Grading Texas

Abbott “discovers” public education; must be election time

Gov. Greg Abbott is continuing his preelection, “pro-public education” tour, making promises that most Texas educators and parents want to hear but aren’t likely to ever come to pass as long as Abbott remains governor.

He had a recent oped in The Dallas Morning News, which may have run in other newspapers as well, carrying the headline, “Gov. Abbott: Texas must boost school funding.” Yes, Texas certainly needs to do that, but it won’t happen unless we retire Abbott.

Let’s take a look at what the governor says in his oped and contrast that with his record:

What Abbott says now: Citing the Texas Supreme Court’s latest ruling on the issue, he says the school funding system needs “transformational, top-to-bottom reforms.”

Abbott’s record: As attorney general, he went to court to defend the current, inadequate funding system, which the Supreme Court upheld, despite its tough rhetoric. And as governor last year, he and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick slammed the door on a bill approved by the House to begin reforming the finance system and increase education funding by $1.8 billion.

What Abbott says now: “Just throwing more money at a flawed system isn’t going to fix anything.”

Abbott’s record: State government has never “thrown” money at education, and Abbott hasn’t even sprinkled money on schools. The moldy, “throwing more money” line is older than Abbott and has always been used as a political excuse to under-fund public schools.

What Abbott says now: “We need to pay our best teachers more.” (More than $100,000, he says.)

Abbott’s record: He hasn’t paid any teacher “more.” He floated out a fake “teacher pay raise” before a special legislative session last year but never proposed a way to pay for it, and he still hasn’t, despite all his talk about six-figure teacher salaries. And those “best teachers” he is talking about singling out now would be determined by STAAR test scores. Meanwhile, average teacher pay in Texas is $7,300 less than the national average.

What Abbott says now: “We need to…reduce the burden of skyrocketing property taxes.” To help do that, he proposes forcing local governments to lower tax rates as property values rise.

Abbott’s record: School property taxes are rising mainly because of rising property values. But school boards would be able to reduce property tax rates now and lower the overall property tax load if the state increased its share of school funding. Instead, Abbott and his legislative allies have consistenly under-funded public education, and school boards can’t cut tax rates. So the local share of the Foundation School Program has continued to rise during Abbott’s term as governor and is projected to hit 62 percent this year, while the state’s share drops to 38 percent, according to the Legislative Budget Board.

What Abbott says now: We must “ensure (educators) retirements are sound and health care costs are contained.”

Abbott’s record: Texas’ rate of contribution to TRS pensions is one of the lowest in the country. And Abbott and his allies have repeatedly ignored educators’ pleas to increase the state’s contribution to health care premiums for school employees.

“The state must increase its responsibility for education funding,” Abbott writes in his oped.

That has been obvious throughout the governor’s entire term, but he has never proposed a concrete way to do that and instead has always supported restrictions on state spending.

Has Abbott experienced a pre-election conversion?

No. But he is trying to get your vote, and if you believe him now, I suspect you also believe in fairy tales.

Vote Education First!

Dreaming of the governor’s six-figure teacher salary? Time to wake up.

The political fantasy season continues. Now Gov. Greg Abbott is getting some nice headlines and TV exposure by claiming to be working on a way to give some teachers six-figure salaries. If you are a teacher who believes that, then you probably will believe the kid who claims the dog ate his homework.

Unless you are a high school football coach with a very successful record, your chances as a teacher of getting a six-figure salary under this governor are nil. Your chances of getting even a decent, professional salary in the upper five figures are practically zero.

The only reason Abbott is even talking about educators and money in the same sentence is because, of course, this is an election year. For him, education is an issue with which to deceive teachers into thinking he actually gives more than a tweet about the real needs of educators and their students.

You may remember that Abbott also proposed a teacher “pay raise” before a special legislative session last summer but never came up with the money to pay for it. Speaker Joe Straus and the House came up with some money — $1.8 billion – that many districts could have used to raise teacher pay or reduce employee health insurance premiums. But Abbott and his accomplice, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, slammed the door on the extra funding in an unsuccessful effort to advance a voucher bill.

Now, here is Abbott again, claiming to be thinking about another teacher pay raise – a big one.

“We want to structure a compensation plan that will put the very best educators on a pathway to earning a six-figure salary,” he said, without suggesting a way to pay for it.

There also are other problems with the governor’s pronouncement. Rather than give all 350,000 or so Texas teachers a well-deserved pay raise, Abbott proposes to select a relative handful and force them to jump through hoops to get what they already have earned. The hoops most likely would be STAAR test scores, meaning more valuable classroom time would be wasted on teaching to the test without actually measuring real student achievement.

The governor apparently has been talking to Education Commissioner Mike Morath, who supported a similar plan in Dallas ISD when he was a board member there. Five years later, the plan is a huge failure. Less than 1 percent of Dallas ISD teachers have made the top pay tier, and there has been a huge teacher turnover. Almost half of the district’s teachers have five or fewer years of experience, and Dallas ISD is going to be unable to continue paying the higher salaries at the top if the state doesn’t increase public education funding.

Better education funding for all schools and students should be Abbott’s top educational priority, not meaningless pie-in-the-sky teasers to a handful of teachers. Annual per-student funding in Texas is $2,300 less than the national average, and teacher pay is $7,300 less than the national average. As many as half of the teachers who enter the classroom this fall will have left five years from now, and Abbott is doing nothing to address that problem.

“Being an educator is a calling; however, we want to advance that calling into a profession,” Abbott was quoted as saying.

Someone should tell the governor that being an educator already is a profession. The problem is that Abbott, Patrick and officeholders like them don’t believe that educators should be paid a professional salary. And Abbott’s alleged proposal doesn’t do that.

It is time for educators to elect new leaders, including Lupe Valdez for governor and Mike Collier for lieutenant governor. Vote Education First!

Does Dan Patrick care about educators or retirees? Not really

A good rule to remember whenever Dan Patrick opens his mouth, especially about public education, is not to believe him. And if a few months before Election Day he issues a public letter in which he purports to care about the health care costs of retired educators, watch out.

The letter, which Patrick wrote this week, was an alleged plea to the Teacher Retirement System Board of Trustees not to raise health insurance premiums by $50 a month for retired teachers younger than 65 who are not on Medicare.

The board will consider that issue at its September meeting.

TSTA certainly isn’t advocating for a healthcare increase for any retirees, but we question Patrick’s motive and whether he really cares. TRS explained that lawmakers were told during last summer’s special session that a premium increase would be necessary unless the state appropriated an additional $410 million to keep the program solvent. So, why didn’t Patrick act then? As leader of the Senate, why didn’t he insist then that the Legislature appropriate enough money for TRS to make a premium increase unnecessary?

Now, he claims the Legislature can find the money next year. Just trust me, he says. If you are a retired educator, an active educator, or a student’s parent, it is never a good idea to trust Dan Patrick.

Consider his record.

Patrick was nowhere to be found last spring when the TRS board raised health insurance premiums for active educators by as much as 9.5 percent, depending on their plan. And as Senate leader for the past four years, he has ignored educators’ pleas to raise the state contribution to their premiums above the $75 a month that the state hasn’t changed since 2002.

Also remember that Patrick slammed the door on a $1.8 billion increase in public education funding during the special session. And as a state senator in 2011 he voted to cut $5.4 billion from the public education budget.

He also played a major role in concocting that phony A-F school “accountability” grading system that debuted this week, and as long as he is in office he will continue to promote private school vouchers.

Patrick’s only interest in public schools is to declare them “failures” and then privatize them. In his view, educators and retired educators are collateral damage. He still wants their votes but hasn’t earned them.

If you want a lieutenant governor who will really advocate for public schools, students, educators and retirees, vote for Mike Collier, the TSTA-endorsed candidate. Vote Education First!

Pay every teacher more, and quit over-testing their students

The House Public Education Committee had a hearing on teacher compensation yesterday and heard from TSTA and other teacher groups. Education Commissioner Mike Morath was there too, officially wringing his hands over low teacher pay and high teacher turnover. (Yes, there is a connection.)

Thirty years ago, Morath told lawmakers, the average Texas teacher had 15 years’ experience. Now, most teachers you are likely to encounter are only in their first or second year in the classroom. And most college graduates are choosing other professions.

The solution, he proposed, was to pay a handful of the “best” teachers more, ignoring the fact that all Texas teachers, except for maybe a few high school football coaches, are underpaid.

On average, Texas teachers are paid $7,300 a year less than the national average, a gap that is growing wider, and you don’t cure that by forcing the so-called “cream of the crop” to jump through more STAAR hoops for a pay raise.

Moreover, almost 40 percent of those Texas teachers who haven’t given up on their professions are taking extra jobs during the school year to make ends meet, as TSTA’s latest moonlighting survey points out.

And it is not just teacher pay that is lagging. The state also under-funds school districts for basic school supplies and other educational needs. Teachers also are shelling out an average of $738 of their own money on school supplies each year, providing what amounts to a $250 million annual subsidy for the elected state officials who are neglecting their duty to adequately fund public education.

Next week, the attention will be diverted from teachers as Morath unveils the first A-F letter grades for school districts, which will be largely based on STAAR test scores and do nothing to improve teacher compensation or give one additional school child a greater opportunity to succeed.

The A-F grades are designed instead to give political cover to the governor, the lieutenant governor and their legislative allies who persist in shortchanging public schools, students and educators. They will use low grades to blame under-funded school districts and teachers – instead of themselves — for “failing” their students. And it will get worse next year when the letter grades are assigned to individual schools.

The real culprits who deserve an accountability kick are the officials, including Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who persist in over-testing students and under-funding their schools and their teachers. Remember that on Election Day and Vote Education First!

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