Jason Stanford is a political journalist in Texas who keeps
a close watch on the nexus between money, politics, and education.
He is especially interested in how lobbyists shape decisions about
where the education money should be spent. In this post,
he sees the usual lobbyists pressing to make more money for their
clients: Forcing schools to buy a graphing calculator for
every single 8th grader in Texas would make Texas Instrument
probably in excess of $1 million at a time the state is failing to
increasing funding to keep up with population growth. And you can
only use a TI graphing calculator to do one thing; schools can use
tablet computers for innumerable purposes. In a state that prides
itself on being miserly with the public purse, you’d think this
would be a no-brainer. Enter Sandy
Kress, a lobbyist for
Pearson (the testing company), for Amplify (Robert
Murdoch’s pre-K tablet company), and, as it turns out,
for Texas
Instruments as well. And initially, Texas Education
Agency commissioner Michael Williams sided with Texas Instruments,
saying that using a tablet could help students cheat on tests.
Using the calculators would prevent that, he claimed. This might be
true if the kids have never heard of YouTube where one can find
numerous tutorials on how to use TI graphing calculators to cheat
on tests… Read more to see what happened.
Win some, lose some.
With any experimental program, the question is always “is it replicable and affordable?”
If the program works only on a small scale, it may not be replicable or scalable.
In this discussion of Houston’s Apollo program , we learn that the program started with mass firings and intensive tutoring in math. The designer of the program said it might close the achievement gap in three years, but that seems optimistic. Math scores went up, though not as much in following years, but reading scores did not.
“Reformers” love to grade students, educators, and schools.
Parent-led Texas Kids Can’t Wait has turned the tables. It here gives grades to the state’s legislators. Parent groups should do the same everywhere else.
Newsletter
I didn’t want you to miss seeing this great blog by Kim Burkett:
IT’S REPORT CARD DAY FOR TEXAS LEGISLATORS … AND IT’S UGLY
February 13, 2014
By Kim Burkett, PTA Mom
Like many states, Texas loves grading its education system. The state has spent years slapping labels on public schools for standardized test results. We’ve labeled schools everything from “unacceptable” to “exemplary,” and next year we’ll even have a new A-F rating system used to brand our schools. Today, Texas Kids Can’t Wait turned the tables and labeled Texas’ state legislators by grading their support of public education in their first bi-annual legislative report card.
Texas Kids Can’t Wait is a statewide public education advocacy group founded by Democrats and Republicans to encourage equity, excellence, and adequacy for Texas’ students. The grassroots group works to educate citizens about challenges facing their schools and encourages legislative action to strengthen public education in Texas. After generations of school funding lawsuits, more than a decade of over-testing, and subversive attempts to undermine public schools through privatization efforts, Texas Kids Can’t Wait recognizes that Texas’ children don’t have the time to wait for legislators to find the political courage and will to finally do right by their schools. You can find more information about Texas Kids Can’t Wait here http://www.texaskidscantwait.org.
Using the same labels once used to grade public schools, (exemplary, recognized, acceptable, and unacceptable) the report card examines votes on 22 key bills from the last legislative session to identify each legislator’s support of public education issues. A team of researchers at the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor evaluated voting records related to funding, privatization, various school voucher schemes, accountability and assessment, charter school expansion, and other education issues.
And the results? Let’s just say some of your elected representatives need to spend some time in summer school. According to Dr. Bonnie Lesley, co-founder of Texas Kids Can’t Wait, “What we saw in all these bills was a strong attack by about one-third of the legislators in the House and about one-fourth of the Senate on the vast majority of Texas’s five million public school students, on local control, on local school boards and educators, and on the whole concept of the common good.”
Here are some breakdowns of the ratings:
Unacceptable ratings were earned by 34% of House Representatives and 23% of Senators.
Positive ratings of Exemplary and Recognized were earned by 28% of House Representatives and 32% of Senators.
Senator Dan Patrick, Chair of the Senate Education Committee and current candidate for Lieutenant Governor, received the lowest ranking of any legislator in either chamber.
The strongest ranking in either chamber was earned by Senator Jose Rodriguez.
Representative Jimmie Don Aycock and Speaker Joe Straus received accolades for strong leadership in support of public education in the 83rd session.
How did your elected representative do? See the chart at the end of this blog.
So, what can you do with this data?
If you’re unhappy with your representative’s grade, ask them to explain why they didn’t make public education a priority last session. Encourage them to support public education issues in the future. You can find your state representative here.
If your representative’s grade doesn’t indicate a strong record for public education, re-consider your support or vote.
Seek and support pro-public education legislators. Thank them for their commitment to our schools.
Let legislators know that public education issues drive your voting decisions. (Education is one of the top issues facing the state according to polling data of Texans.)
Learn and share the names of the legislators who earned Unacceptable ratings. These are the politicians that seek to undermine public schools as demonstrated by their abysmal voting records. Let them know you will fight their attacks on the public education system that serves five million Texas children and employs 400,000 Texas teachers.
Be vocal in support of public education issues and legislation.
Above all – VOTE! Don’t miss a primary or general election. Texas’ students are counting on you.
There was a time, not so long ago, when it was expected that elected officials would support education. It was viewed as an important commitment to our future; vital to economic development. But times have changed, and today many for-profit and special interests have sought to undermine public education through a variety of legislative attacks. The outcome of those efforts is evident in this report card.
That’s why it has never been more critical to carefully evaluate legislators to ensure those who earn your vote will represent the interests of our children, our schools, and our teachers. Legislators without the foresight to see the disastrous impact a struggling public education system will have on Texas’ long-term economic future are not serving Texas’ interests. Legislators who ignore chronic over-testing and under-funding are not worthy of your support. It’s high time they’re sent home with a clear message that Texans demand better.
It’s time to support an education system worthy of a state like Texas. And it’s time to elect legislators committed to delivering it.
Texas Kids Can’t Wait Bi-Annual Legislative Report Card
House of Representatives – 83rd Legislative Session
Representatives are listed alphabetically.
For a listing based on ratings within each category as well as an understanding of the methodology used, please visit here.
http://www.texaskidscantwait.org/media-center
Exemplary
(7 of 150 representatives)
Collier, Nicole (District 95)
Farias, Joe (District 118)
Herrero, Abel (District 34)
Martinez Fischer, Trey (District 116)
Munoz, Jr., Sergio (District 36)
Pitts, Jim (District 10)
Reynolds, Ron (District 27)
Recognized
(35 of 150 representatives)
Allen, Alma (District 131)
Alonzo, Roberto (District 104)
Ashby, Trent (District 57)
Aycock, Jimmie Don (District 54)
Burnam, Lon (District 90)
Callegari, Bill (District 132)
Canales, Terry (District 40)
Cortez, Philip (District 117)
Dukes, Dawnna (District 46)
Farrar, Jessica (District 148)
Giddings, Helen (District 109)
Gonzalez, Mary (District 75)
Gutierrez, Roland (District 119)
Howard, Donna (District 48)
Huberty, Dan (District 127)
Longoria, Oscar (District 35)
Martinez, Armando (District 39)
McClendon, Ruth Jones (District 120)
Miles, Borris (District 146)
Moody, Joe (District 78)
Nevarez, Poncho (District 74)
Oliveira, Rene (District 37)
Patrick, Diane (District 94)
Perez, Mary Ann (District 144)
Phillips, Larry (District 62)
Price, Four (District 87)
Rodriguez, Eddie (District 51)
Rodriguez, Justin (District 125)
Rose, Toni (District 110)
Sheffield, J. D. (District 59)
Straus, Joe (District 121, Speaker)
Thompson, Senfronia (District 141)
Turner, Sylvester (District 129)
Vo, Hubert (District 149)
Walle, Armando (District 140)
Acceptable
(57 of 150 representatives)
Alvarado, Carol (District 145)
Anderson, Charles (District 56)
Bonnen, Dennis (District 25)
Coleman, Garnet (District 147)
Cook, Byron (District 8)
Crownover, Myra (District 64)
Darby, Drew (District 72)
Davis, Sarah (District 124)
Davis, Yvonne (District 111)
Deshotel, Joe (District 22)
Dutton, Jr., Harold (District 142)
Eiland, Craig (District 23)
Farney, Marsha (District 20)
Frullo, John (District 84)
Geren, Charlie (District 99)
Gonzales, Larry (District 52)
Gonzalez, Naomi (District 76)
Guerra, Bobby (District 41)
Guillen, Ryan (District 31)
Harless, Patricia (District 126)
Hernandez, Ana (District 143)
Hunter, Todd (District 32)
Johnson, Eric (District 100)
Kacal, Kyle (District 12)
Keffer, James (District 60)
King, Ken (District 88)
King, Susan (District 71)
King, Tracy (District 80)
Kleinschmidt, Tim (District 17)
Kuempel, John (District 44)
Larson, Lyle (District 122)
Lewis, Tryon (District 81)
Lozano, J. M. (District 43)
Marquez, Marisa (District 77)
Menendez, Jose (District 124)
Miller, Doug (District 73)
Murphy, Jim (District 133)
Naishtat, Elliott (District 49)
Orr, Rob (District 58)
Otto, John (District 18)
Paddie, Chris (District 9)
Perry, Charles (District 83)
Pickett, Joe (District 79)
Raney, John (District 14)
Ratliff, Bennett (District 115)
Raymond, Richard (District 42)
Sheffield, Ralph (District 55)
Smith, Wayne (District 128)
Stephenson, Phil (District 85)
Strama, Mark (District 50)
Turner, Chris (District 101)
Villalba, Jason (District 114)
Villarreal, Mike (District 123)
White, James (District 19)
Workman, Paul (District 47)
Wu, Gene (District 137)
Zerwas, John (District 28)
Unacceptable
(51 of 150 representatives)
Anchia, Rafael (District 103)
Bell, Cecil(District 3)
Bohac, Dwayne (District 138)
Bonnen, Greg (District 24)
Branch, Dan (District 108)
Burkett, Cindy (District 113)
Button, Angie Chen (District 112)
Capriglione, Giovanni (District 98)
Carter, Stefani (District 102)
Clardy, Travis (District 11)
Craddick, Tom (District 82)
Creighton, Brandon (District 16)
Dale, Tony (District 136)
Davis, John E. (District 129)
Elkins, Gary (District 135)
Fallon, Pat (District 106)
Fletcher, Allen (District 130)
Flynn, Dan (District 2)
Frank, James (District 69)
Goldman, Craig (District 97)
Gooden, Lance (District 4)
Harper-Brown, Linda (District 105)
Hilderbran, Harvey (District 53)
Hughes, Bryan (District 5)
Issac, Jason (District 45)
King, Phil (District 61)
Klick, Stephanie (District 91)
Kolkhorst, Lois (District 13)
Krause, Matt (District 93)
Laubenberg, Jodie (District 89)
Lavender, George (District 1)
Leach, Jeff (District 67)
Lucio III, Eddie (District 38)
Miller, Rick (District 26)
Morrison, Geanie W. (District 30)
Parker, Tan (District 63)
Riddle, Debbie (District 150)
Ritter, Allan (District 21)
Sanford, Scott (District 70)
Schaefer, Matt (District 6)
Sheets, Kenneth (District 107)
Simmons, Ron (District 65)
Simpson, David (District 7)
Smithee, John (District 86)
Springer, Drew (District 68)
Stickland, Jonathan (District 92)
Taylor, Van (District 66)
Thompson, Ed (District 29)
Toth, Steve (District 15)
Turner, Scott (District 33)
Zedler, Bill (District 96)
Senate – 83rd Legislative Session
Senators are listed alphabetically.
Exemplary
Garcia, Sylvia (District 6)
Rodriguez, Jose (District 29)
Recognized
(9 of 31 senators)
Deuell, Bob (District 2)
Davis, Wendy (District 10)
Ellis, Rodney (District 13)
Nichols, Robert (District 3)
Seliger, Kel (District 31)
Uresti, Carlos (District 19)
Watson, Kirk (District 14)
Williams, Tommy (District 4)
Zaffirini, Judith (District 21)
Acceptable
(13 of 31 senators) Carona, John (District 16)
Duncan, Robert (District 28)
Eltife, Kevin (District 1)
Estes, Craig (District 30)
Fraser, Tony (District 24)
Hancock, Kelly (District 9)
Hinojosa, Juan “Chuy” (District 20)
Huffman, Joan (District 17)
Lucio, Eddie (District 27)
Nelson, Jane (District 12)
Schwertner, Charles (District 5)
Van de Putte, Leticia (District 26)
Whitmire, John (District 15)
Unacceptable
(7of 31 senators) Birdwell, Brian (District 22)
Campbell, Donna (District 25)
Hegar, Glenn (District 18)
Paxton, Ken (District 8)
Patrick, Dan (District 7)
Taylor, Larry (District 11)
West, Royce (District 23)
Dewhurst, David (Lt. Governor)
Equity, Adequacy, Excellence
Learn more about Texas Kids Can’t Wait and how to become involved at http://www.texaskidscantwait.org.
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The heroes of the movement to reduce standardized testing in Texas is a group called TAMSA. The unwieldy title is Texans Advocating for Meaningful Student Assessment. They are better known as Moms Ahainst Drunk Testing.
They realized that Pearson had a lock on the Texas legislature as that body passed more and more testing requirements. The legislature cut $5 Billion from the schools’ budget yet managed to find nearly $500 million for a contract with Pearson. Give credit where it is due: Pearson hired Sandy Kress, architect of NCLB, as its lobbyist. Kress sends his own children to a wonderful school that does NOT give standardized tests.
So, I hereby honor the Moms of Texas, who beat Pearson.
Here is a letter about their activities:
“TAMSA deserves the credit for HB5 that reduced end of course testing by Pearson from 15 tests to 5.
Students in grades 3-8 take 17 of Pearson’s tests.
The TAMSA slideshow provides important facts about how the Pearson lobbyists were unmasked by the moms.
http://res.dallasnews.com/interactives/2013_December/texan-of-the-year/tamsa/”
Schools in Texas have been forced to absorb huge budget cuts in recent years.
One casualty was the two KIPP schools in Galveston, Texas, which could not afford to continue. They will close.
“Galveston ISD paid KIPP $5.5 million this year – about $1.5 million more than it would have spent on those students in district-run schools….
KIPP, which operates 141 campuses that serve 50,000 students nationally, has closed or returned schools to local districts eight times nationally, but this is the first time it is to happen in Texas, where KIPP started 20 years ago….
“The Costal Village elementary and middle schools opened in the months following Hurricane Ike in 2008 to help draw families back to the island. After the contract was negotiated, the 6,800-student Galveston ISD lost $7.4 million in state funding for the biennium in 2011. About $1.7 million was restored by the Legislature last year, Nichols said.
“The original agreement was no longer workable after GISD had to live with quite a bit less money,” the superintendent said.
“KIPP leaders said they couldn’t maintain their model, which includes a longer school day and year, for less money. The charter chain spends about $6,200 per student in Galveston, compared to Galveson ISD’s $4,623. And KIPP’s costs were higher earlier in the contract, officials said.”
John Savage, a freelance journalist and former teacher, reviewed “Reign of Error” in the “Texas Observer.”
I liked the review for many reasons.
First, because Savage liked the book. That pleases every author.
Second, because the first article I ever published appeared in the “Texas Observer,” a gritty liberal journal that covers Texas politics. The article was called “My Ghetto and Yours,” and it was about growing up Jewish in Houston. It appeared, I think, in 1961. I think I was lamenting how little I knew of the big world outside Houston. I haven’t read it since 1961, so I can’t be certain what I wrote but I feel pretty sure I launched my writing career by stepping on toes. I think that it would be called “juvenalia” if it ever appeared in a collection.
Zack Koppelin is a college student in Texas who grew up in Louisiana. He is determined to expose the publicly-funded schools that teach creationism. As a high school student, he drew attention to voucher schools teaching religious dogma as science. Now in Texas, he finds creationism taught in the state’s biggest charter chain:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 16, 2014
Contact: Zack Kopplin
(225)-715-5946
Zsk1@Rice.edu
Texas’ Largest Charter District is Teaching Creationism
Houston, Texas — Is the Fossil Record “sketchy?” Is evolution “dogma?” Do leading scientists doubt the age of the Earth?
At Responsive Education Solutions’ charter schools, a public Texas Charter “Super-Network” with 17,000 students and over 65 schools, students are learning creationism and false history.
Responsive Ed is the largest charter network in the State of Texas and it receives $82 million in public money, annually.
Science activist Zack Kopplin, who investigated the program, said, “This creationist charter program represents an attack on science, an attack on the First Amendment, and is an insidious threat to the charter movement itself.”
Kopplin also said, “Responsive Ed’s creationist curriculum presents a moment of truth for the Charter movement; will charter proponents demand the closure of schools that teach this creationist rot? Responsive Ed has crossed a line and charter authorizers should immediately revoke Responsive Ed’s charters for academic malpractice.”
Read more about Responsive Ed’s creationist curriculum at Slate.com:
###
Morgan Smith of the Texas Tribune (published in thr New York Times) wrote about the secrecy that surrounds the finances of private corporations that manage schools and claim to be “public.”
They are “public” when it is time to get the money but their finances are private when asked to account for taxpayer money.
Basis, an Arizona charter chain, submitted an application to open a charter in San Antonio and this is what happened:
“On a recently approved Texas charter school application, blacked-out paragraphs appear on almost 100 of its 393 pages.
“Redactions on the publicly available online version of the application often extend for pages at a time. They include sections on the school’s plan to support students’ academic success, its extracurricular activities and the “extent to which any private entity, including any management company” will be involved in the school’s operation. The “shaded material,” according to footnotes, is confidential proprietary or financial information.”
Smith writes:
“In Texas, commercial entities cannot run public schools. But when a school’s management — including accounting, marketing and hiring decisions — is contracted out to a private company, the distinction can become artificial. Such an arrangement raises questions about how to ensure financial accountability when the boundary between public and private is blurred, and the rules of public disclosure governing expenditures of taxpayer money do not apply.”
Some of the most secretive companies run virtual schools, paid for with public money:
“When The Texas Tribune made an open-records request for employee salary records and marketing expenses at the state’s full-time virtual schools, it received responses from all but one of those connected with for-profit entities indicating either that the records were not available or were not subject to public information laws.
“The Huntsville Independent School District, which went into partnership with K12 Inc. to open a virtual academy this year, said the district did not have documents responding to the request at the virtual campus as “it contracts with a private company to handle all employment of personnel and staffing-related data.”
“In other instances, The Tribune was directed to make a request to the private company. A lawyer for Responsive Ed Solutions, a charter school that also contracts with K12 Inc., wrote that most employees of its virtual school were hired by the company and provided the email address of a K12 lawyer. A K12 Inc. spokesman then told The Tribune that “confidential information about K12’s employees” could not be disclosed.”
This is a fascinating article from the Texas Observer that explores the myth of the hero superintendent, the popular delusion that one transformational leader can “save” a school district. The idea was shaped by the Rhee story, the TIME cover implying that she held the secret to “fixing America’s schools,” a myth that persists despite the absence of any objective evidence.
The focus of the article is the first year of Dallas superintendent Mike Miles, who arrived as a superstar and barely survived an effort to fire him a year later.
The good news in the story is that belief in the hero superintendent idea–the man or woman who rides in as a miracle-worker on a white horse–is fading. Common sense is slowly returning. Maybe.
Improving schools requires teamwork, collaboration, professionalism, and a steady course. Stars come and go. The builders are steady, reliable, consistent, persistent, dedicated to ideals greater than themselves.
Jason Stanford, an independent political journalist in Texas, calls for an investigation of Pearson in Texas.
Stanford noticed that New York’s State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman extracted a settlement of $7.7 million from Pearson because of the co-mingled activities of its charitable foundation and its for-profit activities.
He believes that is similar problems would be found in Texas. Pearson has a five-year contract for $32 million in New York, but a $462 million contract for the same period in Texas.
He writes:
“This kind of hand-in-glove relationship between Pearson’s foundation and for-profit interests exists in Texas. In 2009 and in 2010, the Pearson Foundation gave two endowments totaling $400,000 to the University of Texas College of Education, home to the Pearson Center for Applied Psychometric Research where they do “cutting edge statistical and psychometric research and evaluation services to further educational improvements … and to inform educators, researchers, policymakers, and other stakeholders in the education process.” And since 2000, these policymakers have given Pearson contracts totaling $1.2 billion.
“There’s a “you get what you pay for” quality to academic research that dovetails with the corporate interests that fund it, creating the appearance of a conflict of interest. If the former had anything to do with the latter, the Pearson Foundation may have broken the law and is why the Texas Attorney General needs to take a close look at Pearson.
“According to local custom, Texas has elected leaders openly hostile to regulating polluters, assault weapons, and exploding fertilizer plants—in short, everything except a woman’s uterus. And there’s ample evidence that state officials have put the lazy in laissez faire when it comes to providing effective oversight of Pearson’s massive contract.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 