Grading Texas

It didn’t take long for the selfanointed education “experts,” many of whom haven’t darkened a classroom door since graduation day, to jump all over the real experts – teachers – for criticizing President Obama’s “blueprint” for reauthorizing the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.

Obama may want to retire the “No Child Left Behind” name, but, unfortunately, he wants to breathe new life into some of the bad ideas that made No Child Left Behind such a failure. They include things like an overreliance on highstakes, standardized testing to identify winners and losers among school kids and teachers alike and requiring states to compete for education resources rather than assuring more funding stability for all the schools. The competitive grants approach is particularly dicey in the current poor economy and for a state like Texas, which already lags behind in perpupil spending on education.

Like his predecessor’s approach to education, Obama’s blueprint is a topdown approach with insufficient opportunity for collaboration with teachers and parents. In short, teachers would continue to bring up the rear of the line for resources but anchor the front of the line for blame. So, if teachers and their union representatives aren’t going to call the administration’s hand, who is?

The National Education Association and the Texas State Teachers Association want to be partners with the administration in improving the public schools. But we won’t be silent partners. As NEA President Dennis Van Roekel said earlier this week, “We intend to engage in a productive dialogue to meet the needs of students, educators and public schools.”

That dialogue has begun.

There has to be a better way. In fact, there probably are several better ways to write public school curricula than the slapstick routine performed (once again) this week by that preposterously misnamed creature, the State Board of Education. Trying to rewrite history to fit your own narrow, ideological view of the world is not education, my friends.

Some of the current board members could have taught Larry, Moe and Curly a few things about the finer points of piethrowing. But Larry, Moe and Curly were supposed to be ridiculous. The board is charged, unfortunately, with setting curriculum standards for 5 million Texas schoolchildren.

Last year, it was science. This year, it is social studies being forced under the theologytinted review of a bloc of rightwing, selfprofessed academic experts. And one day, Democrats can hope, it may be a clique of leftwingers seeking to rewrite our kids’ history books. But that wouldn’t be the way to set educational standards for kids either.

It is past time for the Legislature to step in and impose some academic discipline on Texas’ curriculum development and textbook selection processes. Several bills to rein in the board were proposed last year, but they went nowhere, mainly because Gov. Rick Perry and many Republican legislators are playing politically to the same conservative voters who elected the board’s conservative bloc.

This week’s shenanigans all but guarantee the same bills, maybe more, will be filed during the 2011 session. But their fate, in all likelihood, will be largely affected by the outcome of this November’s legislative and gubernatorial races.

One of the bills that died last year was SB2275 by Sen. Kel Seliger, RAmarillo. It would have transferred the responsibility for curriculum development from the State Board of Education to the state education commissioner and required the commissioner to seek guidance from teachers and parents, among others. That bill may not be the only solution to an increasingly embarrassing problem, but it is certainly worth a serious look.

There has to be a better way.

Yesterday’s blog item encouraging votes against Republican legislative candidates who support school vouchers prompted one teacher, Betsy, a voucher supporter, to ask me for a nonpolitical, “issuesbased piece” on my antivoucher position.

This may not be what she is looking for, but, for me, the bottom line is this. The vast majority of Texas children who receive an education are educated in the public schools, not in charters, not in private schools and not at home.

Yet, state government’s record of supporting the public schools is extremely poor. In 2008, the most recent data I have, Texas ranked 44th among the states in per pupil spending for instruction and 33rd in teacher salaries. Those numbers beg for improvement. Texas needs to strengthen its commitment to the public schools, help them strengthen their programs for all students – including the disadvantaged and not siphon off tax dollars for a relative handful of children.

There is more to a quality public education than money, you say? True enough. But money, obviously, is a crucial part of the equation.

I am reminded of a former state senator who, years ago, was debating one of his tightfisted colleagues on the Senate floor over education funding. “You say we can’t solve the public schools’ problems by throwing money at them,” he barked. “How do we know? We’ve never tried.”

With the Legislature facing a shortfall next January that has been projected (so far) at anywhere between $11 billion and $15 billion, wasting precious tax dollars on private school vouchers should be one of the last things on any politically reasonable mind. The key word here, though, is reasonable.

In four key (for teachers) Republican runoffs for the Texas House on April 13, vouchers are an issue. Charles Perry, who is trying to unseat veteran Rep. Delwin Jones of Lubbock in District 83, supports vouchers. So do Republican runoff candidates for three open House seats Van Taylor (District 66, Plano area), John Frullo (District 84, Lubbock) and Susan Curling (District 127, north Harris County). They confirmed their support in a questionnaire published by the conservative Liberty Institute.

TSTA is backing Delwin Jones for reelection and in the open Republican races is supporting Mabrie Jackson (District 66), Mark Griffin (District 84) and Dan Huberty (District 127). They all oppose vouchers.

Remember, you can vote in the Republican runoff if you voted in the March 2 Republican primary or skipped the primary entirely. You can’t cross over to the Republican runoff if you voted in the Democratic primary on March 2.

Early voting for the runoffs will begin on Monday, April 5.