When one attempts to write a continuing report on public education issues, there are often diversions that arise because of the conduct of the institution being addressed.  Such has been the case for the last week because of issues arising out of the dispute between board members Dr. Bill Proctor and Terry Huckaby and the Center of Truth over tax collection contracts.

The issue is far from over. Moreover, the can of worms that issue opened will now reverberate into many more issues.  When those issues arise, I’ll address them.

Over the last two weeks or so, I have published two extensive columns addressing the kinds of core issues that are very important if the reform movement in public education in general and Katy I.S.D. in particular has any chance of developing enduring legs.

One major column addressed the fundamental issues of achieving reform.  The second major column addressed in substantive ways the role that the selection and evaluation of the superintendent of schools plays.  In fact, it is the contract with the superintendent of schools that must serve as the primary path of reform.  These two columns are consistent with my commitment to address very big issues in George Scott Reports.

Over the course of this week, I am going to publish two additional major issues using the same approach as I did with the other two.  These columns will not be light reading.  They are detailed and documented approaches to very huge issues:

1. The inherent and prolonged lack of integrity in the accountability testing movement that has now entered its fourth decade in Texas.
2. The sorrowful decline and academic degradation in the integrity of the classroom unit with policies that are forced upon classroom teachers by administrators imposing daunting barriers on their ability to be the most effective teachers that they can be.

These columns are written.  I’ll be revising them over the course of the weekend and fact-checking the data tables that will go with one of the columns in particular.

That great movie The Wizard of Oz has given all writers that have come since a great rhetorical tool.  I’ll use it here.

The Texas Education Agency is pervasively corrupt and hopelessly dishonest in its decades long practice of lying to parents about what their children do and do not know in terms of genuine grade level academic skills. The new STAAR will not be a bright light shining in the night.

The modern day curriculum leaders of public education in the United States and Texas have become little more than “Walter Mitty” Pied Pipers leading classroom instruction further and further away from the concept of academic integrity.

My next two major columns on these subjects will take you behind the “Green Curtain” so you too can get a feel from the pervasive dishonesty that has corrupted, infested, infected, and occupied the public education system.  It should make you want to read those two earlier columns again.

There’s a path out of this mess.  It won’t be easy.

Bulletin:  The earth is moving under their feet.

Dr. Bill Proctor and Terry Huckaby have brought the reform effort to that moment in time where Adams and the administration he has spent over two decades playing kissy-poo with actually feel threatened in that they sense they are losing control of the public policy debate. 

They are losing control of the ‘message’ and the Hollywood-like sound stage they have created to project a different public reality than private truth.

The matter involving contracts for delinquent and current tax collections that has played out in the public arena is the one issue that is bringing this matter to a head.  But in reality, it is about far more than one contract.

The public should understand this.  It is about what it has always been about to public school administrators who control different pieces of a billion dollar industry that doles out contracts.  It’s about control.

And Adams is losing it.  The administration in Katy is losing it.  Consequently, they are showing signs of lashing out against those who are leading this effort.  They are angry and mad at Proctor and Huckaby.

They are frustrated beyond frustration with John Pape at Instant News Katy because they have grown accustomed to the other wimpy media outlets that reigned supreme until Pape’s Instant News Katy restored actual journalism to the community.  They want to put the toothpaste of reform back in that tube.  As they find that harder and harder to achieve, their anger and frustration rises and rises.

Thus, the issue of reform in Katy I.S.D. for at least awhile has nothing to do with contracts, academics, business efficiency, bond issues, or any other of the myriad of issues that gain the attention of the public in the course of events of a modern public school district.

It’s about control.  It would be fair of me to say that there are people in this community who should have over the course of the last two years forgiven me for my abrasive personality and style in confronting the public education system in general and the leadership of Katy I.S.D. in particular for years.  It is clear that there is now a greater understanding of just how deep the roots of institutional and organizational arrogance in the public education bureaucracy grow.

Here’s the deal.  Here’s where we stand.

Joe Adams and the administration he ‘fronts for’ do not want Bill Proctor and Terry Huckaby talking about public education issues with the public or the media.  Joe Adams and the administration he represents are apparently furious that Proctor and Huckaby make public comments about issues that come before the school board (or will come) with Instant News Katy.

Joe Adams and the administration he helps protect want to stop it cold.  Joe Adams and the administration he has helped insulate from accountability  want Proctor and Huckaby to shut up and let Joe Adams do the talking FOR THE BOARD because he is the current president of the board. It is as if Proctor and Huckaby have no constitutional right to speak for themselves on public policy issues of importance to them and the constituents who elected them.

Joe Adams and the administration for whom he serves as a blocking guard apparently believe that elected public officials must always filter their thoughts through the carefully manicured processes of government.

Here’s my advisory to that portion of the public who believes that Proctor and Huckaby are the first rays of sunshine to break through the face of administrative dictates and control in many, many years.

The day is drawing near that you are going to have reach into your pocket and pull out $10, or $50, or $100, or $200 or whatever you reasonably can to contribute to the effort to make sure that Proctor and Huckaby do not get steamrolled by one of the most powerful and sinister bureaucracies in all of governance - the public education bureaucracy.

I wrote upon the occasion of the election of Proctor and Huckaby that it was an event that threatened to shake the system statewide to its very core.  Katy I.S.D. is viewed in Texas as one of those pivotal districts. The powers to be throughout Texas do not want the reform movement on business, finance, and academics to get a foothold in Katy. Let me be clear.  The last place that these powerful people want to see become a haven of reform is Katy.

Be clear.  If Proctor and Huckaby help lead the citizens and classroom teachers in Katy in the breaking up of this management cabal that public education has imposed throughout Texas, no school district in Texas will be immune.  If it can happen in the safe environs of Katy, where successive superintendents and acquiescent school boards  have kept the lid on the bottle,  it can happen anywhere.

People often like to envision being involved in a movement greater than themselves.  Too often, many think they have to go to Washington D.C. or Austin or some other giant playing field to have great impact.  It’s not true.

Proctor and Huckaby’s sheer determination and courage have brought the reformers of Katy to the point where if we can take one more big step, we can begin addressing the real issues that have controlled the processes and the people far too long.

And frankly, Adams and those he seeks to protect are more scared than they have ever been before that what they value - control - is slipping, slipping, slipping away.

Those of us who want government at all levels to be reformed are going to have to reach into our pocketbooks and help.

Proctor and Huckaby have already done so much.  They want to do more.  And, we are going to have to surround them with support and tell the status quo forces that are protecting their domain that to get to Proctor and Huckaby you are going to have to come through us.

People who have read my columns and heard my speeches for many years now know that I most often have been required to focus on the ‘evildoers’  who stand in the way of reform. We now have two legitimate leaders in Proctor and Huckaby. 

Don’t let this moment slip away.  You may never get it back.

Be ready to help.  When the announcement comes soon, please be ready to help.

Finally, we have two board members in Dr. Bill Proctor and Terry Huckaby who have actually begun waging a battle of reform.  Predictably, the efforts are under-appreciated at the Center of Truth.

Senior Board Member Joe Adams has now placed himself at the forefront of the battle to try to intimidate the leaders of the political forces that are driving the effort to oust status quo members of the board thus neutering the oppressive power that Adams and his forces have enjoyed for years.

This effort is reaching a point of pivotal importance.  I will address that tomorrow.

Needless to say, Bill Proctor and Terry Huckaby have moved the community of those seeking reform to a ‘put up or shut up’ moment - individually and collectively.

I believe the community is absolutely capable and absolutely willing to “put up.”  But, we’ll see.

In Katy, we have a superintendent working under an existing contract.  While that makes the immediate path of reform vastly more difficult, there are steps than can be taken if the community elects a working majority in May.  It should be noted that Alton Frailey will not be the last superintendent in this school district (unless of course the Mayans are right). So either way, there are steps that must begin now to prepare the way for the future.

The current selection and evaluation process is one in which weak, subservient school boards throughout Texas have surrendered their common sense to consultants, system insiders, and professional associations allowing the process to degenerate to the point that it has become the alpha and omega of any effort to achieve meaningful reform.

In my The Path Forward reform plan, I wrote about the need for the Katy school board to assert itself in the process of selecting and then evaluating its superintendent of schools.  This column will go into more detail.  Like The Path Forward, it is not light reading.  Further, I have not divided it into multiple parts.  The column stands on its own.

However, no one column can deal with all of the complexities of the subject matter.  In this matter, there are specific issues I do not want to address given the possibility that individual members of the board or the community in general might want to take specific steps to begin improving the process locally.  There are some aspects of what needs to be done that I simply don’t want to give local defenders of the status quo a head’s up.

Before beginning on search process itself, I want to make one other central point that is essential to understand.  Some of the current processes have a statutory or regulatory framework.  However, there are navigable pathways through those artificially-imposed standards by the defenders of the status quo.

But, those paths are littered with rocks and boulders.  It will be absolutely essential that those who want to deal with this issue retain independent legal advice on contract law and relevant portions of government codes.  Setting ego aside and notwithstanding Frailey’s comments about me to some of his supposed confidants in the administration building, there are few people who understand the nuances of this system better than I do.  If I were on the school board and wanted to address this issue, the first thing I would do is retain private legal help to make sure that I was not going up against this system by myself.

If this matter is to be confronted in Katy, then citizens are going to have to raise some money so that one or more individual members of the board can get the independent legal advice they need to chart their paths between the rocks and the boulders the system has put in their way. Even establishing the process of acquiring such help will require the services of an attorney.

There simply is no way around the fact that you don’t confront a system as powerful as the Texas public education industrial complex with good intentions and pea-shooter.

Having said that, the issues addressed today are two-fold.

1. The Search Process: Fort Worth I.S.D.’s superintendent search process will help me make critical points about this portion of the issue.
2. An Actual Contract: Fraily’s current contract with Katy I.S.D. will be the focal point that helps me make critical comments on this portion of the issue.

So, let’s begin with the news that Fort Worth I.S.D. named its lone finalist to the job of superintendent of schools on January 16 after a process that began last September.  Between then and February 13, the district and the superintendent will finalize details of the contract. All of the finalists are gone; there’s one person standing; and the essential deals of the contract are being negotiated.

Ask yourself: who is on top in that negotiation?  It is not the school board that has sent its finalists packing.  It is the person who will be superintendent of schools.  Understand three things:

1. There are legal barriers to dealing effectively with this fundamental flaw in the process.
2. The process is ass-backwards.
3. If reformers don’t figure out how to deal with this one fact, they will never be in a dominant position to determine the standards by which the superintendent of schools will be held accountable.

This dilemma, more than anything, explains why a reform member of the board and those who support reform must retain independent legal counsel with expertise in contract law and government code.

Let me put it this way: the typical end of the superintendent selection process (the naming of the sole finalist for the job) is the nanosecond in time that represents the beginning of the end of a school board’s real ability to hold the superintendent accountable.  Genuine accountability is over even before the superintendent cashes his first paycheck.

How did we get here? The selection process has become one driven by industry insiders, professional associations representing administrators and school boards, and lobbyists all of whom have an interest the search committe process. For this, let’s look at Fort Worth I.S.D.

Here are the four members of the search committee that Fort Worth I.S.D.’s board turned to for help in choosing its superintendent:

• David Thompson
• Dr. Mike Moses
• Dr. Rod Paige
• Dr. Julian Trevino

Their names above are linked to their biographies (some longer and some shorter), but let me tell you about them. They are all hall of fame insiders within the public education establishment.

David Thompson is the insider’s insider given his roles with the Texas Association of School Board, Texas Association of School Administrators, and his law firm’s representation of school districts including Katy I.S.D. throughout Texas particularly in the greater Houston region but beyond. He lobbies the Texas Legislature.  He helps write laws and regulations.  He helps write or confer on matters involving school board policies.  He moves seamlessly through the entire web of the education system. He gives school boards advice and school boards pay his firm a lot of money to defend the advice he gives them.

Dr. Mike Moses was a superintendent before becoming the Commissioner of Education in Texas and then superintendent of schools in Dallas I.S.D. During his tenure as TEA commissioner, he defended the indefensible - the supposed academic integrity of the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills (TAAS) test.  He once appointed me to serve as one of only a small handful of non-educators to his prestigious Commissioner’s Accountability Advisory Committee, a position I resigned over access to data. Now, to some degree or another, he’s one of those consultants that prosper in the system.

Dr. Rod Paige was superintendent of Houston I.S.D. before following George Bush to Washington D.C. to serve as Secretary of Education leading the disastrous expansion of the federal Department of Education through No Child Left Behind whose foundation was the academically corrupt and dishonest Texas Educational Miracle arising from the TAAS testing system.  Now, he too prospers in the system.

Dr. Julian Trevino is one of the four I do not know personally but he too is the ultimate insider. His biography shows he is affiliated with School Executive Solutions in Houston. Follow the link quickly and come back here. Who are Dr. Trevino’s colleagues and peers?  Superintendents.

So let me take two paragraphs to summarize all of this.

The superintendent selection process is one that is far too often guided by former superintendents, lawyers for current superintendents, consultants to current superintendents, consultants and lawyers to professional associations within the education industry helping veteran superintendents get better, more lucrative superintendent jobs and newbies their first superintendent’s job.

In this system who is loyal to whom? If you believe in reform then you also must believe that this system is pervasively sick, organizationally maniacal, and counterproductive to the cause of holding school administrators genuinely accountable for performance.

There are ways to break up this educational cabal.

Now, let’s shift our focus to Alton Frailey’s contract with Katy I.S.D.

It’s a five-year contract that has been extended during Frailey’s term of office.

For this column, I am not going to address those issues that do not deal with accountability in some fashion.

I am not going to play lawyer here.  Remember my earlier remarks included the statement that if I were a member of the school board I would retain independent legal counsel knowledgeable in contract law.  My remarks are given here in the context of a knowledgeable layman who fully understands that he would need an attorney to deal with the matter in reality.

The contract that Frailey has now with Katy I.S.D. empowers him as a mutual partner in the development of annual performance goals.  Much of the evaluation process itself is cloaked in privacy by the contract itself.

Section 5.1 of the contract says the board and the superintendent shall develop the goals for the district for the next school year on or before March of every year.  These goals will be reduced to writing and “shall be among the criteria on which the Superintendent’s performance will be reviewed and evaluated.”

Section 5.2 of the contract says in part: “The evaluation and assessment shall be related to the duties of the Superintendent as outlined in the Superintendent’s job description, Board policies, and lawful board directives (emphasis mine), and to the adopted annual goals referenced in Paragraph 5.1.

From what I have seen of the superintendent’s goals, my assessment is that they are wholly inadequate. Defenders of the faith can disagree. However, here’s the central point.

When a school board or a community is dealing with an existing contract where the standards of accountability are much weaker than genuine reform requires, it is a trickier and vastly more complex process of moving that contract to higher standards as opposed to getting it right in the first place.

Getting the accountability measures right in the first place must be addressed in the search and selection process itself.  Dealing with an existing contract is a separate issue. Accountability can be salvaged.  It is just infinitely more difficult.

In my assessment as a layman, here is the pivotal leverage point in dealing with the current situation.

Section 1.1 of the contract for which the relevant part for this dicussion reads as follows:  …”The Board may, solely at its discretion, extend the term of this contract as permitted by state law.  Any extension will be with the consent and acceptance of the Superintendent.”

Frailey has a five year contract.  Extension simply means that as the first of five years draws down, it is extended back to a five-year contract. A board’s failure to extend does not change the terms of the contract.  All remains as is except that it is one year closer to its end.

With good reason, superintendents generally do not want a school board to fail to extend a contract because of the message it sends to the community and the district’s staff.  From a practical standpoint, invoking the board’s right not to extend a contract is the primary leverage that a board has to enhance its negotiating position over accountability standards.

As it relates to 5.1 and 5.2 cited above, those are the clauses in the contract that  permit a school board to toughen accountability standards. There’s one other passage in the contract that is very relevant, but that will come in a few paragraphs.

Bill Proctor and Terry Huckaby cannot accomplish anything pursuant to 5.1 and 5.2.  They are not a board majority.  They can and are helping focus the public attention on the issue of accountability, but until they are part of a working majority nothing will happen in the context of the current contract with the current superintendent.

That’s why the election in May will be the most pivotal election in the history of this district. There will either be a working majority ready to deal with 5.1 and 5.2 or there will be a status quo working majority to stay as far away from reform as possible.

I am only focusing on a few fundamental parts of the contract.  However, the full contract is a complex document with many moving parts (reinforced with law, regulation, and case law) from which even a well-intentioned but uninformed working majority might breech with costly ramifications.

Look at 5.2.  What is a lawful directive? The board has contractual authority to issue them.  Lawful directives can be used to enhance accountability.  In fact, they must be used if there is to be enhanced accountability in the system. But, what is a lawful directive in the context of contract law, the contract itself, and the laws and regulations of the State of Texas? This is no arena even for a smarter than average Walter Mitty ‘attorney.’

All accountability efforts must ensue from 5.1 (district goals) and 5.2 (lawful directives). While the system itself favors the superintendent and while the road to actual accountability is strewn with rocks and boulders set up by the status quo, 5.1 and 5.2 are the only legitimate paths through this legally treacherous road.

That means that reform school board members and their reform-minded supporters must answer two questions.

Do you want to depend upon the Thompson & Horton law firm (see the first half of the column) to guide you on the path of reform and accountability?

Do you accept that independent legal advice from private counsel familiar with contract law is needed in a full scale effort to bring reform to public education?

Right now in Katy I.S.D. we are in a battle to try to reach a point where actual reform can begin.  That requires a working majority on the school board.

In closing this column, let me point out a passage from 5.3 in the contract:

…”In the event the Board deems that the evaluation instrument, format, and/or procedure is to be modified by the Board, such modifications must be adopted with input (emphasis mine) from the Superintendent and the Superintendent shall be provided a reasonable period of time to demonstrate such expected performance before being evaluated.”

The road to genuine accountability is tough.  Only the tough-minded could ever be successful.  But it is doable.

The question is whether the community wants to get it done and will take the actions necessary to get it done.

It seems apparent that former Katy I.S.D. educator and principal Terri Majors will announce for one of two positions open in May’s school board race.  Let’s be clear.  If the status quo wins even one of the two positions, the push for reforms will be gravely harmed.

The impending candidacy of Terri Majors should be received by everyone who values reform and accountability as one deserving the strongest of support.  She absolutely has mine.

Let me be the first to write that Terri needs a straight up shot against either the incumbent she chooses to oppose or that incumbent’s administrative-approved heir apparent. If you are considering a race for the school board and you believe that the reform movement must continue, please consider the impact of whatever decision you make on the threat that a divide and conquer election would have.

Let the status quo divide and conquer their votes.  Without any reservation whatsoever, Terri Majors needs to be elected as a member of the Katy I.S.D. school board in May.

We will deal with noting her obvious knowledge and skills in the future.  She has proved herself to be a courageous leader in her efforts since her retirement from the school district.

With Proctor and Huckaby, the genuine reform effort that so many have sought for so long is underway.  Terri Majors’ future role will be pivotal.

The challenge now is to coalesce around one other candidate in the second position.  This is a time for everyone who values reform to set aside egos and personal desires.  We need two strong and viable candidates to run in this system that allows a minority of voters to choose a school board member.

Terri Major is absolutely the best qualified for one of these positions.

For those of you working on this behind the scenes, please coalesce behind one more and put up an unbeatable pair of candidates in May recognizing that Terri Majors one of those.

Karen Banda, a sophomore at Furr High School, recalls with fondness the toughest course she ever took, in human geography.

It was an Advanced Placement class, which meant she could earn college credit if she did well on a nationally recognized final exam. Banda scored too low, but she and her principal agree the experience of taking the class last year was invaluable.

“It was the first time I took a test with that rigor,” Banda said. “Now I feel like I can do better.”

Read the full story

This story leaves much to be told, and I’ll help the Chronicle fill in the blanks it did not report.  But I have been so vicously critical of their education reporter (highly praisworthy of their other beat reporters), that I feel obligated to praise them when possible. This was a good start on re-establishing the credibility of the Chronicle’s education reporter after its previous editor joined Houston I.S.D. as its PR director by whatever title.

I am proud and happy the State’s best newspaper is showing signs of upgrading its education coverage.

I do believe that one or more of their education reporters read my website.  I don’t know; can’t prove; and might be wrong. But, here a link to my own recent story on AP performance at Fort Bend ISD just for the curious in mind:

George’s previous and recent column on AP performance

By Gary Scharrer

AUSTIN — A new school accountability system is already creating anxiety for some educators and business leaders — not to mention students who will face much harder tests with high school graduation riding on the outcome.

The new State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness, or STAAR, is replacing the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills, or TAKS, starting this spring.

STAAR will apply to students in grades three to nine.

The new assessments will be longer, will include more open-ended questions and, for high school students, will include 12 end-of-course tests that will count toward a student’s grade-point average.

Read more of original news story:

George Scott’s Prior Column On Impending Disaster For STAAR & TEA

Note From George:  The rats are already jumping ship!  I’ll have another column on this matter Tuesday.

Alton Frailey is a highly-paid government bureaucrat armed with a contract that does not serve the interests of public education in general or Katy I.S.D. taxpayers, students, parents, and classroom teachers in particular.

It is time to stop protecting the position of superintendent of schools held in this community at this time by the itinerant bureaucrat Alton Frailey.  Gordon Brown, Linda Woodward, Hugh Hayes, Leonard Merrell, and Alton Frailey all have one thing in common:  they come and then they go.

Read my column The Path Forward: an outline for achieving reform in public education

Back in the days of Brown and Woodward, school board members gave more than lip service to holding administrators accountable.  It was not enough, but it was a different era in which the current power system was only beginning to evolve. Superintendents worked for a lot less money.  While they had multi-year contracts, they never got completely off the corners of the chair and fully comfortable.

If there is going to be reform in Katy I.S.D., then the first and easiest step that must be taken is to open up the ability of individual board members to place items on the agenda of school board meetings.  Right now, (if you are not the president of the board), it takes three members to even get an item on the agenda.

Let’s be clear.  While this policy of restriction was put in place by prior school boards (which included some current members), every single member who operates under it today is responsible unless they take aggressive action to change it.

This policy was put in place to protect the superintendent of schools from the general public if the voters chose to put reformers on the school board.

The best, most effective way to control the public debate is for the powers in government to effectively use the principles of censorship to block issues from reaching the public arena.  In this case, that’s the formal meeting of the school board.

Currently, the puppet-working majority on the Katy I.S.D. school board striving hard to insulate its commander in chief from reform members Dr. Bill Proctor and Terry Huckaby requires three members of the board to approve placing an item on the agenda.

Voters thought that they had achieved that critical number with the election of Henry Dibrell.  But, Dibrell has been inconsistent in his dedication to the reform agenda.  If Proctor and Huckaby take this initiative and the public swells to their support, Henry will have to decide what side of the street he is most comfortable walking.

Now, here’s how to end this oppressive nonsense of the working majority.

1. Proctor and Huckaby need to seek to place on the agenda an item (or items) of business to revoke all current policies, procedures, and practices outlined in any official document (policy book, procedures manual, school board procedures manual, et al) of Katy I.S.D. that requires three members of the board to place an item on the agenda.  Any one member of the board (let’s remember that this board member was elected by the people to get there) should be allowed to place an item on the agenda of a school board meeting.
2. Proctor and Huckaby need to seek to place on the agenda an item (or items) of business to revoke all current policies, procedures, and practices outlined in any official document (policy book, procedures manual, school board procedures manual, et al) of Katy I.S.D. that restrict the ability of an individual board member to in terms of the numbers of questions or the time limits on questions each are permitted during the course of an official workshop or board meeting.
3. If Proctor and Huckaby are rebuffed by the other members of the board in getting a third member to help place these items on the agenda, then they should declare a public policy war on the board’s working majority by taking these actions:
   1. At the next board meeting at which the item they sought would have been on the agenda but is not, they need to sign up during the public comment section of the board meeting.  They need to step down from the board table; resume their roles as private citizens; and address the remainder of the board during the public comment section. When they are finished with their comments, they go right back up to the board table. Such a powerful action will command the public’s attention in a way that has never been done in this community.
   2. Their request to have these items on the agenda of the “next meeting” should come well in advance of the the deadline for agenda posting while informing the superintendent that they are prepared to take the measure public in time to force the other board members and the superintendent to relent.
   3. If the time deadline for the other board members or the board president or the superintendent to agree to placing the item on the agenda comes and goes, Proctor and Huckaby should issue press releases or press statements asking the citizens of Katy to pack the meeting at which they plan to do Number 1 above.

This game of oppressive tactics used by the current working majority of the school board and the superintendent must end.

What Proctor and Huckaby seemed dedicated to accomplishing is creating a sea change in the manner by which the board operates and the superintendent and his team are held accountable. Reformers have been griping about this oppressive squelching of public input for about a decade, perhaps more. It’s time to end it.

It is time to force Cheerleader in Chief Rebecca Fox, Defender of the Status Quo in Chief Joe Adams, and lackey Neal Howard to vote in public to protect this policy of de facto government censorship.  It’s time to force Henry Dibrell to decisively choose on what side of the street he wants to walk.  And Robert Shaw is still in our prayers.

One final point.  Any idea advanced by Frailey or his puppets on the board that this would create chaos at the board table are categorically false.

Importantly, the board’s majority can use parliamentary procedures to table an item on the agenda or end discussions on a particular item. The difference?  If Frailey and his puppets decide they want to reject an item for consideration that has been placed on the agenda by one board member, the board can invoke parliamentary rules.

If Frailey and his puppets decide they have heard enough debate on a given subject, the board can invoke parliamentary rules.

However, what they won’t have is the luxury of private, back door veto of public policy debate.  They’ll have to vote in public.  Let Neal Howard take his opposition to this to the voters in May.

This document is not ‘light reading.’

The subject of public education is too important for the acquiescent acceptance of the status quo to continue. It is true that the emotions that can attach to the subjects can be intense. However, there has never been a time in our community’s (or the nation’s) development that the need to face important issues with courage and strength of purpose to do what is right has been more needed.

It should be stated as often as is necessary to make sure that those who read this document do not question my motivation when it comes to public education in Katy I.S.D.

Outstanding classroom teachers are delivering outstanding instruction to tens of thousands of students every school day. Many of our graduates go on to achieve extraordinary accomplishments in their future educational endeavors as well as in the workforce. As a community, we are rightfully proud of our classroom teachers and of our students.

Compared to the majority of other schools districts in Texas, we take pride in having one of best.

That’s just a part of the story – the part that those who defend the status quo want you to see. However, the truth is that the standards of accountability in Texas are substandard. The Texas Education Agency has established politically correct standards that allow very low performing school districts such as Houston I.S.D. and Dallas I.S.D. (and many hundreds more throughout Texas) to maintain acceptable ratings in order to maintain support for the institution and profess compliance with Constitutional standards of academic equity.

This is a common situation throughout the 50 states of the United States. Thus, the truth is that there is no active and operational standard (NAEP notwithstanding) of comparing school districts in which Katy I.S.D. would not rank near the top. The standards of accountability have been compromised.

In truth, the extraordinary levels of excellence that do exist in Katy I.S.D. help ‘wash away’ or ‘average out’ the genuine deficiencies that exist.

That is harsh reality. Nonetheless, it is reality.

Our high comparison to other districts based upon these comprised state standards cannot disguise the reality that public education in general and Katy I.S.D. in particular have undergone tremendous changes over the past many years. Many of these changes have dramatically hurt the quality of the public education system.

While we all take pride in Katy I.S.D., it is unrealistic to believe that the political-correctness pressures along with financial and academic accountability compromises that our political leaders, educational and corporate lobbyists, and powerful vested interests have forced upon and into the system have passed by Katy I.S.D. leaving our district immune from the turmoil and general decline of the system itself.

The challenge that confronts all of us is four-fold:

• Do we choose to just focus on that portion of our school district that still symbolizes genuine excellence?
• Do we choose to ignore the signs all around us of deep and systemic problems that have been building for more than a decade?
• Do we choose to confront reality with the integrity to understand the degree to which the reputation of the overall quality of education in our district is coasting on the performance of fewer and fewer?
• Do we choose to take the time to consider hard facts, tough analysis, and mounds and mounds of actual data as the foundation of restoring management integrity to our central administration and school board that has played such a significant role in enabling the problems we face to go unaddressed?

There is no magic wand to wave here. The simple solutions were more simple 10 to 15 years ago when the problems were on the horizon. There were voices in the past that waved the red flags of concern.

Then, image and ego shunted these concerns to the background.

Past school boards abandoned their responsibility to develop management accountability systems to hold administrators accountable for performance and the effectiveness of the programs they imposed upon the system.

As the professional associations such as the Texas Association of School Boards and the Texas Association of School Administrators grew in power and influence, so to did those that came to depend upon vast billions of dollars for their corporate profits.

Selected major law firms, major business groups, and literally hundreds of special “cottage industries” have grown rich and powerful in the budget allocations of public school finance. They help write the laws and regulations. They work to inhibit the rightful power of school boards. They elevate the status of superintendents with long term contracts and overly generous benefits. They help create and support artificially high salaries for top administrators that insulate them from economic realities.

On the day that most become superintendents in major or big suburban school districts like Katy I.S.D., they have a contract that actually requires their permission to hold them accountable in any meaningful sense. On the day these superintendents sign their first contracts, they have the equivalent of a golden parachute; they have the ‘keys’ to the administration; and schools boards that willingly come along for the ride.

This debilitating cycle must stop. Why?

Because once empowered without genuine standards of accountability, everybody else including property taxpayers, classroom teachers, parents, students, and others are along for the ride as well – second class citizens in a subservient position to an administration that has outsmarted and out-negotiated the elected leaders of the community.

And, that is exactly what has happened in Katy for the last 20 or more years.

Superintendents armed with multi-year contracts, golden parachutes, no meaningful accountability, and acquiescent school board members demand and get unquestioned loyalty from their administrative teams.

Programs flow from the superintendent’s cabinet through his willing administrators who depend upon the superintendent for their jobs to the campuses and classrooms like the Mississippi River flows to the Gulf of Mexico.

The administrative standard in a modern school district long ago stopped being accountability for performance. The primary standard is loyalty to the boss. If the boss wants to establish the Center of Truth, his team salutes. If the boss wants to focus on a mantra of “Truth North,” his team turns northward and salutes.

If the boss wants to emphasize the “Sternberg Triarchic Station” as a solution to significant curriculum deficiencies, the “Sternberg” sails on. If the boss changes his mind and decides the mantra of Professional Learning Community is the next “Pied Piper” solution to educational challenges, then “PLC” becomes the acronym of choice – the ‘magic beans’ de jour.

The modern superintendent of schools has turned teams of professional administrators into the equivalent of groupies capable of moving seamlessly from one boss to another when the cycle starts over. This cycle must stop.

Here are some facts about Katy I.S.D. and this report:

• The disparity of student academic performance is growing. There is great disparity in academic performance even at our higher performing high schools, and there is even greater disparity among our high schools.
• The central administration is imposing academic programs on classroom teachers for which there is no valid research demonstrating the effectiveness of improvement in student academic performance.
• The superintendent of schools is employed under a contract that has the equivalent of “cotton candy” standards of evaluation. That phrase also describes the accountability standards of his administrative team.
• The district’s classroom teachers are under siege by administrative mandates that do not serve the interests of our students, parents, and taxpayers. In many ways, the modern classroom has become an experimental ‘research and development’ department of vendors, consultants, and administrators looking to pad their resumes.
• The actual administrative costs of public education are grossly understated because of state law and the Texas Education Agency.
• The school board has willingly, voluntarily surrendered power it should have kept to allow a more robust debate about public education issues in the school district. That is not even the worst of it. Board majorities including Katy I.S.D.’s have passed ‘sledge-hammer’ policies specifically designed to keep independent, reform-minded school board members that do get elected under control.

This report is not pleasant reading. However, if the citizens of Katy are going to preserve the genuine excellence that still exists, it must deal with the reality that there are grave, serious problems than can only be resolved if the public demands that its school board re-establishes its rightful and legal authority to hold its administrators truly accountable.

Amidst all of the roadblocks that a powerful bureaucracy and its status-quo defenders have erected to keep the citizens ‘at bay’, classroom teachers in fear, and independent school board members muzzled, there is a real path to reform.

Armed with decades of experience in public policy research with a particular focus on public education accountability, my report seeks to engage the public in a serious effort of reform.

We can do this. We all can be successful.

Our classroom teachers need us more than ever. Our children’s future is at stake. The taxpayers deserve accountability.

The facts are on our side. Together, let’s continue what the voters of Katy I.S.D. started last May.

Three Guiding Principles Designed To Restore The Management Integrity of Katy I.S.D.

Katy I.S.D. still provides a superior quality of education to a significant percentage of its students as manifested by the post-graduate performance of high numbers of its graduates. We attribute this to several HISTORICAL factors:

• Parents of students in Katy I.S.D. value education and both expect and guide their children in the direction of strong performance.
• The classroom teachers of the district are among the best in the profession in Texas. Because Katy I.S.D. has been an iconic suburban school district, it has been able to attract and keep a highly professional staff. The taxpayers of the district have long supported a strong salary structure for classroom teachers.
• The taxpayers of Katy I.S.D. have long been willing to support the construction of outstanding facilities and aggressive maintenance for the upkeep of facilities.

Katy I.S.D. has already undergone dramatic changes that literally have eroded some of the historical strengths that have allowed the district to maintain uniformly high standards across the board.

• With rapid growth of students and campuses, the district has evolved from its historical strength of leadership at the campus level to a rigid, top-down, cookie-cutter, one philosophy fits all mentality at the central administration level.
• With this management evolution towards an old ‘Soviet-like’ central command structure, an over-dependence upon the power of the administration to impose its solutions on the campus level rather than depend upon the wisdom, experience, and practical knowledge of our classroom teachers has solidified.
• As the power of the central administration has flourished over the past 15 years or more due to this rush to centralized power, the practical influence of the elected Board of Trustees has diminished greatly. The historical relationship that once saw the elected school board as the ultimate protection of students, classroom teachers, parents, and taxpayers has eroded – too often voluntarily – into a sort of strategic defense initiative protecting the ever-advancing power of the central administration.
• With the growth of the power of the central administration and the reduced influence of the school board, there has been a vast increase in the arrogance of that central administration that manifests itself towards every sector of the Katy community. Unfortunately, the primary target of this growing arrogance is the professional staff of the district especially including classroom teachers.
• So significant is this shift in the power of the district, the quality of education provided to our students and the skill sets of our graduates are dropping. This drop is not a matter of opinion. It is a matter of provable fact documented not only in the state’s accountability system but in a wide range of independent academic data readily available to the administration and the school board.
• While it is unpleasant to note, it is a fact that one of the manifestations of both the arrogance and the power of the central administration is that it has chosen not to honestly communicate this full range of information to the parents and taxpayers of the district.
• Equally tragically, successive school boards over the last 20 years in particular have allowed their powerful central administrators the management ‘cover’ to both increase its unilateral power and reduce the flow of important information to parents and taxpayers.

The path to protecting our school district’s future quality from both the growth that is still coming and the rapidly changing student profile that is ongoing will not be available unless the appropriate power and influence of the school board is restored.

The objective standards of evaluating the performance and productivity of the superintendent of schools in this district are wholly inadequate to protect the decision-making process. Unless a new standard of contractual accountability is developed, the imbalance in power leaves the district in a classic ‘tail wagging the dog’ situation.

Until the school board develops a plan to communicate to the superintendent that the position is genuinely accountable to the elected board, the lack of management accountability will continue to infect the superintendent’s entire management team.

• Successive school boards have voluntarily surrendered their authority in critical ways:
• Successive boards have sharply restricted allowing electing members to bring items of business to the agenda of the board.
• Successive boards have sharply restricted debate among its members at board meetings.
• Successive boards have sharply restricted the ability of its members to question administrative officials on policy matters on the agenda of board meetings.
• Successive boards have refused to enact legally permissable practices at board meetings to encourage higher levels of participation by private citizens thus restricting the ability of private citizens to have meaningful and timely input into policy considerations.
• Successive boards have refused to demand significant informational reports from its administrators on important policy objectives choosing rather to accept carefully scripted, virtually canned presentations that avoid major issues of accountability.
• Successive boards have allowed major policy objectives to be implemented without any standards of objective accountability tied to performance measures in the contract of the superintendent of schools.
• Successive boards have allowed the superintendent of schools free reign in the standards by which other administrators have been held accountable for performance.

These are the three guiding principles of the specific strategies designed to change the current reality of the management of this district that will be noted in this report.

However, it is important to add an unequivocal statement of philosophy because the action plan suggested here could at least initially could be misconstrued by those who want to protect their status quo power at all costs. So, it should be very clear in this philosophical statement:

The quality of our classroom teachers in Katy I.S.D. is second to none in Texas. While this policy paper will be addressing business management and accountability issues, it will also address issues of curriculum accountability. The problems addressed in the arena of academic accountability ARE NOT criticisms of our classroom teachers.

Our classroom teachers are the victims of the worst kind of top-down management that prevent many of them from being the most effective teachers they could be due to absolutely no fault of their own.

The problems identified in this arena lie at the footsteps of a curriculum bureaucracy run amok supported by a central administration that has usurped too much power and enabled by a working school board majority too lazy and too unwilling to do what is necessary to control the bureaucracy and empower our top-flight classroom educators.

All efforts or statements misrepresenting this report as an attack on classroom teachers by those seeking to preserve their run-away power from genuine accountability or by the working board majority trying to justify their failed leadership will be gross misrepresentations at best and outright lies at worst.

Now, the rest of this position paper will outline components of an initial action plan, the reasons behind each of its objectives, and the goals the goals and objectives will accomplish. Under these three guiding principles, operational principles, specific goals, and enunciated strategies to achieve reform are also outlined.

The eight operational principles that are now enunciated involve the important concept of ACCOUNTABILITY and can also be simultaneously stated as specific objectives:

• Enhanced Accountability for the Superintendent of School.
• Enhanced Accountability for the management team of the Superintendent of Schools.
• Enhanced Accountability evaluating the program initiatives used by the district for the purported purpose of improving student academic performance.
• Enhanced Accountability ensuring that the members of the Katy I.S.D. school board are kept FULLY and TIMELY informed of all major financial developments affecting the operations of the district.
• Enhanced Accountability ensuring that the grievance procedures protecting classroom teachers from a de facto hostile work environment are reasonably and fairly effective for all concerned.
• Enhanced Accountability evaluating the performance of school board members in exercising their legitimate, lawful, and fiduciary responsibility ensuring that all issues of importance are appropriately and fully discussed in open session of the school board.
• Enhanced Accountability ensuring that members of the general public and the professional staff of Katy I.S.D. have full and meaningful opportunities to participate in the debate on major public initiatives of the district and the evaluation of programs that have been implemented.
• Enhanced Accountability ensuring equal educational opportunities and support for all the campuses of Katy I.S.D. while addressing disparity between North of I-10 campuses and ones on the South.

The bullet-points flow smoothly on a piece of paper. However, the real world we confront in public education is neither as neat nor clean an environment as is the real world of the status quo politics of public education in general and Katy I.S.D. in particular.

The broad principles and asserted goals represent a “sea-change” for the current status quo. They are more than bullet points on a piece of paper. Each represents a significant barrier to which the institutions of public education itself and those who are enriched by its generous billions of dollars will fight tooth and nail.

Enhanced Accountability For The Superintendent of Schools

The Katy I.S.D. School Board must re-assert its lawful authority to establish processes by which the superintendent of school is evaluated for performance.

This positions recognizes the reality that the “cows are out of the barn” for the most part in terms of the current superintendent of schools.

Even a casual reading of the superintendent’s contract documents with clarity the one-sided nature of the pact that makes it difficult to transition to higher standard of performance within the context of the existing, long-standing agreement.

The contract, however, clearly does provide ‘avenues’ to achieve higher standards of accountability. The fundamental flaw of the existing contract is that such higher standards of accountability cannot be arbitrarily included by the action of the board. The superintendent must VOLUNTARILY agree to higher standards of accountability.

The contract, however, does clearly provide the board with sole-discretion authority that could be used as negotiating leverage to transition to higher standards of accountability.

The superintendent’s current contract is multi-year. The contract allows the board at its discretion the authority to extend (or not extend) the current contract without cause. If the superintendent’s contract is not extended because the board chooses not to do so, the superintendent is still a contracted employee with the district for the remaining years of the contract.

Here are the actions that should be taken regarding the current contract of the Superintendent of Schools. The board should:

• Decline to extend the current contract: By taking this action (or non-action as the case might be), the board can begin the process of renewed negotiations with the superintendent for the purpose of adding accountability performance measures authorized by the contract in Sections 5.1, 5.2, and 5.3.
• If the superintendent refuses to engage in such negotiations, he can maintain his position under the terms of the existing contract. Failing to extend a contract IS NOT the same action as terminating a contract.

However, the failure to extend a contract would send a clear signal that the community has reached a conclusion that higher standards of accountability for the superintendent are justified.

It should be recognized that an individual board member has the constitutional authority as a private citizen to retain legal counsel to advise him in his individual capacity regarding matters of law that would assist the member to be a more effective school board member.

Given the fact that the Katy I.S.D. school board as currently comprised may not be willing to retain legal counsel other than the district’s current legal firm to advise it on transitioning to a new standard of accountability, it is highly likely that an individual member is going to need to consult personal legal counsel to become fully informed on this matter.

As needed, citizens of this community should be prepared to raise the necessary funds to pay such legal costs in a manner that is fully legal to help guide one or more individuals who happen to be members of the school board.

A failure to proceed on this objective will reduce the chances of long term success of management reform. For reform members of the board to go against the superintendent, acquiescent board members, and the superintendent’s attorney without professional legal help to guide them would be foolhardy.

Finally, in this regard, there will come a day when the district has a new superintendent. When that transition comes, the board will either be prepared to negotiate a contract that serves the interests of the community or it will follow in what has become the stereotypical, industry-standard process of contracts that put the superintendent in control of his evaluators.

Enhanced Accountability For The Superintendent’s “Team”

Public education is the primary ‘first step’ in helping the community come to an understanding of just how lax the evaluation standards of the superintendent’s management team have become over time.

Most members of the superintendent’s top management team have the benefit of two-year contracts.

As a matter of principle, it should be unacceptable that classroom teachers are micro-managed with elaborate processes (often irrelevant to the realities of the burden of classroom teaching) while two-year management employees operating under less stressful and demanding circumstances are evaluated on far more subjective terms.

Until the accountability measures of the superintendent’s contract are improved, there will be no improvement in the standards of evaluation of his management team. However, here are the first steps in a longer process that must be pursued:

To facilitate a more detailed understanding of the need for this objective, a public information request has been submitted to Katy I.S.D. so that the general public can have access to information to help it put this issue in context.

Enhanced Accountability For Program Initiatives

The school district’s superintendent and management team routinely launch one program initiative after another under the guise of improving student academic performance. Unfortunately, successive school boards in the district have remained acquiescently silent in their determination to evaluate the effectiveness of these programs.

Further, the district has created positions called “Instructional Specialists.” These instructional specialists work with classroom teachers for the stated purpose of improving the delivery of instruction. Once again, there does not appear to be any objective standard that evaluates the effectiveness of this significant expenditure of money in a manner that directly affects the work environment of classroom teachers.

There are two parts to this operational principle: the first is program initiatives and the second involves those programs which directly intrude into the operational authority of the classroom teacher.

First:

The general public should understand that literally tens of millions of dollars in direct and resource-allocation pay for these program initiatives without ever answering the questions:

• Is there blind-study, empirical research to validate why these various programs should be used in Katy I.S.D.?
• Is there blind-study, empirical research to validate that these programs have demonstrably improved student academic performance in Katy I.S.D. student directly attributable to the implemented programs?
• What reports have been provided to past school boards purporting to show that any such program initiatives have improved student academic performance in Katy I.S.D. students?

While it is not feasible to retroactively require the school district to create reports validating the kind of information that the public is entitled to see for past efforts, it is essential that the district be required to produce such reports if they exist. Moreover, as the process of reform unfolds, it is absolutely essential to establish the fact circumstances about the rigor of accountability standards that are used to evaluate program initiatives designed to improve student academic performance.

To facilitate a higher level of public understanding, a public information request has been submitted to seek relevant information in the category.

Second:

The district allocates millions of dollars in staffing the position of “instructional specialist” under the guise of improving the performance of classroom teachers and student academic performance. Some classroom teachers who have addressed this matter privately express strong assessment of the actual productivity of the position of instructional specialists.

It is important for the school board to obtain objective analysis of the effectiveness of all taxpayer money that is spent. However, past school boards have routinely failed to demand reports providing independent analysis of programs such as those that created the position of instructional specialist.

Again, it is essential to use the Public Information Act to acquire factual data. Such a request has been submitted seeking the following information:

• The names of each employee who serves as an instructional specialist in Katy I.S.D.
• The subject/grade/curriculum content area of each instructional specialist.
• The assignment of campus(es) at which each instructional specialist works.
• Blank copies of all written instruments used to define the standards by which each instructional specialist is evaluated.
• Documentation showing the last year, grade, and campus assignment at which each instructional specialist served as a fulltime classroom teacher.

This is the starting point that classroom teachers, parents, and taxpayers have a reasonable right to expect members of the school board demand be accumulated for review and analysis.

Enhanced Accountability for Budget & Finance And Contracts

The worst of the trauma that surrounded last year’s budget crisis was essentially unnecessary. The school board could have made it vastly more orderly even though it was admittedly a stressful situation by it very nature. It came because the school administration was a poor communicator of the actual financial challenges confronting the district. Further, the school board members lack sufficient insight into these issues to provide leadership to the community and the staff that was essentially traumatized by the helter-skelter nature of what transpired.

Thus, school board members must become more knowledgeable about finances and contracts.

The recent discussions and actions by the administration regarding the proposed private contract involving the collection of delinquent and current taxes is a prime example. Two board members – Dr. Bill Proctor and Terry Huckaby – have at least blocked the ‘rubber stamp’ nature of the matter. The whole episode, regardless of its conclusion, points out the importance of the need for school board members to go beyond the superficial components of administrative recommendations.

Enhanced Accountability For Classroom Teachers’ Grievance Process

Serious concerns have been raised in the community regarding the treatment of professional staff especially including classroom teachers. There are distinct laws in place that protect the work environment of classroom teachers. In a right to work state such as Texas, these protections should not be confused with stories that often come from heavily unionized states that often make national publicity.

The school board should demand its administration produce a comprehensive statistical report providing an analysis of the kinds of grievances filed by classroom teachers the results that such grievances have produced. That alone, however, will be insufficient to evaluate the integrity of the due process afforded classroom teachers.

The school board should retain the services of an independent consulting firm or panel of independent experts to perform additional analysis including fully protected and confidential access to classroom teachers to gain their insights into the grievance process. This could include analysis of levels of intimidation that may be present encouraging teachers to refrain from using the grievance process.

Enhanced Public Accountability For School Board & Its Members

Successive school boards have voted to enact policies sharply curtailing the ability for individual members of the board to show leadership on issues they believe important to the public. Thus, the first step in restoring the board’s ability to hold its superintendent accountable begins with removing the handcuffs from the individual board members. Consequently, the board should:

• Allow a single member of the school board to place an item on the board’s agenda
• Remove all references in policies and procedures that restrict the ability of individual board members to have full opportunity to question administrators and ‘witnesses’ at school board meetings or workshops.

The protection from abuse here is quite simple. By allowing individual board members direct access to placing agenda items, board members can more easily focus public attention on issues of important. It should be noted that parliamentary procedures would still allow the majority of the school board to table or end debate on any issue by a formal record vote. As it is now, matters do not get to the board table and no board member has to go on the record to explain why.

As early as February, the school board should schedule a special meeting for the specific purpose of obtaining public input into at least one or more specific items:

• Standards by which the public believes the superintendent of schools should be evaluated as terms of his contract.
• Should school district administrators still be requires as a district policy to be notified within 45 days of the end of the school year as to whether their contracts will be renewed?
• Standards by which staff development training and program initiatives should be evaluated.

The board should use this special meeting as a template to develop the process more thoroughly and regularly to obtain direct public input rather than be so heavily dependent upon administrative-led committees that are carefully picked.

These changes would send a strong signal of the board’s decision to restore its rightful authority in this district.

Enhanced Accountability For Public, Staff Input Into Public Policy

The process by which the general public can communicate with the school board on agenda items at school board meetings must be expanded in compliance with the open meetings laws. As necessary, the school board should seek an attorney general’s opinion on the following matter although there is no reason ‘on the surface’ to believe the practice suggested here is contrary to the law.

Be assured that this passage is written by a person who is not an attorney and it is not submitted as legal advice. That’s the reason that should there be any doubt, the matter should be referred to the Attorney General of Texas.

On the surface, the Open Meetings Act requires the posting of specific items of business on the agenda of the school board consistent with posting requirements. The law does not apparently require that every individual who will address that item of business that is lawfully posted be included in the formal agenda.

It is common practice that various administrators or district consultants will be called to the podium or witness desk to discuss such items that have been posted. That is common practice.

Thus, there is no reason (at least on the surface) that an individual school board member should not be able to call his own expert witness or member of the public to answer his questions on any lawfully posted item on the agenda.

Right now, the public is consigned to the public presentation part of the meeting at which interaction between the board and the citizens is highly restricted. It does not appear that the law demands that this is the ONLY time that a citizen can address the school board.

If the administration can call X to the witness stand to discuss any item of business then the administration should have to go to the Attorney General of Texas to block a school board member calling Y to the witness stand even if Y was a private citizen.

This process alone would absolutely send a message to the administration that the board of trustees will no longer be muzzled. This is a ’sea change’ suggestion that will open up the process greatly.

Enhanced Accountability For Equal Educational Opportunities

There should be a great concern about educational and academic developments on the schools on the north and south sides of Interstate 10. Much of this position paper addresses issues academic accountability. This is the one component of The Path Forward document that will be mentioned here but developed more fully over time.