After Diversion Into KISD Administrative Arrogance & Puppet Board Majority, We’ll Return To Columns For Substantive Issues Of Reform, Academics, & Instructional Integrity
February 4, 2012 by George
Filed under George's Blog
Excluding the inconsequential private ramblings and meanderings of Commander in Chief Alton Frailey and his Katy I.S.D.’s Center of Truth’s gang of administrative groupies and board protectors, even my genuine harshest critics should privately acknowledge that my website sets a high standard for including facts and data with my analysis.
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:
- The inherent and prolonged lack of integrity in the accountability testing movement that has now entered its fourth decade in Texas.
- 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.
Texas Education Agency, Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, Texas Legislature, & Your School District Could Tell You With Great Precision How The Graduates Of Your High Schools Perform In College; You Should Consider The Meaning Of Governments That Could But Won’t Reveal
Imagine yourself as a keen fan of horse racing eagerly watching television coverage of the big race to see how your favorite horse (and bet) turned out.
“Ladies and gentlemen, the big field is at the starting gate including the odds on choice to take this race Tomorrow’s Favorite. However, it’s a promising field in which the world’s top jockey is aboard long shot Yesterday’s Fade. Anything is possible here as we are just seconds from the start. Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes our coverage of today’s big race and we hope to see you next year when we start over with another great field…”
Or, imagine the coverage of the big race going just a little deeper.
“And they are off. As expected Tomorrow’s Favorite has bolted from the pole position and leads a group of about 35% of the field in a tightly bunched group of today’s favorites as they reach the first turn. Trailing the leaders is another group of about 30% of the field and lagging far behind the leaders are that part of the field that seems to be having a bad race but anything is possible so let’s watch as the race develops. Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes our coverage of today’s big race. Please join us next year when we cover this great race through the first turn…”
There’s no question that you would recognize this as insanely stupid television coverage of a horse race. The cameras are there; the announcers are in place; the race has begun; and the television producers don’t tell you how it turned out.
At a minimum, your reaction would be something of the magnitude of “What fools and idiots are running this show?”
And it’s just a damned horse race. Now consider the real world situation involving your children.
The Texas Education Agency (TEA) and The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (THECB) could work together to produce the definitive record and analysis of just how the graduates of the high schools in the State of Texas perform in terms of graduation and dropout rates, kinds of degrees, colleges of enrollment, and other vital information of quality control the kinds of which any private sector, multi-billion dollar corporation would take for granted.
They have the data. Everything is in place. It’s not a question of can it be done.
The TEA and the THECB won’t do that. Moreover, their acquiescent bosses in the Texas Legislature will not force them to do so.
Your local Katy I.S.D.’s administrators could obtain such definitive analysis as well for our little slice of the world here in Katy. But, they won’t do it. Moreover, their bosses on the Katy I.S.D. School Board will not require its administration to produce this oh-so-logical quality control data.
Rather, the powers to be in the State of Texas produce two reports: one shows your kids at the starting block of college and the second report shows a slice of the data about your kids at the first turn.
Yet, do you ask: “What kind of fools and idiots are running this show?”
The answer here is they are not idiots or fools in that sense. The powers to be have made a strategical decision to cover up information that you need to be full and meaningful partners in your children’s education.
The three institutions (the THECB, the TEA, and your school district) combined share the common denominator of a desire to keep you out of the loop of important quality control information to which they do not want parents and taxpayers to have access.
Why? It is because the political heat such raw-data truth would generate would burn them politically while exposing the underlying corruption that has infested the public and now higher education systems in Texas.
Why? Together, your school board and your school district administrators and your state officials are joint-venture partners in a de facto conspiracy to keep you from having access to this data because it would destroy the carefully constructed façade the corrupt academic accountability system in Texas projects.
In the above paragraphs, you have what my few friends and many critics might say is the best and worst of me personally and my George Scott Reports. The statements of fact are facts - irrefutable facts. Few people ever step forward to challenge me on facts.
All the parties referenced COULD DO what I have written but HAVE NOT DONE what I have written. The disparaging remarks about the people who run these institutions is unforgiving and it is harshly judgmental and it will never be different. The scope of the deception is sinister and pervasive and those that foster it or doing the devil’s work even if they are personally and otherwise good people.
Here’s your choice. You can focus on the facts; help save your children’s academic futures; or you can ignore the facts while criticizing me (or turning me off) for having written it. Be advised that I am going to put my readers in this situation of choice many times over the next weeks and few months.
Here’s the unblemished truth. Too many of you taxpayers and parents are trusting government to tell you the truth when the very DNA of government is to withhold as much truth as it possibly can. You cannot control the State of Texas (TEA, THECB, and the Texas Legislature) as easily as you can control the actions of your school board.
In May you are going to have a choice to return incumbents or their ‘heir-apparents’ and administrative-preferred candidates to the school board. Or, you’ll have a chance to give Dr. Bill Proctor and Terry Huckaby reinforcements from their election last May. My goal is to give you information you need over the next weeks and months to help you make a knowledgeable choice that future reform requires: reinforcements for Proctor and Huckaby.
Today, we begin writing about college preparation and performance of your high school graduates to the degree that restricted information made available by the State of Texas and your school district permits.
Today in the “Academics” section of George Scott Reports I have published the most currently available data showing how the high school to college linkage data published by the THECB for the Katy I.S.D.’s high schools. I have a separate post for each high school in the district. Within each post are two distinct reports that show the following:
1. The colleges or universities of enrollment for spring graduates from each Katy I.S.D. high school in the fall after their graduation. (Where do our kids go to college? (With this report, I have merged and presented another THECB report that shows the 6-year graduation rates for the colleges or universities NOT the students from Katy I.S.D.)
2. A distribution of the Grade Point Averages for students from each high school disaggregated by four year universities and two-year community colleges. (This report varies from the first report because it includes students who enrolled in a Texas college or university in any semester (not just the fall) during the academic year after high school graduation.)
These reports are like the opening analogies. They give you and us information. But if you want to know ‘how the horse race ends’ or the graduates of your high schools consistently perform, you are going to have to elect a school board that believes you deserve it.
Here are direct links to the high schools of Katy I.S.D. showing patterns of college enrollment and GPA performance in the first year after high school graduation.
It Is Time For Good People To Stop Watching In Silence As Government Bureaucrats And Private Vendors & Consultants Enrich Themselves Professionally & Financially As The Public Education System Implodes In A Sea Of Academic Corruption
January 6, 2012 by George
Filed under Featured Posts, George's Blog
My primary thesis regarding the public education system is that it has evolved into a state of pervasive academic corruption that has essentially destroyed the integrity involved in the delivery of instruction to an ever-increasing majority of students in the State of Texas.
Further, my thesis asserts that intellectually dishonest public school administrators, corrupt private corporations including a wide range of education service companies and consultants, and intellectually lazy elected public officials including members of the Texas Legislature and schools boards across Texas are all philosophically and operationally guilty of imposing this great travesty and tragedy on the public school system.
Many if not most of my critics want to hold me guilty for using such judgmental language to describe the situation and the people I hold accountable. The problem that my critics have is two-fold:
My assessment is factually accurate and is supported by mountains of empirical data.
The professional people who have engineered this system know it to be true while maneuvering the twits of both major parties in the Legislature and on school boards to protect their professional standing and their cash flow generated in the public treasury.
I have for many years offered to participate in a Lincoln-Douglas, cross-examination debate (one on one) on the subject of my thesis with public school officials (in Katy and elsewhere), university level academicians and statisticians, school board members, and representatives of private corporations who profit in the public educational industrial complex.
These folks do not refuse to debate me because I have an uncompromising personality or because I have a unique rhetorical style that expresses big ideas with force.
They refuse to debate me because they do not want to expose their financial and professional nest eggs constructed on a foundation of intellectual dishonesty to a withering attack based upon empirical evidence and uncompromising analysis - especially with a video camera recording us.
They refuse to debate because many do not want to pit the reputations of their soft doctorates or their professional standing and reputation to someone who is insulated from their sphere of influence and knows more about the subject of public education accountability than they do.
Joe Adams, for instance, is one of the most experienced school board members in Texas now having served in that capacity for a couple of decades. His name will be carved at some point in time on some school building in this district in honor of his service.
A good man as far as I know, he is (on the subject of public education accountability) an intellectual parasite (see what I mean about my rhetorical style) who essentially knows what the public education system’s professional bureaucrats and sycophants want him to know.
If there is one school board member in the State of Texas who should be prepared to accept a Lincoln-Douglas, cross-examination debate with me on the subject of public education accountability, it is Joe Adams. Not in a thousand years…
Katy I.S.D. Superintendent Alton Frailey is one of the highest paid superintendents in Texas. He has been a professional educator his entire adult life. He actually declared his administration the “Center of Truth” on matters of public education in the community of Katy.
If there is one superintendent in the State of Texas who should be prepared to accept a Lincoln-Douglas, cross-examination debate with me, it is Alton Frailey. Not in a thousand years and may I add, “Pluck, pluck, pluck, pluck…”
My conclusion is that these are two among thousands who would rather choke in a raw oyster speed-eating competition than confront me in a debate on the subject of public education accountability and the roles they have played in it.
About a year ago, a major university academician who read a few of my columns wrote something that was meant to be very insulting. He concluded with an admonition of sorts that he was going to use some of my columns that attracted his attention in teaching students in his classes how not to analyze subjects.
He apparently thought that because he was a university professor and I was a blogger that I would wilt before him. It didn’t take long to disabuse him of that notion.
After I responded to his specific criticisms which were for the most part baseless, I challenged his manhood by writing something to the effect that what he would not do would be to conduct a debate with me on the specific subjects in front of his students in his classroom.
If there was one professor in the State of Texas who should have accepted my invitation to a debate, it was this professor. However, no professor of graduate students wants to be humiliated in front of them. However, to a professor who says he values academic freedom, the concept could not be extended to his students to hear something other than his company line.
There is a brutal truth that I have long accepted that many do not want to accept or will never accept.
The professionals and corporations and academicians and consultants who are empowered and often enriched by what the system has become do not want to risk the power, wealth, and influence that it has bestowed upon them.
Over the course of the next four months, I am going to write things that I have not put to paper before. And for those of you who read my column, you have a choice. You can use what I write as the foundation of fueling your own personal research on behalf of your children or you can ignore it.
I will not temper my language or my analysis to put this into soothing, compromising terms. What has happened and what is continuing to develop is an unmitigated tragedy for one of the historically great institutions that powered over two American centuries of prosperity and freedom.
That system of public education helped create and sustain the American society - the greatest in the history of humanity and the greatest to inhabit the earth.
It helped create a nation of people who have done more good for more people than any nation in the history of humanity. That system of public education created a society thirsty for knowledge that empowered the world with scientific progress, social justice, and respect for the human condition.
However, that same system of public education has now been compromised to the point that it is turning on its very soul threatening all that it touches including the very future of our civilization.
And good people are watching in silence…
Taylor High School - College Enrollment & First Year Peformance Indicators
A significantly higher percentage of 2010 Taylor High School graduates enrolled in the fall after their high school graduation in four-year universities in Texas than attended the state’s two-year colleges, according to data released by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (THECB).
The same report notes that the percentage of THS students who could not be found or tracked as having enrolled in a Texas college or university was 31% for the graduating class of 2002 and 34% for the 2010 graduating class. The high point was 38% for 2008 graduates. It can also be reasonably assumed based upon independent profiles of SAT scores of THS graduates that a higher percentage of students have enrolled in elite out-of-state colleges or universities although a precise figure is not available.
Here are direct links to the high schools of Katy I.S.D.
Heres’ link to column on THECB and TEA could tell all the truth
Further, in a separate but most current report available on academic performance in higher education, the THECB reports 59.5% of the 2009 graduating class of SLHS attending four-year universities in Texas had a grade point average (GPA) of greater than 3.0 while 21.9% of these graduates had a GPA of less than 2.5.
The descriptions of the tables noted later are an integral part of understanding this column. Sorry. But this series takes some effort upon the part of the readers.
Of the 2009 graduating class members who enrolled in the state’s two-year colleges, 46% had a GPA of more than 3.0 while 37.6% were below 2.5. The enrollment numbers and reported GPAs for THS graduates are shown in the two tables that accompany this report.
Some 20% of THS graduates in 2002 enrolled in community colleges while 49% enrolled in a university. In the 2010 graduating class, 41% enrolled in four-year universities while 24% enrolled in community colleges.
The largest block of 2010 THS’ graduates enrolled in Houston Community College (66). THECB most recent report shows that only 12.3% of HCCS’ students earn a four-year degree within six years.
The high school’s graduates also enrolled in Lone Star College Cy-Fair and Blinn Junior College.
Here are some other points of interest generated by the two tables:
· The number of THS 2002 graduates who attended either the University of Texas or Texas A&M University was 107. In 2010, that number was a combined 74.
· Within the above combination, it should be noted that 72 THS graduates from 2002 attended UT while 40 did so in 2010. 35 THS’ graduates from 2002 attended Texas A&M while 34 did in 2010 so it is clear that the drop in enrollment at UT is significant. Further, there was a lower number of graduates in 2002 than there were in 2010.
· Importantly, there were more four-year universities that attracted five or more THS graduates in 2002 than in 2010.
DESCRIPTIONS OF TABLES:
BOTH TABLES:
· Neither of the tables presented here given any information on whether the students are part-time or full time students. If a student enrolled in a community college or university, it counts as enrollment. It doesn’t matter whether it was for 3 hours at a community college or 18 hours at either a community college or university.
· The numbers shown in these tables here are snapshots. The THECB does not produce any longitudinal report showing graduation rates by high school (at least publicly). The industry-standard evaluation cycle is six-years from initial enrollment. The high GPAs in this report do not automatically translate to graduation nor do the lower GPAs automatically translate to dropouts. Inferences can be drawn but conclusions of certitude cannot be reached on the basis of these tables ALONE.
· Having said that, these tables do begin to provide valuable insight that experienced researchers can use in conjunction with other information to express genuine ‘alarm bells’ about what’s happening.
FIRST TABLE:
· The number of THS graduates from 2009 and 2010 graduating classes who enrolled in specific two-year or four-year universities IN THE FALL AFTER HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATION if the number of graduates enrolling were five or more.
· The columns “2-Year Degree and 4-Year Degree” refer to the GRADUATION RATES of the universities – NOT the THS students. For instance, the THECB reports that the 6.7% of all enrolling freshman at Blinn Junior College get a two-year degree within 6 years of enrollment. Further, it reports that 29.1% of all enrolling freshmen transfer and eventually earn a four-year degree from a Texas university.
· If fewer than five graduates attended a particular college or university, those numbers would be lumped into the categories of “Other 2-Year” or “Other 4-Year” in compliance with federal privacy laws.
· The portion of the table at the bottom left summarizes the college enrollment patterns for THS by providing the total number of students not found or not trackable in Texas, the total number enrolled in two-year colleges, the total number enrolled in four-year colleges, and the total number of graduates for that academic year.
· The portion of the table at the bottom right provides a historical track of the three most recent years available and the base year of 2001-02 so that recent trend lines can be observed.
· This THECB table is for students who enrolled in a Texas college or university in the first fall AFTER high school graduation. Thus, it does not include students who enrolled in out of state colleges or universities.
SECOND TABLE:
This table shows a disaggregation of the GPAs of THS graduates in two-year and four-year universities in Texas. There are important differences in this table than from the first table that explain slight differences in students reported as “Not Found” or “Not Trackable” in the first table. These differences include the following:
· Data in this table includes all students from THS who enrolled in a Texas college or university at anytime during the complete academic year AFTER their high school graduation.
· Thus, it would report the GPAs of students who enrolled in a college or university in the spring semester. This could include students who initially enrolled in out of state colleges in the first semester but returned to Texas in the second semester. It could include students who deferred college enrollment until the spring semester for whatever reason.
Thus, this report captures a slightly bigger ‘universe’ of the THS graduating class.
Seven Lakes High School - College Enrollment & First Year Performance Indicators
A significantly higher percentage of 2010 Seven Lakes High School graduates enrolled in the fall after their high school graduation in four-year universities in Texas than attended the state’s two-year colleges, according to data released by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (THECB).
The same report notes that the percentage of SLHS students who could not be found or tracked as having enrolled in a Texas college or university has consistently been in the 36% to 38% range since the 2008 graduating class. It can also be reasonably assumed based upon independent profiles of SAT scores of SLHS graduates that a higher percentage of students have enrolled in elite out-of-state colleges or universities although a precise figure is not available.
Here are direct links to the high schools of Katy I.S.D.
Further, in a separate but most current report available on academic performance in higher education, the THECB reports that 54.1% of the 2009 graduating class of SLHS attending universities in Texas had a grade point average (GPA) of greater than 3.0 while 28.7% of these graduates had a GPA of less than 2.5.
The descriptions of the tables noted later are an integral part of understanding this column. Sorry. But this series takes some effort upon the part of the readers. The description of tables is published after the tables themselves.
Of the 2009 graduating class members who enrolled in the state’s two-year colleges, 43.8% had a GPA of more than 3.0 while 33.2% were below 2.5. The enrollment numbers and reported GPAs for SLHS graduates are shown in the two tables that accompany this report.
Some 20% of SLHS’ graduates in 2008 enrolled in community colleges while 42% enrolled in a university. In the 2010 graduating class, 42% enrolled in four-year universities while 20% enrolled in community colleges.
The largest block of 2010 SLHS’ graduates enrolled in Houston Community College (66). THECB most recent report shows that only 12.3% of HCCS’ students earn a four-year degree within six years.
The high school’s graduates also enrolled in Lone Star College Cy-Fair, Blinn Junior College, and Wharton County Junior College
Here are some other points of interest generated by the two tables:
· 77 MCHS’ graduates in the class of 2010 attended the University of Texas or Texas A&M University with 50 enrolling in A&M and 27 at UT.
· Enrollment at the University of Houston central campus was 52 for the 2010 graduates, up significantly from even the 2009 graduating class.
· 31 SLHS’ 2010 graduates attended the University of Texas at San Antonio.
DESCRIPTIONS OF TABLES:
BOTH TABLES:
· Neither of the tables presented here given any information on whether the students are part-time or full time students. If a student enrolled in a community college or university, it counts as enrollment. It doesn’t matter whether it was for 3 hours at a community college or 18 hours at either a community college or university.
· The numbers shown in these tables here are snapshots. The THECB does not produce any longitudinal report showing graduation rates by high school (at least publicly). The industry-standard evaluation cycle is six-years from initial enrollment. The high GPAs in this report do not automatically translate to graduation nor do the lower GPAs automatically translate to dropouts. Inferences can be drawn but conclusions of certitude cannot be reached on the basis of these tables ALONE.
· Having said that, these tables do begin to provide valuable insight that experienced researchers can use in conjunction with other information to express genuine ‘alarm bells’ about what’s happening.
FIRST TABLE:
· The number of SLHS graduates from 2009 and 2010 graduating classes who enrolled in specific two-year or four-year universities IN THE FALL AFTER HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATION if the number of graduates enrolling were five or more.
· The columns “2-Year Degree and 4-Year Degree” refer to the GRADUATION RATES of the universities – NOT the SLHS students. For instance, the THECB reports that the 6.7% of all enrolling freshman at Blinn Junior College get a two-year degree within 6 years of enrollment. Further, it reports that 29.1% of all enrolling freshmen transfer and eventually earn a four-year degree from a Texas university.
· If fewer than five graduates attended a particular college or university, those numbers would be lumped into the categories of “Other 2-Year” or “Other 4-Year” in compliance with federal privacy laws.
· The portion of the table at the bottom left summarizes the college enrollment patterns for SLHS by providing the total number of students not found or not trackable in Texas, the total number enrolled in two-year colleges, the total number enrolled in four-year colleges, and the total number of graduates for that academic year.
· The portion of the table at the bottom right provides a historical track of the three most recent years available and the base year of 2001-02 so that recent trend lines can be observed.
· This THECB table is for students who enrolled in a Texas college or university in the first fall AFTER high school graduation. Thus, it does not include students who enrolled in out of state colleges or universities.
SECOND TABLE:
This table shows a disaggregation of the GPAs of SLHS graduates in two-year and four-year universities in Texas. There are important differences in this table than from the first table that explain slight differences in students reported as “Not Found” or “Not Trackable” in the first table. These differences include the following:
· Data in this table includes all students from SLHS who enrolled in a Texas college or university at anytime during the complete academic year AFTER their high school graduation.
· Thus, it would report the GPAs of students who enrolled in a college or university in the spring semester. This could include students who initially enrolled in out of state colleges in the first semester but returned to Texas in the second semester. It could include students who deferred college enrollment until the spring semester for whatever reason.
Thus, this report captures a slightly bigger ‘universe’ of the SLHS graduating class.
Where’s A Good Place To Start In Evaluating The Preparation Of High School Graduates?: The Colleges Or Universities They Attend And The Graduation Rates Of Those Institutions; Except For Actual Longitudinal Data, There’s No Perfect Answer, But Snapshots Help Provide Insight For Parents
May 21, 2011 by George
Filed under Academics, Featured Posts
Those wanting to understand the issues involved with the evaluation of the college readiness of a particular high school’s or district’s graduates should understand there is no single report produced by the State of Texas that gives them a definitive, across-the-board answer. It is as if the State of Texas does not want to give parents that answer.
So, in typical fashion, Texas produces multiple reports from the Texas Education Agency and the Higher Education Coordinating Board that appear to answer the question but most often leave gaping holes big enough as the saying goes to drive a Mack truck through. Whether by design or default, Texas has decided that would be too much information to entrust with parents.
Yet, there are snapshot reports that when combined with other data help give important insights into trying to figure this out. To be fair, some of the state’s reports will clearly document how bad a track record some high schools have in producing college-ready graduates. In truth, one would hardly need a state report to presume such a conclusion. But other snapshot reports leave the issue much more muddled for so-called middle and higher achieving high schools.
This first column will serve two particular purposes. One will be to outline some themes or issues that will be addressed overall. The second will be to produce the first of two tables that will introduce the overall subject.
I am going to spend a few columns addressing these issues. Then I am going to publish some videotaped interview segments with Dr. Omar Lopez, a former official with the Texas Education Agency (TEA) and the Higher Education Coordinating Board (THECB) who is now on tenure track as a professor at Texas State University. Dr. Lopez is an extraordinary individual who earned his MBA and worked in the private sector before entering the field of education.
If you will invest some time in this fairly brief series of columns and videos, I think you’ll come out the other end with an appreciation of what needs to be done in terms of report development and communications to give parents definitive answers about this important issue. There is zero doubt that if a district such as Katy I.S.D. wanted to provide definitive information to parents here, it could do so with a relatively small financial outlay.
Let me make some bullet points. Then we will look today at the first two of quite a number of tables that will be presented in this overall series.
- The college-readiness indicators published in the TEA’s Academic Excellence Indicator System are useless for analytical purposes. Don’t waste your time on them. I am not even going to include them in this series.
- The best data to answer the question about the preparation of high school graduates is actual longitudinal data tracking the graduates of successive graduation classes in colleges or universities.
- I have such a longitudinal track for the high school graduates of every high school in Texas including Katy I.S.D. who enrolled in the University of Texas at Austin between 1999 and 20004. I will republish the results of that study at the end of this series. I make this point to emphasize that if a private citizen can get this data, then the State of Texas, the TEA, and the THECB could produce valid, comprehensive analysis.
- If a private citizen can get this kind of data, then the Katy I.S.D. School Board could long ago have demanded that its administration get this kind of data on behalf of the parents of the school district.
- Next in this column, I am going to publish the 6-year graduation rates of some of the colleges or universities that graduates of Katy I.S.D. often attend. Obtaining a degree within six years of first enrollment is the industry standard of evaluation. The snapshots you will see from the THECB are for one year only - the first year. There is significant data that is not given to you even within the understanding that it is one-year only.
- Texas Governor Rick Perry and the public policy insane asylum masquerading as the Texas Legislature under the voodoo-like influence of the Texas Public Policy Foundation group appears to be on the verge of linking some funding to higher graduation rates for universities. Translated, that means that the Bush-Perry-Legislative triumvirate that has worked so long and so hard to destroy the academic credibility of public education is now fully focused upon destroying higher education. Dr. Lopez addresses this issue so eloquently. You’ll see that when we get to the videos. If the State demands higher graduation rates or face a loss of funding, the universities will graduate more students.
- When I look at the graduation rates you are about to see from the 2004 enrolling class of colleges and universities, I can begin to make conclusions about high school preparation. When Governor Hair and his brain-bald idealogues are through with their initiatives, these reports will mean virtually nothing in less than a decade down the road.
- When looking at these tables, keep in mind that these are not high school specific. Cinco Ranch High School students that enroll in a community college might do better than the average student. Then again, the particular graduates from Cinco Ranch that enroll in a community might do worse than the average. These particular snapshots don’t answer that question.
So, let’s begin by looking at the graduation rates of students in Texas who enrolled in a community college in 2004. Of that entering freshman class, only 13.4% have now earned a four-year degree at university in the State of Texas. That means that just under 87% of Texas’s graduating seniors who enrolled in a community college in 2004 proceeded to a four year university and earned a degree within six years.
An additional 11.2% earned an associate degree at the community college meaning that over 75% of the state’s enrolling class from 2004 earned an associate or university degree within six years. Some additional numbers earned a ‘certificate’ but this column focuses upon a college graduation.
Katy I.S.D. sends its graduates most often to Houston Community College or Lone Star College (Cy-Fair). As the table below reflects, Houston Community College’s record is about one percent below the state average and Lone Star College’s record is between 5-6% above the state average.
What’s the conclusion? The vast majority of students who enter community colleges on an academic track do not graduate within six years - either at the community college itself or at a four-year university.
If one defines ‘college readiness’ as those who show up in a college classroom, that will produce a more politically impressive number than if one defines ‘college readiness’ as those who show up prepared to succeed.
I have often used the analogy of “Coach Gholson’s Pet Show” to describe this dilemma of evaluation. Coach Gholson was the head football coach in my hometown of West Columbia. He figured this out a long time ago. Every summer, he hosted a pet show up at the gymnasium at West Columbia High School. It was a huge deal. Every kid who brought their pet to parade before Coach Gholson got a ribbon. That was one of my first ‘life’s lessons:’ how do you fire a football coach for a losing season if he gave your child’s pet a blue ribbon that summer?
The politicians and the administrative bureaucracies they have empowered in Texas use the “Coach Gholson Pet Show” philosophy to describe college-readiness. And now, Gov. Hair wants to take that ’show up’ philosophy to the next layer of destruction of academic integrity by mandating higher graduation rates for money.
So, take a look at the most recent table of two-year college graduation rates produced from the data of the THECB.
Next, let’s take a look at the same kind of data for four-year universities. Many of the universities listed are ones that Katy I.S.D. graduates often attend. In the next column, we will begin taken an even closer look at data available specifically on Katy I.S.D. high schools. Let me add something at this point. As one would expect the data to show, there will be extremely positive news about the performance of many of Katy I.S.D. graduates. This district has an abundance of many brilliant students.
But there will also be more sobering news. Historically, this community has seemed preoccupied with focusing on the great news while choosing to pretend that the more distressing news does not exist. We are going to give you the good and the bad. Now, here’s that table for the graduation rates of the four-year universities.
The Modern Day Contract That School Districts Have With Superintendents Is A Giant Roadblock To Local Reform; If We Get New Board Members In May, One Will Need To Emerge As Key Leader On This Issue - Here’s The Path To Follow
April 21, 2011 by George
Filed under Academics, Featured Posts, Local
The steps that I am going to outline over the next week are very practical steps that must be pursued to return the balance of power in this district to the citizens. Let’s start with a very fundamental issue and call it the first ’nut that has to be cracked.’
This particular effort will require (initially) the solo leadership of one member of the newly constituted board (if we are so fortunate) for the reasons I’ll describe who will exercise his rights as a citizen of the United States who happens to be a member of a school board.
The issue is the scope, nature, and terms of the school district’s contract with superintendents of schools. Here are six things you need to know about the issue overall:
- The typical contract of a superintendent in an urban or major suburban district’s primary goal is to make the superintendent financially secure for the rest of his or her life. For those of a certain age, the contract is designed to give a strong measure of financial security in the process of serving as a stepping stone to an even more lucrative position. For one closer to retirement, it is designed to be a financial golden parachute.
- The typical contract is designed to protect the superintendent from the people rather than protect the people from the superintendent. This is basically accomplished in the initial contract by the inclusion of loose, generally esoteric, generally non-empirical or irrelevent contractual standards of performance review. Once ‘mutually agreeable’ evaluation standards are included in the first contract, the hands of the school board are generally tied pretty tightly UNLESS you know what you are doing on the basis of sound and independent legal advice.
- Once the initial long term contract is in place, it becomes extremely difficult to terminate (fire) a superintendent for failure to perform at acceptable levels under terms of the contract. It is also expensive to write the check and just say leave. The terms work to the advantage of the superintendent - not the people.
- Critically, the initial process of interviewing and employing a superintendent generally follows an ass-backwards path. While there are laws in place that must be followed, it is ludicrious on its face to believe that a school board can’t adopt a hiring-process strategy that brings some if not a tremendous amount of the power back to the Board.
- School boards - including Katy I.S.D.’s - appear to be intimidated by all of the experts lined up to “help” them find the Mr., Mrs., or Ms. Right. Further, the whole cabal of the the Texas Association of School Administrators (TASA), the Texas Association of School Boards (TASB), a handful of powerful law firms generally in professional bed with TASA and TASB, and the industry-acceptable search firms drive this train from school district to school district throughout Texas dropping off their chosen favorites at communities along the way.
- Any school board that depends exclusively on this cottage industry of “experts,” consultants and lawyers will always be on the losing end of the hiring process. Always. Never an exception. Never. Always on the losing end. Always. This cabal that drives the train must be avoided to the degree possible, and it is possible to chart a better path.
As far as Katy I.S.D. is concerned, we have a superintendent armed with a long term contract. That points out the obvious. The issue of contracts and superintendents is two-fold:
- What do you do with a superintendent that already has you by the short-hairs because your existing school board surrendered without a fight for actual accountability?
- What do you do in establishing a superintendent selection process when the current one leaves?
From this point forward, I am going to lay out what has to happen within tight parameters. There are also points I will not write in this column. This is not going to be like going to Luby’s Cafeteria where there are lots of options. The relationship between a modern superintendent and a modern school board has entered a topsy-turvy, bizzaro world where up is down and down is up. This must change. No reform effort at the local level can flourish or survive under the terms and standards of the modern superintendent contract.
There is an essential common denominator to the process of restoring power to the people and the people’s board that must be followed. Get off this path, and you will not succeed in this endeavor. It will be tough enough anyway.
One brave board member upon election needs to immediately retain a personal attorney to guide that individual’s development of a specific plan to address the legal issues of a superintendent’s contract. Here are the specific elements of this portion of the plan and the justification:
- You are a citizen of the United States of America. You have rights. Although you are now a member of a school board, you do not lose the authority or the power to conduct personal research on issues that are of importance to you.
- As long as you are not representing yourself as acting on behalf of the school board on which you now sit, you have total freedom to know more about the law than less about the law. And, in your ‘new’ position, it is vital that you personally know more about contract law.
- Even with my knowledge base (having talked to an attorney about this) that is more developed by far than most citizens, the first step I would take if I were to go on the school board would be to retain such a lawyer whose expertise in contract law was profound. If I am telling you that I would hire a lawyer even given my decades of accumulated research and knowledge on such matters, it is my hope that you will understand just how important this really is for you.
- The lawyer you retain should be totally independent of the public education bureaucracy but he/she should understand it like the back of one’s hand. The lawyer you choose should be tough, experienced in public education law, and the best that is available and willing to accept you as a client.
- As necessary, a political action committee could be formed to raise the funds necessary to pay for the services. You cannot afford to ‘poor-boy’ this. The step you would be taking to become a real leader is the heart, soul, and bone-marrow of any chance to reform public education in a local school district. This is not some romanticized trip you are about to take. This about the nuts and bolts of what has to happen. Your legislature has abandoned you. The school board of which you have become a member is too vested in its past mistakes and cowardice to the take the leadership on this matter. It’s up to you. That’s what leadership is about.
- One member of the board needs to take the leadership on this for three reasons:
- You do not want to even come close to violating the Open Meetings Act. Become a leader. Do the hard work of research on your own.
- It gives you maximum protection and maximum flexibility to develop a comprehensive plan that at some point you will take to your colleagues in open session in absolute conformance with the Open Meetings Act and at the same time you go to the general public.
- You simply cannot trust any current member of the school board to help make this an official activity of the school board in the early phase of your research. They will want to embroil the issue into becoming about an individual superintendent. Even the existing contract might come into play. Plus, you do not want to be focused upon an individual. You want to be focused solely on becoming more knowledgeable about contract law for the purpose of giving the people a better contract on their behalf.
At this point, the only advice I have given a potential member of the school board is to retain personal legal counsel. And, as necessary, use a legal fundraising mechanism to pay the costs. From that point forward on these matters, you will follow the advice of your attorney.
From this point forward, I am not going to switch and start giving you legal advice for one very important reason: I am not an attorney. However, I will tell you a few things:
1. Section 1.1 of the current contract says in part: …”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.”
2. Section 5.1 of the current contract says: “On or before March of every year during term of this Contract, the Superintendent and the Board shall develop goals for the District for the next school year. The goals approved by the Board shall be reduced to writing and shall be among the criteria on which the Superintendent’s performance will be reviewed and evaluated.”
3. Section 5.2 of the current 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).
With an existing contract, these three provisions are among the primary battlegrounds for reform. When the day arrives that the process of selecting a new superintendent is on the front burner, a vast array of different issues will be important.
While I could write much more on this topic based upon my own research and legal consultation, I am going to stop the column right here while offering this observation.
We may be on the verge of having new and independent people take seats on the school board. If that’s the case, all will be dedicated to reform. Others before them have entered their positions with good motivations and high hopes. They have fallen far short. So my message to new board members is that if you don’t do it right from the start, the difficult path you face will become vastly more difficult.
If there are new ones, one will need to emerge to take the leadership on this issue. Others can choose their own areas of focused leadership.
I have given you the fundamentals. I have given you a compass and I have shown you three interesting points along the path that you need to take.
Don’t travel this path alone. If we have new board members in May and one of you picks this ball up and runs with it, real change can ensue. The foundation of this is that eventually the school board must stop being intimidated by TASA, TASB, school-district attorneys, and selection firms. A school board must re-achieve its self-worth and its dignity that has long been lost.
One strong person can plot a course to achieve that. It can be done.
If you want my help, please call. There are things that need not be written here. All you have to do is ask for help.
Katy I.S.D.’s Current Contract With Superintendent
Texas Republican Party (Right Down To Local Precinct Chairs) Needs To Look Into The Mirror And Decide If It Really Wants To Empower The Bureaucracy That Made This Mess To Fix This Mess Because That’s What You Are About To Do
April 20, 2011 by George
Filed under George's Blog, Local
The Texas Republican Party is about to make the biggest mistake it has ever made, and that is saying a lot given the tragic mistakes that it made under Governor George Bush and President George Bush.
In the name of reform and local control, the Texas Republican Party is about to make sweeping changes through HB400 that will give dramatic new powers to the very bureaucracy that constitutes the actual “evildoers” in implementing the vast majority of the problems that Texans now confront in public education.
Do Texas Republicans really believe that classroom teachers are the prime reasons that people are frustrated with public education in Texas? Yet, in HB 400, Texas Republicans are poised to give every superintendent in this state sweeping new authority to make the lives of classroom teachers more at-risk than many of the students they teach.
Texas Republicans can tell themselves this is about local control. Don’t tell me that. Over the past two decades, the power of the superintendent has been expanded beyond all sense of right and decency. Through the Texas Association of School Boards, the Texas Association of School Adminstrators, the constriction of law and regulation, the accumulation of vast influence by a handful of law firms in Texas, and the acquiescent dimunition of the role of the school board, the notion of school government of the people, by the people, and for the people is in shambles.
No you Texas Republicans. You are not reforming local government. You are not empowering local government. You are giving powerful administrators who have used your rules and your laws and your blessings to consolidate even more levels of incredible power that superintendents did not once have and have never deserved.
In effect, Texas Republicans, you are about to empower this bureaucracy through HB400 and hurt any real effort that local citizens have to actually reform their public education system.
In the name of reform, you Texas Republicans furthered the destruction of the integrity of the system when you made a pact with the Texas Business Council that electing George Bush president of the United States was more important than actually reforming public education. You allowed Bush and his sycophant team with visions of national power play games with education accountability. You let him and his team get by with lies about the state of the public education system.
It was Governor George Bush that accelerated the downhill trajectory of local control of schools in a fraudulent path to create the Texas Educational Miracle. Yes, Texas Republicans. It was George Bush that used the Texas Educational Miracle to become President of the United States where he launched No Child Left Behind that greatly expanded the authority of the Department of Education - a department that Obama has made even worse.
Yes, Texas Republicans. It is your party that has passed, signed, and enforced provisions in state law that have given vast new powers to the bureaucracy of public education.
Now, you don’t like the results. You want change (Does that false hope have a familiar ring?). And, now to fix many of the faults that you created, empowered, authorized, financially supported and otherwise enabled, you want to give incredible new powers to ’solve’ these problems to a gang of superintendents and administrators who actually helped design, craft, and implement the programs and practices that got us to where we are today.
Here’s the bottom line. When you pass HB 400, Texas Republicans will have declared war on classroom teachers.
You will not have declared war on bloated bureaucracies. You have not declared war on the philosophical and academic corruption that has infested the bureacracies. You will not have declared war on a vast array of wasteful spending and programs. You will not have declared war on administrative fiat. You will not have declared war on the bureaucracies’ growing power or the continued diminution of local school boards.
You will have declared war on the one component of Texas Public Education that is the least broken. We are not Wisconsin. We are not Washington D.C. We are not a state where unions have such sway and have played a powerful role in the destruction of the system. We are Texas - a right to work state. Our classroom teachers are genuinely well respected professionals. If anything, they have been too quiet in standing up to these administrative abuses.
However, their silence has been driven in large part because they understand the growing vindictiveness of the bureuacracy that holds their professional lives in the balance. You Texas Republicans are now poised to give new meaning to administrative vindictiveness.
Classroom teachers: these are the people upon whom you Texas Republicans will have declared war. In the reform struggles that abound, you Texas Republicans have now come down on the side of an abusive, spending-drunk, self-preserving, power-hungry bureaucracy.
In Katy for isntance, you Texas Republicans have come down on the side of giving the ‘Center of Truth’ even more power. Imagine that. Conservative Republicans giving more power to an administrator that claims his government is the “Center of Truth.” No Texas Republicans, don’t talk to me about your conservative values when you give this kind of autocratic power more power. Go impress the Commander in Chief of the Center of Truth about how conservative you are. Go brag to the sycophants over at the Katy Chamber of Commerce like you do so many times.
Enjoy your majority now. Enjoy your power now. This will bite you in the butt as well it should. Just as the stupid change in the franchise/margins tax you made several sessions ago despite warnings from me and many others that you were setting the stage for financial turmoil in public education, your HB 400 will be equally destructive.
Let’s hear it again: Texas Republicans have declared war on the wrong people. Won’t you Texas Republicans ever learn? Do you always have to be so stereotypically predictable? Texas Republicans live in a world of self-righteousness.
That’s OK when you are fighting social decline, cultural decline, the United Nations, terrorism, and host of other real enemies of this country.
But when your self-righteousness convinces you that its OK to include classroom teachers on your enemies’ list while trying to masquerade that as the advancement of local control and philosophical conservatism, then some serious soul-searching is needed.
The only thing that the citizens of Katy can do now is get the turkey incumbents that now sit on the school board off the board. Everyone who is on the board now needs to go. The time for ‘Road to Damascus’ conversions has passed. All of them need to go. They are simply too vested in their past mistakes and past cowardice to be of use to this community now. A clean sweep over the next two years and the next three elections is needed.
Here’s my message to local citizens. You can’t count on the Legislature. You can’t count on your current board.
It’s time you start putting people on the board that have the courage to start making the changes in the bureaucracy that must be made. It’s not going to be easy. It starts with a new kind of contract with the superintendent of schools. That’s where this column will pick up next.
I guess this column is another example of my bad bedside manner. So be it. It is the truth.
Questions For The Center Of Truth And Its Sycophant School Board Members; Decision Time For Community & Classroom Teachers - How Much Longer Are You Going To Tolerate This Abuse? When Is Enough Enough?
April 17, 2011 by George
Filed under Featured Posts
For those of us who have have spent more than the last decade warning this community about the growing detachment of the public education bureaucracy from its citizens, we now pose a question for you to answer.
When is enough finally going to be enough?
Over at InstantNewsKaty, there are a growing list of anonymous bloggers who are now beginning to speak. It is clear that some of them have actual and substantial working knowledge of the system. Many have written analysis that is right on track with reality.
A couple of those have retroactively thanked me and Mary McGarr and a handful of others for having the courage to speak out when others would not or did not. A couple of have criticized my style and tactics over the past decade.
My response to these has been welcome to the battle even if you remain anonymous. If it makes you feel better and allows you to rationalize your past silence to criticize my style, rhetoric, and tactics over the past decade, I still welcome you to the battle - finally.
In my role as a metaphorical Nostradamus on public education matters, let me tell you where this battle over school finance is headed. You can discount this if you choose because of the uncompromising strength of expression about the past or you can recognize the reality I address is as equally real as what I have said in the past.
The public education bureaucracy has made an unholy alliance with that portion of the business, industrial, and political communities that supports vouchers and privatization as a way of disassembling the public education system.
HB 400 is a totally needless, meat-axe approach to solve a problem that is real but does not exist at the ultimate level its supporters would have you believe. HB 400 is taking advantage of a temporary financial crisis to give public school administrators the authority to save their butts from irrational spending decisions of the past. It does so primarily on the backs of classroom teachers.
Rep. John Zerwas and Rep. Bill Callegari and the others who are willing to give these bureaucrats virtual carte blanche to wreak havoc on the lives of good, professional people and profoundly disrupt communities ought to start wearing bags over their faces just as the old New Orleans Saints football fans once did.
Make no mistake about it. There is a problem in public education. I have written of these problems for over 20 years. There is no harsher critic of the public education system than me. Yet, in my wildest dreams, I would never do to this system what the Katy I.S.D. School Board, Alton Frailey, and members (in the closet or out) of the privatization, charter, and voucher movements are trying to do in HB 400.
While school boards and superintendents are searching for immediate relief from their drunken sailor spending habits and propensity to grow their bureuacracies ad nauseum, make no mistake about what is driving the private sector and certain elements of the political class.
HB 400 sets the stage for a decade of political turmoil. The opportunity to dramatically and needlessly suppress and deflate the salaries of classroom teachers is the first step into creating a more competitive environment for privateers.
The ability to force-feed higher pupil teacher ratios in actual classrooms (not the districts’ artificially low ones that drive overall costs through the roof and have helped create this current problem) will add to the public turmoil. The ability to target individual campuses with higher pupil and teacher ratios can be used to bring principals and communities “into line” with overall administrative objectives.
The ability to target more experienced teachers that cost the district more money can literally free up millions of dollars that can be used for other purposes such as more administration.
And, if you actually believe that the actual administrative costs of Katy I.S.D. and other school districts is as the TEA reports it, you are factually wrong. When a bureaucracy gets to define the definition of administration, it can control the public presentation.
If the Zerwas-Callegari HB 400 passes, you can be assured of this. The turmoil you have seen over the last two weeks will grow and grow. It may not reach crescendo in 2011-12, but it will grow and grow.
And, out of this turmoil, the advocates of vouchers and other forms of privatization will become more attractive and more doable.
What the privatization advocates learned over the past two decades is that they were unable to develop any plan that the vast majority of parents actually wanted or would support in the Legislature.
I am a critic of public education. However, I believe it is worth trying to save. I always have. And, I’ll die trying. For those of you who have thought that I was an opponent of public education, you simply did not read my columns with a clear mind. The force of my rhetoric has always been against those who have misrepresented reality and profiteers who have fought from within the system to destroy its honor, academic credibility, and financial capacity.
There is no way I would do to this institution what Zerwas and Callegarie and their idealogical friends are trying to do. If I were a member of the Katy I.S.D. School Board, I would have done everything possible to throw my body in front of its current lobbying efforts. The hideous treatment of employees that we have seen over the past week or so would have had to roll over me to get to these teachers and other employees. Board members and Frailey’s Center of Truth administrators would have had a hell of a fight on their hands.
Of three of the smartest people I have ever known, one was my boss when I first joined the Tax Research Association of Houston and Harris County in 1986. The TRA was a nonprofit, public policy research group. It’s where my passion for public education research really matured.
It was in the time frame of the first wave of general privatization of government services. He told me something that it actually took me several years to inculcate into my brain as true. He said: “Privatization is what we used to call corruption.” As a fiscal conservative, it took me a long time to really understand that the portion of the business community that prospers in the public sector can be as institutionally corrupt as its host.
What you have observed over the last several weeks and what you will observe over the next several months is the opening battle by the private sector to eviscerate public education so the privateers can march through the rubble in search of even more treasury from the ‘public tit.’
I have warned you about developments in public education for the past 10 years. Many have ignored and typecast me. So now you have a new warning. The privatization that will likely ensue over time from this debacle will be even more corrupt and more dishonest than the problems we now confront.
I don’t know how the May election for school board members will turn out. The candidates opposing the incumbents may not be perfect candidates, but they offer a real hope to begin changing what is taking place. I hope they get a chance to dedicate themselves to independence, strength, and the courage to study hard and learn well if they are elected. If they ask for my help, they’ll get it.
What I do know is that I am going to begin defining my agenda for the 2012 school board races. If they help Dr. Proctor and Dibrell in the closing weeks of this campaign, then good. Time will tell who will be able obtain public support and step forward to try to change what’s coming down the track at rapid speed.
KISD School Board And Alton Frailey Support Lobbying Efforts To Dramatically Change Pupil-Teacher Ratios; While Presented As Modest Adjustment, The Impact Can Be Far Reaching Giving Some Campuses ‘Favored’ Status
April 17, 2011 by George
Filed under Featured Posts
Katy I.S.D. School Board members and Superintendent Alton Frailey have joined in the lobbing effort to have the Texas Legislature change the 22-1 pupil and teacher ratio in grades kindergarten through fourth grade but have done so in a way that would allow the ratio in individual classrooms to rise above 25 to 1.
In a bill co-authored by State Rep. John Zerwas and State Rep. Bill Callegari, school districts would be able to conform with the law if the district-wide average pupil and teacher ratio was 22-1. A waiver to go above 25-1 in any classroom would have to be obtained from the Texas Education Agency.
On the surface, it may seem like a minor change. In reality, the actual operational impact of the Zerwas-Callegari initiative (they are not principal authors but they are authors and strong supporters) could be significant while opening the door for unequal application among the elementary campuses of a school district.
Left unspoken in the bill is the impact that the creation of certain small individual classes at elementary schools could have on the computation of “average.” Moreover, the district’s average is a computation of all the affected classrooms throughout the district meaning that some individual campuses could be targeted for higher class averages than others.
It is one thing to say that an average of 22-1 at each campus would be required. It is a totally different matter to say that a district-wide average of 22-1 is required. Moreover, the law does not control the ability of districts to create a certain number of artificially low enrollment classrooms so as to disguise the actual pupil and teacher ratio.
Even a cursory look at the Katy I.S.D.’s Academic Excellence Indicator System report and a campus-by-campus review of classroom schedules dramatically demonstrates just how utterly meaningless and misleading the formal, district-wide pupil and teacher ratio of under 15 to 1 actually is. (Not just elementatary but district-wide.)
The theoretical cap on this process is the asserted condition that no classroom could have more than 25 students. However, the waiver process under the total control of the Texas Education Agency could permit schools waivers as it determines appropriate.
As with other provisions of the Zerwas-Callegari initiative, Katy School Board members and Supt. Frailey are joined in their lobbying efforts by major business and industry, charter school advocates, and at least one former, high-profile lobbyist for statewide vouchers.
The school board’s lobbying organization is the Texas Association of School Boards. Frailey’s lobbying organization is the Texas Association of School Administrators. In a reflection of the collegiality and sort of ‘co-relationship’ that exists between school board members and superintendents, both groups were represented before the Legislature by David Thompson. Thompson’s law firm, of course, is also the legal counsel to Katy I.S.D.
Others supporting HB 400 include the following:
- Texas Association of Business
- Texas Taxpayers and Research Association
- Governor’s Business Council
- Texas Charter Schools Association
One interesting ‘bedmate’ on this issue for Katy I.S.D. and Frailey is that of Jim Windham. Windam, while not in his current capacity, is well known throughout Texas for his longstanding advocacy for state approved vouchers.
A separate column will provide additional commentary on this bill and the district. In the meantime, here are some links to relevant documents from the Texas Legislature Online service. In order are text, fiscal note, analysis, and key sections of the Texas Education Code referenced in the proposed bill.
http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/tlodocs/82R/billtext/pdf/HB00400H.pdf#navpanes=0
http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/tlodocs/82R/fiscalnotes/pdf/HB00400H.pdf#navpanes=0
http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/tlodocs/82R/analysis/pdf/HB00400H.pdf#navpanes=0
http://www.statutes.legis.state.tx.us/Docs/ED/htm/ED.21.htm#21.401