Texas’ adult work force.

The reaction to this problem is one strong difference (among many) between Perry and his Democratic reelection opponent, Bill White. At last report, Perry was still claiming that the dropout rate was only 10 percent, a figure that even some of his staunchest, conservative political contributors don’t believe.

Perry not only denies the dropout problem, he also may have contributed to its continued growth with his veto last year of a bipartisan bill that would have expanded access to prekindergarten programs. The same experts who worry about the high dropout rate also recognize that one effective way of fighting it is to expand preK and other early childhood education programs. The earlier children, particularly underprivileged youngsters, get used to being in school, the more likely they are to stay in school and to graduate.

Perry either doesn’t understand that concept or simply chooses to ignore it, while Bill White has put the expansion of effective preK programs at the top of his education priorities list. As White repeatedly has pointed out – including in an interview with TSTA this week – Perry’s preK veto was a huge mistake.

Preschool programs also have been taking a hit nationally, according to a new study by the National Institute for Early Education Research at Rutgers University. Blaming the recession, the study’s authors estimated that $348 million in state funding has been cut or proposed for cutting from preK programs in 19 states (excluding Texas) in fiscal 20102011.

Texas’ looming budgetary shortfall is all the more reason to put someone who actually wants to fight the dropout problem, rather than deny it, in the governor’s office.

Here is a link to the preK funding study:

http://nieer.org/pdf/Funding_Cuts_to_StateFunded_Prekindergarten_Programs_in_FY10_FY11.pdf