Grading Texas – Page 95 – Texas State Teachers Association

Teachers continue to bail out school budgets

Seldom at a loss for empty rhetoric, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick was quoted in the Austin American-Statesman the other day as saying he will “continue to focus on making Texas schools the envy of our nation.” He should try telling that to some Austin ISD teachers who are working every day to make Patrick’s alleged goal happen – with precious little help from Patrick.

In addition to their normal duties, teachers at Palm Elementary School in Austin ISD are working with school administrators to restore their school, which was heavily flooded during storms several weeks ago. According to the Austin Chronicle, floodwaters from Onion Creek made a mess of the facility, forcing the temporary relocation of students and leaving the district with costly cleanup bills.

The teachers, meanwhile, are digging into their own pockets to help restock their classrooms with school supplies, only a few months after buying supplies – without reimbursement – for the start of the school year. Those supplies were ruined or washed away.

Unfortunately, it is not unusual in Texas for public school teachers to pay several hundred dollars a year for classroom supplies that districts can’t afford. Palm teachers are getting hit twice, and Education Austin President Ken Zarifis made it clear that state government (including Dan Patrick) is to blame because the legislative majority continues to under-fund public education.

Lawmakers, he pointed out, have created “an unstated expectation that teachers should pay for their basic supplies.”

“We have a finance system that has been starved by our state for years and has increasingly made demands upon the teachers,” he added. “There are enough challenges and frustration dealing with a flood, never mind resupplying your classroom.”

Zarifis is a former middle school teacher who recalls buying things like highlighters, markers, extra paper and other things the district didn’t provide and many students can’t afford.

Teachers were paying an average $697 a year from their own paychecks for classroom supplies in 2013, the last time TSTA surveyed its members on the question. And, that was a signficant increase from the previous survey – an average $564 a year in 2010.

This, of course, is only one result of an under-funded school finance system that Patrick, Gov. Greg Abbott and the legislative majority continue to ignore while they fight a court order for improvements.

The several billion taxpayer dollars that Patrick insisted upon leaving in the bank last spring could have bought a lot of school supplies and classroom computers, raised teacher salaries, lowered health insurance costs and reduced class sizes for thousands of school children.

Patrick’s rhetoric is a lot cheaper, and it is an insult to educators and a disservice to school children.

http://www.austinchronicle.com/news/2015-12-11/out-of-pocket/

For Trump, less education is more

Please don’t blame school teachers for the blustery rise and, so far, staying power of Donald Trump at the top of the Republican presidential sweepstakes. But there may be a connection between Trump’s popularity and the education – or, more specifically, the lack thereof – of many of his supporters.

Trump, the billionaire real estate mogul and reality TV star, draws most of his support, according to the Washington Post story linked below, from Republicans, primarily white, with lower levels of education.

Why?

Trump has led the charge among Republican presidential candidates against immigration and immigrants, beginning with his allegation about “rapists” coming over the border from Mexico to his latest outrageous – and unconstitutional – declaration that the U.S. border be closed to all Muslims.

As the Post noted: “Trump has certainly distinguished himself as the candidate willing to express outrage and horror about the nation’s immigration challenges. He has also espoused a range of demonstrably false, unproven and outright conspiratorial ideas about immigration.”

And, who feels the most threatened by immigration? They are the Americans at the bottom of the job ladder – the uneducated and the under-educated – who fear the job competition from immigrants the most intensely.

That’s because, the Post points out, many immigrant workers arrive in the United States with limited educations and are competing for the same manual labor, service and other low-paid jobs as Americans with limited education and job skills. Even some of the more-educated, professionally trained immigrants have to settle for low-paying jobs because they can’t afford the additional training and testing that their professions may require in the U.S.

Not all Americans of limited education support Trump. Many do not. But obviously there are enough of them who consider themselves Republicans to make a difference so far in GOP polling.

Trump’s simpleton rhetoric — “bomb the —-“ out of America’s enemies – also appeals to less-educated people unable – or unwilling – to comprehend the complexities of the challenges that will face the next president of the United States.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/07/27/donald-trumps-surge-is-heavily-reliant-on-less-educated-americans-heres-why/?wpmm=1&wpisrc=nl_p1most

Educators need to be wary of pension “reformers”

The Teacher Retirement System of Texas is one of the strongest public pension systems in the country and with the continued hard work of educators and prudent policy decisions, it will remain that way. But public pension systems in general remain under political attack, as we are reminded by a recent appointment that Gov. Greg Abbott made to the State Pension Review Board, which oversees state and local government retirement systems.

Abbott named Josh McGee, a vice president of the Houston-based Laura and John Arnold Foundation, to the board. This is the same John Arnold, a former Enron trader, who wants to replace defined-benefit pensions, such as TRS, with risky 401(k)-style plans. Instead of safeguarding an educator’s well-earned retirement benefits, he would have a teacher roll the dice on a 401(k) that could vanish shortly before retirement if the stock market took another plunge.

The Combined Law Enforcement Association of Texas (CLEAT) has asked Abbott to rescind McGee’s appointment because the group fears he will try to abolish police pensions. McGee’s anti-pension agenda, however, may be broader than that. He may not want to stop with the police.

Even though CLEAT backed Abbott for governor, there is no reason to expect Abbott to change his appointment. There is reason, though, to be wary of pension ideas coming from anyone affiliated with John Arnold.

http://trailblazersblog.dallasnews.com/2015/12/law-enforcement-group-urges-gov-abbott-to-rescind-pension-board-appointment.html/

Trying to save the fourth R in the school day

Remember when the four Rs were an essential part of every school day? Those were the long-ago days before school kids – and their teachers – were saddled with excessive standardized testing and excessive hand-wringing over how kids in Finland did better on test scores than we did.

Are you old enough to even remember the four Rs? They were, of course, reading, ‘riting, ‘rithmetic – and recess.

Public school students still are taught the first three Rs, although sometimes by different names. But the fourth R has become an endangered species in some schools, dropped from the school day for various reasons, including – you guessed it – to provide more time to prepare students for testing.

Now, we may be seeing an effort to revive the fourth R, at least in Dallas ISD, where trustee Dan Micciche is recommending a policy change to require recess for students in prekindergarten through fifth grade at least once a day in all the district’s elementary schools.

According to The Dallas Morning News, Micciche also said that physical education classes, which are structured, should not substitute for recess, where children are given an opportunity to take a break to play with friends and other classmates, or just relax.

“Numerous studies have discussed the importance of recess in improving social and emotional health and learning,” he said.

And, he could have added, relieving the stress of too many standardized tests.

http://educationblog.dallasnews.com/2015/12/dallas-isd-trustee-wants-daily-recess-in-elementary-schools-do-you-agree.html/

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