This so-called "65 percent solution," requiring dollars to get re-apportioned in our state's districts is being pursued by Gov. Perry as a way to get around the fact of several failed legislative sessions that should have increased the spending amounts overall. It's questionable just how much more work magically reproduced in test scores can be engendered when they're already squeezed in terms of all they can give, produce. We/Texas should know. We've been at this for 2 decades. -Angela
Aug. 23, 2005, 7:21PM
Why Texas schools need the '65 percent solution'
Move would translate into $1.6 billion without tax hike
By PEGGY M. VENABLE
It's a tough pill to swallow: reforming state taxes to increase the state's share of education funding. But it is clear public schools are ailing as test scores fall and many district rankings drop.
While education lobbyists clamored for as much as $6 billion to $8 billion more in education funding, the citizen group Americans for Prosperity in Texas believes that more money won't fix the problem. One symptom of the system's problems is fiscal mismanagement of existing education dollars.
Even the school finance lawsuit currently before the Texas Supreme Court has left taxpayers questioning how our education dollars are being spent. While school districts are using millions of tax dollars to sue the state for more tax dollars, the court heard that Socorro Independent School District justified a waterslide by claiming it lowered dropout rates.
SISD is a good example of misguided spending priorities. In addition to a waterslide, it has as many nonteaching staff as teachers and its "acceptable" academic rating isn't really acceptable to parents and taxpayers.
When is a waterslide considered to be educational? When it teaches us how education dollars are being wasted. And while property taxes are escalating, this is no time for public schools to be squandering dollars.
Houston Independent School District's superintendent was among those who recently said at a House Public Education Committee hearing in Austin that it was impossible to push more of the existing education dollars to the classroom. Superintendents across the state uniformly opposed reforms that provide fiscal transparency and put more dollars into the classroom. Mind you, HISD has more than 2,000 more nonteaching staff, representing clearly misplaced education spending priorities. And when numbers of schools in the district are rated academically unacceptable, it is clear reforms are needed.
HISD is not alone. Texas spending on instruction is below the national average. Texas schools' average classroom spending is 60.4 percent, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, ranking Texas 29th in the nation. At 58 percent, HISD is spending even less than the state average on instruction.
The reform students, teachers and taxpayers need is "the 65 percent solution."
This simple concept directs 65 percent of the existing education spending into the classroom, which includes all credit courses and enrichment programs.
Gov. Rick Perry has championed the "65 percent solution" and House Public Education Chairman Kent Grusendorf embraced the measure. But with the education bureaucracy lobby opposing it, the legislation didn't pass. So the governor is using executive order to put 65 percent into the classroom.
The move from 60.4 percent to 65 percent seems like small change. How much difference can 4.6 cents make? This small change will add up to big change in our schools. It would put $1.6 billion more a year into Texas classrooms without a tax increase.
The initiative has tremendous support. Polling found 77.5 percent of Texans surveyed support the 65 percent requirement on school districts; 91 percent support it after learning it would put an additional $1.6 billion into Texas classrooms without a tax increase; and 89 percent said they were more likely to support a candidate that supported the 65 percent requirement.
A survey by the Tower Institute conducted in January found 63 percent would consider increasing the percentage of money spent in the classroom, without any additional dollars added to the system, to be an increase in public education spending.
While support is widespread, strangely absent from efforts to put more of the funding in the classroom is the education lobby.
Students and teachers will benefit most from Texas schools spending 65 percent on instruction.
One would think teachers, frustrated with the pork-laden gravy train many superintendents have enjoyed, would be clamoring for the measure. But there has been no visible support from the education lobby.
One reason rests firmly on the shoulders of the taxpayer-funded lobbying by administrators, particularly superintendents. Texas superintendent salaries have grown as much as 77 percent in five years.
More than 200 Texas school districts are already spending 65 percent in the classroom. It is a realistic goal that would put our dollars where our priorities are in the classroom.
As Perry has said, "The measure of our success is not whether we provide more money for education but more education for our money."
Venable is former a White House liaison for the U.S. Department of Education and is currently Texas director for the citizen group Americans for Prosperity.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/editorial/outlook/3322433
Wednesday, August 24, 2005
Candidate Perry Changes the Subject
EDITORIAL BOARD
Wednesday, August 24, 2005
Gov. Rick Perry's sudden assertion of executive authority regarding school reform already has accomplished its most important mission, which is political: To change the subject from his and the Legislature's failure to enact a school property tax cut as promised.
On Monday the governor issued an executive order, directed to Education Commissioner Shirley Neeley, "relating to a comprehensive financial accounting and reporting system to ensure transparency and fiscal efficiency in school district operations."
The headline-grabber was his order that Neeley include "a requirement that 65 percent of school district funds" be spent on classroom instruction. And the order directed the commissioner to "conduct special accreditation investigations of school districts exhibiting poor financial management . . ."
Sounds good — make all those wasteful school bureaucracies spend more money in the classroom, less on administration.
But education law experts point out several problems with the governor's order.
One is that it is unlawful for the governor to order the education commissioner to adopt a particular rule. The commissioner's powers were delegated to her by the Legislature, not the governor.
Perry can't even fire Neeley without the approval of the Texas Senate. As a practical matter, of course, Neeley, who was appointed by Perry, is not likely to defy him.
Even so, Neeley cannot simply adopt his order. State law lays out a process for adopting rules, and that includes hearings and public comment. It's a process that can take months — but that's OK because the motive here isn't to improve the schools but to score political points with the public. If the schools were the point, the governor would have issued this order a long time ago.
And even if the commissioner eventually adopts a 65 percent rule, she apparently has little or no authority from the Legislature to punish those who come up short. In fact, the state already has a similar rule setting 54 percent of funds spent on classroom instruction as a benchmark for districts to meet in proving their financial accountability under the state law cited by Perry's executive order. If they spend less, the Texas Education Agency can order the district to hold a public hearing on the shortfall, said an agency spokeswoman, Debbie Graves Ratcliffe. Asked if the commissioner can apply tougher measures, Ratcliffe said, "That's something we've got to do more research on."
And there's this: In considering a 65 percent rule, state law requires the commissioner to consult with the state comptroller — that would be Carole Keeton Strayhorn, who is challenging Perry in the GOP primary and who already has said the governor's order is a cover-up for declining classroom spending.
Most of what the governor ordered is probably being carried out already by most districts. Certainly Texans want school districts to account for all their spending.
But the 65 percent requirement is so controversial that the Legislature could not agree on whether to make it law this year despite a regular and two special sessions.
We don't think the governor can dictate it into law, either. But we doubt that really matters to him; what matters is changing the subject.
Find this article at:
http://www.statesman.com/opinion/content/editorial/stories/08/24perry_edit.html
Wednesday, August 24, 2005
Gov. Rick Perry's sudden assertion of executive authority regarding school reform already has accomplished its most important mission, which is political: To change the subject from his and the Legislature's failure to enact a school property tax cut as promised.
On Monday the governor issued an executive order, directed to Education Commissioner Shirley Neeley, "relating to a comprehensive financial accounting and reporting system to ensure transparency and fiscal efficiency in school district operations."
The headline-grabber was his order that Neeley include "a requirement that 65 percent of school district funds" be spent on classroom instruction. And the order directed the commissioner to "conduct special accreditation investigations of school districts exhibiting poor financial management . . ."
Sounds good — make all those wasteful school bureaucracies spend more money in the classroom, less on administration.
But education law experts point out several problems with the governor's order.
One is that it is unlawful for the governor to order the education commissioner to adopt a particular rule. The commissioner's powers were delegated to her by the Legislature, not the governor.
Perry can't even fire Neeley without the approval of the Texas Senate. As a practical matter, of course, Neeley, who was appointed by Perry, is not likely to defy him.
Even so, Neeley cannot simply adopt his order. State law lays out a process for adopting rules, and that includes hearings and public comment. It's a process that can take months — but that's OK because the motive here isn't to improve the schools but to score political points with the public. If the schools were the point, the governor would have issued this order a long time ago.
And even if the commissioner eventually adopts a 65 percent rule, she apparently has little or no authority from the Legislature to punish those who come up short. In fact, the state already has a similar rule setting 54 percent of funds spent on classroom instruction as a benchmark for districts to meet in proving their financial accountability under the state law cited by Perry's executive order. If they spend less, the Texas Education Agency can order the district to hold a public hearing on the shortfall, said an agency spokeswoman, Debbie Graves Ratcliffe. Asked if the commissioner can apply tougher measures, Ratcliffe said, "That's something we've got to do more research on."
And there's this: In considering a 65 percent rule, state law requires the commissioner to consult with the state comptroller — that would be Carole Keeton Strayhorn, who is challenging Perry in the GOP primary and who already has said the governor's order is a cover-up for declining classroom spending.
Most of what the governor ordered is probably being carried out already by most districts. Certainly Texans want school districts to account for all their spending.
But the 65 percent requirement is so controversial that the Legislature could not agree on whether to make it law this year despite a regular and two special sessions.
We don't think the governor can dictate it into law, either. But we doubt that really matters to him; what matters is changing the subject.
Find this article at:
http://www.statesman.com/opinion/content/editorial/stories/08/24perry_edit.html
The Un-Empirical Presidency
by Bruce Fuller
BRUCE FULLER is a professor of education and public policy at UC Berkeley.
August 24, 2005
PRESIDENT BUSH'S love affair with the scientific community is awkward at best. The White House science advisor, John H. Marburger III, is on record as saying that "in this administration, science strongly informs policy." But where's the romance for scientists if Bush casts a blind eye over evidence of a human role in global warming or the difference between evolution and intelligent design?
Now the administration's propensity to ignore empirical data threatens the search for effective school reforms. The latest case of science snubbed emerged last week and involves the quiet quashing of new findings on the success of bilingual teaching in the nation's classrooms.
Californians understand how important such research is ˜ almost two-fifths of the state's schoolchildren come from non-English speaking homes. And parents and employers everywhere want to know what advances children's reading and language skills. Figuring that out was the charge given, along with 1 million in taxpayer dollars, to Bush's prestigious National Literacy Panel, appointed three years ago.
Panelist Robert Slavin, an education professor at Johns Hopkins University, was asked to review the best-designed experiments, where children were randomly assigned to either bilingual or English-immersion classrooms. The administration, rightfully, wanted to test reforms with the same rigor with which it tests new drugs. Or so it said.
Slavin found that, according to the best data, children's early literacy skills climbed at a faster rate in bilingual classrooms. He wanted to publish his findings immediately; the Education Department said to wait until the panel's full report was done.
"From the perspective of academic freedom, I didn't like the idea of something being held up," Slavin said. He resigned from the panel.
Now the panel's report is finished. Another of its members extended Slavin's research, with the same results: Good bilingual education programs produce faster results than good English-only programs. These findings (and others ˜ for instance, that reading is best taught via basic skills, like phonics) have been peer-reviewed, but Bush's Education Department won't make the report public.
"They said they weren't going to release it," the panel chairman, University of Illinois psychologist Timothy Shanahan, told me last week.
Kathleen Leos, who heads the Office of English Language Acquisition in the Education Department, denies the report is being deep-sixed. "We are in negotiations, it's just not ready," she said. But another panel member, David Francis of the University of Houston, said the negotiations are over getting the government to relinquish copyright, so that the findings may be published independently.
Why would the administration sideline its own report? It's possible that the bilingual education results weren't what it wanted to hear. "English only" is a rallying cry in the culture wars, and evidence that works against it also works against such Bush allies as English First, which has lead the charge against bilingual education.
And this wouldn't be the first time the administration has buried inconvenient education data. It was not until the New York Times brought suit and forced the release of a charter school study that we learned that such schools ˜ which are mandated by the No Child Left Behind Act in some cases ˜ do no better on average than public schools.
And Republicans aren't alone in this game. In 2000, Clinton administration officials tried to recast research I led, which found that many toddlers were entering unhealthy child-care settings in the wake of its welfare reforms.
Scientific evidence alone shouldn't make or break public policy. But as conservative John Locke argued in the 18th century, government must advance objective knowledge so that citizens can reason through remedies to their shared problems. When the government invests in legitimate research, we should not be prevented from hearing the results.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-
fuller24aug24,0,2834526.story?coll=la-news-comment-opinions
BRUCE FULLER is a professor of education and public policy at UC Berkeley.
August 24, 2005
PRESIDENT BUSH'S love affair with the scientific community is awkward at best. The White House science advisor, John H. Marburger III, is on record as saying that "in this administration, science strongly informs policy." But where's the romance for scientists if Bush casts a blind eye over evidence of a human role in global warming or the difference between evolution and intelligent design?
Now the administration's propensity to ignore empirical data threatens the search for effective school reforms. The latest case of science snubbed emerged last week and involves the quiet quashing of new findings on the success of bilingual teaching in the nation's classrooms.
Californians understand how important such research is ˜ almost two-fifths of the state's schoolchildren come from non-English speaking homes. And parents and employers everywhere want to know what advances children's reading and language skills. Figuring that out was the charge given, along with 1 million in taxpayer dollars, to Bush's prestigious National Literacy Panel, appointed three years ago.
Panelist Robert Slavin, an education professor at Johns Hopkins University, was asked to review the best-designed experiments, where children were randomly assigned to either bilingual or English-immersion classrooms. The administration, rightfully, wanted to test reforms with the same rigor with which it tests new drugs. Or so it said.
Slavin found that, according to the best data, children's early literacy skills climbed at a faster rate in bilingual classrooms. He wanted to publish his findings immediately; the Education Department said to wait until the panel's full report was done.
"From the perspective of academic freedom, I didn't like the idea of something being held up," Slavin said. He resigned from the panel.
Now the panel's report is finished. Another of its members extended Slavin's research, with the same results: Good bilingual education programs produce faster results than good English-only programs. These findings (and others ˜ for instance, that reading is best taught via basic skills, like phonics) have been peer-reviewed, but Bush's Education Department won't make the report public.
"They said they weren't going to release it," the panel chairman, University of Illinois psychologist Timothy Shanahan, told me last week.
Kathleen Leos, who heads the Office of English Language Acquisition in the Education Department, denies the report is being deep-sixed. "We are in negotiations, it's just not ready," she said. But another panel member, David Francis of the University of Houston, said the negotiations are over getting the government to relinquish copyright, so that the findings may be published independently.
Why would the administration sideline its own report? It's possible that the bilingual education results weren't what it wanted to hear. "English only" is a rallying cry in the culture wars, and evidence that works against it also works against such Bush allies as English First, which has lead the charge against bilingual education.
And this wouldn't be the first time the administration has buried inconvenient education data. It was not until the New York Times brought suit and forced the release of a charter school study that we learned that such schools ˜ which are mandated by the No Child Left Behind Act in some cases ˜ do no better on average than public schools.
And Republicans aren't alone in this game. In 2000, Clinton administration officials tried to recast research I led, which found that many toddlers were entering unhealthy child-care settings in the wake of its welfare reforms.
Scientific evidence alone shouldn't make or break public policy. But as conservative John Locke argued in the 18th century, government must advance objective knowledge so that citizens can reason through remedies to their shared problems. When the government invests in legitimate research, we should not be prevented from hearing the results.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-
fuller24aug24,0,2834526.story?coll=la-news-comment-opinions
Tuesday, August 23, 2005
No Child Lawsuit Disputed
by ROBERT A. FRAHM
Courant Staff Writer
August 23 2005
As some of the state's leading educators and politicians hailed Connecticut's filing of a lawsuit against a controversial federal education law Monday, two national civil rights leaders called the action ill-advised.
The criticism from civil rights advocates, including former Connecticut lawyer John C. Brittain, came as Connecticut became the first state to go to court challenging the No Child Left Behind Act, the centerpiece of President Bush's education agenda.
The disagreement reflects a national debate over the most sweeping federal education law in 30 years. The law calls for a broad expansion of testing and a shake-up of schools that fail to make sufficient progress with all students, including low-income children, special education students and members of minority groups.
The state filed suit in federal district court in Hartford against U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings, contending the law will unfairly cost state and local taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars.
"Our message today is: Give up the unfunded mandates or give us the money," said state Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, flanked by about a dozen politicians and representatives of the state's education establishment.
A spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Education said the lawsuit "sends the wrong message to students, educators and parents."
"The funds have been provided for testing," said Susan Aspey, "but Connecticut apparently wants to keep those funds without using them as intended."
A key goal of No Child Left Behind is to close the achievement gap that finds many low-income and minority students lagging academically behind white, middle-class children.
Although educators across the nation have complained that the law does not provide enough money for schools to make the necessary improvements, some observers, such as Brittain, believe it has focused long overdue attention on low-income and minority children, whose academic performance generally has lagged behind that of other students.
"We believe poor children will suffer if the state of Connecticut wins" its lawsuit, said Brittain, who for years was a central figure in the Sheff vs. O'Neill school desegregation case that sought to improve racial balance in Hartford's public schools.
"No Child Left Behind keeps the accountability on the states, where it belongs," said Brittain, chief counsel and senior deputy director of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law in Washington, D.C.
In a letter to Blumenthal, Brittain and noted civil rights lawyer William Taylor took no position on whether No Child Left Behind has been funded properly but alleged that Connecticut has failed to comply with the law's requirements to help local school districts meet academic standards.
That failure, the letter said, cannot be excused by the state's claims that the law is under-funded.
Taylor, chairman of the Citizens' Commission on Civil Rights, questioned the strategy of basing a lawsuit on claims of unfunded mandates. "There is no basis for thinking those lawsuits have been successful," he said. "I'm afraid lawsuits of this kind ... may encourage other states to resist. That cannot help this major effort to help poor kids."
Blumenthal said the state doesn't object to the goals of No Child Left Behind, but "with the failed implementation."
The federal government has repeatedly rejected Connecticut's requests for flexibility in interpreting the law, including waiving a requirement to add three grades to Connecticut's annual testing program at a cost to the state of nearly $8 million over the next two years.
The state - which for years has tested children in fourth, sixth, eighth and 10th grades - will add tests in third, fifth and seventh grades in the spring to meet federal requirements even though the additional tests "have questionable merit," said state Education Commissioner Betty J. Sternberg. She rejected the contention by Brittain and Taylor that the state had failed to help local school districts comply with the law.
Sternberg also has disagreed with the federal government over how to test special education students and children who speak little or no English.
Connecticut is one of many states that have clashed with the U.S. Department of Education over No Child Left Behind. Nevertheless, Blumenthal, despite months of effort, was unable to persuade other states to join the lawsuit.
"That's because almost every other state is in the process of asking the U.S. Department of Education for changes" in the interpretation of the law, said Jack Jennings, president of the Center on Education Policy in Washington, D.C., a private nonprofit group that monitors education policy. "I think they're afraid that if they file suit they won't get the changes they're asking for."
As for Connecticut officials, "I think they're fed up," he said. The lawsuit "is a clear signal there is a great deal of discontent with the law."
That discontent was evident at Blumenthal's press conference, where educators and politicians blasted the federal law.
State Rep. Andrew Fleischmann, D-West Hartford, compared the federal education department to a playground bully.
"While there are not other states that are currently joining us in this litigation, they are cheering us on because we are taking on the bully," he said.
One official noticeably absent from the press conference was Gov. M. Jodi Rell. The Republican governor has expressed reservations about challenging Bush's chief education program in court, but she did recently sign a bill authorizing Blumenthal to file the lawsuit.
Judd Everhart, a spokesman for the governor, said Rell was not invited to attend Monday's press conference.
The governor, however, issued a statement supporting Connecticut's existing school testing program.
"We need accountability. Our children deserve it," she said, "but we in Connecticut do a lot of testing already, far more than most other states. Our taxpayers are sagging under the crushing costs of local education. What we don't need is a new laundry list of things to do - with no new money to do them."
Courant Staff Writer Rachel Gottlieb contributed to this story.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.courant.com/news/local/hc-nochild0823.artaug23,0,5062469.story?coll=
hc-big-headlines-breaking
Courant Staff Writer
August 23 2005
As some of the state's leading educators and politicians hailed Connecticut's filing of a lawsuit against a controversial federal education law Monday, two national civil rights leaders called the action ill-advised.
The criticism from civil rights advocates, including former Connecticut lawyer John C. Brittain, came as Connecticut became the first state to go to court challenging the No Child Left Behind Act, the centerpiece of President Bush's education agenda.
The disagreement reflects a national debate over the most sweeping federal education law in 30 years. The law calls for a broad expansion of testing and a shake-up of schools that fail to make sufficient progress with all students, including low-income children, special education students and members of minority groups.
The state filed suit in federal district court in Hartford against U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings, contending the law will unfairly cost state and local taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars.
"Our message today is: Give up the unfunded mandates or give us the money," said state Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, flanked by about a dozen politicians and representatives of the state's education establishment.
A spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Education said the lawsuit "sends the wrong message to students, educators and parents."
"The funds have been provided for testing," said Susan Aspey, "but Connecticut apparently wants to keep those funds without using them as intended."
A key goal of No Child Left Behind is to close the achievement gap that finds many low-income and minority students lagging academically behind white, middle-class children.
Although educators across the nation have complained that the law does not provide enough money for schools to make the necessary improvements, some observers, such as Brittain, believe it has focused long overdue attention on low-income and minority children, whose academic performance generally has lagged behind that of other students.
"We believe poor children will suffer if the state of Connecticut wins" its lawsuit, said Brittain, who for years was a central figure in the Sheff vs. O'Neill school desegregation case that sought to improve racial balance in Hartford's public schools.
"No Child Left Behind keeps the accountability on the states, where it belongs," said Brittain, chief counsel and senior deputy director of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law in Washington, D.C.
In a letter to Blumenthal, Brittain and noted civil rights lawyer William Taylor took no position on whether No Child Left Behind has been funded properly but alleged that Connecticut has failed to comply with the law's requirements to help local school districts meet academic standards.
That failure, the letter said, cannot be excused by the state's claims that the law is under-funded.
Taylor, chairman of the Citizens' Commission on Civil Rights, questioned the strategy of basing a lawsuit on claims of unfunded mandates. "There is no basis for thinking those lawsuits have been successful," he said. "I'm afraid lawsuits of this kind ... may encourage other states to resist. That cannot help this major effort to help poor kids."
Blumenthal said the state doesn't object to the goals of No Child Left Behind, but "with the failed implementation."
The federal government has repeatedly rejected Connecticut's requests for flexibility in interpreting the law, including waiving a requirement to add three grades to Connecticut's annual testing program at a cost to the state of nearly $8 million over the next two years.
The state - which for years has tested children in fourth, sixth, eighth and 10th grades - will add tests in third, fifth and seventh grades in the spring to meet federal requirements even though the additional tests "have questionable merit," said state Education Commissioner Betty J. Sternberg. She rejected the contention by Brittain and Taylor that the state had failed to help local school districts comply with the law.
Sternberg also has disagreed with the federal government over how to test special education students and children who speak little or no English.
Connecticut is one of many states that have clashed with the U.S. Department of Education over No Child Left Behind. Nevertheless, Blumenthal, despite months of effort, was unable to persuade other states to join the lawsuit.
"That's because almost every other state is in the process of asking the U.S. Department of Education for changes" in the interpretation of the law, said Jack Jennings, president of the Center on Education Policy in Washington, D.C., a private nonprofit group that monitors education policy. "I think they're afraid that if they file suit they won't get the changes they're asking for."
As for Connecticut officials, "I think they're fed up," he said. The lawsuit "is a clear signal there is a great deal of discontent with the law."
That discontent was evident at Blumenthal's press conference, where educators and politicians blasted the federal law.
State Rep. Andrew Fleischmann, D-West Hartford, compared the federal education department to a playground bully.
"While there are not other states that are currently joining us in this litigation, they are cheering us on because we are taking on the bully," he said.
One official noticeably absent from the press conference was Gov. M. Jodi Rell. The Republican governor has expressed reservations about challenging Bush's chief education program in court, but she did recently sign a bill authorizing Blumenthal to file the lawsuit.
Judd Everhart, a spokesman for the governor, said Rell was not invited to attend Monday's press conference.
The governor, however, issued a statement supporting Connecticut's existing school testing program.
"We need accountability. Our children deserve it," she said, "but we in Connecticut do a lot of testing already, far more than most other states. Our taxpayers are sagging under the crushing costs of local education. What we don't need is a new laundry list of things to do - with no new money to do them."
Courant Staff Writer Rachel Gottlieb contributed to this story.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.courant.com/news/local/hc-nochild0823.artaug23,0,5062469.story?coll=
hc-big-headlines-breaking
Sunday, August 21, 2005
GOP cedes Robin Hood
08/21/2005 12:00 AM CDT
Peggy Fikac and Gary Scharrer
Express-News Austin Bureau
AUSTIN — When Republicans secured their dominance of the statehouse nearly three years ago, they painted a target on the Robin Hood school funding system that requires property-rich school districts to share with the poor.
Two regular sessions, three school-finance special sessions and one court ruling later, Robin Hood lives — the beneficiary in large part of GOP infighting over how to raise the state taxes needed to change the system's reliance on local school property taxes.
"When everything was said and done, there was more said than done," said Rep. David Swinford, R-Dumas, at the center of the battle to raise billions in state taxes to lower local school property taxes.
"It's all about money. It's hard to make the deal run when you're not robbing those rich folks like Robin," he said.
Just having House and Senate majorities and the key to the Governor's Mansion is a far cry from holding together lawmakers in the traditionally tax-shy party, especially on an issue like school finance that lawmakers have noted turns more on local concerns than party lines.
"We do have a majority of folks who are like-minded," said Rep. Frank Corte, R-San Antonio. "When it comes to school finance, it's a little more problematic than that."
GOP leaders insisted any money raised from new state taxes be used only to lower local school property taxes, but local school officials pressed for more funding than could be found without additional state tax revenue.
Democrats and some Republicans, meanwhile, resisted tax-swap plans that analyses showed would benefit the highest-income Texans, since everyone else would pay more in new state taxes than they would benefit from lower school property taxes.
With the public education community united against proposed school changes and the business lobby also putting up a fight against the tax bill, too many legislators lost their will "to resist all of that," said veteran Rep. Fred Hill, R-Richardson.
"We needed strong leadership, and we needed to move quickly. The longer you wait, the less likely you are to do something," Hill said.
Even some GOP resistance is significant in a House with a fairly tight majority and a Senate where a tradition requiring a two-thirds vote to bring up legislation means some Democratic support is necessary for measures to pass.
The end came after some House Republicans deserted the leadership to support an alternate school funding plan pushed by Democrats. It would have used some new state tax money to give teachers a bigger pay raise and grant lower- and middle-class homeowners more of a local tax break.
GOP leaders killed the school plan, and the related tax-swap plan also went down in defeat.
"We don't have a Republican team," Swinford said. "We've got a Republican group."
Many now believe Republican Gov. Rick Perry, who alone has the power to call lawmakers into special session, will wait to do so again until after the Texas Supreme Court issues a ruling on the school finance system.
The high court is reviewing a judge's ruling that the system, which relies heavily on local school property taxes, is unconstitutional. State District Judge John Dietz of Travis County preserved both the Robin Hood system and the equity that it created for property rich and poor schools.
But he said the state relies so much on the local property tax that it amounts to an unconstitutional statewide property tax, and that the state doesn't adequately fund education.
House Speaker Tom Craddick has urged the wait for a court decision, noting that past Legislatures — dominated by Democrats — had court guidance in making tough school-finance decisions. Perry and Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst have said that's not their first choice.
GOP leaders' school-finance measure, while not dedicating new tax money to schools, would have carved out new funding from the existing revenue stream. Some lawmakers don't want to spend that set-aside money before the court rules, Craddick said, in case it requires more funds in other areas.
"Then they will have to vote for a pure tax bill to fund it and most of the Republican members do not want to do that," Craddick said.
Rep. Jim Pitts — a Waxahachie Republican who voted for the Democratic school plan despite being on the leadership team as chairman of the budget-writing Appropriations Committee — said Craddick's right about the timing.
"I think that we're blindly going down the road," he said, and that uncertainty compounds the difficulty of the votes.
"Probably the hard issue is taxes. ... If you lower property taxes, you're going to raise taxes somewhere," Pitts said. "Why are we voting on this when we don't know what the courts are going to do?"
Pitts said he doesn't believe he broke with the GOP.
"I think the Republican Party would want you to vote with your district," he said. "The taxpayers in my district would like for us to get the money into the schools."
Pitts has already drawn a GOP opponent for 2006: Q.D. "Duke" Burge, who is on the Midlothian School District board. Pitts said Burge was recruited by school superintendents in his legislative district — but he said that didn't affect his vote.
School finance will evidently loom large in the race, since Burge's Web site describes him as "pro education, fiscally conservative, tax payer advocate."
"I think it'll be an issue," Pitts said. "I don't think it will affect, say, the governor and the lieutenant governor. But ... state reps are pretty local, and I think you could see some really tough races for state reps."
Democratic campaign consultant Ed Martin said even Republicans "are concerned and miffed that their party might be viewed as anti-education."
"That's a powerful campaign message when the electorate thinks that education is our top priority and believes that the state should be putting more resources into our schools," Martin said.
The combination of inadequate investment in public education and the proposed tax shift could benefit Democrats running in rural and suburban districts next year, Martin said.
But Martin conceded that Democrats likely will only see gradual gains in their legislative chambers next year because Republicans protected their districts while redrawing boundaries after the 2000 census.
Pitts said his district is "pretty Republican," so the GOP primary victor is likely to be the next state representative.
And in a Republican primary, said GOP consultant Royal Masset, inaction on the issue isn't a killer, given the options.
"Because we are a party that believes in limited government, we don't cry when nothing happens," Masset said. "Doing nothing, at least you don't spend money."
That means, he said, "You don't have the political whip to get something done. That's why you almost have to wait for the courts."
Longtime San Antonio legislator Frank Madla, a Democrat, doesn't blame Republicans, saying tax and school issues are inherently difficult.
"I've been here for 32 years. I don't see any difference today and back when we were debating the Edgewood (school equity case in the 1980s)," he said. "The only difference is the Democrats were in control then, and the Republicans are in control today."
Madla joins those who contend that Texas must spend more for education, citing the needs of his sprawling district that stretches from south San Antonio to the eastern fringes of El Paso.
Even guidance from the Supreme Court won't make it easy, he said. "It's tough to pass a tax bill any time. I don't know how we are going to get around that issue," Madla said. "My dad said there's no such thing as a good tax — period."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
pfikac@express-news.net
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Online at: http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/metro/stories/MYSA082105.1B.school_politics.31b7632.html
Peggy Fikac and Gary Scharrer
Express-News Austin Bureau
AUSTIN — When Republicans secured their dominance of the statehouse nearly three years ago, they painted a target on the Robin Hood school funding system that requires property-rich school districts to share with the poor.
Two regular sessions, three school-finance special sessions and one court ruling later, Robin Hood lives — the beneficiary in large part of GOP infighting over how to raise the state taxes needed to change the system's reliance on local school property taxes.
"When everything was said and done, there was more said than done," said Rep. David Swinford, R-Dumas, at the center of the battle to raise billions in state taxes to lower local school property taxes.
"It's all about money. It's hard to make the deal run when you're not robbing those rich folks like Robin," he said.
Just having House and Senate majorities and the key to the Governor's Mansion is a far cry from holding together lawmakers in the traditionally tax-shy party, especially on an issue like school finance that lawmakers have noted turns more on local concerns than party lines.
"We do have a majority of folks who are like-minded," said Rep. Frank Corte, R-San Antonio. "When it comes to school finance, it's a little more problematic than that."
GOP leaders insisted any money raised from new state taxes be used only to lower local school property taxes, but local school officials pressed for more funding than could be found without additional state tax revenue.
Democrats and some Republicans, meanwhile, resisted tax-swap plans that analyses showed would benefit the highest-income Texans, since everyone else would pay more in new state taxes than they would benefit from lower school property taxes.
With the public education community united against proposed school changes and the business lobby also putting up a fight against the tax bill, too many legislators lost their will "to resist all of that," said veteran Rep. Fred Hill, R-Richardson.
"We needed strong leadership, and we needed to move quickly. The longer you wait, the less likely you are to do something," Hill said.
Even some GOP resistance is significant in a House with a fairly tight majority and a Senate where a tradition requiring a two-thirds vote to bring up legislation means some Democratic support is necessary for measures to pass.
The end came after some House Republicans deserted the leadership to support an alternate school funding plan pushed by Democrats. It would have used some new state tax money to give teachers a bigger pay raise and grant lower- and middle-class homeowners more of a local tax break.
GOP leaders killed the school plan, and the related tax-swap plan also went down in defeat.
"We don't have a Republican team," Swinford said. "We've got a Republican group."
Many now believe Republican Gov. Rick Perry, who alone has the power to call lawmakers into special session, will wait to do so again until after the Texas Supreme Court issues a ruling on the school finance system.
The high court is reviewing a judge's ruling that the system, which relies heavily on local school property taxes, is unconstitutional. State District Judge John Dietz of Travis County preserved both the Robin Hood system and the equity that it created for property rich and poor schools.
But he said the state relies so much on the local property tax that it amounts to an unconstitutional statewide property tax, and that the state doesn't adequately fund education.
House Speaker Tom Craddick has urged the wait for a court decision, noting that past Legislatures — dominated by Democrats — had court guidance in making tough school-finance decisions. Perry and Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst have said that's not their first choice.
GOP leaders' school-finance measure, while not dedicating new tax money to schools, would have carved out new funding from the existing revenue stream. Some lawmakers don't want to spend that set-aside money before the court rules, Craddick said, in case it requires more funds in other areas.
"Then they will have to vote for a pure tax bill to fund it and most of the Republican members do not want to do that," Craddick said.
Rep. Jim Pitts — a Waxahachie Republican who voted for the Democratic school plan despite being on the leadership team as chairman of the budget-writing Appropriations Committee — said Craddick's right about the timing.
"I think that we're blindly going down the road," he said, and that uncertainty compounds the difficulty of the votes.
"Probably the hard issue is taxes. ... If you lower property taxes, you're going to raise taxes somewhere," Pitts said. "Why are we voting on this when we don't know what the courts are going to do?"
Pitts said he doesn't believe he broke with the GOP.
"I think the Republican Party would want you to vote with your district," he said. "The taxpayers in my district would like for us to get the money into the schools."
Pitts has already drawn a GOP opponent for 2006: Q.D. "Duke" Burge, who is on the Midlothian School District board. Pitts said Burge was recruited by school superintendents in his legislative district — but he said that didn't affect his vote.
School finance will evidently loom large in the race, since Burge's Web site describes him as "pro education, fiscally conservative, tax payer advocate."
"I think it'll be an issue," Pitts said. "I don't think it will affect, say, the governor and the lieutenant governor. But ... state reps are pretty local, and I think you could see some really tough races for state reps."
Democratic campaign consultant Ed Martin said even Republicans "are concerned and miffed that their party might be viewed as anti-education."
"That's a powerful campaign message when the electorate thinks that education is our top priority and believes that the state should be putting more resources into our schools," Martin said.
The combination of inadequate investment in public education and the proposed tax shift could benefit Democrats running in rural and suburban districts next year, Martin said.
But Martin conceded that Democrats likely will only see gradual gains in their legislative chambers next year because Republicans protected their districts while redrawing boundaries after the 2000 census.
Pitts said his district is "pretty Republican," so the GOP primary victor is likely to be the next state representative.
And in a Republican primary, said GOP consultant Royal Masset, inaction on the issue isn't a killer, given the options.
"Because we are a party that believes in limited government, we don't cry when nothing happens," Masset said. "Doing nothing, at least you don't spend money."
That means, he said, "You don't have the political whip to get something done. That's why you almost have to wait for the courts."
Longtime San Antonio legislator Frank Madla, a Democrat, doesn't blame Republicans, saying tax and school issues are inherently difficult.
"I've been here for 32 years. I don't see any difference today and back when we were debating the Edgewood (school equity case in the 1980s)," he said. "The only difference is the Democrats were in control then, and the Republicans are in control today."
Madla joins those who contend that Texas must spend more for education, citing the needs of his sprawling district that stretches from south San Antonio to the eastern fringes of El Paso.
Even guidance from the Supreme Court won't make it easy, he said. "It's tough to pass a tax bill any time. I don't know how we are going to get around that issue," Madla said. "My dad said there's no such thing as a good tax — period."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
pfikac@express-news.net
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Online at: http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/metro/stories/MYSA082105.1B.school_politics.31b7632.html
Bridging the Widest Gap
August 2005 | Volume 47 | Number 8
Raising the Achievement of Black Boys
by Laura Varlas
Educators cannot overlook the persistent achievement gap between black boys and their peers. “These patterns are not going away and are not limited to one local area,” says Education Trust Senior Associate Carlton Jordan. “Wherever I go, African American boys are at the bottom.” Now that school systems must report and analyze disaggregated data about student groups, educators have begun “a new conversation” to find solutions for black boys, notes Jordan.
From the Principal's Office to Prison
Reports by the American Council on Education, the Education Trust, and the Schott Foundation show that black boys spend more time in special education, spend less time in advanced placement or college prep courses, and receive more disciplinary suspensions and expulsions than any other group in U.S. schools today. The Schott Foundation started the Black Boys Initiative in 2003, says President Rosa Smith, because “black boys represented the worst-case scenario for a group coming out of public education.” The foundation's 2004 state-by-state report on black male students found that, among other negative indicators, more black males receive a GED in prison than graduate from college.
“This problem is not genetic,” states author and education consultant Jawanza Kunjufu. “It is systemic.” In many cases, a debilitating combination of inadequate resources and low expectations in schools that serve large numbers of black boys results in this group being held back, researchers say. Jordan and his colleagues report that these schools have “more than their fair share of teachers who are out of field or long-term substitutes. And often the curriculum and the expectations are quite low.” Experts tracking black boys in schools also cite inattention to gender learning styles, misinterpretation and abuse of zero tolerance policies, negative peer pressure, and lack of commitment to create a culture of care and nurturance for black boys.
A 2004 study by the Schott Foundation, Public Education and Black Male Students: A State Report Card, found that although black males make up only 8.6 percent of public school enrollments, they represent 22 percent of expulsions and 23 percent of suspensions. In terms of discipline, these students face inconsistency, notes Vernon C. Polite, professor at Bowie State University and coeditor of the book African American Males in School and Society. In an independent study, Polite found that for the same offense, suspension days ranged from 2 to 22. Because of abuse and misinterpretation of federal and state guidelines for suspension and expulsion, Polite says, large numbers of African American boys are wandering the streets daily and engaging in crime. This is frustrating, Polite notes, because “the very problems we wish to mitigate are being exacerbated.”
Gender Affects Learning Styles
In many schools, black boys are removed from mainstream education by disciplinary interventions or by tracking them into special education. Kunjufu argues that a major agent in the disproportionately high representation of black boys in special education and in disciplinary interventions is the lack of accommodation for gender differences in learning styles. Part of the problem is that less than 1 percent of all elementary school teachers in the United States are African American men, Kunjufu adds. Because 83 percent of elementary teachers are white women, he sees a direct correlation to statistics showing that white girls are least likely to be referred for special education. Of black boys who enter special education, only 10 percent return to the mainstream classroom and stay there, Kunjufu notes, and only 27 percent graduate.
To create a more equitable learning environment for black boys, Kunjufu advises educators to accommodate specific learning differences tied to gender. “If you know that girls mature faster than boys—almost a three-year difference—instead of placing boys in special education, we should allow for those differences or consider single-gender classrooms,” Kunjufu suggests. Accommodations can include shortening lesson plans, allowing more movement in the classroom, and holding physical education classes daily. “If you know that girls are more verbal,” he adds, “then allow for the possibility that boys will not only communicate differently, but will also express an interest in reading a little later than girls.” To allow for these differences, Belgium, Germany, and Switzerland either delay the entrance of their boys until age 6 or 7, or they separate boys and girls. In addition, the United States has 500 single-gender classrooms and more than 100 single-gender schools.
Where single-gender is not an option, Kunjufu is optimistic about how schools are responding to accountability pressures from the 2004 reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act. One Maryland school implemented a prereferral process, in which teachers cannot recommend a child for special education placement without a six-week pre-intervention process of trying mainstreaming strategies. As a result, he says, that school has seen a 68 percent reduction of black boys in special education.
Access to Rigor, Access to Support
Rigorous academic focus was missing at the Midwestern high school Polite worked at and studied for his book African American Males in School and Society. With such a lack of focus, a student who is not geared toward college enrollment and who remains in school tends to become the “increasingly invisible student who sits in the back of the classroom and gets by,” says Adam Behar, director of public relations for the Advancement Via Individual Determination (AVID) program. AVID works with students who achieve at average academic levels to prepare them for four-year college eligibility by providing support during and after school.
AVID has shown that these students are capable of completing a college-prep curriculum, Behar says, “if we provide access to rigorous curriculum and intensive support.” A study of AVID's 2004 African American high school seniors reported that 100 percent graduated from high school and 81 percent were accepted to a four-year college. “Rigor and support—that's the proven formula,” Behar says.
Polite adds that school leadership needs to shift toward a focus on instruction instead of building management. Administrators can begin to address instructional needs by looking at the raw data of course enrollments. If you walk through the school and see groups of students missing from science and math advanced placement programs, you should be concerned, he says.
Combat Stereotypes with Care
In addition to harder data on the challenges black boys face in public schools, researchers point to less-quantifiable factors. Professor Melissa Roderick of the University of Chicago notes that black boys often do not feel cared for in their school communities. Roderick has found that the disconnect between black boys and a caring school is most acute when they transition from smaller, attentive middle schools to larger, anonymous high schools. Polite also noted that at Metropolitan High School (the name he used for the school in his book), the perceived lack of caring was the most devastating factor for black boys.
At Metropolitan, Polite recommended that principals and administrators focus their hiring practices on finding people who are able to relate to and care for students from different backgrounds. In addition, Polite pointed to professional development schools as places where teachers and teacher candidates can be trained to care through inquiry, curriculum development research, and reflection. Nell Noddings, a professor at Stanford University, a former K–12 math teacher, and the author of several books on caring, observes that “young black men and boys growing up without male role models and in conditions of poverty probably do need, more than anyone else, that assurance that somebody really cares. Many studies show the single most important thing in turning lives around is the ongoing presence of a caring adult.”
Unfortunately, black boys are often alone in their self-advocacy. They must combat the negative stereotype that being black and masculine does not match up with being smart and going to school. Extensive research shows that one of the principal factors contributing to the underrepresentation of minority men in college and their underperformance in primary and secondary schools is the absence of minority male teachers as role models. “No question,” says Kunjufu, “one thing we can do for black boys is increase [the number of] black men teaching.” As resources for change, Kunjufu suggests the 85,000 black churches, 106 black colleges, more than 10 national black sororities and fraternities, and almost 200 black radio stations in the United States. In Maryland, Rep. Steny Hoyer is establishing Men Equipped to Nurture, an intensive program designed to dramatically increase the number of African American and other males entering the teaching profession.
Litmus Test for Leadership
The downward trend for black boys in school and society will not end unless educators and community and business leaders make black boys “the litmus test for their personal leadership,” says Smith. As a former school superintendent, she encourages school administrators to lead in ways that nurture “this student group most vulnerable to school failure.” To improve the achievement of black boys, she advises school leaders to bring together reciprocal layers of communication, data collection, early education, accountability, and literacy instruction.
In its 2003 report, Education Trust highlights some schools, districts, and states that are improving math and reading achievement for African American boys. Jordan points to progress made by the D.C. KEY Academy in Washington and Norview High School in Norfolk, Va., which are looking at their data and making sure this vulnerable group does not fall behind.
“Regardless of race, gender, home environment, or the community or housing complex our students come from, high expectations for their behavior and academic performance will not change,” says Susan Schaeffler, founding principal of the D.C. KEY Academy. “The expectation that our children will perform at a high level is set in stone, and our staff is committed to doing whatever it takes to make sure our children succeed, regardless of the obstacles they encounter.”
Raising the Achievement of Black Boys
by Laura Varlas
Educators cannot overlook the persistent achievement gap between black boys and their peers. “These patterns are not going away and are not limited to one local area,” says Education Trust Senior Associate Carlton Jordan. “Wherever I go, African American boys are at the bottom.” Now that school systems must report and analyze disaggregated data about student groups, educators have begun “a new conversation” to find solutions for black boys, notes Jordan.
From the Principal's Office to Prison
Reports by the American Council on Education, the Education Trust, and the Schott Foundation show that black boys spend more time in special education, spend less time in advanced placement or college prep courses, and receive more disciplinary suspensions and expulsions than any other group in U.S. schools today. The Schott Foundation started the Black Boys Initiative in 2003, says President Rosa Smith, because “black boys represented the worst-case scenario for a group coming out of public education.” The foundation's 2004 state-by-state report on black male students found that, among other negative indicators, more black males receive a GED in prison than graduate from college.
“This problem is not genetic,” states author and education consultant Jawanza Kunjufu. “It is systemic.” In many cases, a debilitating combination of inadequate resources and low expectations in schools that serve large numbers of black boys results in this group being held back, researchers say. Jordan and his colleagues report that these schools have “more than their fair share of teachers who are out of field or long-term substitutes. And often the curriculum and the expectations are quite low.” Experts tracking black boys in schools also cite inattention to gender learning styles, misinterpretation and abuse of zero tolerance policies, negative peer pressure, and lack of commitment to create a culture of care and nurturance for black boys.
A 2004 study by the Schott Foundation, Public Education and Black Male Students: A State Report Card, found that although black males make up only 8.6 percent of public school enrollments, they represent 22 percent of expulsions and 23 percent of suspensions. In terms of discipline, these students face inconsistency, notes Vernon C. Polite, professor at Bowie State University and coeditor of the book African American Males in School and Society. In an independent study, Polite found that for the same offense, suspension days ranged from 2 to 22. Because of abuse and misinterpretation of federal and state guidelines for suspension and expulsion, Polite says, large numbers of African American boys are wandering the streets daily and engaging in crime. This is frustrating, Polite notes, because “the very problems we wish to mitigate are being exacerbated.”
Gender Affects Learning Styles
In many schools, black boys are removed from mainstream education by disciplinary interventions or by tracking them into special education. Kunjufu argues that a major agent in the disproportionately high representation of black boys in special education and in disciplinary interventions is the lack of accommodation for gender differences in learning styles. Part of the problem is that less than 1 percent of all elementary school teachers in the United States are African American men, Kunjufu adds. Because 83 percent of elementary teachers are white women, he sees a direct correlation to statistics showing that white girls are least likely to be referred for special education. Of black boys who enter special education, only 10 percent return to the mainstream classroom and stay there, Kunjufu notes, and only 27 percent graduate.
To create a more equitable learning environment for black boys, Kunjufu advises educators to accommodate specific learning differences tied to gender. “If you know that girls mature faster than boys—almost a three-year difference—instead of placing boys in special education, we should allow for those differences or consider single-gender classrooms,” Kunjufu suggests. Accommodations can include shortening lesson plans, allowing more movement in the classroom, and holding physical education classes daily. “If you know that girls are more verbal,” he adds, “then allow for the possibility that boys will not only communicate differently, but will also express an interest in reading a little later than girls.” To allow for these differences, Belgium, Germany, and Switzerland either delay the entrance of their boys until age 6 or 7, or they separate boys and girls. In addition, the United States has 500 single-gender classrooms and more than 100 single-gender schools.
Where single-gender is not an option, Kunjufu is optimistic about how schools are responding to accountability pressures from the 2004 reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act. One Maryland school implemented a prereferral process, in which teachers cannot recommend a child for special education placement without a six-week pre-intervention process of trying mainstreaming strategies. As a result, he says, that school has seen a 68 percent reduction of black boys in special education.
Access to Rigor, Access to Support
Rigorous academic focus was missing at the Midwestern high school Polite worked at and studied for his book African American Males in School and Society. With such a lack of focus, a student who is not geared toward college enrollment and who remains in school tends to become the “increasingly invisible student who sits in the back of the classroom and gets by,” says Adam Behar, director of public relations for the Advancement Via Individual Determination (AVID) program. AVID works with students who achieve at average academic levels to prepare them for four-year college eligibility by providing support during and after school.
AVID has shown that these students are capable of completing a college-prep curriculum, Behar says, “if we provide access to rigorous curriculum and intensive support.” A study of AVID's 2004 African American high school seniors reported that 100 percent graduated from high school and 81 percent were accepted to a four-year college. “Rigor and support—that's the proven formula,” Behar says.
Polite adds that school leadership needs to shift toward a focus on instruction instead of building management. Administrators can begin to address instructional needs by looking at the raw data of course enrollments. If you walk through the school and see groups of students missing from science and math advanced placement programs, you should be concerned, he says.
Combat Stereotypes with Care
In addition to harder data on the challenges black boys face in public schools, researchers point to less-quantifiable factors. Professor Melissa Roderick of the University of Chicago notes that black boys often do not feel cared for in their school communities. Roderick has found that the disconnect between black boys and a caring school is most acute when they transition from smaller, attentive middle schools to larger, anonymous high schools. Polite also noted that at Metropolitan High School (the name he used for the school in his book), the perceived lack of caring was the most devastating factor for black boys.
At Metropolitan, Polite recommended that principals and administrators focus their hiring practices on finding people who are able to relate to and care for students from different backgrounds. In addition, Polite pointed to professional development schools as places where teachers and teacher candidates can be trained to care through inquiry, curriculum development research, and reflection. Nell Noddings, a professor at Stanford University, a former K–12 math teacher, and the author of several books on caring, observes that “young black men and boys growing up without male role models and in conditions of poverty probably do need, more than anyone else, that assurance that somebody really cares. Many studies show the single most important thing in turning lives around is the ongoing presence of a caring adult.”
Unfortunately, black boys are often alone in their self-advocacy. They must combat the negative stereotype that being black and masculine does not match up with being smart and going to school. Extensive research shows that one of the principal factors contributing to the underrepresentation of minority men in college and their underperformance in primary and secondary schools is the absence of minority male teachers as role models. “No question,” says Kunjufu, “one thing we can do for black boys is increase [the number of] black men teaching.” As resources for change, Kunjufu suggests the 85,000 black churches, 106 black colleges, more than 10 national black sororities and fraternities, and almost 200 black radio stations in the United States. In Maryland, Rep. Steny Hoyer is establishing Men Equipped to Nurture, an intensive program designed to dramatically increase the number of African American and other males entering the teaching profession.
Litmus Test for Leadership
The downward trend for black boys in school and society will not end unless educators and community and business leaders make black boys “the litmus test for their personal leadership,” says Smith. As a former school superintendent, she encourages school administrators to lead in ways that nurture “this student group most vulnerable to school failure.” To improve the achievement of black boys, she advises school leaders to bring together reciprocal layers of communication, data collection, early education, accountability, and literacy instruction.
In its 2003 report, Education Trust highlights some schools, districts, and states that are improving math and reading achievement for African American boys. Jordan points to progress made by the D.C. KEY Academy in Washington and Norview High School in Norfolk, Va., which are looking at their data and making sure this vulnerable group does not fall behind.
“Regardless of race, gender, home environment, or the community or housing complex our students come from, high expectations for their behavior and academic performance will not change,” says Susan Schaeffler, founding principal of the D.C. KEY Academy. “The expectation that our children will perform at a high level is set in stone, and our staff is committed to doing whatever it takes to make sure our children succeed, regardless of the obstacles they encounter.”
Study Finds Big Gains For KIPP
My sense of these schools is that they are far too regimented for my taste. I would never have my kids in one of these schools. But I do hand it to the teachers who I know kills themselves to help out their students. Another thought: Contrast this approach to this other one that focuses on offering an International Baccalaureate curriculum to children of color. It's in a piece written by Jay Mathews published Aug. 16 of the Washington Post. What a difference in approach! Wonder what others think. -Angela
Charter Schools Exceed Average
By Jay Mathews
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 11, 2005; A14
Twenty-seven KIPP charter middle schools, including one in the District, have posted "large and significant gains" beyond what is average for urban schools, according to a report by the Educational Policy Institute.
The Virginia Beach-based research organization, using data provided by the Knowledge Is Power Program, said 1,800 mostly low-income black and Hispanic fifth-graders showed gains significantly above average in reading, language and mathematics from 2003 to 2004.
It was the largest study so far of KIPP, which has 48 schools in the United States, including three in the Washington area. Some experts have cited KIPP, begun by two teachers in 1994, as an example of what disadvantaged students can achieve if given more time in smaller schools, as well as firm homework requirements and well-trained principals with the power to hire and fire teachers.
Steve Mancini, spokesman for the San Francisco-based organization, applauded the results but said, "We won't be fully satisfied until our students finally earn acceptances to college."
Statistical experts said more data on KIPP and more independent assessments are needed before any conclusions can be reached on the organization's methods. Jeffrey R. Henig, a professor of political science and education at Columbia University's Teachers College, said some scholars have suggested that KIPP fifth-graders arrive with more motivated parents and other advantages compared with their neighborhood peers. More research on whether the gains are sustainable over time also is needed, Henig added.
KIPP officials said their data show incoming students to be just as disadvantaged as other children in their neighborhoods. Test results, they said, showed that new students starting fifth grade in 2004 at the KIPP school in Southeast Washington averaged 34.1 in reading on a 99-point scale called a normal curve equivalent, compared with 46.2 for their classmates in neighboring schools.
The Educational Policy Institute study used the same scale, which is different from percentile ranks most often used to measure achievement and criticized as confusing by some experts.
Students show no growth on the 99-point scale from one year to the next if they make normal progress. Fifth-graders at the 27 KIPP schools included in the study showed an average gain of 7.5 points in reading, 9.1 in language and 11.6 in mathematics from fall 2003 to fall 2004. Educational Policy Institute President Watson Scott Swail said he hoped next to compare KIPP students with students of very similar backgrounds who attend regular schools.
The KIPP DC:KEY Academy, the first KIPP school in the Washington area, opened in 2000 and has 320 students in grades 5 through 8. It has the highest math scores in the city, though more than 80 percent of its students come from black families poor enough to qualify for federal lunch subsidies. This summer, KIPP schools opened in the District and Annapolis, and KIPP officials said there are plans for a third middle school and a high school in the District.
KIPP students are in school at least nine hours a day, compared with fewer than seven hours in regular public schools. Three weeks of summer school is mandatory. Students are urged to call teachers at home if they have questions about homework. Those who do not complete homework are disciplined. Good work and behavior are rewarded with points toward items from the student store and school trips, from which students with few points are excluded. Teachers are trained to be very active in their classrooms, involving all children in lessons and taking points off from those who do not pay attention.
Mike Feinberg and Dave Levin started the first KIPP fifth-grade program at a Houston elementary school. The 50 students' passing rate on a state test doubled in the first year.
© 2005 The Washington Post Company
Charter Schools Exceed Average
By Jay Mathews
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 11, 2005; A14
Twenty-seven KIPP charter middle schools, including one in the District, have posted "large and significant gains" beyond what is average for urban schools, according to a report by the Educational Policy Institute.
The Virginia Beach-based research organization, using data provided by the Knowledge Is Power Program, said 1,800 mostly low-income black and Hispanic fifth-graders showed gains significantly above average in reading, language and mathematics from 2003 to 2004.
It was the largest study so far of KIPP, which has 48 schools in the United States, including three in the Washington area. Some experts have cited KIPP, begun by two teachers in 1994, as an example of what disadvantaged students can achieve if given more time in smaller schools, as well as firm homework requirements and well-trained principals with the power to hire and fire teachers.
Steve Mancini, spokesman for the San Francisco-based organization, applauded the results but said, "We won't be fully satisfied until our students finally earn acceptances to college."
Statistical experts said more data on KIPP and more independent assessments are needed before any conclusions can be reached on the organization's methods. Jeffrey R. Henig, a professor of political science and education at Columbia University's Teachers College, said some scholars have suggested that KIPP fifth-graders arrive with more motivated parents and other advantages compared with their neighborhood peers. More research on whether the gains are sustainable over time also is needed, Henig added.
KIPP officials said their data show incoming students to be just as disadvantaged as other children in their neighborhoods. Test results, they said, showed that new students starting fifth grade in 2004 at the KIPP school in Southeast Washington averaged 34.1 in reading on a 99-point scale called a normal curve equivalent, compared with 46.2 for their classmates in neighboring schools.
The Educational Policy Institute study used the same scale, which is different from percentile ranks most often used to measure achievement and criticized as confusing by some experts.
Students show no growth on the 99-point scale from one year to the next if they make normal progress. Fifth-graders at the 27 KIPP schools included in the study showed an average gain of 7.5 points in reading, 9.1 in language and 11.6 in mathematics from fall 2003 to fall 2004. Educational Policy Institute President Watson Scott Swail said he hoped next to compare KIPP students with students of very similar backgrounds who attend regular schools.
The KIPP DC:KEY Academy, the first KIPP school in the Washington area, opened in 2000 and has 320 students in grades 5 through 8. It has the highest math scores in the city, though more than 80 percent of its students come from black families poor enough to qualify for federal lunch subsidies. This summer, KIPP schools opened in the District and Annapolis, and KIPP officials said there are plans for a third middle school and a high school in the District.
KIPP students are in school at least nine hours a day, compared with fewer than seven hours in regular public schools. Three weeks of summer school is mandatory. Students are urged to call teachers at home if they have questions about homework. Those who do not complete homework are disciplined. Good work and behavior are rewarded with points toward items from the student store and school trips, from which students with few points are excluded. Teachers are trained to be very active in their classrooms, involving all children in lessons and taking points off from those who do not pay attention.
Mike Feinberg and Dave Levin started the first KIPP fifth-grade program at a Houston elementary school. The 50 students' passing rate on a state test doubled in the first year.
© 2005 The Washington Post Company
Teachers' unions boycott Wal-Mart
I had somehow earlier missed this. Wal-Mart is anti-union and discriminatory toward women. This is a principled stance. -Angela
Aug. 10, 2005, 9:16PM
Teachers' unions boycott Wal-Mart
By KIM CHIPMAN
Bloomberg News
The two largest U.S. teachers' unions joined a "back to school" boycott against Wal-Mart Stores, targeting one of the year's busiest shopping seasons to protest the retailer's labor practices.
The 2.7 million-member National Education Association, the biggest U.S. union, and the 1.3 million-member American Federation of Teachers is teaming with the United Food and Commercial Workers in urging shoppers to stay away from the world's largest retailer and buy school supplies elsewhere, a release from the food workers' "Wake-Up Wal-Mart" group said.
The back-to-school season is the biggest shopping time for Wal-Mart other than Christmas. The unions held news conferences and rallies across the United States on Wednesday, demanding the company boost its wages, expand health benefits and adhere to child-labor laws. Protests have intensified in the past year and threaten to hurt Wal-Mart's sales and profit, one investor said.
"Even a hit of just 1 to 2 percent could make a big difference in comparable store sales and earnings," said Patricia Edwards, a portfolio manager and analyst at Wentworth, Hauser & Violich in Seattle. Her firm manages $5.7 billion in assets, including 69,000 Wal-Mart shares, down from about 1.2 million a year ago.
Wal-Mart's declining public image, also hurt by recent discrimination lawsuits, played a part in the decision to sell shares, said Edwards, who doesn't own the stock personally.
Bentonville, Ark.-based Wal-Mart, which is also the biggest private employer in the U.S., didn't return a call seeking comment.
Shares of Wal-Mart fell 38 cents to $48.84 at the New York Stock Exchange on Wednesday. The stock has fallen about 7 percent in the past year.
Wal-Mart had sales of $285 billion in the year that ended in January, an increase of 11 percent over the previous year. The company said last month that it expects August sales at stores open at least a year to rise 3 to 5 percent.
The teachers' unions may help bolster the food workers union's efforts against Wal-Mart. The food workers union, which represents about 1 million U.S. employees, has failed to make inroads in organizing the company. The union, which recently left the AFL-CIO, now says it will move away from organizing and instead focus on building support against Wal-Mart's practices.
"The only thing Wal-Mart is going to respond to is the pressure that the American people will bear on this company," said Chris Kofinis, a spokesman for the union's Wake-Up Wal-Mart group.
This article is: http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/business/3305409
Aug. 10, 2005, 9:16PM
Teachers' unions boycott Wal-Mart
By KIM CHIPMAN
Bloomberg News
The two largest U.S. teachers' unions joined a "back to school" boycott against Wal-Mart Stores, targeting one of the year's busiest shopping seasons to protest the retailer's labor practices.
The 2.7 million-member National Education Association, the biggest U.S. union, and the 1.3 million-member American Federation of Teachers is teaming with the United Food and Commercial Workers in urging shoppers to stay away from the world's largest retailer and buy school supplies elsewhere, a release from the food workers' "Wake-Up Wal-Mart" group said.
The back-to-school season is the biggest shopping time for Wal-Mart other than Christmas. The unions held news conferences and rallies across the United States on Wednesday, demanding the company boost its wages, expand health benefits and adhere to child-labor laws. Protests have intensified in the past year and threaten to hurt Wal-Mart's sales and profit, one investor said.
"Even a hit of just 1 to 2 percent could make a big difference in comparable store sales and earnings," said Patricia Edwards, a portfolio manager and analyst at Wentworth, Hauser & Violich in Seattle. Her firm manages $5.7 billion in assets, including 69,000 Wal-Mart shares, down from about 1.2 million a year ago.
Wal-Mart's declining public image, also hurt by recent discrimination lawsuits, played a part in the decision to sell shares, said Edwards, who doesn't own the stock personally.
Bentonville, Ark.-based Wal-Mart, which is also the biggest private employer in the U.S., didn't return a call seeking comment.
Shares of Wal-Mart fell 38 cents to $48.84 at the New York Stock Exchange on Wednesday. The stock has fallen about 7 percent in the past year.
Wal-Mart had sales of $285 billion in the year that ended in January, an increase of 11 percent over the previous year. The company said last month that it expects August sales at stores open at least a year to rise 3 to 5 percent.
The teachers' unions may help bolster the food workers union's efforts against Wal-Mart. The food workers union, which represents about 1 million U.S. employees, has failed to make inroads in organizing the company. The union, which recently left the AFL-CIO, now says it will move away from organizing and instead focus on building support against Wal-Mart's practices.
"The only thing Wal-Mart is going to respond to is the pressure that the American people will bear on this company," said Chris Kofinis, a spokesman for the union's Wake-Up Wal-Mart group.
This article is: http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/business/3305409
Saturday, August 20, 2005
Blame Texas PTA for no school finance bill
Aug. 20, 2005, 7:31PM
POINTING FINGERS
Blame Texas PTA for no school finance bill
School funding reform tanked for good reasons
By CRAIG TOUNGET
AS the Texas Legislature ends its most recent special session in failure over school finance, the blame game has kicked into overdrive.
The speaker of the House blamed the Senate in radio ads across the state. The lieutenant governor blamed the House for its lack of action. The governor blamed both the House and Senate for not sending him a bill to sign.
The comptroller blamed the governor for a lack of leadership on school finance.
Next, the speaker blamed school superintendents.
So, who is really to blame for the Legislature's failure over three years, two regular sessions and three special sessions? Who is to blame for lawmakers' unwillingness to compromise on reforms and finances?
If state leaders must blame some group outside the Capitol, they can blame the Texas PTA and our 650,000 members. Parents who have written tens of thousands of e-mail messages and letters and placed hundreds and hundreds of phone calls to elected officials. You can blame the parents and taxpayers of this state for not allowing the Legislature to push through inadequate funding for our children's education and harmful regulatory changes disguised as "reforms."
You can blame PTA for opposing private school vouchers, a scheme which would strip millions of dollars out of the public education system and put the money into private hands with no accountability.
You can blame PTA for opposing the state mandating when schools will start throughout the state. We still believe in local control, and we believe that locally elected school board members have a better idea of when their schools should start than does the Legislature.
You can blame PTA for opposing state-mandated November school board elections. We do not believe that making school trustee elections partisan will help children learn to read and write.
You can blame PTA for demanding that textbooks be paid for with money the state board of education set aside for that purpose. You can blame us for expecting our children's textbooks to be delivered in a timely manner, not years later.
You can blame PTA for demanding better pay for classroom teachers so the best and the brightest can be attracted to the profession and will stay in our neighborhood schools for many years.
You can blame PTA for demanding that adequate funding for public education come before property tax reduction. We are at a loss as to why the leadership is consumed with lowering a tax rate that is set by an elected body, your local school board.
You can blame PTA for opposing the one-cent tax increase in the sales tax, making it the highest rate in the country.
You can blame PTA for demanding that all 4.4 million students in Texas public schools have a significantly equal opportunity to receive an excellent education. You can blame PTA for saying that "adequate" is not good enough; we expect better.
Why can't the Legislature pass something? You can blame PTA for that because parents told lawmakers that no bill is better than a bad bill and all the leadership proposed were bad school finance bills.
We are the Texas PTA 650,000 parents, teachers and others who care about children. And taxpayers. You can blame PTA if you want. But if you think there have been lots of calls, letters and e-mails in the past three years, just wait. Keep under-funding our children's schools, keep trying to disguise political agendas as "reforms," keep protecting the tax system that favors the business community, keep using textbook money for other purposes, keep squabbling amongst yourselves over your own petty agendas.
If you think you have heard from parents and taxpayers already, just wait. What you have heard before is a gentle spring rain of discontent compared to the ocean of disappointment and frustration that is ready to wash up on your shores.
Tounget is executive director of the Texas PTA.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
k
This article is: http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/editorial/outlook/
3318174
POINTING FINGERS
Blame Texas PTA for no school finance bill
School funding reform tanked for good reasons
By CRAIG TOUNGET
AS the Texas Legislature ends its most recent special session in failure over school finance, the blame game has kicked into overdrive.
The speaker of the House blamed the Senate in radio ads across the state. The lieutenant governor blamed the House for its lack of action. The governor blamed both the House and Senate for not sending him a bill to sign.
The comptroller blamed the governor for a lack of leadership on school finance.
Next, the speaker blamed school superintendents.
So, who is really to blame for the Legislature's failure over three years, two regular sessions and three special sessions? Who is to blame for lawmakers' unwillingness to compromise on reforms and finances?
If state leaders must blame some group outside the Capitol, they can blame the Texas PTA and our 650,000 members. Parents who have written tens of thousands of e-mail messages and letters and placed hundreds and hundreds of phone calls to elected officials. You can blame the parents and taxpayers of this state for not allowing the Legislature to push through inadequate funding for our children's education and harmful regulatory changes disguised as "reforms."
You can blame PTA for opposing private school vouchers, a scheme which would strip millions of dollars out of the public education system and put the money into private hands with no accountability.
You can blame PTA for opposing the state mandating when schools will start throughout the state. We still believe in local control, and we believe that locally elected school board members have a better idea of when their schools should start than does the Legislature.
You can blame PTA for opposing state-mandated November school board elections. We do not believe that making school trustee elections partisan will help children learn to read and write.
You can blame PTA for demanding that textbooks be paid for with money the state board of education set aside for that purpose. You can blame us for expecting our children's textbooks to be delivered in a timely manner, not years later.
You can blame PTA for demanding better pay for classroom teachers so the best and the brightest can be attracted to the profession and will stay in our neighborhood schools for many years.
You can blame PTA for demanding that adequate funding for public education come before property tax reduction. We are at a loss as to why the leadership is consumed with lowering a tax rate that is set by an elected body, your local school board.
You can blame PTA for opposing the one-cent tax increase in the sales tax, making it the highest rate in the country.
You can blame PTA for demanding that all 4.4 million students in Texas public schools have a significantly equal opportunity to receive an excellent education. You can blame PTA for saying that "adequate" is not good enough; we expect better.
Why can't the Legislature pass something? You can blame PTA for that because parents told lawmakers that no bill is better than a bad bill and all the leadership proposed were bad school finance bills.
We are the Texas PTA 650,000 parents, teachers and others who care about children. And taxpayers. You can blame PTA if you want. But if you think there have been lots of calls, letters and e-mails in the past three years, just wait. Keep under-funding our children's schools, keep trying to disguise political agendas as "reforms," keep protecting the tax system that favors the business community, keep using textbook money for other purposes, keep squabbling amongst yourselves over your own petty agendas.
If you think you have heard from parents and taxpayers already, just wait. What you have heard before is a gentle spring rain of discontent compared to the ocean of disappointment and frustration that is ready to wash up on your shores.
Tounget is executive director of the Texas PTA.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
k
This article is: http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/editorial/outlook/
3318174
Pro-Immigrant Rights Rally Sept. 17 in Austin
Saturday, Aug. 20, 2005
Students, Friends, and Colleagues,
What strikes me is the license that any congressman feels he has in order to make the following statement: "If you pick up 50 or 100 of them (illegal immigrants), you can call the National Guard," he said. "Put them in tents." (see article on Tom DeLay’s comments below.) Does this not hearken back to the political rhetoric our darkest hours in this nation? The internment of the Japanese? The forced reservation experience for American Indians? The conquest and colonization of Mexicans and Puerto Ricans? And slavery of West African people?
Just round ‘em up. Contain and quarantine ‘em. Imprison ‘em.
Such language has historically justified enormous atrocities from which our nation is still healing. This is the opportunistic language of division and hatemongering rather than of peace, tolerance, and reconciliation to this shamefully racist and classist legacy. The long arms of the past reach into the present with the vigilantism and threats of violence we are witnessing through the Minutemen along our borders (also see links to several articles below), as well as through attempts to eliminate the supposed “break” that House Bill 1403 (undocumented immigrant) students get from their out-of-state tuition waiver in order for them to go to college. Many, if not most, of these students have lived the bulk of their young lives in the U.S. and see themselves as American.
It is also convenient to not mention how immigrants/immigrant labor, documented and undocumented, keeps the middle class afloat in America without which serious political and economic crises would likely occur. Incalculable are the number of members of both the business community and the middle class who literally rely on this labor in order to either make ends meet or generate profit. Honest and informed dialogue, rather than inflammatory rhetoric, is not only what’s needed, but it would expose the far right’s desperate need to find a boogey man in order to not to have to deal frankly with the fundamental issue of ethnic/racial and class-based inequalities. If we really wanted to get rid of immigrant labor, all of our citizens would get paid a living wage.
Also, mark your calendars for Sat. Sept. 17 as there’s a pro-immigrant rights march at 4 PM that starts out at Riverside and Congress and goes to the capitol. If you don’t want to march, meet at the rally at the capitol between 5:30 and 7:00PM. I intend to do both with my family. I also urge the academic community to find ways to respond lest we unwittingly sanction such extremism through our non-response.
We should all be very concerned....
-Angela
Please join the UT Longhorn League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) Council, #65533; Jovenes Inmigrantes por un Futuro
Mejor de UT Austin, Coaliciion Internacional de los Mexicanos en el Exterior, TexasCriminal JusticeCoalition's University Leadership Initiative, Casa del Inmigrate (Dallas) and grass roots groups from across the Lone Star State for a march to the south steps of the state Capitol.
Date: Saturday, September 17, 2005
March Time: 4:00 pm - 5:30 pm
March Location: Riverside and Congress - Rally Time: 5:30 pm - 7:00 pm
Rally Location: State Capitol building in Austin, Texas
Contacts: Julieta Garibay: 512-879-0576; Rebecca
Acuña 956-206-5853; Ana Yañez: 512-441-8123 x103 or
512-587-7010, Manuel Rodela; 214-330-0970
or 214-282-1475 Miguel Reyes 214 914-6288
Ray Ibarra; 520-440-2976
Aug. 19, 2005, 12:43AM
LULAC members dispute DeLay's immigration stance
They say the House majority leader's words are 'extreme' and run counter to laws
By ERIC HANSON
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle
ROSENBERG - At a town-hall meeting hosted by the Houston-area LULAC, several speakers disagreed sharply with comments made recently by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, who proposed a tougher stance on U.S. immigration practices.
"Mexicans, Central Americans and South Americans are not bombing anything strategic in America. They are here to work," said League of United Latin American Citizens member Joel Salazar.
Salazar and others at the meeting, held at the Rosenberg Civic and Convention Center, described DeLay's comments as "extreme" and said immigrants make a positive contribution to the U.S. economy.
"The economy is fueled by their presence and performance," Salazar said.
In an Aug. 4 speech to Fort Bend County Republicans, DeLay said he does not support educating illegal immigrants or having their U.S.-born children automatically become citizens.
DeLay encouraged local police to round up illegal immigrants and said federal officials could find places to house them, even if it meant putting them in tents.
Jose Jiminez, LULAC's deputy director, said the organization disagrees with DeLay on three main points.
He said LULAC does not think illegal immigrants should be rounded up and housed in tent cities.
"Here in Harris County we don't even put our criminals who go through our justice system in tents," he said.
Joe Vail, a University of Houston law professor, said gathering up those suspected of illegal immigration poses legal problems, such as racial profiling.
"In our country you can't stop somebody and detain them unless you've got a reasonable suspicion they are doing something wrong," Vail said.
Vail said DeLay's comments about not extending citizenship to American-born children of illegal immigrants runs counter to the 14th Amendment.
LULAC supports the public education of the children of illegal immigrants, and Vail said the U.S. Supreme Court agreed.
One of the speakers was Mary Almendarez, president of LULAC Council 402, who called DeLay's remarks "racist" and "unacceptable."
"What we have here is a congressman gone wild," she said.
DeLay spokeswoman Shannon Flaherty said DeLay believes immigration to be a complex and important issue that must be addressed by Congress.
"Congressman DeLay has made his position on illegal immigration clear. We must secure our borders, enforce current federal law and not reward illegal behavior," she said.
eric.hanson@chron.com
?
DeLay criticizes Houston's policy on illegal immigrants
He favors idea of withholding federal funding from cities that offer 'sanctuary'
By EDWARD HEGSTROM
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle
SUGAR LAND - House Majority Leader Tom DeLay criticized the city of
Houston's "sanctuary" policy toward illegal immigrants in a speech
Thursday night.
ADVERTISEMENT
Speaking to a packed house of Fort Bend County Republican faithful,
DeLay said he supported the concept behind legislation introduced by
U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., that would withhold federal funding
from cities such as Houston that refuse to enforce immigration law.
"It greatly concerns me that the police chief in Houston, Texas, has
created a sanctuary in Houston by announcing that he is not going to
enforce our laws," the Sugar Land Republican said, in response to a
question about Tancredo's bill.
"That is unacceptable, and we hope to address it through Tancredo's
legislation or other legislation."
Since 1992, a Houston Police Department policy has officially
forbidden officers from enforcing immigration laws in most cases.
Mayor Bill White has said he supports continuing the policy, because
he believes immigration is a federal matter and he wants to free
police up to protect the city from violent criminals.
Police in Katy also have a court-ordered policy forbidding them from
enforcing immigration laws. The order came as the result of a federal
lawsuit filed after a 1994 police operation to pick up day laborers.
DeLay, who is seen as a key player on upcoming immigration reform
legislation in Congress, said he would support a guest-worker program
that would allow immigrants to come legally to the United States and
then go home. But he said the government needs to step up enforcement
of immigration laws first.
"Before Congress takes any significant legislation, we must secure our
nation's borders," he said.
Two major proposals
Two major pieces of immigration are expected to be considered when
Congress returns in September.
One proposal, sponsored by Senators Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and John
McCain, R-Ariz., would allow some illegal immigrants to work toward
becoming legal residents and then citizens of the United States.
Senators John Cornyn, R-Texas, and Jon Kyle, R-Ariz., propose a
tougher bill that would allow illegal immigrants to become guest
workers, meaning they would have to go home after working here three
years or more.
Cornyn and Kyle also propose tougher enforcement, including increased
patrols at the border and new requirements on employers seeking to
hire workers.
DeLay indicated that he would support legislation even stricter than
Cornyn's. He does not believe illegal immigrants already in the
country should qualify, and he does not believe guest workers should
be allowed to bring their families.
Asked if he would support McCain-Kennedy, he said: "It's not going to
do very well in the House, I'll guarantee that."
Places for detainees
DeLay noted that until now, even the federal government has not
rounded up illegal immigrants in U.S. cities, because federal agents
had no place to detain them. But he said that is changing under the
new leadership at the Department of Homeland Security.
He encouraged local police to round up illegal immigrants, and
promised that the federal government will find places to house them.
"If you pick up 50 or 100 of them, you can call the National Guard,"
he said. "Put them in tents."
He also said he did not support educating illegal immigrants or having
their U.S.-born children become automatically U.S. citizens. But he
said those would be harder to repeal.
DeLay also said he strongly supports legal immigration, which he says
makes this country stronger.
He said immigration is a top issue among his constituents.
?
?
From: Southern Poverty Law Center
Reply-To: Southern Poverty Law Center
Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2005 11:50:39 -0400 (EDT)
To:
Subject: Immigration Watch for Aug. 16, 2005
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
IMMIGRATION WATCH
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
An e-newsletter monitoring extremism and the anti-immigration movement
For the week of August 16, 2005
----------------------------------------------------
[CA] Neo-Nazis join Save Our State
Southern Poverty Law Center / August 16, 2005
Racist skinheads and other white supremacists stood side by side with
"grassroots" anti-immigration activists at a Laguna Beach
demonstration.
http://newsletter.splcenter.org/cgi-bin4/DM/y/epmY0HluRh0L1h0DcOW0E5
[CA] From Minuteman to congressman?
WorldNetDaily / August 10, 2005
Minuteman co-founder Jim Gilchrist is "seriously considering" a run
for Congress in California.
http://newsletter.splcenter.org/cgi-bin4/DM/y/epmY0HluRh0L1h0DcOX0E6
[NH] Anti-immigrant trespass charges thrown out
New Hampshire Union Leader / August 12, 2005
A judge ruled local police arresting Mexicans for trespassing -- by
being in the United States illegally -- unconstitutional.
http://newsletter.splcenter.org/cgi-bin4/DM/y/epmY0HluRh0L1h0DcOY0E7
[CA] Protestors, police, Tancredo converge in Carlsbad
The San Diego Union-Tribune / August 12, 2005
Congressman Tom Tancredo, Minuteman co-founder Jim Gilchrist, and a
host of other high-profile anti-immigration activists addressed a
crowd inside a school auditorium while riot police outside tried to
keep the peace.
http://newsletter.splcenter.org/cgi-bin4/DM/y/epmY0HluRh0L1h0DcOZ0E8
[CT] Officials denounce hate group immigration protests
Connecticut Post / August 15, 2005
Local politicians crossed party lines to jointly condemn White
Revolution's ongoing anti-immigration campaign in Milford.
http://newsletter.splcenter.org/cgi-bin4/DM/y/epmY0HluRh0L1h0DcOa0EG
[CA] Black leaders rescind Save Our State invitation
Los Angeles Times / August 12, 2005
Citing language on the Save Our State website "calling people of color
scum and garbage," the Urban Policy Roundtable withdrew its invitation
to SOS founder Joe Turner.
http://newsletter.splcenter.org/cgi-bin4/DM/y/epmY0HluRh0L1h0DcOb0EH
[CAN] Minutemen gear up for Canada
The Globe and Mail / August 12, 2005
The Minuteman Project is organizing operations in 11 northern states
and eight Canadian provinces for October missions to protect the
United States against invaders from the north.
http://newsletter.splcenter.org/cgi-bin4/DM/y/epmY0HluRh0L1h0DcOc0EI
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
LEARN MORE
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Want to learn more about the anti-immigration movement? Read these
articles from the Southern Poverty Law Center's Intelligence Report:
*** Blood on the Border ***
A survey of anti-immigration activity and
groups.
http://newsletter.splcenter.org/cgi-bin4/DM/y/epmY0HluRh0L1h0DcOd0EJ
*** The Puppeteer ***
An investigative profile of America's most
important anti-immigration activist.
http://newsletter.splcenter.org/cgi-bin4/DM/y/epmY0HluRh0L1h0DcOe0EK
*** Open Season ***
A feature on vigilantes in Arizona.
http://newsletter.splcenter.org/cgi-bin4/DM/y/epmY0HluRh0L1h0DcOf0EL
*** The Battle of Georgiafornia ***
A feature on the hate crime
backlash against Hispanic immigrants in Georgia.
http://newsletter.splcenter.org/cgi-bin4/DM/y/epmY0HluRh0L1h0C6ah0Et
*** Arizona Showdown ***
A feature on the Minuteman Project in
Arizona.
http://newsletter.splcenter.org/cgi-bin4/DM/y/epmY0HluRh0L1h0DcOg0EM
----------------------------------------------------
CONTACT US:
Have some feedback on our newsletter?
Email us: immigrationwatch@splcenter.org
Immigration Watch
c/o Intelligence Project
Southern Poverty Law Center
400 Washington Ave.
Montgomery, AL 36104
----------------------------------------------------
Students, Friends, and Colleagues,
What strikes me is the license that any congressman feels he has in order to make the following statement: "If you pick up 50 or 100 of them (illegal immigrants), you can call the National Guard," he said. "Put them in tents." (see article on Tom DeLay’s comments below.) Does this not hearken back to the political rhetoric our darkest hours in this nation? The internment of the Japanese? The forced reservation experience for American Indians? The conquest and colonization of Mexicans and Puerto Ricans? And slavery of West African people?
Just round ‘em up. Contain and quarantine ‘em. Imprison ‘em.
Such language has historically justified enormous atrocities from which our nation is still healing. This is the opportunistic language of division and hatemongering rather than of peace, tolerance, and reconciliation to this shamefully racist and classist legacy. The long arms of the past reach into the present with the vigilantism and threats of violence we are witnessing through the Minutemen along our borders (also see links to several articles below), as well as through attempts to eliminate the supposed “break” that House Bill 1403 (undocumented immigrant) students get from their out-of-state tuition waiver in order for them to go to college. Many, if not most, of these students have lived the bulk of their young lives in the U.S. and see themselves as American.
It is also convenient to not mention how immigrants/immigrant labor, documented and undocumented, keeps the middle class afloat in America without which serious political and economic crises would likely occur. Incalculable are the number of members of both the business community and the middle class who literally rely on this labor in order to either make ends meet or generate profit. Honest and informed dialogue, rather than inflammatory rhetoric, is not only what’s needed, but it would expose the far right’s desperate need to find a boogey man in order to not to have to deal frankly with the fundamental issue of ethnic/racial and class-based inequalities. If we really wanted to get rid of immigrant labor, all of our citizens would get paid a living wage.
Also, mark your calendars for Sat. Sept. 17 as there’s a pro-immigrant rights march at 4 PM that starts out at Riverside and Congress and goes to the capitol. If you don’t want to march, meet at the rally at the capitol between 5:30 and 7:00PM. I intend to do both with my family. I also urge the academic community to find ways to respond lest we unwittingly sanction such extremism through our non-response.
We should all be very concerned....
-Angela
Please join the UT Longhorn League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) Council, #65533; Jovenes Inmigrantes por un Futuro
Mejor de UT Austin, Coaliciion Internacional de los Mexicanos en el Exterior, TexasCriminal JusticeCoalition's University Leadership Initiative, Casa del Inmigrate (Dallas) and grass roots groups from across the Lone Star State for a march to the south steps of the state Capitol.
Date: Saturday, September 17, 2005
March Time: 4:00 pm - 5:30 pm
March Location: Riverside and Congress - Rally Time: 5:30 pm - 7:00 pm
Rally Location: State Capitol building in Austin, Texas
Contacts: Julieta Garibay: 512-879-0576; Rebecca
Acuña 956-206-5853; Ana Yañez: 512-441-8123 x103 or
512-587-7010, Manuel Rodela; 214-330-0970
or 214-282-1475 Miguel Reyes 214 914-6288
Ray Ibarra; 520-440-2976
Aug. 19, 2005, 12:43AM
LULAC members dispute DeLay's immigration stance
They say the House majority leader's words are 'extreme' and run counter to laws
By ERIC HANSON
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle
ROSENBERG - At a town-hall meeting hosted by the Houston-area LULAC, several speakers disagreed sharply with comments made recently by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, who proposed a tougher stance on U.S. immigration practices.
"Mexicans, Central Americans and South Americans are not bombing anything strategic in America. They are here to work," said League of United Latin American Citizens member Joel Salazar.
Salazar and others at the meeting, held at the Rosenberg Civic and Convention Center, described DeLay's comments as "extreme" and said immigrants make a positive contribution to the U.S. economy.
"The economy is fueled by their presence and performance," Salazar said.
In an Aug. 4 speech to Fort Bend County Republicans, DeLay said he does not support educating illegal immigrants or having their U.S.-born children automatically become citizens.
DeLay encouraged local police to round up illegal immigrants and said federal officials could find places to house them, even if it meant putting them in tents.
Jose Jiminez, LULAC's deputy director, said the organization disagrees with DeLay on three main points.
He said LULAC does not think illegal immigrants should be rounded up and housed in tent cities.
"Here in Harris County we don't even put our criminals who go through our justice system in tents," he said.
Joe Vail, a University of Houston law professor, said gathering up those suspected of illegal immigration poses legal problems, such as racial profiling.
"In our country you can't stop somebody and detain them unless you've got a reasonable suspicion they are doing something wrong," Vail said.
Vail said DeLay's comments about not extending citizenship to American-born children of illegal immigrants runs counter to the 14th Amendment.
LULAC supports the public education of the children of illegal immigrants, and Vail said the U.S. Supreme Court agreed.
One of the speakers was Mary Almendarez, president of LULAC Council 402, who called DeLay's remarks "racist" and "unacceptable."
"What we have here is a congressman gone wild," she said.
DeLay spokeswoman Shannon Flaherty said DeLay believes immigration to be a complex and important issue that must be addressed by Congress.
"Congressman DeLay has made his position on illegal immigration clear. We must secure our borders, enforce current federal law and not reward illegal behavior," she said.
eric.hanson@chron.com
?
DeLay criticizes Houston's policy on illegal immigrants
He favors idea of withholding federal funding from cities that offer 'sanctuary'
By EDWARD HEGSTROM
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle
SUGAR LAND - House Majority Leader Tom DeLay criticized the city of
Houston's "sanctuary" policy toward illegal immigrants in a speech
Thursday night.
ADVERTISEMENT
Speaking to a packed house of Fort Bend County Republican faithful,
DeLay said he supported the concept behind legislation introduced by
U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., that would withhold federal funding
from cities such as Houston that refuse to enforce immigration law.
"It greatly concerns me that the police chief in Houston, Texas, has
created a sanctuary in Houston by announcing that he is not going to
enforce our laws," the Sugar Land Republican said, in response to a
question about Tancredo's bill.
"That is unacceptable, and we hope to address it through Tancredo's
legislation or other legislation."
Since 1992, a Houston Police Department policy has officially
forbidden officers from enforcing immigration laws in most cases.
Mayor Bill White has said he supports continuing the policy, because
he believes immigration is a federal matter and he wants to free
police up to protect the city from violent criminals.
Police in Katy also have a court-ordered policy forbidding them from
enforcing immigration laws. The order came as the result of a federal
lawsuit filed after a 1994 police operation to pick up day laborers.
DeLay, who is seen as a key player on upcoming immigration reform
legislation in Congress, said he would support a guest-worker program
that would allow immigrants to come legally to the United States and
then go home. But he said the government needs to step up enforcement
of immigration laws first.
"Before Congress takes any significant legislation, we must secure our
nation's borders," he said.
Two major proposals
Two major pieces of immigration are expected to be considered when
Congress returns in September.
One proposal, sponsored by Senators Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and John
McCain, R-Ariz., would allow some illegal immigrants to work toward
becoming legal residents and then citizens of the United States.
Senators John Cornyn, R-Texas, and Jon Kyle, R-Ariz., propose a
tougher bill that would allow illegal immigrants to become guest
workers, meaning they would have to go home after working here three
years or more.
Cornyn and Kyle also propose tougher enforcement, including increased
patrols at the border and new requirements on employers seeking to
hire workers.
DeLay indicated that he would support legislation even stricter than
Cornyn's. He does not believe illegal immigrants already in the
country should qualify, and he does not believe guest workers should
be allowed to bring their families.
Asked if he would support McCain-Kennedy, he said: "It's not going to
do very well in the House, I'll guarantee that."
Places for detainees
DeLay noted that until now, even the federal government has not
rounded up illegal immigrants in U.S. cities, because federal agents
had no place to detain them. But he said that is changing under the
new leadership at the Department of Homeland Security.
He encouraged local police to round up illegal immigrants, and
promised that the federal government will find places to house them.
"If you pick up 50 or 100 of them, you can call the National Guard,"
he said. "Put them in tents."
He also said he did not support educating illegal immigrants or having
their U.S.-born children become automatically U.S. citizens. But he
said those would be harder to repeal.
DeLay also said he strongly supports legal immigration, which he says
makes this country stronger.
He said immigration is a top issue among his constituents.
?
?
From: Southern Poverty Law Center
Reply-To: Southern Poverty Law Center
Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2005 11:50:39 -0400 (EDT)
To:
Subject: Immigration Watch for Aug. 16, 2005
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
IMMIGRATION WATCH
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
An e-newsletter monitoring extremism and the anti-immigration movement
For the week of August 16, 2005
----------------------------------------------------
[CA] Neo-Nazis join Save Our State
Southern Poverty Law Center / August 16, 2005
Racist skinheads and other white supremacists stood side by side with
"grassroots" anti-immigration activists at a Laguna Beach
demonstration.
http://newsletter.splcenter.org/cgi-bin4/DM/y/epmY0HluRh0L1h0DcOW0E5
[CA] From Minuteman to congressman?
WorldNetDaily / August 10, 2005
Minuteman co-founder Jim Gilchrist is "seriously considering" a run
for Congress in California.
http://newsletter.splcenter.org/cgi-bin4/DM/y/epmY0HluRh0L1h0DcOX0E6
[NH] Anti-immigrant trespass charges thrown out
New Hampshire Union Leader / August 12, 2005
A judge ruled local police arresting Mexicans for trespassing -- by
being in the United States illegally -- unconstitutional.
http://newsletter.splcenter.org/cgi-bin4/DM/y/epmY0HluRh0L1h0DcOY0E7
[CA] Protestors, police, Tancredo converge in Carlsbad
The San Diego Union-Tribune / August 12, 2005
Congressman Tom Tancredo, Minuteman co-founder Jim Gilchrist, and a
host of other high-profile anti-immigration activists addressed a
crowd inside a school auditorium while riot police outside tried to
keep the peace.
http://newsletter.splcenter.org/cgi-bin4/DM/y/epmY0HluRh0L1h0DcOZ0E8
[CT] Officials denounce hate group immigration protests
Connecticut Post / August 15, 2005
Local politicians crossed party lines to jointly condemn White
Revolution's ongoing anti-immigration campaign in Milford.
http://newsletter.splcenter.org/cgi-bin4/DM/y/epmY0HluRh0L1h0DcOa0EG
[CA] Black leaders rescind Save Our State invitation
Los Angeles Times / August 12, 2005
Citing language on the Save Our State website "calling people of color
scum and garbage," the Urban Policy Roundtable withdrew its invitation
to SOS founder Joe Turner.
http://newsletter.splcenter.org/cgi-bin4/DM/y/epmY0HluRh0L1h0DcOb0EH
[CAN] Minutemen gear up for Canada
The Globe and Mail / August 12, 2005
The Minuteman Project is organizing operations in 11 northern states
and eight Canadian provinces for October missions to protect the
United States against invaders from the north.
http://newsletter.splcenter.org/cgi-bin4/DM/y/epmY0HluRh0L1h0DcOc0EI
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
LEARN MORE
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Want to learn more about the anti-immigration movement? Read these
articles from the Southern Poverty Law Center's Intelligence Report:
*** Blood on the Border ***
A survey of anti-immigration activity and
groups.
http://newsletter.splcenter.org/cgi-bin4/DM/y/epmY0HluRh0L1h0DcOd0EJ
*** The Puppeteer ***
An investigative profile of America's most
important anti-immigration activist.
http://newsletter.splcenter.org/cgi-bin4/DM/y/epmY0HluRh0L1h0DcOe0EK
*** Open Season ***
A feature on vigilantes in Arizona.
http://newsletter.splcenter.org/cgi-bin4/DM/y/epmY0HluRh0L1h0DcOf0EL
*** The Battle of Georgiafornia ***
A feature on the hate crime
backlash against Hispanic immigrants in Georgia.
http://newsletter.splcenter.org/cgi-bin4/DM/y/epmY0HluRh0L1h0C6ah0Et
*** Arizona Showdown ***
A feature on the Minuteman Project in
Arizona.
http://newsletter.splcenter.org/cgi-bin4/DM/y/epmY0HluRh0L1h0DcOg0EM
----------------------------------------------------
CONTACT US:
Have some feedback on our newsletter?
Email us: immigrationwatch@splcenter.org
Immigration Watch
c/o Intelligence Project
Southern Poverty Law Center
400 Washington Ave.
Montgomery, AL 36104
----------------------------------------------------
"What Really Happened in Austin?"
This is a very interesting analysis of what happened at the legislature this year. It was published in educationnews.org
-Angela
by Donna Garner
August 19, 2005
How could the Texas Legislature meet for three sessions at a cost of $5.4 Million and never pass any substantive legislation on school reform and finance? I put the complete responsibility for this debacle and waste of taxpayers' money at the feet of Rep. Kent Grusendorf. It was he who surreptitiously sought to hook the taxpayers into spending over $3 Billion to provide wireless laptop computers for all teachers and students in Texas.
The one thing that Grusendorf really wanted passed was wireless laptop computers for all students and teachers. He wanted to make sure that textbooks vanished and that laptops became the total center of every classroom. His problem: How could he make sure that every school was pushed into laptops? His solution: Require that the TAKS tests for elementary and middle schools be computerized and that the TAKS tests be replaced by computerized End-of-Course tests in high school. In one fell swoop he could completely move schools into laptops because with that many tests to be given on computers, schools could not possibly test all their students in PC computer labs. Laptops would be imminent.
To move his agenda forward, Grusendorf called together a group of computer executives which became the eLearning Initiative. Of course, this group had the same priorities as Grusendorf since their industry would benefit financially from such a change.
Think of the huge profit to be made if every student and teacher in Texas were provided with a wireless laptop at taxpayer expense. Texas has 4,400,644 students and 294,545 teachers for a grand total of 4,695,189 people. At around $700 per wireless laptop, the cost would be $3,286,632,300; and that is just for the initial expense. What about the batteries (over $100 a piece), software, upgrades, maintenance, tech support, wiring, and replacement costs? Even if the laptops were edged into the schools in incremental stages, the expense to the taxpayers would still be astronomical and ongoing.
When Grusendorf began to realize that the total cost of $3 Billion + was prohibitive, he had to figure out a way to pass his bill without raising the ire of taxpayers. His solution: Rob the Permanent School Fund (PSF) which pays for students' textbooks. To do that he created language in his legislation which deleted the term "textbooks" and replaced it with "instructional materials" which, of course, included laptops.
Grusendorf also decided to hold hostage the newly adopted textbooks which were to have been sent to schools by this school year. Among these were the new health and foreign language textbooks which had already passed through the approval process and were stored in warehouses, waiting for the state to pay for them. Grusendorf figured he could use the money saved from these textbooks, combine that with new money from the PSF, and sell his grand laptop scheme to the Legislature.
Besides that, Grusendorf saw no need to provide any further textbooks to Texas students because his plan was for them to have all their curriculum materials delivered on laptops. Never mind that it is an impossibility for a student to develop true oral proficiency in Spanish by computer. Grusendorf's only concern was to take the pot of gold from the textbooks and move it into the laptop account.
Conveniently for Grusendorf, a popular idea began to grow among fiscally responsible organizations: "65% of all school funding should go to the classroom." This idea played right into Grusendorf's hands because wireless laptops would obviously fall under "direct instructional activities." The supporters of this idea, however, did not mean for 60% to go toward laptops and 5% to be left for all other expenses!
Next, Grusendorf had to scatter out among the bill the various laptop provisions because he knew if all the requirements for laptops and the huge expense to provide them were all put in one section, red flags would go up among the Legislators and their constituents. Therefore, he put a sentence here, a requirement there, a change in definition here, another statement there; and he hoped that nobody would connect the dots.
Sure enough, most Legislators probably did not take the time to read the original HB 2 which morphed into HB 4, HB 62, and finally SB 8. The bills were over 400 pages in length; and because the "dots" were scattered throughout those numerous pages, it is certainly possible that most House members and/or their staffs did not take the time to read all 400+ pages. The House members went right along with their fearless leader, thinking to themselves that surely Grusendorf, who had chaired the House Education Committee, knew what he was doing.
Yes, indeed, Grusendorf most certainly knew what he was doing. By this time he had gained the full support of Speaker Craddick and the tacit approval of Sen. Florence Shapiro, the chair of the Senate Education Committee.
Through political maneuvering, SB 8 went into the House Conference Committee on August 9 looking rather harmless and came out the other door on August 12 with Grusendorf's laptop language firmly implanted.
The news media, who had been asleep the whole time regarding the laptop issue, never did wake up; and only a couple of commentaries to counter the laptop requirements ever surfaced in the newspapers. Various talk show hosts tried to alert the public to the impending disaster of SB 8's laptop requirements; but all in all, the public never really knew what the legislation held.
One more thing that Grusendorf did was to set up nefarious wording in his bills which gave the Texas State Board of Education thumb-in-cheek authority over the instructional materials. At the same time, however, Grusendorf made sure to include language which neutered the SBOE's authority by allowing publishers to submit their materials (all grade levels/all subjects) at any time during the year. Students' curriculum materials would have become "open season" because nobody would have had the time and resources to read and scrutinize that many submissions.
When both Craddick and Grusendorf realized their heads might be on the chopping block because of the dismal failure of the House to pass meaningful reform, they both in concert began to blame the Senate and then the school superintendents.
Craddick's and Grusendorf's fears were justified. What if the public were to find out what Grusendorf inserted into the final version of SB 8? What if the public were to put 2 and 2 together and realize that the wireless laptops alone would have cost the taxpayers over $3 Billion? What if parents were to figure out that Grusendorf's laptops would forever destroy the relationship between student and teacher and would instead replace it with a relationship between student and unknown persons in cyberspace? What a comforting thought in a world where Internet child pornography sites have increased 400% in four years and number in the thousands!
Speaker Craddick and Rep. Grusendorf could have crafted a bill that reflected fiscal responsibility and true education reform. Instead they chose to load down their bills with wireless laptop provisions which would have had a negative impact upon Texas' school children. The preliminary results from the Texas Immersion Project where 22 middle schools have been laptop immersed for a full year are not very encouraging. In 57% of these schools, the students did worse on their Spring 2005 TAKS tests in Writing than they did last year.
Yes, I believe Rep. Grusendorf should worry about his bid for re-election; and those Legislators who followed blindly after him probably should worry also.
Donna Garner
wgarner1@hot.rr.com
-Angela
by Donna Garner
August 19, 2005
How could the Texas Legislature meet for three sessions at a cost of $5.4 Million and never pass any substantive legislation on school reform and finance? I put the complete responsibility for this debacle and waste of taxpayers' money at the feet of Rep. Kent Grusendorf. It was he who surreptitiously sought to hook the taxpayers into spending over $3 Billion to provide wireless laptop computers for all teachers and students in Texas.
The one thing that Grusendorf really wanted passed was wireless laptop computers for all students and teachers. He wanted to make sure that textbooks vanished and that laptops became the total center of every classroom. His problem: How could he make sure that every school was pushed into laptops? His solution: Require that the TAKS tests for elementary and middle schools be computerized and that the TAKS tests be replaced by computerized End-of-Course tests in high school. In one fell swoop he could completely move schools into laptops because with that many tests to be given on computers, schools could not possibly test all their students in PC computer labs. Laptops would be imminent.
To move his agenda forward, Grusendorf called together a group of computer executives which became the eLearning Initiative. Of course, this group had the same priorities as Grusendorf since their industry would benefit financially from such a change.
Think of the huge profit to be made if every student and teacher in Texas were provided with a wireless laptop at taxpayer expense. Texas has 4,400,644 students and 294,545 teachers for a grand total of 4,695,189 people. At around $700 per wireless laptop, the cost would be $3,286,632,300; and that is just for the initial expense. What about the batteries (over $100 a piece), software, upgrades, maintenance, tech support, wiring, and replacement costs? Even if the laptops were edged into the schools in incremental stages, the expense to the taxpayers would still be astronomical and ongoing.
When Grusendorf began to realize that the total cost of $3 Billion + was prohibitive, he had to figure out a way to pass his bill without raising the ire of taxpayers. His solution: Rob the Permanent School Fund (PSF) which pays for students' textbooks. To do that he created language in his legislation which deleted the term "textbooks" and replaced it with "instructional materials" which, of course, included laptops.
Grusendorf also decided to hold hostage the newly adopted textbooks which were to have been sent to schools by this school year. Among these were the new health and foreign language textbooks which had already passed through the approval process and were stored in warehouses, waiting for the state to pay for them. Grusendorf figured he could use the money saved from these textbooks, combine that with new money from the PSF, and sell his grand laptop scheme to the Legislature.
Besides that, Grusendorf saw no need to provide any further textbooks to Texas students because his plan was for them to have all their curriculum materials delivered on laptops. Never mind that it is an impossibility for a student to develop true oral proficiency in Spanish by computer. Grusendorf's only concern was to take the pot of gold from the textbooks and move it into the laptop account.
Conveniently for Grusendorf, a popular idea began to grow among fiscally responsible organizations: "65% of all school funding should go to the classroom." This idea played right into Grusendorf's hands because wireless laptops would obviously fall under "direct instructional activities." The supporters of this idea, however, did not mean for 60% to go toward laptops and 5% to be left for all other expenses!
Next, Grusendorf had to scatter out among the bill the various laptop provisions because he knew if all the requirements for laptops and the huge expense to provide them were all put in one section, red flags would go up among the Legislators and their constituents. Therefore, he put a sentence here, a requirement there, a change in definition here, another statement there; and he hoped that nobody would connect the dots.
Sure enough, most Legislators probably did not take the time to read the original HB 2 which morphed into HB 4, HB 62, and finally SB 8. The bills were over 400 pages in length; and because the "dots" were scattered throughout those numerous pages, it is certainly possible that most House members and/or their staffs did not take the time to read all 400+ pages. The House members went right along with their fearless leader, thinking to themselves that surely Grusendorf, who had chaired the House Education Committee, knew what he was doing.
Yes, indeed, Grusendorf most certainly knew what he was doing. By this time he had gained the full support of Speaker Craddick and the tacit approval of Sen. Florence Shapiro, the chair of the Senate Education Committee.
Through political maneuvering, SB 8 went into the House Conference Committee on August 9 looking rather harmless and came out the other door on August 12 with Grusendorf's laptop language firmly implanted.
The news media, who had been asleep the whole time regarding the laptop issue, never did wake up; and only a couple of commentaries to counter the laptop requirements ever surfaced in the newspapers. Various talk show hosts tried to alert the public to the impending disaster of SB 8's laptop requirements; but all in all, the public never really knew what the legislation held.
One more thing that Grusendorf did was to set up nefarious wording in his bills which gave the Texas State Board of Education thumb-in-cheek authority over the instructional materials. At the same time, however, Grusendorf made sure to include language which neutered the SBOE's authority by allowing publishers to submit their materials (all grade levels/all subjects) at any time during the year. Students' curriculum materials would have become "open season" because nobody would have had the time and resources to read and scrutinize that many submissions.
When both Craddick and Grusendorf realized their heads might be on the chopping block because of the dismal failure of the House to pass meaningful reform, they both in concert began to blame the Senate and then the school superintendents.
Craddick's and Grusendorf's fears were justified. What if the public were to find out what Grusendorf inserted into the final version of SB 8? What if the public were to put 2 and 2 together and realize that the wireless laptops alone would have cost the taxpayers over $3 Billion? What if parents were to figure out that Grusendorf's laptops would forever destroy the relationship between student and teacher and would instead replace it with a relationship between student and unknown persons in cyberspace? What a comforting thought in a world where Internet child pornography sites have increased 400% in four years and number in the thousands!
Speaker Craddick and Rep. Grusendorf could have crafted a bill that reflected fiscal responsibility and true education reform. Instead they chose to load down their bills with wireless laptop provisions which would have had a negative impact upon Texas' school children. The preliminary results from the Texas Immersion Project where 22 middle schools have been laptop immersed for a full year are not very encouraging. In 57% of these schools, the students did worse on their Spring 2005 TAKS tests in Writing than they did last year.
Yes, I believe Rep. Grusendorf should worry about his bid for re-election; and those Legislators who followed blindly after him probably should worry also.
Donna Garner
wgarner1@hot.rr.com
Friday, August 19, 2005
Legislature Adjourns Special Session
Justices to decide if overhaul needed after bills fail in Legislature
11:56 PM CDT on Friday, August 19, 2005
By ROBERT T. GARRETT and TERRENCE STUTZ / The Dallas Morning News
AUSTIN – Once again, the future of Texas' nearly 8,000 public schools rests squarely with the state's highest court.
Another special legislative session on school finance ended Friday with a fresh round of finger-pointing among state leaders. But now, Texas Supreme Court justices, not lawmakers, have the next shot at decisions that could yield billions for schools and force higher taxes on consumers and businesses.
Only the seven men and one woman on the high court – one seat is vacant – have a good idea of what they'll do.
But former justices, legal scholars, lawyers and school finance veterans say it's likely the court will again find the education funding system unconstitutional and order an overhaul.
Also Online
Legislature adjourns special session
School finance failure produces lots of blame
Each of its five major rulings since 1989 ratcheted up the pressure on the Legislature to put more money into public schools and reduce funding disparities among school districts.
But lawmakers have not always fully complied.
"You will see language in every one of these opinions that says the system needs more than a Band-Aid, it needs to be totally revamped," said former Supreme Court Justice Deborah Hankinson of Dallas.
"The Legislatures, from the very beginning, have done nothing but put Band-Aids on it."
Past school finance battles have been bitter – a decade ago, the court upheld by a single vote the Legislature's "Robin Hood" plan that requires property-rich school districts to share their property tax revenue. The latest round also has exposed raw nerves.
Betting the bank
"School districts are banking everything on the court ruling," said House Speaker Tom Craddick, who has criticized districts for trying to get "megabucks" from the state with no strings attached. "If they win, that's fine. But if they don't win," Mr. Craddick warned, they won't get much sympathy from lawmakers in the next round of funding.
Last year, Gov. Rick Perry predicted the state would win – meaning lawmakers wouldn't have to do anything – because he had appointed most of the justices and "they don't legislate from the bench." All are Republicans.
Few expect the court to design a detailed system or order lawmakers to pour in a specific amount of money. Still, two of three former Republican justices who were interviewed – Ms. Hankinson, who has filed a brief for school boards in the case, and former Justice Craig Enoch of Austin – expect the court to order the Legislature to make at least some changes, particularly on the issue of taxes that local districts can levy. Former Chief Justice Tom Phillips said he has no idea what the court will do.
More than 300 school districts, including Dallas and Houston, are plaintiffs in the current lawsuit. They won the first round last year when state District Judge John Dietz of Austin ruled that the state was not providing enough money to educate all of its 4.4 million students and that the state had imposed an unconstitutional state property tax – a $1.50 limit per $100 valuation on local property tax rates.
The judge also found that facilities in property-poor school districts were underfunded.
Attorney General Greg Abbott took the case directly to the Texas Supreme Court, bypassing the intermediate appellate court, and a hearing was held by the court on July 6. A ruling is expected this fall.
Despite the confident predictions by Mr. Perry and others, the swift recent turnover on the court – only four are left from the last major judgment on this case in May 2003 – makes it difficult to gauge how sweeping or how minimal their decision will be.
Former Lt. Gov. Bill Ratliff, a Republican who wrote the "Robin Hood" school finance law, finds it hard to believe that the state will emerge completely victorious.
"I will be the most shocked person in Texas if the Supreme Court overturns Judge Dietz on all three points," Mr. Ratliff said.
Texas schools are primarily funded through local property taxes and state aid. Mr. Ratliff noted that the state share in the $33 billion-a-year system has slipped dramatically in recent years and now makes up only 37 percent of the total. Conversely, local property taxes have soared and pushed most districts up toward the maximum $1.50 tax rate for operating expenses.
Nearly two-thirds of districts are at or near that limit, so that issue is considered the most likely victory for school districts. But, Mr. Ratliff said, the issue of adequate funding is the most anticipated part of the decision.
"The state constitution says the Legislature must provide for a general diffusion of knowledge," he said, noting that translates into proper funding for education. "If that means something, the court should not be able to duck interpreting what it does mean."
Avoiding 'briar patch'
Former Justice Enoch, though, predicted "the court will just run from any question of adequacy," because justices would have to decide curriculum matters and "get off in the briar patch."
Testimony in a six-week trial last year indicated it would take an additional $1,100 a student per year to comply with state and federal requirements, such as minimum passing rates on standardized tests. That adds up to more than $4.8 billion a year, four times what the Legislature most recently proposed in its failed special sessions on school finance.
It also could require a sizable increase in state taxes, which the House and Senate refused to consider this year – except for proposals to raise some taxes to offset a reduction in school property taxes.
"We're not asking for megabucks. This is the amount that studies have shown is needed," said Clayton Downing, a former superintendent of Lewisville schools whose Texas School Coalition represents high-wealth districts.
The last school finance decision gave mixed signals on how justices may rule on the subject of adequate funding.
Writing for the majority, Justice Nathan Hecht said: "The courts cannot ... attempt to define in detail an adequate education. But once policy choices have been made by the Legislature, it is the judiciary's responsibility in a proper case to determine whether those choices as a whole meet the standard set by the people" in the constitution.
Justice Hecht, the only justice to take part in all the school finance decisions going back to 1989, is expected to play a major role in shaping its next one.
"He has a memory like a steel trap, and he's been there throughout, so obviously he's going to be important," said former Justice Phillips.
In 2003, Justice Hecht emphatically rejected suggestions by then-Justice Steven Smith that the judiciary had overreached and should reconsider its 1995 ruling that upheld "Robin Hood."
"To announce now that we have simply changed our minds on matters that have been crucial to the development of the public education system would not only threaten havoc to the system, but would, far more importantly, undermine the rule of law to which the court is firmly pledged," Justice Hecht wrote.
That could foreshadow the court's response to a chief argument by state attorneys – that the court should butt out and leave school finance to the Legislature.
A court finding against the state would put the ball back in the hands of lawmakers, who have tended to put off dealing with problems in schools, prisons and mental health facilities until state or federal judges forced them to act.
"It's the classic political response to problems they don't want to deal with," said Maurice Dyson, a school finance expert and assistant law professor at Southern Methodist University. "There is no better political cover than to have a court rule that something must be done, which allows politicians to say their hands are tied."
E-mail rtgarrett@dallasnews.com
and tstutz@dallasnews.com
THE ISSUES BEFORE THE COURT
Are Texas public schools adequately funded? Districts say they don't receive enough funding to comply with state and federal requirements such as minimum average passing rates on student tests. The state says districts receive ample funding and point to improved student test scores in recent years as evidence.
Does Texas have a state property tax that the state constitution prohibits? Districts argue that the current maximum property tax rate of $1.50 per $100 valuation is the same as a state property tax, which is prohibited under the state constitution. They point out that most districts are at or near the cap and have no way to raise more revenue. The state says that many districts haven't reached the limit and that districts still have discretion in setting rates and could cut expenses to reduce taxes.
Does Texas' method of paying for school facilities violate equity requirements that are supposed to protect low-wealth school districts? One group of districts argues that the state is neglecting the needs of lower-wealth districts while wealthy districts can build and expand schools all they want. The state maintains it has provided financial assistance for facilities in lower-wealth districts and complies with equity standards set by the courts.
Terrence Stutz
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Online at: http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/texassouthwest/legislature/stories/082005dntexsession.8bd31b4a.html
11:56 PM CDT on Friday, August 19, 2005
By ROBERT T. GARRETT and TERRENCE STUTZ / The Dallas Morning News
AUSTIN – Once again, the future of Texas' nearly 8,000 public schools rests squarely with the state's highest court.
Another special legislative session on school finance ended Friday with a fresh round of finger-pointing among state leaders. But now, Texas Supreme Court justices, not lawmakers, have the next shot at decisions that could yield billions for schools and force higher taxes on consumers and businesses.
Only the seven men and one woman on the high court – one seat is vacant – have a good idea of what they'll do.
But former justices, legal scholars, lawyers and school finance veterans say it's likely the court will again find the education funding system unconstitutional and order an overhaul.
Also Online
Legislature adjourns special session
School finance failure produces lots of blame
Each of its five major rulings since 1989 ratcheted up the pressure on the Legislature to put more money into public schools and reduce funding disparities among school districts.
But lawmakers have not always fully complied.
"You will see language in every one of these opinions that says the system needs more than a Band-Aid, it needs to be totally revamped," said former Supreme Court Justice Deborah Hankinson of Dallas.
"The Legislatures, from the very beginning, have done nothing but put Band-Aids on it."
Past school finance battles have been bitter – a decade ago, the court upheld by a single vote the Legislature's "Robin Hood" plan that requires property-rich school districts to share their property tax revenue. The latest round also has exposed raw nerves.
Betting the bank
"School districts are banking everything on the court ruling," said House Speaker Tom Craddick, who has criticized districts for trying to get "megabucks" from the state with no strings attached. "If they win, that's fine. But if they don't win," Mr. Craddick warned, they won't get much sympathy from lawmakers in the next round of funding.
Last year, Gov. Rick Perry predicted the state would win – meaning lawmakers wouldn't have to do anything – because he had appointed most of the justices and "they don't legislate from the bench." All are Republicans.
Few expect the court to design a detailed system or order lawmakers to pour in a specific amount of money. Still, two of three former Republican justices who were interviewed – Ms. Hankinson, who has filed a brief for school boards in the case, and former Justice Craig Enoch of Austin – expect the court to order the Legislature to make at least some changes, particularly on the issue of taxes that local districts can levy. Former Chief Justice Tom Phillips said he has no idea what the court will do.
More than 300 school districts, including Dallas and Houston, are plaintiffs in the current lawsuit. They won the first round last year when state District Judge John Dietz of Austin ruled that the state was not providing enough money to educate all of its 4.4 million students and that the state had imposed an unconstitutional state property tax – a $1.50 limit per $100 valuation on local property tax rates.
The judge also found that facilities in property-poor school districts were underfunded.
Attorney General Greg Abbott took the case directly to the Texas Supreme Court, bypassing the intermediate appellate court, and a hearing was held by the court on July 6. A ruling is expected this fall.
Despite the confident predictions by Mr. Perry and others, the swift recent turnover on the court – only four are left from the last major judgment on this case in May 2003 – makes it difficult to gauge how sweeping or how minimal their decision will be.
Former Lt. Gov. Bill Ratliff, a Republican who wrote the "Robin Hood" school finance law, finds it hard to believe that the state will emerge completely victorious.
"I will be the most shocked person in Texas if the Supreme Court overturns Judge Dietz on all three points," Mr. Ratliff said.
Texas schools are primarily funded through local property taxes and state aid. Mr. Ratliff noted that the state share in the $33 billion-a-year system has slipped dramatically in recent years and now makes up only 37 percent of the total. Conversely, local property taxes have soared and pushed most districts up toward the maximum $1.50 tax rate for operating expenses.
Nearly two-thirds of districts are at or near that limit, so that issue is considered the most likely victory for school districts. But, Mr. Ratliff said, the issue of adequate funding is the most anticipated part of the decision.
"The state constitution says the Legislature must provide for a general diffusion of knowledge," he said, noting that translates into proper funding for education. "If that means something, the court should not be able to duck interpreting what it does mean."
Avoiding 'briar patch'
Former Justice Enoch, though, predicted "the court will just run from any question of adequacy," because justices would have to decide curriculum matters and "get off in the briar patch."
Testimony in a six-week trial last year indicated it would take an additional $1,100 a student per year to comply with state and federal requirements, such as minimum passing rates on standardized tests. That adds up to more than $4.8 billion a year, four times what the Legislature most recently proposed in its failed special sessions on school finance.
It also could require a sizable increase in state taxes, which the House and Senate refused to consider this year – except for proposals to raise some taxes to offset a reduction in school property taxes.
"We're not asking for megabucks. This is the amount that studies have shown is needed," said Clayton Downing, a former superintendent of Lewisville schools whose Texas School Coalition represents high-wealth districts.
The last school finance decision gave mixed signals on how justices may rule on the subject of adequate funding.
Writing for the majority, Justice Nathan Hecht said: "The courts cannot ... attempt to define in detail an adequate education. But once policy choices have been made by the Legislature, it is the judiciary's responsibility in a proper case to determine whether those choices as a whole meet the standard set by the people" in the constitution.
Justice Hecht, the only justice to take part in all the school finance decisions going back to 1989, is expected to play a major role in shaping its next one.
"He has a memory like a steel trap, and he's been there throughout, so obviously he's going to be important," said former Justice Phillips.
In 2003, Justice Hecht emphatically rejected suggestions by then-Justice Steven Smith that the judiciary had overreached and should reconsider its 1995 ruling that upheld "Robin Hood."
"To announce now that we have simply changed our minds on matters that have been crucial to the development of the public education system would not only threaten havoc to the system, but would, far more importantly, undermine the rule of law to which the court is firmly pledged," Justice Hecht wrote.
That could foreshadow the court's response to a chief argument by state attorneys – that the court should butt out and leave school finance to the Legislature.
A court finding against the state would put the ball back in the hands of lawmakers, who have tended to put off dealing with problems in schools, prisons and mental health facilities until state or federal judges forced them to act.
"It's the classic political response to problems they don't want to deal with," said Maurice Dyson, a school finance expert and assistant law professor at Southern Methodist University. "There is no better political cover than to have a court rule that something must be done, which allows politicians to say their hands are tied."
E-mail rtgarrett@dallasnews.com
and tstutz@dallasnews.com
THE ISSUES BEFORE THE COURT
Are Texas public schools adequately funded? Districts say they don't receive enough funding to comply with state and federal requirements such as minimum average passing rates on student tests. The state says districts receive ample funding and point to improved student test scores in recent years as evidence.
Does Texas have a state property tax that the state constitution prohibits? Districts argue that the current maximum property tax rate of $1.50 per $100 valuation is the same as a state property tax, which is prohibited under the state constitution. They point out that most districts are at or near the cap and have no way to raise more revenue. The state says that many districts haven't reached the limit and that districts still have discretion in setting rates and could cut expenses to reduce taxes.
Does Texas' method of paying for school facilities violate equity requirements that are supposed to protect low-wealth school districts? One group of districts argues that the state is neglecting the needs of lower-wealth districts while wealthy districts can build and expand schools all they want. The state maintains it has provided financial assistance for facilities in lower-wealth districts and complies with equity standards set by the courts.
Terrence Stutz
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Online at: http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/texassouthwest/legislature/stories/082005dntexsession.8bd31b4a.html
Local discontent with 'No Child Left Behind' grows
Local discontent with 'No Child Left Behind' grows
Aug. 19, 2005 / Christian Science Monitor
'Hot spot' states could expand to eight, a new report finds. But supporters of the law still say it's effective.
By Alexandra Marks | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
Just as students are heading back to school, frustration with the federal No Child Left Behind education law is hitting new heights at the grass-roots level from Maine to California.
Three states are already in open rebellion: Connecticut, Utah, and Colorado, which have either planned lawsuits or passed laws that trump the federal mandates. At least five other states - Maine, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, and Virginia - are deemed "hot spots" that could join the revolt in the coming school year. And a total of 21 states are now considering some kind of legislation critical of No Child Left Behind (NCLB), according to a study released this week by the Civil Society Institute, a nonpartisan advocacy group in Massachusetts.
It rounded up a report of this dissatisfaction to call attention to what it says is a disconnect between the federal government and the educators, students, parents, and local lawmakers that live with NCLB every day.
The law's supporters counter that it is working, with test scores going up. They acknowledge there's frustration, but they contend it has more to do with the level of federal intervention in what used to be a primarily state and local issue. They also praise the federal Department of Education (DOE) for being flexible in dealing with state concerns.
But several independent education experts, as well as state legislators from both the Republican and Democratic sides of the aisle, say that even with this flexibility, frustration is on the rise.
"There is a palpable increase in the level of dissatisfaction that I see, but it's not being translated into legislation in Congress," says Jack Jennings, president and CEO of the nonpartisan Center on Education Policy in Washington. "There's really a disjuncture here between a growing dissatisfaction and the lack of a political response."
The roots of frustration
The frustration on the local level has to do with what educators call the rigidity of the law, which requires high-stakes, standardized testing and penalizes schools deemed as failing to make "adequate yearly progress." They're also concerned about a lack of funding to pay for the testing and the remedial services needed to ensure students make the grade.
For instance, Connecticut estimates it will cost the state $41.6 million more to implement NCLB than the federal government is providing. Local communities will bear additional costs, too.
The White House and the DOE dispute that. They point to two studies done by the Government Accountability Office in New Jersey and Massachusetts that found those states had enough federal resources to implement the law. They also note that since NCLB was passed, federal education spending has increased more than 30 percent.
"It is unfortunate that some appear to think that reform is more trouble than it's worth," says DOE spokeswoman Samara Yudof. "No Child Left Behind is working: Evidence from both the Nation's Report Card and the states' own data prove it."
Although test scores are going up, they were before NCLB was passed, as well. That's because of state education reforms and testing protocols put into place over the past 25 years. Indeed, there's been no research to determine which reforms get credit for the increasing scores. But many teachers and local legislators credit the earlier state improvements, and they're concerned that NCLB mandates are actually undermining their students' long-term success.
They argue that the high-stakes nature of NCLB's test encourages "teaching to the test" and actually undermines learning and critical-thinking skills. At the same time, they contend, NCLB mandates drain resources from key enrichment programs.
"The consequences especially for minority students are more and more tragic, and you see it in the data," says Sylvia Bruni, assistant superintendent of the Laredo, Texas, Independent School District. "We have enormous dropout rates, in my community as many 30 percent of all students.... Statewide there's a marked decline in the number of students who are prepared for higher education."
Ms. Bruni says that one of the biggest indications of NCLB's failure comes from the business community, which has found that students are "graduating as poor communicators, really weak critical thinkers, weak problem solvers."
But other states and school districts maintain that the law is having its intended effect of raising not only test scores, but also students' overall preparedness for the global economy.
For example, every single jurisdiction in the state of Maryland improved in performance in the past year, according to State Superintendent of Schools Nancy Grasmick. She credits NCLB, which she says forces schools to be in a "mode of continual improvement, raising the bar."
"In the past, even in some of our best schools, we've hidden behind the averages, and there were children who were not making substantial progress," she says. "The law ... now requires us to look at every subgroup. I actually think that's an extremely positive thing. We're never going to overcome an achievement gap ... until we do this."
NCLB's advocates also note the DOE has reached out to states to understand their concerns. Of the 40 states that have asked for waivers recently, more than 35 have been granted, according to the DOE.
More dollars
But even strong supporters of the law say that some of the regulations "need adjustment" and more funding would be helpful. Superintendent Grasmick notes that part of Maryland's success was a result of the state legislature approving an additional $1.3 billion in funds to help implement the program over five years.
"I know that's not true in a lot of states," she says. "They've actually experienced cuts in funding."
Several US representatives and senators are reportedly working on bills to amend NCLB in the upcoming legislative session, but few education experts believe it will happen before 2007, when the law comes up for reauthorization. But as the calls for change increase on the local level, that may change.
"I think the dissatisfaction will continue to grow," says Reggie Felton, director of federal relations with the National School Boards Association in Alexandria, Va. "That will result in a stronger sense of urgency in congressional districts, which will then result in members of Congress saying, 'We can't wait. We must act now because I'm up for reelection."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
from the August 19, 2005 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0819/p03s01-legn.html
Aug. 19, 2005 / Christian Science Monitor
'Hot spot' states could expand to eight, a new report finds. But supporters of the law still say it's effective.
By Alexandra Marks | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
Just as students are heading back to school, frustration with the federal No Child Left Behind education law is hitting new heights at the grass-roots level from Maine to California.
Three states are already in open rebellion: Connecticut, Utah, and Colorado, which have either planned lawsuits or passed laws that trump the federal mandates. At least five other states - Maine, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, and Virginia - are deemed "hot spots" that could join the revolt in the coming school year. And a total of 21 states are now considering some kind of legislation critical of No Child Left Behind (NCLB), according to a study released this week by the Civil Society Institute, a nonpartisan advocacy group in Massachusetts.
It rounded up a report of this dissatisfaction to call attention to what it says is a disconnect between the federal government and the educators, students, parents, and local lawmakers that live with NCLB every day.
The law's supporters counter that it is working, with test scores going up. They acknowledge there's frustration, but they contend it has more to do with the level of federal intervention in what used to be a primarily state and local issue. They also praise the federal Department of Education (DOE) for being flexible in dealing with state concerns.
But several independent education experts, as well as state legislators from both the Republican and Democratic sides of the aisle, say that even with this flexibility, frustration is on the rise.
"There is a palpable increase in the level of dissatisfaction that I see, but it's not being translated into legislation in Congress," says Jack Jennings, president and CEO of the nonpartisan Center on Education Policy in Washington. "There's really a disjuncture here between a growing dissatisfaction and the lack of a political response."
The roots of frustration
The frustration on the local level has to do with what educators call the rigidity of the law, which requires high-stakes, standardized testing and penalizes schools deemed as failing to make "adequate yearly progress." They're also concerned about a lack of funding to pay for the testing and the remedial services needed to ensure students make the grade.
For instance, Connecticut estimates it will cost the state $41.6 million more to implement NCLB than the federal government is providing. Local communities will bear additional costs, too.
The White House and the DOE dispute that. They point to two studies done by the Government Accountability Office in New Jersey and Massachusetts that found those states had enough federal resources to implement the law. They also note that since NCLB was passed, federal education spending has increased more than 30 percent.
"It is unfortunate that some appear to think that reform is more trouble than it's worth," says DOE spokeswoman Samara Yudof. "No Child Left Behind is working: Evidence from both the Nation's Report Card and the states' own data prove it."
Although test scores are going up, they were before NCLB was passed, as well. That's because of state education reforms and testing protocols put into place over the past 25 years. Indeed, there's been no research to determine which reforms get credit for the increasing scores. But many teachers and local legislators credit the earlier state improvements, and they're concerned that NCLB mandates are actually undermining their students' long-term success.
They argue that the high-stakes nature of NCLB's test encourages "teaching to the test" and actually undermines learning and critical-thinking skills. At the same time, they contend, NCLB mandates drain resources from key enrichment programs.
"The consequences especially for minority students are more and more tragic, and you see it in the data," says Sylvia Bruni, assistant superintendent of the Laredo, Texas, Independent School District. "We have enormous dropout rates, in my community as many 30 percent of all students.... Statewide there's a marked decline in the number of students who are prepared for higher education."
Ms. Bruni says that one of the biggest indications of NCLB's failure comes from the business community, which has found that students are "graduating as poor communicators, really weak critical thinkers, weak problem solvers."
But other states and school districts maintain that the law is having its intended effect of raising not only test scores, but also students' overall preparedness for the global economy.
For example, every single jurisdiction in the state of Maryland improved in performance in the past year, according to State Superintendent of Schools Nancy Grasmick. She credits NCLB, which she says forces schools to be in a "mode of continual improvement, raising the bar."
"In the past, even in some of our best schools, we've hidden behind the averages, and there were children who were not making substantial progress," she says. "The law ... now requires us to look at every subgroup. I actually think that's an extremely positive thing. We're never going to overcome an achievement gap ... until we do this."
NCLB's advocates also note the DOE has reached out to states to understand their concerns. Of the 40 states that have asked for waivers recently, more than 35 have been granted, according to the DOE.
More dollars
But even strong supporters of the law say that some of the regulations "need adjustment" and more funding would be helpful. Superintendent Grasmick notes that part of Maryland's success was a result of the state legislature approving an additional $1.3 billion in funds to help implement the program over five years.
"I know that's not true in a lot of states," she says. "They've actually experienced cuts in funding."
Several US representatives and senators are reportedly working on bills to amend NCLB in the upcoming legislative session, but few education experts believe it will happen before 2007, when the law comes up for reauthorization. But as the calls for change increase on the local level, that may change.
"I think the dissatisfaction will continue to grow," says Reggie Felton, director of federal relations with the National School Boards Association in Alexandria, Va. "That will result in a stronger sense of urgency in congressional districts, which will then result in members of Congress saying, 'We can't wait. We must act now because I'm up for reelection."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
from the August 19, 2005 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0819/p03s01-legn.html
Top Texas leaders flunk their legislative achievement tests
EDITORIAL / Houston Chronicle / Aug. 19, 2005, 1:23AM
THE THREE STOOGES
Top Texas leaders flunk their legislative achievement tests as second special session draws to a close.
The only people with reason to smile as the clock runs out on the second special session of the dismal 79th Texas Legislature are lobbyists who fought new business taxes and delivered a tasty telecom bill opening the cable TV market for SBC and Verizon. The Legislature also took care of its own, approving a judicial pay raise that also boosted lawmakers' pensions.
Left in the lurch are the state's students. The House and Senate deadlocked on adopting an adequate system for funding public education and failed to pass tuition revenue bonds to expand facilities at state universities. The first issue awaits a ruling by the Texas Supreme Court, which is hearing the state's appeal of a district judge's ruling that the so-called Robin Hood method of financing public schools is inadequate and unconstitutional.
As former state GOP Chairman Tom Pauken lamented to the Chronicle's R.G. Ratcliffe, the state Capitol is adrift in "a total lack of leadership ... Lobbyists are driving the train rather than having a philosophically driven, policy-driven plan."
So off the track was the legislative train in the final days that many lawmakers scattered across the country before adjournment, some to a conference in Seattle and others for vacations in the closing weeks of summer.
For once, partisanship can't be blamed for this debacle. All members of the state's triad leadership are Republican. Gov. Rick Perry, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst and House Speaker Tom Craddick come away from this session looking less like statesmen and more like Larry, Curley and Moe. Since taking control of the Legislature in 2002, for the first time in modern Texas politics, the main achievement of the Republican majorities in the House and Senate was the congressional redistricting battle of 2003.
Early this year, it became apparent that Perry lacked the clout to push his education finance plan. As the regular session spilled into two special sessions, the Dewhurst-led Senate and the Craddick-led House failed to compromise. In an unusual display of political finger-pointing, Craddick took to the airwaves with ads blaming Dewhurst and the Senate for scuttling property tax cuts. Craddick failed to mention that the tax reduction plan he championed in the House would have increased the tax burden on everyone except the top 20 percent of income earners in the state.
At least Dewhurst tried to broaden business taxes to spread the burden of paying for public schools. He quickly found that was a no-go with the House majority, which bent to Craddick's will and ignored the needs of education.
In a final display of pettiness, Dewhurst and Craddick refused to be the first to adjourn his chamber, resulting in a continuation of the doomed special session to its mandated end, at a cost to taxpayers of $23,000 a day. Had they planned to dramatize the triumph of personal politics over public service in this lost legislative season, the state's top three leaders couldn't have come up with a more fitting ending.
Next year Texas voters will have the opportunity to grade the performance of their leaders at the polls. After leaving their major legislative assignment unfinished, officials from the governor on down have a lot of explaining to do as to why they deserve re-election.
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http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/editorial/3316845
THE THREE STOOGES
Top Texas leaders flunk their legislative achievement tests as second special session draws to a close.
The only people with reason to smile as the clock runs out on the second special session of the dismal 79th Texas Legislature are lobbyists who fought new business taxes and delivered a tasty telecom bill opening the cable TV market for SBC and Verizon. The Legislature also took care of its own, approving a judicial pay raise that also boosted lawmakers' pensions.
Left in the lurch are the state's students. The House and Senate deadlocked on adopting an adequate system for funding public education and failed to pass tuition revenue bonds to expand facilities at state universities. The first issue awaits a ruling by the Texas Supreme Court, which is hearing the state's appeal of a district judge's ruling that the so-called Robin Hood method of financing public schools is inadequate and unconstitutional.
As former state GOP Chairman Tom Pauken lamented to the Chronicle's R.G. Ratcliffe, the state Capitol is adrift in "a total lack of leadership ... Lobbyists are driving the train rather than having a philosophically driven, policy-driven plan."
So off the track was the legislative train in the final days that many lawmakers scattered across the country before adjournment, some to a conference in Seattle and others for vacations in the closing weeks of summer.
For once, partisanship can't be blamed for this debacle. All members of the state's triad leadership are Republican. Gov. Rick Perry, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst and House Speaker Tom Craddick come away from this session looking less like statesmen and more like Larry, Curley and Moe. Since taking control of the Legislature in 2002, for the first time in modern Texas politics, the main achievement of the Republican majorities in the House and Senate was the congressional redistricting battle of 2003.
Early this year, it became apparent that Perry lacked the clout to push his education finance plan. As the regular session spilled into two special sessions, the Dewhurst-led Senate and the Craddick-led House failed to compromise. In an unusual display of political finger-pointing, Craddick took to the airwaves with ads blaming Dewhurst and the Senate for scuttling property tax cuts. Craddick failed to mention that the tax reduction plan he championed in the House would have increased the tax burden on everyone except the top 20 percent of income earners in the state.
At least Dewhurst tried to broaden business taxes to spread the burden of paying for public schools. He quickly found that was a no-go with the House majority, which bent to Craddick's will and ignored the needs of education.
In a final display of pettiness, Dewhurst and Craddick refused to be the first to adjourn his chamber, resulting in a continuation of the doomed special session to its mandated end, at a cost to taxpayers of $23,000 a day. Had they planned to dramatize the triumph of personal politics over public service in this lost legislative season, the state's top three leaders couldn't have come up with a more fitting ending.
Next year Texas voters will have the opportunity to grade the performance of their leaders at the polls. After leaving their major legislative assignment unfinished, officials from the governor on down have a lot of explaining to do as to why they deserve re-election.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/editorial/3316845
Session's end finds lawmakers — and $1.8 billion — idle
Aug. 19, 2005, 12:05PM
THE LEGISLATURE
Session's end finds lawmakers — and $1.8 billion — idle
Taxpayer money may go unspent till school funding issue is resolved
By R.G. RATCLIFFE
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle Austin Bureau
AUSTIN - When Texas lawmakers ended their second special session of the summer today, they left $1.8 billion of the taxpayers' money sitting in the state treasury.
That's enough to cover the money legislators withheld from accounts dedicated to funding trauma care and subsidizing electric bills for the poor, as well as to give a nominal pay raise to public school teachers who are on the state's minimum salary schedule.
Or it's enough to pay for a 9-cent cut in property taxes — a cut that would save a homeowner $135 a year on a house valued at $150,000.
The Legislature ended its final unproductive day today with the House adjourning at 10:47 a.m. and the Senate at 11:40 a.m. On Thursday, the Senate did not meet at all and the House met only briefly.
Gov. Rick Perry had called the second 30-day session to handle school finance legislation, but there had been little action since the House voted down a tax bill July 26.
Since last year, the Legislature has failed to resolve the school funding issue or cut local property taxes after trying during three special, 30-day sessions and one regular, five-month session.
Lawmakers had wanted to spend the leftover $1.8 billion on public schools. But when the school finance and tax cut legislation fell apart, the money became destined to sit in the treasury until the Legislature meets again.
Unlike money Perry vetoed from the state budget, this money cannot be spent by budget execution authority because it never was appropriated.
House Speaker Tom Craddick said lawmakers had tried to spend the $1.8 billion during the first special session on public education, but the bill was killed by a filibuster staged by Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston.
Craddick said lawmakers then became more interested in knowing how the Texas Supreme Court will rule in a challenge to the school finance system that has been brought by property-rich and property-poor school districts.
"It gets tougher the closer we get to the hearing date," he said.
Craddick said he has thought for some time that the Legislature should not act until the court rules. "I'm totally against the court drawing the plan, but I think we need to see where we are," he said.
Collecting money
Rep. Scott Hochberg, D-Houston, said he thinks the Republican leadership is hanging onto the $1.8 billion to use in connection with the court's ruling.
"The reason they're holding back on all this stuff is to use it as political leverage instead of financial leverage," he said.
"All of those interests that want to lay claim to that money would be more interested in agreeing to something later if they hadn't already gotten what they want to get out of the package."
Hochberg noted the Republicans in 2003 withheld spending of $1 billion because they knew the state budget would be "in the ditch" again in 2005. He said Democrats had wanted to spend the money to fully fund the Children's Health Insurance Program and the Texas Grants higher education scholarships.
"I don't like the idea of us collecting money and having it sit in the treasury," he said.
Hochberg said there are numerous public school funding items that House and Senate lawmakers have agreed on, such as technology funding for schools. He said it would be simple to spend part or all of the $1.8 billion on those items now.
House Appropriations Chairman Jim Pitts, R-Waxahachie, said the legislative leadership decided to reserve the money until after the court rules.
'We're going to fix it'
"If we spend that money now without knowing what direction the court is going to give us, it might be foolish spending," Pitts said. "Hopefully, we'll be back here, not next week, but in a couple of months and be able to do the right thing for our teachers."
Pitts said that because lawmakers spent the state's "rainy day fund" to balance the $139 billion, two-year budget, the $1.8 billion became the state's "savings account."
"We know the roof is leaking and we're going to have to fix it," he said. "We can't fix it today ... but we're going to fix it before the next biennium, before we come back here in the next regular session."
r.g.ratcliffe@chron.com
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/metropolitan/3317023
THE LEGISLATURE
Session's end finds lawmakers — and $1.8 billion — idle
Taxpayer money may go unspent till school funding issue is resolved
By R.G. RATCLIFFE
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle Austin Bureau
AUSTIN - When Texas lawmakers ended their second special session of the summer today, they left $1.8 billion of the taxpayers' money sitting in the state treasury.
That's enough to cover the money legislators withheld from accounts dedicated to funding trauma care and subsidizing electric bills for the poor, as well as to give a nominal pay raise to public school teachers who are on the state's minimum salary schedule.
Or it's enough to pay for a 9-cent cut in property taxes — a cut that would save a homeowner $135 a year on a house valued at $150,000.
The Legislature ended its final unproductive day today with the House adjourning at 10:47 a.m. and the Senate at 11:40 a.m. On Thursday, the Senate did not meet at all and the House met only briefly.
Gov. Rick Perry had called the second 30-day session to handle school finance legislation, but there had been little action since the House voted down a tax bill July 26.
Since last year, the Legislature has failed to resolve the school funding issue or cut local property taxes after trying during three special, 30-day sessions and one regular, five-month session.
Lawmakers had wanted to spend the leftover $1.8 billion on public schools. But when the school finance and tax cut legislation fell apart, the money became destined to sit in the treasury until the Legislature meets again.
Unlike money Perry vetoed from the state budget, this money cannot be spent by budget execution authority because it never was appropriated.
House Speaker Tom Craddick said lawmakers had tried to spend the $1.8 billion during the first special session on public education, but the bill was killed by a filibuster staged by Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston.
Craddick said lawmakers then became more interested in knowing how the Texas Supreme Court will rule in a challenge to the school finance system that has been brought by property-rich and property-poor school districts.
"It gets tougher the closer we get to the hearing date," he said.
Craddick said he has thought for some time that the Legislature should not act until the court rules. "I'm totally against the court drawing the plan, but I think we need to see where we are," he said.
Collecting money
Rep. Scott Hochberg, D-Houston, said he thinks the Republican leadership is hanging onto the $1.8 billion to use in connection with the court's ruling.
"The reason they're holding back on all this stuff is to use it as political leverage instead of financial leverage," he said.
"All of those interests that want to lay claim to that money would be more interested in agreeing to something later if they hadn't already gotten what they want to get out of the package."
Hochberg noted the Republicans in 2003 withheld spending of $1 billion because they knew the state budget would be "in the ditch" again in 2005. He said Democrats had wanted to spend the money to fully fund the Children's Health Insurance Program and the Texas Grants higher education scholarships.
"I don't like the idea of us collecting money and having it sit in the treasury," he said.
Hochberg said there are numerous public school funding items that House and Senate lawmakers have agreed on, such as technology funding for schools. He said it would be simple to spend part or all of the $1.8 billion on those items now.
House Appropriations Chairman Jim Pitts, R-Waxahachie, said the legislative leadership decided to reserve the money until after the court rules.
'We're going to fix it'
"If we spend that money now without knowing what direction the court is going to give us, it might be foolish spending," Pitts said. "Hopefully, we'll be back here, not next week, but in a couple of months and be able to do the right thing for our teachers."
Pitts said that because lawmakers spent the state's "rainy day fund" to balance the $139 billion, two-year budget, the $1.8 billion became the state's "savings account."
"We know the roof is leaking and we're going to have to fix it," he said. "We can't fix it today ... but we're going to fix it before the next biennium, before we come back here in the next regular session."
r.g.ratcliffe@chron.com
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/metropolitan/3317023
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