This blog on Texas education contains posts on higher education, as well as preK-12 policy accountability, testing, bilingual education, immigration, school finance, race, class, and gender issues at both the state and national level. It also represents my digital footprint, of life and career, as a community-engaged scholar in Texas.
Not a good situation for the more than 30 high-growth districts:
Of the $1.5 billion extra public education funding included in the
2016-17 budget, only $103 million is for campus construction — about how
much it would cost to build one high-end high school.
We are jeopardizing so many children's futures as a consequence.
In
the wake of this year’s legislative session, officials from
fast-growing Central Texas school districts are invoking visions of
extremely overcrowded classrooms and endless rows of portable buildings
while criticizing state lawmakers for what they see as a continued
dismissal of local control.
They are lamenting yet another failed
attempt to get the Legislature to allow at least some of the districts
to exceed a state limit on debt service so they can build more schools
to house an influx of new students — and are complaining of a double
whammy of sorts.
Students at Jack C. Hays High School make their way to the first class of the day on Dec. 18. Hays ... read more
While state lawmakers overwhelmingly rejected a bill that would have
given districts more latitude to exceed that cap, they almost
unanimously passed another that all but prohibits a controversial form
of borrowing many districts have employed to avoid busting the cap.
As the state population has boomed and public education funding has
dwindled, the number of districts statewide that have hit that
50-cent-per-$100-valuation tax rate limit – set in 1991 – has grown from
zero in 2003 to more than 30 in recent years.
School officials describe the cap as both arbitrary and unnecessary
given that they still are required to win approval from local voters
before building additional campuses.
The problem is particularly prominent in areas such as Liberty Hill
in Williamson County where there is more residential growth than
commercial development, which brings more tax value, and growth is
outpacing finances. In that tiny but growing town, the lone school
district desperately needs an elementary school, but it can’t ask voters
to pay for one because its debt service tax rate is already at 49
cents.
Of all the issues facing the district, “it’s one that keeps me up at
night more than anything else,” said Superintendent Rob Hart. “We’re
getting very crowded.”
An unsuccessful bill by state Rep. Eddie Rodriguez, D-Austin, would
have allowed Liberty Hill and more than a dozen other school districts
that have hit or are nearing the debt service limit to exceed it by 10
cents as long as they met certain criteria, including demonstrating that
it would save them money on interest in the long run. (Many districts
have chosen longer-term bonds, which helps them stay below the cap but
can result in millions more dollars in interest payments).
The measure was a much watered-down version of legislation that has failed before.
“Let us untie the hands of fast-growth districts,” Rodriguez said last month before the House overwhelmingly rejected his House Bill 506. A similar Senate bill by Sen. Juan “Chuy” Hinojosa, D-McAllen, never even got a public hearing in committee.
Meanwhile, the Legislature overwhelmingly approved a bill that will —
if it escapes a gubernatorial veto — prohibit school districts from
using controversial capital appreciation bonds to build schools,
something districts like Leander’s have done to skirt the debt limit.
The controversial bonds delay payments for decades and can end up
costing districts tens of times as much as they originally borrowed.
State Rep. Dan Flynn, author of House Bill 114,
emphasized the state — through its Bond Guarantee Program — is on the
hook for all bonds issued by school districts and charter schools and
might have already overcommitted itself.
“We have a concern there that we’ve actually guaranteed more than we
have funds for,” the Canton Republican said at a March public hearing.
“I think we have a responsibility to be sure that this is brought to the
public’s view.”
The Fast Growth School Coalition ended up supporting Flynn’s bill in
lieu of another — carried by Hinojosa in the Senate — that would’ve
banned the use of the bonds entirely. The group advocates for about 85
districts that are taking on the vast majority of new student
enrollment.
Still, coalition Executive Director Michelle Smith said some
districts now are “faced with the reality of being at almost 50 cents
and not being able to use more (capital appreciation bonds), and the
kids are still coming.”
“I don’t see anybody really talking about solutions … as to where
they’re going to put these new kids in the next 10 to 15 years if
they’re not able to build anymore,” she said. “Either the state can
provide support for facilities or local taxpayers can provide support
for facilities.”
Smith noted that state lawmakers did increase facilities funding this session, albeit modestly.
Of the $1.5 billion extra public education funding included in the
2016-17 budget, only $103 million is for campus construction — about how
much it would cost to build one high-end high school.
Michael McKie, superintendent of the Hays Consolidated Independent
School District, sees the whole situation as an attack on local control.
“Because (House Bill) 506 didn’t pass what it does is it doesn’t
allow your local communities, your citizens of your local ISDs to make a
local decision regarding, one, the amount of debt they want to acquire
and, two, whether or not to approve a bond,” he said. “We have to be
accountable to our school communities — every ISD does.”
McKie admitted the situation is forcing his district — also close to
the 50-cent limit — to focus more than ever on paying down its existing
debt so it may eventually build another elementary and high school. But
he said the district would have been doing that, anyway.
“We wouldn’t have philosophically changed anything,” he said. “On the
flip side, if your growth is exceeding your financial capacity because
of the amount of debt you’re having to take on because of growth — then
what?”
This came out yesterday. The most recent, well-investigated review of peer-reviewed research evidence on school vouchers appears in a TCEP policy memo co-authored by University of Texas Professors Dr.
Huriya Jabbar, Dr. Jennifer Holme & doctoral students—Melinda Lemke,
A.V. LeClair, Joanna Sanchez and Edgar M. Torres, Education Policy and
Planning, University of Texas at Austin. It is titled, ""Will School Vouchers Benefit Low-Income Families? Assessing the Evidence” and can be downloaded here. This framing and analysis is important because low-income, minorities are used to justify this direction in policy—as if these policy makers every really cared for our poor, minority youth...
With respect to SB4 specifically, this is an apt quote:
“These proposals would divert corporate tax dollars owed to
the state of Texas to subsidize vouchers for students to attend private
schools, and would give these corporations a tax break in the process,
with little or no accountability for what is taught, what is learned, or
how taxpayer dollars are spent.”
As scholars, our value added contribution is bringing the best of what we know in policy debates. This policy memo is worth a peek as it is very germane to these very wrong-headed proposals that some of our state leaders are advocating for. -Angela
Last week, just after a key Texas House lawmaker unveiled
the details of a plan designed to ease funding inequities among the
state’s public schools, a Texas Senate education panel quietly approved
the new version of a divisive bill that would allocate taxpayer money in
an effort to help public school students switch to private or religious
schools.
At a lengthy public hearing late last month, Senate Education Committee Chairman Larry Taylor, R-Friendswood, indicated his Senate Bill 4 may eventually contain a modified version of one of two other private school voucher-type bills — Senate Bill 276,
a more traditional voucher bill that would give state money directly to
students in the form of grants to help pay tuition, or Senate Bill 642, designed to give tax credits to Texas businesses that donate to a non-profit scholarship fund to help them.
The latest version
of Taylor’s bill, made public for the first time Monday, shows it now
contains a modified version of the latter bill — filed by state Sen.
Paul Bettencourt — which opponents describe as a “back door voucher”
program.
State Sen. Paul Bettencourt, R-Houston
“This
is a great concept, tax credit scholarships, that has successfully
worked in 14 other states,” Bettencourt said in a statement last
Tuesday, the day the Senate Education Committee voted 8-3 to send
Taylor’s bill to the full Senate. (Three of the four Democrats who serve
on the panel opposed it).
Under the program, businesses would be
allowed to donate up to 50 percent of their yearly franchise tax
liability to one of 25 pre-approved “educational assistance
organizations,” according to Bettencourt’s statement. Those non-profits
would then be allowed to provide public $500 scholarships and private
school scholarships worth up to 75 percent of the average amount the
state currently pays per public school student — or about $5,927.
The
bill includes several provisions critics have demanded, including one
to ensure students who receive scholarships are needy and others
requiring that private schools receiving public money be accredited and
administer annual “nationally norm-referenced” exams.
But some education groups still oppose the program, contending it is “school vouchers by another name.”
“What
do you get when you marry taxpayer subsidies for private schools to
taxpayer-funded corporate tax breaks? A voucher in disguise called the
‘scholarship tax credit,’” wrote David Anthony, a former Houston-area
superintendent who now heads educational advocacy group Raise Your Hand
Texas.
“These proposals would divert corporate tax dollars owed to
the state of Texas to subsidize vouchers for students to attend private
schools, and would give these corporations a tax break in the process,
with little or no accountability for what is taught, what is learned, or
how taxpayer dollars are spent.”
Texas’ new lieutenant governor,
Dan Patrick, who now presides over the Senate, pushed similar
legislation as a Republican state senator and has made it one of his top
education issues during his first term. He has described the goal of
the legislation as helping poor kids to escape failing, inner-city
schools.
“Senate Bill 4 is a landmark piece of legislation that
provides school choice to low-income students and students with a
disability,” he said in a statement last week. “It answers the call for
school choice that I have heard from parents across the state.”
The
bill faces an uncertain fate in the Texas House, though, which voted
overwhelmingly in 2013 to ban state money from being spent on
voucher-type programs. More recently, the lower chamber’s lead public
education policymaker, Rep. Jimmie Don Aycock, R-Killeen, has indicated
he still is not enthusiastic about the idea.
According to the
National Conference of State Legislatures, 13 states and Washington,
D.C., have voucher-type programs with more than half offering benefits
only to low-income or special needs students or both. On its website,
the non-partisan group cites a 2011 study by the Center on Education
Policy that found that the programs “have had no clear positive effect
on student academic achievement, and mixed outcomes for students
overall.”
Here is the truth about in-state tuition for non-citizen, resident Texans from the Center for Public Policy Priorities—otherwise referred to as "HB1403" or the "Texas Dream Act." Texas, btw, was the first state to pass this in 2001 and was followed by California AB 540 and now a good number of states have it. This is good and just policy, my friends.
Senate Bill 1819 by Senator Campbell et al. is a threat to HB 1403. Her bill mends state law so that a person
unauthorized to be present in the United States cannot be considered a resident
of this state for the purposes of receiving in-state tuition at a public
institution of higher education. Undocumented students who currently receive
in-state tuition at a public institution of higher education with at least 30
hours of credit before the 2015-16 academic year will be exempt from the
changes. This bill will get heard on April 6th, at 8AM Veteran Affairs & Military Installations-S/C Border Security Committee (which, btw, offensively frames DREAMers as a security threat!) at the Texas State Capitol in 2E.20 (Betty King Cmte. Rm.). DREAMers and allies will be coming from throughout the state to challenge this. Get your voice heard, too. I think that there will also be a 10:30AM press conference outside the hearing room, too (will confirm).
Here are the bills that were heard today in the Senate Education Committee in the Texas House of Representatives. Melinda Lemke and myself testified from a policy memorandum titled, "Will School Vouchers Benefit Low-Income Families? Assessing the Evidence" and co-authored by Dr. Huriya Jabbar, Dr. Jennifer Holme & doctoral students—Melinda Lemke, A.V. LeClair, Joanna Sanchez and Edgar M. Torres, Education Policy and Planning, University of Texas at Austin.
This policy memo provides a rigorous review of peer-reviewed research and government studies as opposed to research done by think tank organizations with a pro-voucher agenda. Here is a summative statement from my colleagues' introduction:
Wefindthattheempiricalresearchshowsthattheeffectsofschoolvouchersonstudentoutcomesgenerallyaresmallorinsignificant,anddonothavetheabilitytoclosetheracialachievementgaporgeneratelargegainsinstudentoutcomes.Inaddition,evenvoucherprogramsthattargetlow-incomefamiliesorthoseattendingfailingschoolshaveseriousaccessandattritionchallenges,callingintoquestiontheequityclaimsofvoucherproponents.Weconcludethattheresearchonvouchereffectivenessshowsmixedresults—somestudiesshowsmallpositiveeffectsonstudentachievement,andsomeshownoeffects.Overalltheseresultsdonotalignwiththestrongclaimsofvoucherproponents.Inaddition,thetake-upandattritionpatternsofvoucherrecipientssuggestthatsuchpoliciesmightnot
benefit the
mostdisadvantaged
students.
Not only does this rigorous review of vouchers suggest that we exercise caution if we are to construe this as a policy panacea, but it should also mean something to us that precious little peer-reviewed research on the matter actually exists which means that many questions about the effects of vouchers remain unanswered. It's important for us to consider all that we still do not know.
Again, from a research perspective, we do not know what happens to children after they are no longer in a voucher program. We do not know whether when voucher laws are passed, exactly how the private sector (often parochial) schools prepare to meet children's needs. What happens to those places once children that use school vouchers leave them? We do not know from a public management perspective how state administrative bureaucracies manage dollars associated with potentially hundreds, if not thousands, of children moving in and out of the public and private sector. And what costs—especially hidden ones—are associated with this specific kind of management? All else equal, it sounds like an administrative nightmare.
There are so many questions for which there exist little to no peer-reviewed data that we should exercise utmost prudence before we as a state go down this experimental path, particularly in the name of "progress," "freedom," and "choice."
Research shows that Pre-K works. Studies of Texas’ modest half-day
Pre-K program shows that participation is tied to increased math and
reading test scores and reductions in needing special education services
in later grades. Texas’ children could make even greater strides if
Pre-K expanded to a full-day program.
We know that Pre-K is a sound investment. A recent Texas-specific
study found that for every dollar invested in Pre-K the state saves
$3.50 through the reduced need for remedial or special education, lower
crime rates, and decreases in participation in public programs.
Full-day, quality Pre-K helps lower-income kids start school ready to
learn and pays huge dividends.
Last week State Representative Joe Deshotel, Samsung Austin
Semiconductor representative Catherine Morse, University of Texas
associate professor Liz Gershoff and CPPP Executive Director Ann Beeson
held an engaging panel discussion about Pre-K as part of the State of Texas Children 2015 report release. View video of that panel discussion here.
To build on the positive gains being made by the current Pre-K program, CPPP recommends that the Legislature:
Establish Pre-K as a full-day program for currently eligible students.
Improve quality standards such as class size limits, student-teacher ratios, and health screenings.
Establish an office of early learning to encourage and oversee
collaborations between Pre-K, Head Start, child care providers, and
state agencies.
Read our new Pre-K report, and let’s urge lawmakers to invest in Pre-K to ensure Texas kids are ready to learn from day one.
The political winds are a changin' here in Texas. A number of us opposed these tests from the very beginning and we've worked really hard for over 15 years now to let people know just how harmful they are despite the high-sounding rhetoric of "all children counting" and "leaving no child behind." In 2000, we had a whole federal court case around high-stakes testing and their disparate impact on Latinos, African Americans, special education children and English learners.
The harmful effects were already abundantly clear and in fact found their way into the final ruling by Judge Prado in 2000 (not that we won the case, but rather that the judge actually agreed to the finding of disparate impact).
Dr. Linda McNeil from Rice University and I even "lobbied" in Congress against NCLB in 2002 before it became law. For purposes of clarity, Dr. McNeil and I didn't lobby in the "paid lobbyist" sense in contrast to Kress who got paid handsomely to do so by the testing industry, but rather in the advocacy sense that went beyond us just making a presentation on Capitol Hill which we also did. We were guests of the late Senator Paul Wellstone who welcomed scholars like us from throughout the country to come and tell our Congressional delegations that represent us just how wrong-headed NCLB promised to be. Himself a former professor, as well, Senator Wellstone was equally passionate against the passage of this law, in particular because of its predicted harmful effects against special education children.
Nothwithstanding NCLB architect Sandy Kress' "fears," all national educational research organizations of any repute have denounced our uses of high-stakes standardized testing from the very beginning. It wasn't like it started out kinda' good and ended up being perverse; it was arguably so since the beginning. Or maybe how you saw this system of testing depended somewhat on what side of the testing equation you or your group occupied historically: "High" or "low" achiever.
If these tests were made for you/your group/your zip code, great; if they weren't, it was going to be a hard, long difficult political struggle to get out from under a yardstick that positioned you/your group for the spoils of the system, including tracking, socially constructed failure, low academic self-esteem and the like.
So why all the animus now? Simple answer. Legislative over-reach due to the unabated, unchecked zeal by its adherents that resulted in a ridiculous number of tests—and the fact that what was happening to poor, children of color all along now was impacting white, middle class families whose parents finally decided that enough was enough. (Better late than never.)
Give me a break, Sandy Kress (see his pious rhetoric below), we were not ever—nor are we ever—going to test our way to equity. It woulda' happened by now if so.
Now reducing the number of tests and limiting their (ab)uses in and of themselves will not necessarily engender equity either, but they do limit the negative impacts of an important barrier to it so that we can focus on other things like authentic forms of learning and assessment. Rather than trying to micromanage every minute of their day, we need to actually free up our teachers to impart their craft.
If you want to think of alternatives to the current system and what accountability could be, consider this policy memorandum put together by our students and me from the University of Texas Center for Education Policy: http://tinyurl.com/occ3w6t
Texas and the nation, we do have options and it's way past time that we engage these seriously. Senator Seliger's Senate Bill 149 is a good step in this direction.
President Bush leans over to speak with third
grader Tameron Clark, clasping her hand, as he tours a tutoring center
at Kirkpatrick Elementary School in Nashville, Tenn., where he is
promoting his "No Child Left Behind" education agenda Monday, Sept. 8,
2003. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite).
AUSTIN - As the debate over No Child Left Behind rages in
Washington, Texas policymakers are distancing themselves from the
federal law that was conceived in the Lone Star State.
"It needs to die," said Kel Seliger, R-Amarillo, a longtime education
leader in the state Senate. "If the federal government did away with No
Child Left Behind tomorrow, you know what the adverse effect on Texas
would be? Zero."
Congress is grappling with whether to overhaul or
even repeal the 14-year-old law, creating uncertainty in the states
about compliance. Federal officials, meanwhile, are considering whether
to sanction Texas for failing to comply with federal rules on teacher
evaluations.
Dissatisfaction with the law's requirements, and the
influence of growing resistance to high-stakes testing among teachers
and parents, is palpable at the Capitol. It could lead legislators to
reduce state testing requirements to the bare minimum allowed under
federal law.
The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 might live in Washington, but its roots are in Texas.
As
governor, George W. Bush advocated for an end to social promotion
policies, focused on the importance of early reading ability and
strengthened the accountability system put in place by his predecessor,
Democrat Ann Richards. By 1999, the New York Times lauded Bush, then a
presidential hopeful, as having helped turn Texas' public school system
into an "emerging model of equity, progress and accountability."
Eager
to carry this mantle to Washington, Bush pitched landmark, bipartisan
legislation that would require states to assess children in grades three
through eight, and again in high school, and set annual benchmarks. The
goal was to bring every student up to grade level by 2014.
Bush called it the "cornerstone of his administration," and it was a truly Texas creation.
"It
was the apple of President Bush's eye," said Rod Paige, the former
Houston ISD superintendent who helped Bush implement the policy as his
first secretary of education.
Original idea altered
Now,
however, many Texas leaders want nothing to do with the much-maligned
law. That's because the intentions of the original, bipartisan
legislation have been lost, said Houston Federation of Teachers
President Gayle Fallon.
"It started with a Texas product, but it
started with a little more common sense," said Fallon, who said Bush's
intent was to target struggling students in disadvantaged groups using
diagnostic tools, not high-stakes exams. "It has morphed into a
nightmare of test-driven instruction."
Sandy Kress, an architect
of the law who was Bush's senior adviser on education in 2001, said he
was saddened by the political winds that have Texans, and others,
speaking out against No Child Left Behind.
"We're just living in a
pretend world that somehow or another we can get away with not being
tough enough with ourselves and our kids to get them ready," Kress said,
adding that efforts like Seliger's contribute to a "dumbing down" of
Texas students. "I think it's bad for the state, and I think we're going
to pay a price for it."
Bolstered by the growing anti-testing
movement, state lawmakers last session cut the number of end-of-course
exams for high school students from 15 to five. Rep. Dan Huberty, a
Houston Republican, passed legislation to do the same in grades three
through eight, but his bill would have dropped Texas below the minimums
required in No Child Left Behind. The Legislature approved the
proposals, but the U.S. Department of Education would not give Texas a
waiver to cut testing to this extent.
This year, Huberty is trying again.
"We're
going to take another run at it," said Huberty, who believes it's time
to "completely redo" No Child Left Behind and reduce state exams, known
as the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness, or STAAR,
tests. "We are continually over-testing our kids. We're creating an
atmosphere that is not conducive to learning."
Huberty has filed a
bill that would cut STAAR tests in elementary and middle school to the
federal minimums and another that would cut them further, eliminating
math and reading exams in fourth, sixth and seventh grades.
On the
Senate side, Seliger is working to reduce the negative consequences of
high school STAAR end-of-course exams. His Senate Bill 149, which is
being fast-tracked through the Legislature, would allow some
high-achieving high schoolers to graduate even if they don't pass these
tests.
Lawmakers still recognize the need for assessments to gauge
student learning, said House Public Education Committee Chair Jimmie
Don Aycock, R-Killeen.
"I have reached the point that I don't
have a high level of confidence in the testing instrument itself,"
Aycock said. "But I think we have both instructional problems and
assessment problems that would be very difficult to work through."
Hurdles await bills
If
Huberty's bills pass in the Legislature, Texas again would have to seek
approval from Washington for a testing regimen that doesn't meet
federal standards. The state is having trouble securing a waiver from No
Child Left Behind's mandates based on previously passed laws.
When
President Barack Obama took office, the nation was just a few years
away from Bush's deadline to have all students reach grade level in
reading and math. Concluding this goal was unachievable, the
administration took steps to allow states to secure waivers to opt out
of the law's achievement mandates.
By 2014, nearly every state had
secured one, including Texas. But this year, Texas has had problems
renewing its waiver, and negotiations focusing on the state's teacher
evaluation system are continuing.
If Texas joins the small pool of
states without waivers and Congress fails to strike a deal this year on
reauthorization of No Child Left Behind, the state would lose control
over how it spends millions in federal dollars for low-income student
populations. It also would be subject to federal progress reports, a
harsh grading system that teacher groups said would slap "failing"
grades on the majority of Texas schools.
When Texas lawmakers come back to Austin in January, there willbe
a new governor who touts public schools as a top priority, and plenty
of money in the state bank account. But that doesn’t mean everything
will go smoothly as the 84th Legislature navigates public education
policy.
Here are five things to watch whenthe legislative session gets underway: Education Committee Shuffling: Whomever Lt. Gov.-elect Dan Patrick appoints to fill his spot leading the Senate Education Committee — Larry Taylor, Kelly Hancock and Donna Campbell are
possible contenders — will wield considerable control over which
education bills do and don’t get hearings. Patrick could also opt to
combine the chamber’s higher and public education committees, another
move that could affect how quickly and easily legislation makes it
through the Senate. The House could also take the single education
committee approach. With the departure of Higher Education Chairman Dan Branch, R-Dallas, that would leave current Public Education Chairman Jimmie Don Aycock, R-Killeen, who is expected to continue in that role, to preside over both. Pre-K Fireworks: There’s widespread and bipartisan
energy building behind a push to boost early education in the state. But
there's a catch — a divide existsbetween those who
want to expand half-day programs to a full day and make them better, and
others who want to first get a better handle on how the existing
programs are working. Count education advocacy group Raise Your Hand Texas in the former camp, and Gov.-elect Greg Abbottin the latter. The School Choice Battleground: In the 2013 session, despite a loud drumbeat leading up to January from supporters including Patrick and Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, legislation that would allow students to receive public money to attend private schools died with barely a whimper. Now, a skirmish over private school vouchers is brewing again, but it’s unclear whether 2015 will see a different outcome.Two areas that may instead become the school choice battleground: a proposal known as an “Achievement School District,”
which would create a statewide entity to manage underperforming
campuses, and efforts to loosen regulation of virtual education.
How Money Gets Doled Out: With a school finance
lawsuit awaiting arguments at the Texas Supreme Court, the Legislature
could easily punt on making any changes to the way the state distributes
funding to school districts. But that might be too much of a delay for
some lawmakers. State Sen. Kirk Watson, an Austin Democrat, has already filed a slate of bills that he told the Houston Chronicle
he hoped would get the “conversation started” on school finance. And
regardless of how Watson’s bills fare, lawmakers can still tinker around
the edges of the school finance system as they make choices in how the
budget allocates funding across school districts. Revisiting the Big Ticket Items of 2013: Last time they were in Austin, lawmakers overhauled high school curriculum and scaled back standardized testing requirements. They also approved the first expansion of charter schools in
the state since they were established in 1995. If the interim hearings
over the last year on the rollout of those new laws are any indication,
expect discussion about improving high school students’ access to
guidance counselors, and clarifying the process the state uses to close
low-performing charters schools.
