Grading Texas

The April 13 (next Tuesday) legislative runoffs are critical for educators and other friends of education, especially if you live in Texas House District 66 in Plano, District 127 in north Harris County, Districts 83 or 84 in Lubbock or District 76 in El Paso. You can vote early through Friday.

TSTA has made endorsements in the Republican runoffs in the first four districts and the Democratic runoff in El Paso. Here are reminders of our endorsements and why we made them:

District 66 (Republican) – TSTA supports Mabrie Jackson, a parent, longtime friend of the public schools and former member of the Plano City Council, for the seat vacated by Rep. Brian McCall. She opposes spending tax dollars on private school vouchers. Jackson’s opponent, “Moving Van” Taylor, relocated to Plano after losing a congressional race in another part of the state. He supports spending tax dollars on vouchers for private school tuition but apparently little else. He told The Dallas Morning News that he wants to “starve state government,” which, of course, would further starve school district budgets. Not surprisingly, the newspaper endorsed Jackson.

District 127 (Republican) – TSTA is backing Humble School Board President Dan Huberty for the seat being vacated by Rep. Joe Crabb. Huberty’s opponent has criticized Dan for telling the truth about legislators who don’t adequately fund public education. Sounds like she wants to squeeze the schools too.

District 83 (Republican) – TSTA supports Rep. Delwin Jones for reelection over a “Tea Bag” opponent who also wants to go to Austin so he can cut, cut, cut the public schools and apparently everything else in sight. But he still wants to spend tax dollars on private school vouchers. Instead of trying to figure that one out, vote for Jones, a longtime supporter of public education and voucher opponent.

District 84 (Republican) – TSTA backs another public school supporter and voucher opponent, Mark Griffin, for the seat being vacated by Rep. Carl Isett.

District 76 (Democratic) – TSTA supports the reelection of Rep. Norma Chavez, a longtime supporter of teachers and the public schools and a voucher opponent.

You can vote in a Republican runoff if you voted in the Republican primary on March 2 or didn’t vote in either primary. You can vote in a Democratic runoff if you voted in the Democratic primary on March 2 or didn’t vote in either primary.

Turnout for runoff elections is often low, so please vote. You can make a difference.

The Mexican American Legislative Caucus will have some real experts – not Wikipedia browsers – for its upcoming hearing on the State Board of Education’s attempt to hijack history and, unless stopped, the entire public school curriculum.

Seems like some of the Rabid Right members on the SBOE were so uninformed they were frantically Googling figures from Texas history during their curriculum meetings earlier this month.

Jesus Francisco de la Teja, history professor at Texas State University in San Marcos and Texas’ former state historian, doesn’t have to do that. Neither does Emilio Zamora, an equally renowned history professor at the University of Texas at Austin.

At the invitation of the chairman, Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer of San Antonio, they will be among the authentic history and curriculum experts testifying at the caucus hearing, scheduled for April 28 at the state Capitol.

Other expert testimony will come from the Texas State Teachers Association, whose president Rita Haecker joined Martinez Fischer in announcing the hearing. Martinez Fischer said teacher input was crucial to the process of setting curriculum standards, an observation obvious to everyone but the headsinthesand SBOE bloc.

De la Teja was one of six experts appointed by the SBOE to help write the new social studies curriculum standards – and then watched much of his work be discarded or rewritten to suit the rightwingers’ theological and political views of history.

Culturally and demographically, Texas is a different place than it was a generation or two ago, de la Teja pointed out. About half of the state’s public school students are Hispanic, and that number will continue to increase.

This is a fact that obviously makes conservative, white SBOE members uncomfortable. But downplaying Hispanics’ role in Texas history, as they are trying to do, doesn’t change the historical record – or the realities of a changing Texas landscape.

“We can no longer teach a curriculum that is 5060 years old in terms of its thinking and addresses a population that is the old Texas of the early 20th century,” de la Teja said.

De la Teja, interestingly enough, was appointed state historian for a twoyear term, which expired last year, by Gov. Rick Perry. So, the professor isn’t a bombthrower. He is a realist.

Perry should be listening to him, too.

Almost every day, it seems, there is another headline or two about how more school districts – large and small are trying to grapple with deepening budgetary problems.

A recent sampling – but by no means an allinconclusive list – includes Austin ISD, Fort Worth, Arlington, El Paso, North East in San Antonio, Fort Bend, Carrollton Farmers Branch, GrapevineColleyville, La Marque, Conroe, CypressFairbanks, Aldine, etc., etc. The problems are all over the state.

School boards are looking at a number of unpleasant options, including larger classes, hiring freezes and teacher and staff layoffs. Many teachers may have been getting the bad news this week since deadlines are approaching for districts to inform contract employees whom they don’t intend to rehire for the next school year.

Some school officials say these are the toughest financial times for schools in years, and undoubtedly the recession is partly to blame. So are expanding enrollments and rising expenses, like transportation and utility costs.

But much of the blame also can be traced back to 2006, when the Texas Supreme Court ordered another overhaul of the school finance system. Gov. Rick Perry, who then (as now) was in the middle of a reelection race, responded by joining with Republican legislative leaders to insist that local property taxes be lowered.

The cuts were minimal for most homeowners. But collectively they took a huge bite from school districts – and still are – since the governor and the Legislature didn’t close the funding gap with enough state revenue. A package of revenue increases – mainly a new business tax – enacted in 2006 now falls about $4.6 billion a year short of replacing the lost property tax revenue. Numberscrunchers call it a “structural” shortfall in the state budget.

Most homeowners have long since forgotten their fleeting “relief” from property taxes, but educators and the children they teach are still suffering the consequences of the state’s misguided budgetary policy, a policy that shoved schools to the back of the line.

With the Legislature expected to face a budgetary shortfall between $11 billion and $15 billion next January, the outlook for a significant improvement in school funding isn’t bright. But educators – and anyone else who cares about the public schools – have to keep trying.

And, November’s election affords you an opportunity to make some changes in state government, especially at the top.

All is sunny and bright in Rick Perry Land. Just ask him. But the real Texas has some real problems, including a serious dropout rate – one of the worst in the country – that continues to plague our public schools, despite the best efforts of educators to turn it around.

Democratic gubernatorial nominee Bill White pointed out that problem in an address in Austin over the weekend and, as reported by the Austin AmericanStatesman, called for some “realism and honesty” on the part of state leaders.

In Perry Land, meanwhile, the incumbent governor was giving a group of middle school math students some welldeserved congratulations for their accomplishments, while patting himself on the back for imposing “increased accountability” on the school kids and their teachers.

But Perry continued to ignore the dropout problem –even though a recent study by the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M has projected that the dropout rate for the class of 2012, this year’s high school sophomores, could be as high as 22 percent. The negative implications for the state’s future economy and social services are enormous.

Perry instead accused White of trying to “tear down” Texas, when, in truth, the only candidate for governor who is “tearing down” Texas right now is Rick Perry, and he has been doing that by neglect for most of his nineplus years in office.

Perry’s education legacy, in addition to high dropout rates, includes:

• An annual, $4.6 billion structural shortage in funding for the public schools.
• Perpupil expenditures on instruction that are below the national average.
• Teacher pay that is below the national average.
• Inadequate resources for bilingual education in a state where Hispanics will soon be the majority.
• An overreliance on highstress standardized testing that destroys the learning environment.
• A political alliance with a Rabid Right bloc of State Board of Education members intent on driving the public schools back into the Middle Ages.

Yet, the governor persists in preaching “accountability” at everybody but himself.

Bill White is not “tearing down” Texas. He is pointing out critical problems that need to be fixed in Austin so that future generations of Texans will have a chance to have something to brag about.