One step forward

In his post my classmate, Mr. Noe' Martinez, lends his support to HB 1490/SB106. a bill which aims to adjust the jurisdiction of truancy infractions. Instead of parents being sent to criminal courts, students would be referred to civil courts. Additionally the bill would establish a tiered system that school districts would need to follow before escalating the issue to the court.

I agree with Noe's point that there needs to be a holistic approach that takes into account the complexity of a given student's situation. This bill makes a reasonable attempt at doing so with the tiered system the school districts would follow. However, I think the bill goes too far in neutering the power school employees have to get the attention of less engaged parents (by removing the potential for a misdemeanor to the parents). I'm concerned this bill will setup schools to go through some long, drawn out process that ultimately has no teeth.

That said, an interesting study [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2805010/] found there are 5 components for an effective truancy reduction program which are as follows:

"(1) parent/guardian involvement, (2) a continuum of services, to include meaningful incentives, consequences and support, (3) collaboration with community resources—including law enforcement, mental health services, mentoring and social services, (4) school administrative support and commitment to keeping youth in the educational mainstream, and (5) ongoing evaluation."

This bill does seem to utilize the tiered system to get parents involved, get students in counseling, have students utilize community-based resources, and keep the school involved in the process. For these reasons I think the bill is ultimately a step in the right direction.

Perfect is the enemy of good

There has been a lot of activity around education reform during the 84th Ledge; both the governor and lieutenant governor have a set of initiatives they are pursuing on this front.  While I disagree with many of their initiatives outright, at least one seems to be a step in the right direction, namely the expansion of pre-kindergarten programs.  While it could have and should have gone further, the Ledge should pass HB 4.

The bill would require school districts and charter schools with at least 15 eligible students to provide at least a half day pre-kindergarten class (an eligible student is more or less a poor kid that may or not speak English).  Districts and charter schools that already offer a pre-kindergarten class could opt into the program for additional funding, but they’d need to modify any parts of their existing program to meet the standards set by HB 4.  The standards seem to involve a certificate for teachers, some bit of data collection, “parental engagement”, and some general curriculum requirements.  Built into the bill seems a good deal of latitude surrounding said requirements which I imagine is why a good deal of educative entities present in the committee hearing supported it.

$525,024,611, in case you were wondering, is the expected price tag for the biennium.  The bill “would make no appropriation” and instead will be squeezing blood out of the Available School Fund (the reader may recall this as the “spendable” portion of the Permanent School Fund).  While I’m not thrilled about this choice, no matter where the money comes from, the state should expect a solid return on its investment.  Studies show that students which participated in pre-kindergarten were much more likely to have success in school, graduate high school, and earn at least $20k/yr by age 40.

Today the bill was put up on the calendar. We shall see.

You don't have to put on the red light

I was interested in Ms. Laura Pippen's mention of the long term consequences of the 78th Ledge's HB 3015. As she points out, it seems to be having quite a few... unintended consequences. That said, I was curious to know the problem the bill was attempting to solve. After doing some digging I came across an interesting recap [ http://www.hro.house.state.tx.us/pdf/ba78r/hb3015.pdf ] of the bill.

After absorbing that, I suspect there was going to be a massive budget shortfall and a very unlikely chance that taxes would be increased to cover the difference. Raising tuition was likely the least bad, or perhaps only, way that public universities in Texas would have the ability to maintain services at existing levels. In other words, I believe everyone knew this was going to cause tuition hikes. It's just unfortunate that this deregulation happened just in time for The Great Recession to hit and allow the Ledge to cut state funding at the knees.

At any rate, I agree with Laura that this has put a massive and unfair burden on students and their families. I would also add that all taxpayers, including businesses, in Texas benefit from a well educated workforce; tax revenue as well as worker skill and ability are increased when high quality education is available at affordable prices. It is not unreasonable to expect all tax payers, including businesses, to shoulder some of the burden. 

I think the other lesson here is young people need to pay attention and vote. I imagine the Ledge would have been a lot more resistant to passing such legislation if they knew it was going to upset a significant portion of their base. Sure, paying attention and having to go vote once every couple years is a drag sometimes, but it beats being a sugar baby...

Charter Communications

Dallas Democrat Royce West has put forward Senate Bill 520 which would establish a statewide school district that would take over public schools deemed to be failing and convert them to charter schools. These converted schools would fall under the purview of said district. Passing SB 520 will create a systematic way to convert public schools to charter schools which will lead to both less efficient and effective student outcomes.

Proponents of the bill argue that public school districts are not good at turning around problematic schools. The data does not support this claim as over 95% of schools deemed failing are turned around within 2 years by their district once they're on the radar. Proponents will also argue that parents and students don't have a choice when it comes to which public school they attend. This is also not true as the Public Education Grant allows for student to transfer to different public schools if their preassigned school is not up to par.

Louisiana has been experimenting with a very similar approach.  While the results appear positive it's important to note these charter schools don't play by the same rules as public schools.  They can kick out under performing and learning disabled students.  It also seems that the general admissions process to these schools may be leading to discriminatory outcomes.  Texas should be wary of potentially introducing these types of problems to the education system.

Aside from that, currently charter schools in Texas don't seem to be doing so well at teaching students. In the most recent annual evaluation, a third party consulting group found:

"Students at charter school campuses performed significantly lower on the reading and mathematics State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR) tests compared to comparable students in feeder campuses, as measured by scale scores and in the percent of students meeting the satisfactory performance level (Level 2)"

Another big issue is, despite numerous claims to the contrary, charter schools in Texas are actually less efficient with money than their public school counterparts. Percentage-wise, charter schools spend more on administration and less on instructional costs.

In in the end, I'm not sure what problem this bill aims to solve. It seems like it would sow the seeds of a wholesale privatization of the K12 education system in Texas. The last thing this state needs is to have the little money it does spend on education being sent to private institutions.

History Lesson

In his article, Bill Ames lends his support to HB 3404.  The key provision of the bill is the requirement that public schools purchase text books which adhere to the TEKS standard.  Mr. Ames contends that requiring public schools to use books which teach to the TEKS standard will correct what he feels is a clearly liberal bias in Texas education.  Further, Mr. Ames notes that it unacceptable that a majority conservative state would purchase books which push a liberal agenda.  It's important to note that Mr. Ames was part of the "expert" panel which crafted the modern TEKS standards in 2010.  It's not surprising that he would want to force school districts to use books which push his creative and unique interpretation of history.

As he personally had a hand in the new curriculum standards, I think it's worth taking a look at the perceptions of his handiwork.  The Thomas B. Fordham Institute, an ideologically conservative 
education policy think tank, did grade this curriculum.  They gave it a D and found that it was a "strange fusion of conventional left-wing education theory and right-wing politics undermines content from the start."  The content seems to almost purposely muddle complex issues in a way that makes it very difficult to teach students to think critically.  This does not set up educators for success and it would be bordering on dangerous to subject students to such poor curriculum.  It would be a tragic mistake to pass HB 3404.

I'm utterly baffled at Mr. Ames citing of the following:  "Last year the blog Campus Reform asked Harvard students if the United States or ISIS is the greater threat to world peace.  The students’ answer?  The United States."  He provides no context for this answer and seems to only be implying that the simple folk at Harvard are totally out of touch with how great America is.  I feel like this highlights the danger in exclusively teaching students the concept American Exceptionalism without providing countering points of view.  Mr. Ames seems totally unaware that this concept of "American Exceptionalism" is what drove the failed foreign policy decisions which ultimately created ISIS.  If the state of Texas fails to provide students with the mental tools to think critically about such complex issues the US may very well be a greater threat to world peace than ISIS.

But what would I know, I went through AP US History in Texas in 2001.

Straight from the Horse's Mouth

State Senator and “Tea Party favorite” Donna Campbell, a person that has never been an educator and who does not have a formal background in public policy creation, thinks she has the answer for how to improve Texas schools. In an editorial she points to a report by economist Arthur Laffer, one of the gurus behind Reagonmics. Apparently, Laffer has cherry picked “study after study” and concluded that, in addition to solving many of the problems facing education, school choice will put “trillions” into the economy. In addition to Laffer, Mrs. Cambell points out that “Almost 87 percent of Texans acknowledge school choice will reduce poverty, and 80 percent of Hispanics believe it will create better opportunities for their families.” Albeit for these facts she does not explain where she obtained this information; even if she had, I'm not sure the reader should be convinced by the credibility of random group of non-experts. Mrs. Cambell points out that Texas spends a lot of money on education but is not very efficient with the money. I'll help Mrs. Cambell and point to a study performed by TASA andTASB which reviewed where all that money goes. It seems that school administrators have a difficult time implementing the various mandates given by the Legislature. Beyond making dubious claims, Mrs. Campbell failed to mention a single downside to school choice. She did not mention which other states have substantial school choice programs. She also didn't explain how children in poor and/or rural areas will be transported to these higher performing non-public schools. She didn't explain how to reconcile the separation of Church and state quagmire of providing tax dollars to parochial schools. Texas can do better, but instead of school choice we should try finding actual education policy experts that actually know what they're doing.

Who's got the golden ticket?

The 84th legislative session has begun.  One of the key issues being discussed is that of school vouchers.  While not a new notion, this issue has gained a lot of steam with the new Lt. Governor, Dan Patrick, long having been a supporter of school vouchers.  As the Texas Observer points out, there are some fresh faces in the new push to pass a bill to allow state funding of private education. However, the fundamental premise remains largely unchanged.  Proponents of the proposed bill claim vouchers will save money while improving the overall quality of education available to all students.  Proponents also assert that there is a lot of research supporting these claims.  The author points out that this is not entirely true and, additionally, highlights that one of the masterminds behind the research is Art Laffer (of Reaganomics fame).  While overtly biased against the legislation, the article provides insight into one of the major issues we’ll see in this legislative session.