Grading Texas

The Texas Association of Business (TAB) released a report this week pointing out how Texas has fallen way behind the curve in educating its future workforce and remaining competitive in the high stakes global competition for jobs. There were no big revelations in the report. But it was interesting that TAB went to the trouble of compiling it, since TAB for many years now has been part of the basic problem.

The report lists the following serious deficiencies, among others:

* At all age levels, Texans are educated at lower levels than their peers nationally, and we’re losing ground.
* Only seven states have done a worse job than Texas in developing a welleducated work force among workers who are farthest from retirement age.
* The growing minority population fares the worst in Texas’ educational system. More than twothirds of the Hispanic population has no education beyond high school.
* At least onethird of Texas ninth graders drop out of school before earning a high school diploma.
* And, nearly onethird of students who enroll in college immediately after graduating from high school are deemed not ready for collegelevel work.

You can read the full report, entitled “Dream Big Texas,” by clicking on the link below. The report also recommends some limited solutions, including more collaboration between businesses and local school districts and some changes in the funding formulas for higher education.

Much of what the report proposes, however, is simply more rearrangement of the deck chairs on an education system that is sinking through no fault of educators. The overriding problem is a lack of political commitment to the public schools on the part of state leaders, a point the report fails to address. The report avoids any discussion of how the public school system is woefully underfunded and inequitablyfunded. And it dares not propose the essential, but politically distasteful solution – a reliable, fair tax system that grows with the state’s educational and other needs.

Moreover, TAB has been a major supporter and enabler of the current power structure in Austin, the state leaders who have persisted in giving the public schools a succession of “accountability” hoops while denying them sufficient funding.

TAB is a longtime supporter of Gov. Rick Perry, who has all but turned his back on the public schools and even denies the seriousness of the dropout problem cited in the TAB report. TAB also is backing Perry for another term. And in 2002, TAB was instrumental in the Republican takeover of the Texas House, which enabled the election of slashandburn Tom Craddick as speaker.

Dream big? Unless the leadership in Austin is changed, TAB can dream on.

Here is a link to the group’s report:

http://www.txbiz.org/uploads/dreambigedu.pdf

Inviting a rebuke from Democratic legislators, State Education Commissioner Robert Scott addressed the State Board of Education this morning and urged members to ignore the “tantrums” of detractors and proceed with a final vote, as planned, on social studies curriculum standards on Friday.

Time is critical, Scott insisted, despite the fact that several Hispanic and black legislators, all Democrats, urged the board yesterday to delay a final vote. The lawmakers said more time is needed to correct curriculum standards that the lawmakers and other board critics say are compromised by the board members’ political and religious beliefs.

Also among many other people and groups seeking a delay is former U.S. Education Secretary Rod Paige. He told board members yesterday that they needed to take more time to revise the standards to more adequately treat the roles of slavery and civil rights in Texas and American history.

But Scott, an appointee of Gov. Rick Perry, said it was important for the board to stick to their current schedule for purposes of updating endofcourse and college readiness assessments.

“Steel yourself against their criticisms and…the tantrums that will be thrown, and let’s get this process done,” the commissioner said.

Scott already has caught flak from Democrats for using the word “payback” at a hearing of the Mexican American Legislative Caucus last month. He used the term in relation to the effect of changing political winds over curriculum standards but insisted the remark was mischaracterized by critics.

Scott didn’t say who he was specifically talking about today, but I wonder how the legislators or Rod Paige – among others will like his choice of the word, “tantrums.”

Board member Geraldine Miller, who was unseated in the March Republican primary, made it clear she was annoyed by some of the legislators’ comments. She said she thought the board was “getting indirect threats (from the lawmakers), and that really rubbed us wrong.”

Several Hispanic and African American legislators, all Democrats, urged the State Board of Education to delay final adoption of the social studies curriculum standards and in the process did some verbal dueling.

Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer of San Antonio, chairman of the Mexican American Legislative Caucus, said he had researched state law and “can’t find where it says if we don’t do this by Friday, all hell is going to break loose.”

Several Republican board members, including Terri Leo of Spring, disagreed. “If we delay a vote, that doesn’t punish the board. That punishes the students,” she said.

A couple of witnesses later, Rep. Sylvester Turner of Houston, responded to Leo, “If the textbook that we give our children is not fair, is not balanced, then we are hurting the children.” Many people are concerned, Turner said, that the board is trying to put “political messages” in textbooks.

Rep. Ruth Jones McClendon of San Antonio warned the board against “hijacking history,” which prompted a response from board member Barbara Cargill of The Woodlands.

“We’re not all going to agree on how history should be taught. We’re not,” Cargill said.

To which McClendon replied, “Put the facts in the book, and the facts will decide how history is taught because the teachers will teach the facts.”

I don’t think any opinions were changed

As expected, much of the public testimony this morning over the State Board of Education’s proposed changes to the social studies curriculum standards revolved around the two volatile Rs – race and religion.

Early in the hearing, former U.S. Education Secretary (and former Houston ISD Superintendent) Rod Paige urged the board to delay final action on the standards because he believes they don’t adequately deal with the nation’s history of slavery and civil rights. Paige is African American.

If they had their way, the arch conservative members of the board who have worked mightily to interject their own political and religious viewpoints into the standards would have everyone believe that liberal groups, such as the American Civil Liberties Union and the Texas Freedom Network, are behind all the criticism of the standards.

Explaining away criticism from Paige, an appointee of former President George W. Bush, will be more difficult for rightwingers to do, not that they won’t try. Paige urged the board to reexamine the history of slavery and civil rights, which were “dominant elements” of the nation’s history and helped shape who we are today.

Rep. Wayne Christian, one of the arch conservatives from the Texas House, argued that the board needed to be “racially blind” and not give preferential treatment to anyone because of race. That argument, however, ignores the fact that history wasn’t “racially blind” and that key events and personalities from history demand preferential treatment in public school classrooms. And that includes putting President Barack Obama’s name in the curriculum standards, something the board so far has declined to do. So far, Obama is an unnamed “first black president.”

Reacting, perhaps, to the prolonged debate over the board’s effort to deny the separation of church and state principle, one conservative parent bemoaned what she characterized as an effort among the board’s critics to promote a “freedom from religion” instead of a “freedom of religion.”

She was upset that her daughter, when in kindergarten, wasn’t allowed to sing “Jesus Loves Me” in class. I wonder how upset she would have been if another student had been prohibited from reciting portions of the Koran.