Grading Texas

It is always good to hear news about students excelling, even if the measurement is on standardized test scores. And it is nice to hear praise for public schools and their teachers, even when it comes from Gov. Rick Perry’s administration. But a Texas Education Agency study about the academic progress of Hurricane Katrina refugees who relocated to Texas has raised questions, nevertheless.

According to the TEA, 46,504 young evacuees from Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida enrolled in Texas public schools, mainly in the Houston area, after Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast, causing extensive damage, in August 2005. About 18,000 of the refugees were still enrolled in Texas schools in 2007.

The TEA study, released this week, tracked a group of Katrina students who were in grades 3, 5 and 8 in 2006 and were still enrolled in Texas schools in 2009. The study, based on TAKS scores, concluded that the Katrina students had made “significant academic progress” during the past four years and were performing slightly better than a demographically and economically matched set of Texas students.

State Education Commissioner Robert Scott, a Perry appointee, said he was proud of the schools and educators who took the refugees in because “they have made a real and lasting difference in the lives of these children.”

The findings were quickly questioned by Ed Fuller, a University of Texas researcher, who, in an interview with the Austin AmericanStatesman, said the study had serious “methodological flaws.” For one thing, he noted, using the Katrina students’ firstyear scores as a starting point may have overstated their gains because the firstyear scores probably were lowered by the trauma of the hurricane and their relocation. Many of the evacuees also may have missed a significant chunk of the school year.

Fuller’s concerns may be valid, but most of the Katrina students in the study are prospering now, and that is good news for them, their parents and their teachers. It also is a bit of positive educational news for a governor whose overall record of support for teachers and the public schools has been dismal.

Perry’s Democratic opponent, Bill White, was hammering the governor this week on one of many critical education issues – the state’s high dropout rate. On that one, Perry’s head remains firmly stuck in the sand. If the governor’s office is to be believed, the dropout rate is as low as 10 percent. But as a story in the Houston Chronicle points out, more knowledgeable groups say the student attrition rate is 30 percent or more and even approaches 50 percent in urban school districts with heavy concentrations of minority students.

One more Katrina note: Perry, you may recall, received (mostly) positive reviews for his response to the evacuees in the immediate aftermath of Katrina. So did Bill White, then the mayor of Houston. While FEMA, the federal disaster agency, was sitting on its hands, the Astrodome in Houston was being opened up to refugees and buses were being dispatched to Louisiana to pick them up. And, that was just the beginning of the chore, particularly for Mayor White and Houstonarea school districts.

http://ritter.tea.state.tx.us/student.assessment/resources/studies/KatrinaAnalysis2010.pdf

http://www.statesman.com/news/texaspolitics/teasstudyonkatrinastudentsraisesquestions535792.html

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/6948676.html

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.