Parents have the power to break the stranglehold of standardized testing
By Shaun Johnson | Baltimore Sun
August 25, 2011
Here's an update to a clichéd philosophical question: If a test is scheduled and no one is around to take it, will this test matter?
The new school year for many public school teachers begins weeks before students arrive. Educators attend hours of workshops to discover that the newest acronym is simply a substitute for an older one. More importantly, piles of test data are pored over to both assess the previous year and to fully appreciate what is to come with a new crop of students.
With every new testing mandate, combined with recent scandals chipping away at the once impossibly smooth veneer of test-based education reforms, many teachers, parents and administrators are getting frustrated. Where have market-driven and data-obsessed policies taken us over the last 10 years? Are public schools necessarily better off than they were when No Child Left Behind (NCLB) was initially greeted with bipartisan support?
Another important question: What of education have we lost as a result of strict adherence to standardized tests? Many are answering, "Too much — and enough is enough." The result is that more and more parents and educators are mulling what was once unthinkable: opting children out of state standardized tests.
For example, Tim Slekar, a professor of education in Pennsylvania, opted his son Luke out of his state's tests last school year to "make my community aware and to try and enlighten them of the real issues." This parent and professor's plea is simple and forceful: "Stop treating my child as data! He's a great kid who loves to learn. He is not a politician's pawn in a chess game designed to prove the inadequacy of his teachers and school."
In July, a large group of public school advocates organized the Save Our Schools March in Washington, D.C. to protest the continued, and in some cases stronger, embrace of standardized testing. Even amid budget shortfalls, millions of taxpayer dollars are spent on things like researching newer exams, test security, investigating lapses in that security, and manufacturing data collection systems. Meanwhile, schools must contend with smaller staffs and larger class sizes.
Educators are frustrated by the exclusion of teachers from the larger debate on education reform and policy in the United States. Individual classroom teachers and researchers have been highlighting for years the deleterious effects of focusing solely on success or failure with regard to standardized tests. And even now, with the revelation that high-stakes environments are perfect breeding grounds for desperation and resulting dishonesty, the dispiriting march through another year of test preparation must continue.
In a political and cultural environment that at best feigns listening to educators and at worst demonizes them, the most active public school advocates — like Mr. Slekar — are beginning to feel that opting their children out of completing the state tests is the only message that will get through. Those who began their research into the issue are finding it remarkably easy to do, despite the dissembling of school officials when asked for information.
Parents considering opting their children out of state testing are aware of the implications — that a diminished level of participation will affect the school's ability to make Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP). But the threat of no AYP does not appear as ominous as it once did. What is more, the Department of Education's hemming and hawing over the reauthorization of NCLB, plus this whole business of granting waivers that states don't even want, could mean that the punitive era of education reform is slowly coming to an end.
Growing groups of parents and public school advocates have decided to hit the contemporary reform movement where it counts by taking away the privilege of collecting coveted data. They realize that their children are more than just test scores. They now understand that a laser-like focus on testing and test preparation comes at the expense of numerous other facets of an engaging and well-rounded education. Most of all, these same folks are slowly but surely grasping the power that eluded them during the height of the NCLB era. Despite being largely locked out of the conversation on public education, parents, teachers, and parents who are teachers know they don't have to give up the data any longer.
Opting-out groups are turning to social media to organize. A Florida-based Facebook group, "Testing is Not Teaching," boasts more than 12,000 supporters. A similar, fledgling group called "United Opt Out" claimed 600 national members after just a few days of existence online. Local numbers for Maryland are elusive, and it's too early to tell whether pressing the "Like" button will translate into actual opting out of test taking.
So, to come full circle: If tests were scheduled and no one took them, would it matter? It would probably be the exact opposite of the proverbial tree falling with no one around. Fewer students filling in fewer bubbles would sound an alarm akin to 1,000 trees falling in the forest. This time, one could not ignore hearing it. And the sincere grievances public school advocates have about the dominance of testing might finally receive an attentive audience.
Shaun Johnson is an assistant professor of elementary education in the College of Education at Towson University. His email is spjohnson@towson.edu.
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Thursday, October 27, 2011
Leaving Children Behind
By PAUL KRUGMAN
February 27, 2011
Will 2011 be the year of fiscal austerity? At the federal level, it’s still not clear: Republicans are demanding draconian spending cuts, but we don’t yet know how far they’re willing to go in a showdown with President Obama. At the state and local level, however, there’s no doubt about it: big spending cuts are coming.
And who will bear the brunt of these cuts? America’s children.
Now, politicians — and especially, in my experience, conservative politicians — always claim to be deeply concerned about the nation’s children. Back during the 2000 campaign, then-candidate George W. Bush, touting the “Texas miracle” of dramatically lower dropout rates, declared that he wanted to be the “education president.” Today, advocates of big spending cuts often claim that their greatest concern is the burden of debt our children will face.
In practice, however, when advocates of lower spending get a chance to put their ideas into practice, the burden always seems to fall disproportionately on those very children they claim to hold so dear.
Consider, as a case in point, what’s happening in Texas, which more and more seems to be where America’s political future happens first.
Texas likes to portray itself as a model of small government, and indeed it is. Taxes are low, at least if you’re in the upper part of the income distribution (taxes on the bottom 40 percent of the population are actually above the national average). Government spending is also low. And to be fair, low taxes may be one reason for the state’s rapid population growth, although low housing prices are surely much more important.
But here’s the thing: While low spending may sound good in the abstract, what it amounts to in practice is low spending on children, who account directly or indirectly for a large part of government outlays at the state and local level.
And in low-tax, low-spending Texas, the kids are not all right. The high school graduation rate, at just 61.3 percent, puts Texas 43rd out of 50 in state rankings. Nationally, the state ranks fifth in child poverty; it leads in the percentage of children without health insurance. And only 78 percent of Texas children are in excellent or very good health, significantly below the national average.
But wait — how can graduation rates be so low when Texas had that education miracle back when former President Bush was governor? Well, a couple of years into his presidency the truth about that miracle came out: Texas school administrators achieved low reported dropout rates the old-fashioned way — they, ahem, got the numbers wrong.
It’s not a pretty picture; compassion aside, you have to wonder — and many business people in Texas do — how the state can prosper in the long run with a future work force blighted by childhood poverty, poor health and lack of education.
But things are about to get much worse.
A few months ago another Texas miracle went the way of that education miracle of the 1990s. For months, Gov. Rick Perry had boasted that his “tough conservative decisions” had kept the budget in surplus while allowing the state to weather the recession unscathed. But after Mr. Perry’s re-election, reality intruded — funny how that happens — and the state is now scrambling to close a huge budget gap. (By the way, given the current efforts to blame public-sector unions for state fiscal problems, it’s worth noting that the mess in Texas was achieved with an overwhelmingly nonunion work force.)
So how will that gap be closed? Given the already dire condition of Texas children, you might have expected the state’s leaders to focus the pain elsewhere. In particular, you might have expected high-income Texans, who pay much less in state and local taxes than the national average, to be asked to bear at least some of the burden.
But you’d be wrong. Tax increases have been ruled out of consideration; the gap will be closed solely through spending cuts. Medicaid, a program that is crucial to many of the state’s children, will take the biggest hit, with the Legislature proposing a funding cut of no less than 29 percent, including a reduction in the state’s already low payments to providers — raising fears that doctors will start refusing to see Medicaid patients. And education will also face steep cuts, with school administrators talking about as many as 100,000 layoffs.
The really striking thing about all this isn’t the cruelty — at this point you expect that — but the shortsightedness. What’s supposed to happen when today’s neglected children become tomorrow’s work force?
Anyway, the next time some self-proclaimed deficit hawk tells you how much he worries about the debt we’re leaving our children, remember what’s happening in Texas, a state whose slogan right now might as well be “Lose the future.”
February 27, 2011
Will 2011 be the year of fiscal austerity? At the federal level, it’s still not clear: Republicans are demanding draconian spending cuts, but we don’t yet know how far they’re willing to go in a showdown with President Obama. At the state and local level, however, there’s no doubt about it: big spending cuts are coming.
And who will bear the brunt of these cuts? America’s children.
Now, politicians — and especially, in my experience, conservative politicians — always claim to be deeply concerned about the nation’s children. Back during the 2000 campaign, then-candidate George W. Bush, touting the “Texas miracle” of dramatically lower dropout rates, declared that he wanted to be the “education president.” Today, advocates of big spending cuts often claim that their greatest concern is the burden of debt our children will face.
In practice, however, when advocates of lower spending get a chance to put their ideas into practice, the burden always seems to fall disproportionately on those very children they claim to hold so dear.
Consider, as a case in point, what’s happening in Texas, which more and more seems to be where America’s political future happens first.
Texas likes to portray itself as a model of small government, and indeed it is. Taxes are low, at least if you’re in the upper part of the income distribution (taxes on the bottom 40 percent of the population are actually above the national average). Government spending is also low. And to be fair, low taxes may be one reason for the state’s rapid population growth, although low housing prices are surely much more important.
But here’s the thing: While low spending may sound good in the abstract, what it amounts to in practice is low spending on children, who account directly or indirectly for a large part of government outlays at the state and local level.
And in low-tax, low-spending Texas, the kids are not all right. The high school graduation rate, at just 61.3 percent, puts Texas 43rd out of 50 in state rankings. Nationally, the state ranks fifth in child poverty; it leads in the percentage of children without health insurance. And only 78 percent of Texas children are in excellent or very good health, significantly below the national average.
But wait — how can graduation rates be so low when Texas had that education miracle back when former President Bush was governor? Well, a couple of years into his presidency the truth about that miracle came out: Texas school administrators achieved low reported dropout rates the old-fashioned way — they, ahem, got the numbers wrong.
It’s not a pretty picture; compassion aside, you have to wonder — and many business people in Texas do — how the state can prosper in the long run with a future work force blighted by childhood poverty, poor health and lack of education.
But things are about to get much worse.
A few months ago another Texas miracle went the way of that education miracle of the 1990s. For months, Gov. Rick Perry had boasted that his “tough conservative decisions” had kept the budget in surplus while allowing the state to weather the recession unscathed. But after Mr. Perry’s re-election, reality intruded — funny how that happens — and the state is now scrambling to close a huge budget gap. (By the way, given the current efforts to blame public-sector unions for state fiscal problems, it’s worth noting that the mess in Texas was achieved with an overwhelmingly nonunion work force.)
So how will that gap be closed? Given the already dire condition of Texas children, you might have expected the state’s leaders to focus the pain elsewhere. In particular, you might have expected high-income Texans, who pay much less in state and local taxes than the national average, to be asked to bear at least some of the burden.
But you’d be wrong. Tax increases have been ruled out of consideration; the gap will be closed solely through spending cuts. Medicaid, a program that is crucial to many of the state’s children, will take the biggest hit, with the Legislature proposing a funding cut of no less than 29 percent, including a reduction in the state’s already low payments to providers — raising fears that doctors will start refusing to see Medicaid patients. And education will also face steep cuts, with school administrators talking about as many as 100,000 layoffs.
The really striking thing about all this isn’t the cruelty — at this point you expect that — but the shortsightedness. What’s supposed to happen when today’s neglected children become tomorrow’s work force?
Anyway, the next time some self-proclaimed deficit hawk tells you how much he worries about the debt we’re leaving our children, remember what’s happening in Texas, a state whose slogan right now might as well be “Lose the future.”
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
September 16 is a date America should celebrate by Roy Cook
Very interesting piece on Mexico's full blooded indian president Benito Juarez by Roy Cook.
-Angela
September 16 is a date America should celebrate
By Roy Cook
September 16, 1810. The Mexican War of Independence movement was led by Mestizos, Zambos and Tribal Indians who sought independence from Spain. As an independent nation, Mexico declared the abolition of slavery and the equality of all citizens, including Tribal peoples, under the law. Freedom for all over 100 years before the United States of America would extend the same rights to the Tribal people in its borders, 1924.
Over the past few years, the Latino population in California has grown in unprecedented numbers, a fact that is being noticed by politicians, media and businesses. According to the 2000 census, there are 37.4 million individuals of Latino descent in the U.S. However, the new unknown immigrants are Meso-American Indians (Native Americans from Mexico and Central America). They are the largest growing population in the state. We have to remember that Latino is not a race and that the labels, Hispanic or Latino, cover up immense racial, cultural and ethnic diversity. There are many Anglo-, and Afro-Latinos who don’t eat burritos or sing “la cucaracha.” Latino is not as simple as “yo quiero Taco Bell;” it’s much more dynamic and complex.
According to the Frente Indigena Organización Binacional (FIOB), a California nonprofit for immigrants, the majority of the people who are labeled Mexican are natives from the Mixtec, Zapotec and Chatino tribes. FIOB estimates there are between 70,000 to 80,000 indigenous workers from Oaxaca throughout California. The Mexican Consulate in San Francisco indicates there are more than 10,000 Maya Indians from the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico currently living in Marin County alone and about 18,000 throughout the Bay Area. But why do the mainstream community and Latino-based service agencies fail to recognize the changing demographics of the community? Is it possible that these individuals don’t fit the romantic view of North American Indians? Could it be that Latinos and community programs that serve them may not be aware of this trend? Or do Latino service providers replicate the same discriminatory behaviors from their own countries of origin? It is not
surprising that many Meso-American Indians making new lives in California do not self-identify with their American Indian heritage.
Historically, Latin America has been tremendously violent and discriminatory against Indian people. Many “mestizos” (mixed bloods) who may be culturally Indian experienced the discrimination as well. The inside scoop within the Latino community is that it’s generally associated with being poor and at the bottom of the social and economic scales. Discriminatory practices against Indians are embodied in almost every institution throughout Latin America. Today, many governments in Meso-America recognize the presence of indigenous people, yet fail to fulfill international accords and treaties. Even though Indians are the traditional low-wage workhorse of this country and Third World countries, they rarely have any political or social status. Consequently, for most indigenous people, it’s safer to be identified as Latino than an Indian. The flip side to all of this is that there are new social movements in California that recognize and respond to this
changing trend. Leaders of indigenous organizations celebrate Meso-American Indian culture and spirituality.
As native people from Latin America begin to feel less fearful, they are becoming more forthcoming about their culture and identity. So, the next time you think you see a “Latino,” keep in mind he or she may or may not even speak Spanish. Many of these people are representatives of a complex and ancient heritage and are contributing to the economy as they are trying to survive.
Yet many of these ‘new’ indigenous people are knowledgeable that Benito Juarez is often regarded as Mexico's greatest and most beloved leader. He was also the first full-blooded Tribal person to serve as President of Mexico, and the first to lead an American country in more than 300 years of Spanish colonialism.
Mexico had finally gained independence from Spain in 1821 after a difficult and bloody struggle since 1810. Mexican War of Independence(1810-1821), was an armed conflict between the people of Mexico and Spanish colonial authorities, which started on September 16, 1810. The Mexican War of Independence movement was led by Mexico born Spaniards, Mestizos, Zambos and Tribal Indians who sought independence from Spain. As an independent nation, Mexico declared the abolition of slavery and the equality of all citizens: brown, black, yellow, including Tribal peoples, under the law.
The economic realities of any prolonged conflict are harsh. Faced with bankruptcy and a war-ravaged economy, Benito Juarez declared a moratorium on foreign debt payments. Spain, Great Britain, and France reacted with a joint seizure of the Vera Cruz customs house in December 1861. Spain and Britain soon withdrew, but the French Emperor Napoleon III used the episode as a pretext to launch the French intervention in Mexico in 1862, with plans to establish a conservative regime.
Benito Juarez, as President, his 4,000 Mexican soldiers smashed the French and monarchist Mexican army of 8,000 at Puebla, Mexico, 100 miles east of Mexico City on the morning of May 5, 1862.The French had landed in Mexico (along with Spanish and English troops) five months earlier on the pretext of collecting Mexican debts from the newly elected government of democratic President (and Indian) Benito Juarez.
Juarez was born in the small village of San Pablo Guelatao, Oaxaca, located in the mountain range now known as the "Sierra Juarez." His parents, Marcelino Juárez and Brígida García were peasants who died when he was three years old. He described his parents as "Amerindians of the primitive race of the country." He worked in the corn fields and as a shepherd until the age of 12. On December 17, 1818, he walked to the city of Oaxaca looking to educate him and find a better life. At the time he was illiterate and could not speak Spanish, only Zapotec.
The Zapotec civilization was an indigenous pre-Columbian civilization that flourished in the Valley of Oaxaca of southern Mesoamerica. Archaeological evidence shows their culture goes back at least 2500 years. They left archaeological evidence at the ancient city of Monte Albán in the form of buildings, ball courts, magnificent tombs and grave goods including finely worked gold jewelry. Monte Albán was the first major city in the western hemisphere and the center of a Zapotec state that dominated much of what we know of as the current state of Oaxaca.
The battle at Puebla in 1862 happened at a violent and chaotic time in Mexico's history. Mexico had finally gained independence from Spain in 1821 after a difficult and bloody struggle since 1810, and a number of internal political takeovers and wars, including the Mexican-American War (1846-1848) and the Mexican Civil War of 1858, had ruined the national economy.
The English and Spanish quickly made deals and left. The French, however, had different ideas.Under Emperor Napoleon III, who detested the United States, the French came to stay. They brought a Hapsburg prince with them to rule the new Mexican empire. His name was Maximilian; his wife, Carlota. Napoleon's French Army had not been defeated in 50 years, and it invaded Mexico with the finest modern equipment and with a newly reconstituted Foreign Legion. The French were not afraid of anyone, especially since the United States was embroiled in its own Civil War.
The French Army left the port of Vera Cruz to attack Mexico City to the west, as the French assumed that the Mexicans would give up should their capital fall to the enemy as European countries traditionally did. But Benito Juarez created a mobile capital on wheels. With him he carried a portrait of Abraham Lincoln.While it is not known exactly when Juárez came to Lincoln's attention, we know that Lincoln was his strong supporter as early as 1857, eve of the Reform War. When Juárez had to flee Mexico City in 1858, Lincoln sent him a message expressing hope "for the liberty of .. your government and its people."
The bond between the two leaders was strengthened in 1861, the year the Civil War began. Perhaps the greatest dividend attained by the informal but highly effective alliance between Abraham Lincoln and Benito Juárez is the way it served to ease the bitterness felt by Mexicans thanks to the disastrous consequences of the U.S.-Mexican War.
-Angela
September 16 is a date America should celebrate
By Roy Cook
September 16, 1810. The Mexican War of Independence movement was led by Mestizos, Zambos and Tribal Indians who sought independence from Spain. As an independent nation, Mexico declared the abolition of slavery and the equality of all citizens, including Tribal peoples, under the law. Freedom for all over 100 years before the United States of America would extend the same rights to the Tribal people in its borders, 1924.
Over the past few years, the Latino population in California has grown in unprecedented numbers, a fact that is being noticed by politicians, media and businesses. According to the 2000 census, there are 37.4 million individuals of Latino descent in the U.S. However, the new unknown immigrants are Meso-American Indians (Native Americans from Mexico and Central America). They are the largest growing population in the state. We have to remember that Latino is not a race and that the labels, Hispanic or Latino, cover up immense racial, cultural and ethnic diversity. There are many Anglo-, and Afro-Latinos who don’t eat burritos or sing “la cucaracha.” Latino is not as simple as “yo quiero Taco Bell;” it’s much more dynamic and complex.
According to the Frente Indigena Organización Binacional (FIOB), a California nonprofit for immigrants, the majority of the people who are labeled Mexican are natives from the Mixtec, Zapotec and Chatino tribes. FIOB estimates there are between 70,000 to 80,000 indigenous workers from Oaxaca throughout California. The Mexican Consulate in San Francisco indicates there are more than 10,000 Maya Indians from the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico currently living in Marin County alone and about 18,000 throughout the Bay Area. But why do the mainstream community and Latino-based service agencies fail to recognize the changing demographics of the community? Is it possible that these individuals don’t fit the romantic view of North American Indians? Could it be that Latinos and community programs that serve them may not be aware of this trend? Or do Latino service providers replicate the same discriminatory behaviors from their own countries of origin? It is not
surprising that many Meso-American Indians making new lives in California do not self-identify with their American Indian heritage.
Historically, Latin America has been tremendously violent and discriminatory against Indian people. Many “mestizos” (mixed bloods) who may be culturally Indian experienced the discrimination as well. The inside scoop within the Latino community is that it’s generally associated with being poor and at the bottom of the social and economic scales. Discriminatory practices against Indians are embodied in almost every institution throughout Latin America. Today, many governments in Meso-America recognize the presence of indigenous people, yet fail to fulfill international accords and treaties. Even though Indians are the traditional low-wage workhorse of this country and Third World countries, they rarely have any political or social status. Consequently, for most indigenous people, it’s safer to be identified as Latino than an Indian. The flip side to all of this is that there are new social movements in California that recognize and respond to this
changing trend. Leaders of indigenous organizations celebrate Meso-American Indian culture and spirituality.
As native people from Latin America begin to feel less fearful, they are becoming more forthcoming about their culture and identity. So, the next time you think you see a “Latino,” keep in mind he or she may or may not even speak Spanish. Many of these people are representatives of a complex and ancient heritage and are contributing to the economy as they are trying to survive.
Yet many of these ‘new’ indigenous people are knowledgeable that Benito Juarez is often regarded as Mexico's greatest and most beloved leader. He was also the first full-blooded Tribal person to serve as President of Mexico, and the first to lead an American country in more than 300 years of Spanish colonialism.
Mexico had finally gained independence from Spain in 1821 after a difficult and bloody struggle since 1810. Mexican War of Independence(1810-1821), was an armed conflict between the people of Mexico and Spanish colonial authorities, which started on September 16, 1810. The Mexican War of Independence movement was led by Mexico born Spaniards, Mestizos, Zambos and Tribal Indians who sought independence from Spain. As an independent nation, Mexico declared the abolition of slavery and the equality of all citizens: brown, black, yellow, including Tribal peoples, under the law.
The economic realities of any prolonged conflict are harsh. Faced with bankruptcy and a war-ravaged economy, Benito Juarez declared a moratorium on foreign debt payments. Spain, Great Britain, and France reacted with a joint seizure of the Vera Cruz customs house in December 1861. Spain and Britain soon withdrew, but the French Emperor Napoleon III used the episode as a pretext to launch the French intervention in Mexico in 1862, with plans to establish a conservative regime.
Benito Juarez, as President, his 4,000 Mexican soldiers smashed the French and monarchist Mexican army of 8,000 at Puebla, Mexico, 100 miles east of Mexico City on the morning of May 5, 1862.The French had landed in Mexico (along with Spanish and English troops) five months earlier on the pretext of collecting Mexican debts from the newly elected government of democratic President (and Indian) Benito Juarez.
Juarez was born in the small village of San Pablo Guelatao, Oaxaca, located in the mountain range now known as the "Sierra Juarez." His parents, Marcelino Juárez and Brígida García were peasants who died when he was three years old. He described his parents as "Amerindians of the primitive race of the country." He worked in the corn fields and as a shepherd until the age of 12. On December 17, 1818, he walked to the city of Oaxaca looking to educate him and find a better life. At the time he was illiterate and could not speak Spanish, only Zapotec.
The Zapotec civilization was an indigenous pre-Columbian civilization that flourished in the Valley of Oaxaca of southern Mesoamerica. Archaeological evidence shows their culture goes back at least 2500 years. They left archaeological evidence at the ancient city of Monte Albán in the form of buildings, ball courts, magnificent tombs and grave goods including finely worked gold jewelry. Monte Albán was the first major city in the western hemisphere and the center of a Zapotec state that dominated much of what we know of as the current state of Oaxaca.
The battle at Puebla in 1862 happened at a violent and chaotic time in Mexico's history. Mexico had finally gained independence from Spain in 1821 after a difficult and bloody struggle since 1810, and a number of internal political takeovers and wars, including the Mexican-American War (1846-1848) and the Mexican Civil War of 1858, had ruined the national economy.
The English and Spanish quickly made deals and left. The French, however, had different ideas.Under Emperor Napoleon III, who detested the United States, the French came to stay. They brought a Hapsburg prince with them to rule the new Mexican empire. His name was Maximilian; his wife, Carlota. Napoleon's French Army had not been defeated in 50 years, and it invaded Mexico with the finest modern equipment and with a newly reconstituted Foreign Legion. The French were not afraid of anyone, especially since the United States was embroiled in its own Civil War.
The French Army left the port of Vera Cruz to attack Mexico City to the west, as the French assumed that the Mexicans would give up should their capital fall to the enemy as European countries traditionally did. But Benito Juarez created a mobile capital on wheels. With him he carried a portrait of Abraham Lincoln.While it is not known exactly when Juárez came to Lincoln's attention, we know that Lincoln was his strong supporter as early as 1857, eve of the Reform War. When Juárez had to flee Mexico City in 1858, Lincoln sent him a message expressing hope "for the liberty of .. your government and its people."
The bond between the two leaders was strengthened in 1861, the year the Civil War began. Perhaps the greatest dividend attained by the informal but highly effective alliance between Abraham Lincoln and Benito Juárez is the way it served to ease the bitterness felt by Mexicans thanks to the disastrous consequences of the U.S.-Mexican War.
Texas-Size Compromise
Kevin Kiley | Inside Higher Education
August 26, 2011
Texas Governor Rick Perry is surging in polls for the Republican nomination for president, but Francisco Cigarroa might be the Texan with the biggest political victory this week.
At a meeting of the University of Texas System’s Board of Regents on Thursday, Cigarroa, the system’s chancellor, presented a framework, which the board adopted unanimously, designed to improve accountability, outcomes, and efficiency at the system’s nine academic institutions and six health centers.
Cigarroa's plan, much like the efforts being pushed by Perry and conservative think tanks in the state, involves much more public reporting about faculty performance and focuses on using technology as a way to drive down college costs. But unlike those plans, it gives considerable leeway to campuses to determine how they will evaluate faculty members. It also avoids some of the controversial assumptions made by other reform efforts -- such as the view that there is a clear relationship between grants obtained and the value of research, or that student evaluations are the best way to measure a faculty member's teaching -- to which faculty members have objected.
The new plan is ambitious in its scope -- encompassing everything from a public database to evaluate faculty productivity to a new resource to develop online courses -- but its biggest success might be the fact that, so far, it has the support of groups on multiple sides of what has been a contentious debate about the future of higher education in Texas. The framework provides a rough outline for the system, and campuses will be left to figure out the details of exactly how they will meet the chancellor's goals, which could create tension down the road. But the fact that Cigarroa is being praised by conservative think tanks, faculty members, and even Perry is a notable departure from the rhetoric that has dominated higher-education talk in Texas.
“Chancellor Cigarroa’s action plan is the first step of many that will be needed for Texas public universities to achieve the important goals of greater transparency and accountability, improved use of resources, more world-class research and high-quality graduates, and reduced cost of higher education to students and taxpayers,” said David Guenthner, senior communications director for the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a conservative think tank whose reform proposals have been at the center of many of the debates. “Today’s positive presentation is the beginning of the reform process, not the end – but it is a very good start.”
At the same time, the plan received approval from the Texas Coalition for Excellence in Higher Education, a group formed in opposition to the reforms being pushed by the Texas Public Policy Foundation. “Chancellor Cigarroa’s plan is in direct contrast to the simplistic, ill-conceived, and untested so-called ‘solutions’ being promoted by outside interest groups,” the coalition said in a statement. Democratic and Republican lawmakers also weighed in, supporting the chancellor's efforts.
Tim Allen, a professor at the U.T. Health Science Center in Tyler and chair of the University of Texas System Faculty Advisory Council, said in a presentation following Cigarroa that faculty approved of the plan.
During the past few years, system administrators, university faculty members, alumni groups, politicians, and think tanks have been embroiled in discussions about college costs, accountability, faculty productivity, and the value of research. The Texas Public Policy Foundation has pushed a series of contentious reforms called the "seven solutions" that include separating research and teaching budgets, placing more emphasis on student evaluations, and creating a separate accrediting body. The group has numerous ties to the governor (who has great influence on the direction of the state's public universities, having appointed every member of the state's six boards of regents), who has partially endorsed its reforms.
Officials stressed that such issues have come up in other states as well, and that the issues of college costs and accountability are not unique to Texas, just more high-profile. “Texas finds itself at the epicenter of the national debate on the future of higher education,” Cigarroa said on Thursday.
Efforts to impose parts of those reforms have not sat well with some faculty and alumni groups, who see them as overly simplistic and detrimental to the system in the long run, and particularly to the research mission. But several people involved in the system say the broad support for Cigarroa's plan, and the comprehensive nature of the plan itself, will likely help quell the disputes.
"I think we're mostly past all that now," said Charles Miller, former chairman of the Board of Regents, of the heated rhetoric. He said that in the beginning of the debates about faculty productivity and college costs, some regents and staff quickly moved ahead to solve problems before there was agreement about what the problems were, creating a lot of tension. "In the beginning, the process wasn't well done. But these are smart, capable people on these boards, and when they're being told they're doing something wrong, they dig in and work harder."
Senator Judith Zaffirini, a Democrat from Laredo who chairs the Senate's Higher Education Committee, said she hopes the plan serves as a "unifying force that looks beyond yesterday’s controversies and toward a brighter future."
The plan Cigarroa laid out Thursday is designed to make sure that taxpayers and students are getting their money's worth out of the system -- particularly at a time of diminished state revenue and rising student costs -- which has been a major goal of the reform efforts. "Our primary goal here is enhancing the University of Texas for students and their parents, maintaining high quality, while at the same time, figuring out how to reduce overall costs and cost per student," said Gene Powell, chairman of the Board of Regents, in an interview.
The reforms incorporate suggestions developed by two regents' committees created at the beginning of the year: one on productivity and efficiency, and another on blended and online learning. Faculty members and administrators, feeling like the board was trying to micromanage campus operations, objected to those committees. The board then vested more authority in Cigarroa to create the plan.
In presenting the framework Thursday, Cigarroa stressed that he didn't want to take a "one size fits all" approach. Instead he laid out broad goals while letting each campus determine the actual benchmarks it would use. "Innovation happens at the campus level," he said in an interview. "We're not going to be prescriptive, but we are going to hold them accountable on developing strategies."
In terms of undergraduate students, the framework calls on campuses to improve four-year graduation rates, increase the number of degrees granted, and reduce the financial impact of tuition on families. For each of these, the plan outlines smaller action items, such as tuition policies that encourage four-year graduation, and identifies individuals responsible for carrying them out on each campus.
One of the major pushes in the framework, growing out of the regents' committee, is a call to increase blended and online learning to drive down costs. The board authorized an investment of up to $50 million to create a new Institute for Transformational Learning. The institute will work with campuses to develop online learning resources.
The announcement comes slightly more than a year after the system shuttered the UT TeleCampus, a centralized office for distance-education programs. Administrators said that unlike TeleCampus, the new institute will be a bottom-up approach, with programs originating on campuses, which they hope will spur greater innovation.
It will be left to the individual campuses to hammer out the details for many of the reforms advanced for improving faculty accountability and productivity, including strengthening annual evaluations and post-tenure review and implementing incentive-based compensation.
The system is already working on developing a publicly available dashboard that will present detailed information about department and individual professor productivity that administrators can use to make decisions. Cigarroa stressed that the exact information included in the dashboard has yet to be determined and that each campus will be able to determine its own set of metrics.
The selection of metrics will likely be a contentious issue down the road. Recent efforts to hold professors more accountable, such as lists of professors based on how many students they teach compared to their salaries, have not been greeted warmly by faculty members, who said they felt like they were under attack.
Other reforms include finding new ways to fund and collaborate on research projects, promote shorter completion times for Ph.D.s, and develop health and educational opportunities in South Texas -- including investment in UT-Brownsville, which used to operate jointly with a community college, to make the university a stand-alone four-year institution.
Actual implementation of the plans will take place over the next few years, as campus presidents and administrators determine actual metrics on which to measure performance and productivity.
Miller, who said he has been pushing for similar reforms for years and has been critical of both sides of the debate, said the board and Cigarroa deserve praise for tackling a politically dangerous issue. "There are quite a few people who should take responsibility for not having this discussion sooner," he said."This kind of thing takes leadership at the state policy level, at all levels, and the board should be commended for what they've done.
August 26, 2011
Texas Governor Rick Perry is surging in polls for the Republican nomination for president, but Francisco Cigarroa might be the Texan with the biggest political victory this week.
At a meeting of the University of Texas System’s Board of Regents on Thursday, Cigarroa, the system’s chancellor, presented a framework, which the board adopted unanimously, designed to improve accountability, outcomes, and efficiency at the system’s nine academic institutions and six health centers.
Cigarroa's plan, much like the efforts being pushed by Perry and conservative think tanks in the state, involves much more public reporting about faculty performance and focuses on using technology as a way to drive down college costs. But unlike those plans, it gives considerable leeway to campuses to determine how they will evaluate faculty members. It also avoids some of the controversial assumptions made by other reform efforts -- such as the view that there is a clear relationship between grants obtained and the value of research, or that student evaluations are the best way to measure a faculty member's teaching -- to which faculty members have objected.
The new plan is ambitious in its scope -- encompassing everything from a public database to evaluate faculty productivity to a new resource to develop online courses -- but its biggest success might be the fact that, so far, it has the support of groups on multiple sides of what has been a contentious debate about the future of higher education in Texas. The framework provides a rough outline for the system, and campuses will be left to figure out the details of exactly how they will meet the chancellor's goals, which could create tension down the road. But the fact that Cigarroa is being praised by conservative think tanks, faculty members, and even Perry is a notable departure from the rhetoric that has dominated higher-education talk in Texas.
“Chancellor Cigarroa’s action plan is the first step of many that will be needed for Texas public universities to achieve the important goals of greater transparency and accountability, improved use of resources, more world-class research and high-quality graduates, and reduced cost of higher education to students and taxpayers,” said David Guenthner, senior communications director for the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a conservative think tank whose reform proposals have been at the center of many of the debates. “Today’s positive presentation is the beginning of the reform process, not the end – but it is a very good start.”
At the same time, the plan received approval from the Texas Coalition for Excellence in Higher Education, a group formed in opposition to the reforms being pushed by the Texas Public Policy Foundation. “Chancellor Cigarroa’s plan is in direct contrast to the simplistic, ill-conceived, and untested so-called ‘solutions’ being promoted by outside interest groups,” the coalition said in a statement. Democratic and Republican lawmakers also weighed in, supporting the chancellor's efforts.
Tim Allen, a professor at the U.T. Health Science Center in Tyler and chair of the University of Texas System Faculty Advisory Council, said in a presentation following Cigarroa that faculty approved of the plan.
During the past few years, system administrators, university faculty members, alumni groups, politicians, and think tanks have been embroiled in discussions about college costs, accountability, faculty productivity, and the value of research. The Texas Public Policy Foundation has pushed a series of contentious reforms called the "seven solutions" that include separating research and teaching budgets, placing more emphasis on student evaluations, and creating a separate accrediting body. The group has numerous ties to the governor (who has great influence on the direction of the state's public universities, having appointed every member of the state's six boards of regents), who has partially endorsed its reforms.
Officials stressed that such issues have come up in other states as well, and that the issues of college costs and accountability are not unique to Texas, just more high-profile. “Texas finds itself at the epicenter of the national debate on the future of higher education,” Cigarroa said on Thursday.
Efforts to impose parts of those reforms have not sat well with some faculty and alumni groups, who see them as overly simplistic and detrimental to the system in the long run, and particularly to the research mission. But several people involved in the system say the broad support for Cigarroa's plan, and the comprehensive nature of the plan itself, will likely help quell the disputes.
"I think we're mostly past all that now," said Charles Miller, former chairman of the Board of Regents, of the heated rhetoric. He said that in the beginning of the debates about faculty productivity and college costs, some regents and staff quickly moved ahead to solve problems before there was agreement about what the problems were, creating a lot of tension. "In the beginning, the process wasn't well done. But these are smart, capable people on these boards, and when they're being told they're doing something wrong, they dig in and work harder."
Senator Judith Zaffirini, a Democrat from Laredo who chairs the Senate's Higher Education Committee, said she hopes the plan serves as a "unifying force that looks beyond yesterday’s controversies and toward a brighter future."
The plan Cigarroa laid out Thursday is designed to make sure that taxpayers and students are getting their money's worth out of the system -- particularly at a time of diminished state revenue and rising student costs -- which has been a major goal of the reform efforts. "Our primary goal here is enhancing the University of Texas for students and their parents, maintaining high quality, while at the same time, figuring out how to reduce overall costs and cost per student," said Gene Powell, chairman of the Board of Regents, in an interview.
The reforms incorporate suggestions developed by two regents' committees created at the beginning of the year: one on productivity and efficiency, and another on blended and online learning. Faculty members and administrators, feeling like the board was trying to micromanage campus operations, objected to those committees. The board then vested more authority in Cigarroa to create the plan.
In presenting the framework Thursday, Cigarroa stressed that he didn't want to take a "one size fits all" approach. Instead he laid out broad goals while letting each campus determine the actual benchmarks it would use. "Innovation happens at the campus level," he said in an interview. "We're not going to be prescriptive, but we are going to hold them accountable on developing strategies."
In terms of undergraduate students, the framework calls on campuses to improve four-year graduation rates, increase the number of degrees granted, and reduce the financial impact of tuition on families. For each of these, the plan outlines smaller action items, such as tuition policies that encourage four-year graduation, and identifies individuals responsible for carrying them out on each campus.
One of the major pushes in the framework, growing out of the regents' committee, is a call to increase blended and online learning to drive down costs. The board authorized an investment of up to $50 million to create a new Institute for Transformational Learning. The institute will work with campuses to develop online learning resources.
The announcement comes slightly more than a year after the system shuttered the UT TeleCampus, a centralized office for distance-education programs. Administrators said that unlike TeleCampus, the new institute will be a bottom-up approach, with programs originating on campuses, which they hope will spur greater innovation.
It will be left to the individual campuses to hammer out the details for many of the reforms advanced for improving faculty accountability and productivity, including strengthening annual evaluations and post-tenure review and implementing incentive-based compensation.
The system is already working on developing a publicly available dashboard that will present detailed information about department and individual professor productivity that administrators can use to make decisions. Cigarroa stressed that the exact information included in the dashboard has yet to be determined and that each campus will be able to determine its own set of metrics.
The selection of metrics will likely be a contentious issue down the road. Recent efforts to hold professors more accountable, such as lists of professors based on how many students they teach compared to their salaries, have not been greeted warmly by faculty members, who said they felt like they were under attack.
Other reforms include finding new ways to fund and collaborate on research projects, promote shorter completion times for Ph.D.s, and develop health and educational opportunities in South Texas -- including investment in UT-Brownsville, which used to operate jointly with a community college, to make the university a stand-alone four-year institution.
Actual implementation of the plans will take place over the next few years, as campus presidents and administrators determine actual metrics on which to measure performance and productivity.
Miller, who said he has been pushing for similar reforms for years and has been critical of both sides of the debate, said the board and Cigarroa deserve praise for tackling a politically dangerous issue. "There are quite a few people who should take responsibility for not having this discussion sooner," he said."This kind of thing takes leadership at the state policy level, at all levels, and the board should be commended for what they've done.
Monday, October 24, 2011
Rick Perry's Education Policies Bring Mixed Results In Texas
Texas Gov. Rick Perry's k-12 education record has become the Obama administration's newest piñata -- but the administration's attacks mostly paint Perry's education policies in half-true generalizations and miss some real contradictions.
The criticism began Thursday, when U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan unloaded on the newest GOP presidential contender, telling Bloomberg Television that he felt "very, very badly" for Texas school children. "Texas may have the lowest high school graduation rate in the country," Duncan asserted.
Over the weekend, Robert Gibbs, a former White House press secretary and current outside administration advisor, piled on: "I think when it comes to someone like Rick Perry, they're [voters] going to wonder why a place like Texas has one of the worst education systems," Gibbs said on Sunday's "Meet the Press."
But Texas's educational achievement record is more complex than Gibbs and Duncan make it sound, and their claims depend on carefully-chosen data.
On one hand, math scores on the National Assessment of Education Progress test have increased, and Texas students have performed relatively well under Perry's watch -- though progress has stalled recently. On the other hand, NAEP reading scores are relatively low, and Texas leads the country in the number of adults without high school diplomas. And while Texans scored slightly below the national average on the 2011 ACT, few of those students are college-ready.
When asked for clarification on what Duncan meant by saying Texas "may have" the nation's lowest graduation rate, a spokeswoman said she could not comment further. Texas's technical graduation rate may indeed be the nation's lowest, but that figure includes students of all ages who have not completed high school. The state's freshman completion rate is average, and Texas ranked seventh out of the 26 states that reported their four-year on-time graduation rates for 2009.
"Texas is mid-pack on graduation rates, and that's no great shakes," said Andy Rotherham, a former Clinton policy aide who now works as a partner at the think tank Bellwether Education Partners. "The bigger story is that Perry hasn't done anything on education."
WHAT POLICY?
Under Perry's watch, Texas's curriculum wars made national headlines with stories about the state's conservative school board arguing over textbook content. Perry himself received attention late last week for saying intelligent design is taught alongside evolution in Texas public schools. That statement flew in the face of a 1987 state Supreme Court ruling prohibiting the practice. Still, Perry's gaffe was more a statement on values than an education policy pronouncement.
While Perry has condemned the federal government's role in public schools, he does not seem to have a highly-articulated education policy of his own. His campaign website does not list education as an issue. Members of his staff did not return requests for comment.
Perry's gubernatorial website points to several small initiatives: teacher incentive pay, school supply reimbursement, teacher mentoring and increasing standards. But Texas education leaders say they wish Perry had articulated broader education positions.
"I couldn't point out a signature education policy but I give [Perry] credit for letting things play out over time and letting them get better," said Michael Marder, a professor at the University of Texas who runs a teacher preparation program that receives state funds. A lack of coherent education policy is inconsequential, he says, as long as the numbers are relatively good.
Ed Fuller, a long-time Texas education researcher, is less charitable. "If [Perry]'s going to run around claiming that he's done something good, the numbers don't show it," Fuller said. "Fourth grade math flattened out; we're not making improvements -- it's taking a while to translate into the eighth grade."
"He's done nothing," said Linda Bridges, who heads Texas's arm of the American Federation of Teachers.
JUMPING OFF THE FUNDING CLIFF
Budget cuts may end up the education legacy of Perry's governorship; Texas education observers predict that the school system is about to fall off the edge of a funding cliff.
During a special session to reform school funding in 2005, Perry said, "I cannot let $2 billion sit in some bank account when it can go directly to the classroom," according to his website. But the governor had no problem underfunding Texas's schools by $5.5 billion this legislative session, despite access to a $9.4 billion rainy-day fund. That move, some education advocates say, threatens to foil the subtle gains Texas students have made in recent years.
And while Perry touts job creation on the campaign trail, thousands of Texas education employees stand ready to lose their jobs because of the cuts.
The worst is yet to come, says Eva DeLuna Castro, a senior budget analyst at Texas's Center for Public Policy Priorities. Her think tank predicts a loss of 49,000 education jobs over the next two years.
"Federal stimulus money softened the blow this year," she said. "Next August will be worse. There will be cuts to dropout prevention, teacher pay, incentive pay, math and science labs and grants for pre-K. A lot of education initiatives done in earlier years will be gone now."
Texas now ranks 47th nationally in what it pays for each student's education. "[Perry's] goal is to make Texas the 99-cent store of states," said Scott Hochberg, a Democratic state representative. "You're going for cheap."
It's about to get cheaper. The state swapped its heavy reliance on property taxes for a new business tax in 2006, despite the Republican comptroller's warning that the flip would lead to a budget shortfall. Since then, Texas school funding -- and the state budget in general -- has been unsteady.
This budget session, the legislature responded to pressure from Perry and did not fund enrollment growth in schools, despite an increase of 80,000 students. According to Democratic state Sen. Kirk Watson, "[Perry] did this almost single-handedly, blocking the disuse of the rainy day fund with veto threats."
According to Bloomberg News, "Perry cut $15 billion from spending [over time] and shortchanged [students] by about $4 billion from previously mandated levels rather than raise taxes."
To Cody Wheeler, a music teacher at a Louis Elementary School in Houston, Perry's education policies will be apparent for the incoming class. Last year he had 26 students, but budget cuts have forced his district to lay off some teachers. "This year, I'm going to have a class of 35 kindergartners every day," Wheeler said. "That'll be pretty challenging."
FAVORING FEDERALISM
Perry has been called the anti-Obama of education policy more than once. But he's also the anti-George W. Bush in some ways.
Bush, Perry's predecessor in Texas, made education a major issue while leading both the state and, later, the country.
"Governor Bush was making public education a priority," said Hochberg. "Perry's education initiatives in k-12 have been limited to things like announcing that he was going to provide some teachers help to buy school supplies to their classrooms and then never funding it."
With Bush as president, Congress passed No Child Left Behind, the sweeping federal education law that requires accountability and test reporting among school districts and ties federal education funding to set performance standards.
Perry attacked NCLB in his book, "Fed Up! Our Fight to Save America from Washington," in a chapter titled "Federal Intervention in Education":
[J]ust like the spending hook used to induce compliance for seat-belt and drinking-age laws, the federal government reaches into our pockets, takes out wads of dollars, and then says that we can have them back only if we comply with federal instructions.
Perry also showed his states' rights principles in his resistance to participating in
Obama's Race to the Top, a grant program that had states compete for federal education funding in exchange for agreeing to implement adminstration-sanctioned reforms. "Texas knows how to best educate our students," Perry said.
He echoed that that point in "Fed Up," writing, "The academic standards of Texas are not for sale. We will retain our sovereign authority to decide how to educate our children."
But critics say Perry's funding decisions undermine any boasts of enhancing student learning. Instead, Texas kids are coming of age in an under-resourced school system that might be unable to prepare them to enter the workforce.
"If students are in underfunded schools, they'll never get ahead," DeLuna Castro said. "When they grow up, they'll be unable to pay taxes, too. It's a cycle. You've got to prepare them for that."
The criticism began Thursday, when U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan unloaded on the newest GOP presidential contender, telling Bloomberg Television that he felt "very, very badly" for Texas school children. "Texas may have the lowest high school graduation rate in the country," Duncan asserted.
Over the weekend, Robert Gibbs, a former White House press secretary and current outside administration advisor, piled on: "I think when it comes to someone like Rick Perry, they're [voters] going to wonder why a place like Texas has one of the worst education systems," Gibbs said on Sunday's "Meet the Press."
But Texas's educational achievement record is more complex than Gibbs and Duncan make it sound, and their claims depend on carefully-chosen data.
On one hand, math scores on the National Assessment of Education Progress test have increased, and Texas students have performed relatively well under Perry's watch -- though progress has stalled recently. On the other hand, NAEP reading scores are relatively low, and Texas leads the country in the number of adults without high school diplomas. And while Texans scored slightly below the national average on the 2011 ACT, few of those students are college-ready.
When asked for clarification on what Duncan meant by saying Texas "may have" the nation's lowest graduation rate, a spokeswoman said she could not comment further. Texas's technical graduation rate may indeed be the nation's lowest, but that figure includes students of all ages who have not completed high school. The state's freshman completion rate is average, and Texas ranked seventh out of the 26 states that reported their four-year on-time graduation rates for 2009.
"Texas is mid-pack on graduation rates, and that's no great shakes," said Andy Rotherham, a former Clinton policy aide who now works as a partner at the think tank Bellwether Education Partners. "The bigger story is that Perry hasn't done anything on education."
WHAT POLICY?
Under Perry's watch, Texas's curriculum wars made national headlines with stories about the state's conservative school board arguing over textbook content. Perry himself received attention late last week for saying intelligent design is taught alongside evolution in Texas public schools. That statement flew in the face of a 1987 state Supreme Court ruling prohibiting the practice. Still, Perry's gaffe was more a statement on values than an education policy pronouncement.
While Perry has condemned the federal government's role in public schools, he does not seem to have a highly-articulated education policy of his own. His campaign website does not list education as an issue. Members of his staff did not return requests for comment.
Perry's gubernatorial website points to several small initiatives: teacher incentive pay, school supply reimbursement, teacher mentoring and increasing standards. But Texas education leaders say they wish Perry had articulated broader education positions.
"I couldn't point out a signature education policy but I give [Perry] credit for letting things play out over time and letting them get better," said Michael Marder, a professor at the University of Texas who runs a teacher preparation program that receives state funds. A lack of coherent education policy is inconsequential, he says, as long as the numbers are relatively good.
Ed Fuller, a long-time Texas education researcher, is less charitable. "If [Perry]'s going to run around claiming that he's done something good, the numbers don't show it," Fuller said. "Fourth grade math flattened out; we're not making improvements -- it's taking a while to translate into the eighth grade."
"He's done nothing," said Linda Bridges, who heads Texas's arm of the American Federation of Teachers.
JUMPING OFF THE FUNDING CLIFF
Budget cuts may end up the education legacy of Perry's governorship; Texas education observers predict that the school system is about to fall off the edge of a funding cliff.
During a special session to reform school funding in 2005, Perry said, "I cannot let $2 billion sit in some bank account when it can go directly to the classroom," according to his website. But the governor had no problem underfunding Texas's schools by $5.5 billion this legislative session, despite access to a $9.4 billion rainy-day fund. That move, some education advocates say, threatens to foil the subtle gains Texas students have made in recent years.
And while Perry touts job creation on the campaign trail, thousands of Texas education employees stand ready to lose their jobs because of the cuts.
The worst is yet to come, says Eva DeLuna Castro, a senior budget analyst at Texas's Center for Public Policy Priorities. Her think tank predicts a loss of 49,000 education jobs over the next two years.
"Federal stimulus money softened the blow this year," she said. "Next August will be worse. There will be cuts to dropout prevention, teacher pay, incentive pay, math and science labs and grants for pre-K. A lot of education initiatives done in earlier years will be gone now."
Texas now ranks 47th nationally in what it pays for each student's education. "[Perry's] goal is to make Texas the 99-cent store of states," said Scott Hochberg, a Democratic state representative. "You're going for cheap."
It's about to get cheaper. The state swapped its heavy reliance on property taxes for a new business tax in 2006, despite the Republican comptroller's warning that the flip would lead to a budget shortfall. Since then, Texas school funding -- and the state budget in general -- has been unsteady.
This budget session, the legislature responded to pressure from Perry and did not fund enrollment growth in schools, despite an increase of 80,000 students. According to Democratic state Sen. Kirk Watson, "[Perry] did this almost single-handedly, blocking the disuse of the rainy day fund with veto threats."
According to Bloomberg News, "Perry cut $15 billion from spending [over time] and shortchanged [students] by about $4 billion from previously mandated levels rather than raise taxes."
To Cody Wheeler, a music teacher at a Louis Elementary School in Houston, Perry's education policies will be apparent for the incoming class. Last year he had 26 students, but budget cuts have forced his district to lay off some teachers. "This year, I'm going to have a class of 35 kindergartners every day," Wheeler said. "That'll be pretty challenging."
FAVORING FEDERALISM
Perry has been called the anti-Obama of education policy more than once. But he's also the anti-George W. Bush in some ways.
Bush, Perry's predecessor in Texas, made education a major issue while leading both the state and, later, the country.
"Governor Bush was making public education a priority," said Hochberg. "Perry's education initiatives in k-12 have been limited to things like announcing that he was going to provide some teachers help to buy school supplies to their classrooms and then never funding it."
With Bush as president, Congress passed No Child Left Behind, the sweeping federal education law that requires accountability and test reporting among school districts and ties federal education funding to set performance standards.
Perry attacked NCLB in his book, "Fed Up! Our Fight to Save America from Washington," in a chapter titled "Federal Intervention in Education":
[J]ust like the spending hook used to induce compliance for seat-belt and drinking-age laws, the federal government reaches into our pockets, takes out wads of dollars, and then says that we can have them back only if we comply with federal instructions.
Perry also showed his states' rights principles in his resistance to participating in
Obama's Race to the Top, a grant program that had states compete for federal education funding in exchange for agreeing to implement adminstration-sanctioned reforms. "Texas knows how to best educate our students," Perry said.
He echoed that that point in "Fed Up," writing, "The academic standards of Texas are not for sale. We will retain our sovereign authority to decide how to educate our children."
But critics say Perry's funding decisions undermine any boasts of enhancing student learning. Instead, Texas kids are coming of age in an under-resourced school system that might be unable to prepare them to enter the workforce.
"If students are in underfunded schools, they'll never get ahead," DeLuna Castro said. "When they grow up, they'll be unable to pay taxes, too. It's a cycle. You've got to prepare them for that."
State Senators Try To Buy Time For Teachers
by Morgan Smith | Texas Tribune
February 24, 2011
With major state funding cuts looming, for many school districts, it's not a question of if — but how and when — teacher layoffs will occur. A new bipartisan bill from education leaders in the state Senate could temporarily change how schools go about that.
Currently districts must provide 45 days notice to teachers if their contracts are not going to be renewed. Once teachers receive word of that notice, they have 15 days to request a hearing. A bill by state Sens. Royce West, D-Dallas, Florence Shapiro, R-Plano, Robert Duncan, R-Lubbock, and Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth, announced at a Capitol press conference Thursday would give teachers 30 days instead of 15 to request a hearing. The idea behind the newly filed SB 912, which the senators developed with input from teacher, administrator, and school board organizations, is to buy time for districts who may be forced to fire teachers soon even as the Legislature continues to work on what many hope will be an improved budget plan.
"Teachers are the No. 1 most important element in the classroom," said Shapiro, who chairs the Senate Education committee. "They come first and we've got to make absolutely sure that teachers across this state recognize that we are working diligently every single day to help them." As the senators took questions from the media at the conference, Shapiro also said she believed the Legislature would use some of the Rainy Day Fund to increase general revenue in the budget.
Davis, who also sits on the Education committee, said she hoped the bill sent a message to teachers that the Legislature is doing "as much we can in a difficult situation."
The legislation also contains a provision that allows districts to designate a lawyer to conduct the hearings in lieu of full a school board. If the estimates of potential layoffs into the 100,000s are accurate, school boards would be overwhelmed.
Eric Hartman, spokesman for the Texas branch of the American Federation of Teachers, emphasized that the legislation was "not something that permanently changes teacher contract rights in Texas."
If it secures a two-thirds vote in both chambers, the bill would take effect immediately — and would apply only for the current school year.
February 24, 2011
With major state funding cuts looming, for many school districts, it's not a question of if — but how and when — teacher layoffs will occur. A new bipartisan bill from education leaders in the state Senate could temporarily change how schools go about that.
Currently districts must provide 45 days notice to teachers if their contracts are not going to be renewed. Once teachers receive word of that notice, they have 15 days to request a hearing. A bill by state Sens. Royce West, D-Dallas, Florence Shapiro, R-Plano, Robert Duncan, R-Lubbock, and Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth, announced at a Capitol press conference Thursday would give teachers 30 days instead of 15 to request a hearing. The idea behind the newly filed SB 912, which the senators developed with input from teacher, administrator, and school board organizations, is to buy time for districts who may be forced to fire teachers soon even as the Legislature continues to work on what many hope will be an improved budget plan.
"Teachers are the No. 1 most important element in the classroom," said Shapiro, who chairs the Senate Education committee. "They come first and we've got to make absolutely sure that teachers across this state recognize that we are working diligently every single day to help them." As the senators took questions from the media at the conference, Shapiro also said she believed the Legislature would use some of the Rainy Day Fund to increase general revenue in the budget.
Davis, who also sits on the Education committee, said she hoped the bill sent a message to teachers that the Legislature is doing "as much we can in a difficult situation."
The legislation also contains a provision that allows districts to designate a lawyer to conduct the hearings in lieu of full a school board. If the estimates of potential layoffs into the 100,000s are accurate, school boards would be overwhelmed.
Eric Hartman, spokesman for the Texas branch of the American Federation of Teachers, emphasized that the legislation was "not something that permanently changes teacher contract rights in Texas."
If it secures a two-thirds vote in both chambers, the bill would take effect immediately — and would apply only for the current school year.
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