Task force working on classroom spending is e-mailed a link to pro-voucher organization

This is interesting. My sense is that this stuff is purposefully contrived. -Angela

Task force working on classroom spending is e-mailed a link to pro-voucher organization
Agency says e-mail doesn't indicate support for political group

By Jason Embry

AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF

Tuesday, October 18, 2005
The state education commissioner's office suggested last week that educators crafting a controversial new rule for classroom spending consult the Web site of a political group that quietly promotes private-school vouchers and creating chasms between teachers and administrators.

Commissioner Shirley Neeley's executive assistant told the educators to check the site of a group called First Class Education before meeting to discuss Gov. Rick Perry's recent mandate that schools spend at least 65 percent of their budgets on instruction.

Neeley asked superintendents and representatives of education groups to help her hammer out the specifics of the new rule after some school officials grumbled that Perry's August order could cause spending cuts in non-classroom areas, such as transportation and counseling.

The school officials' first meeting is scheduled for Wednesday.

"So that you might have resource materials prior to the meeting, the commissioner asked that I provide you with the following websites," Patti Foster, Neeley's assistant, wrote in a Friday e-mail to a few dozen officials from school districts and education groups.

Foster included in the e-mail links to the Web sites of First Class Education and the National Center for Education Statistics, which is part of the U.S. Department of Education.

First Class Education is a political organization pushing states to adopt a 65 percent law. Its Web site includes spending data for each state and footage from television commercials calling for the law in Minnesota and Arizona.

Texas Education Agency spokeswoman Suzanne Marchman said that the message from Neeley's office was not an endorsement of First Class Education; she was trying to provide any background information that she could.

"It wasn't any indication she supports or advocates their political movement," Marchman said. "It's my understanding that the list of Web sites was not advocating any particular direction for the committee to go in, it was just for-your-information."

In August, the Austin American-Statesman obtained a political memo from the group that shows it touts the 65 percent rule as a conduit to other, more controversial changes. That information is not included on the group's Web site.

The memo touts the political benefits of putting the 65 percent rule up for consideration on public ballots. Chief among those benefits, it says, is the "splitting of the education union." Proponents of school vouchers and other education proposals championed by conservatives are often at odds with unions and other groups representing educators.

"The First Class Education proposal naturally pits administrators and teachers at odds with one another with monies flowing from the former to the latter with its passage," the memo says. It says that will hurt education unions because most have teachers and administrators as members.

The memo also says the adoption of the proposal can help make charter schools and private-school vouchers more palatable to voters since it could increase Republicans' credibility on education issues. Public school officials largely oppose vouchers, saying public money should not go to private schools.

The group's Arizona-based political consultant, Tim Mooney, has declined to elaborate on the memo's contents or describe its audience. "I'm sure the opposition has political memos as well," he said Monday.

Richard Kouri of the Texas State Teachers Association called the e-mail from Neeley's office "strange."

"I'm not sure how anything on that Web site helps the conversation about how the rule gets defined," Kouri said.

Doug Rogers, executive director of the Association of Texas Professional Educators, said: "I don't think (the e-mail) was bad judgment. There are other information sources that probably could have been included, and hopefully we're going to hear some of those on Wednesday." Rogers and the heads of other professional groups are part of the task force working on the rule.

Mooney has said he talked to Perry's office before the governor announced the 65 percent proposal, but he said it was Perry's idea.

Perry named Neeley, a former superintendent in the Galena Park district in the Houston area, to the commissioner's post last year.

Mooney said Monday that it makes sense for the educators working on the rule to read up on his group. "The plan originated because of the work that we've been doing, so it's natural that you would link to our Web site," Mooney said. "I didn't know that it was linked to our Web site, but I'm pleased that it is."

Texas schools spend 60.4 percent of their budgets on instruction, according to the federal center's definition. That definition will be the starting point for officials writing the rule in Texas.


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