Classrooms Under Assault in the Texas Legislature

The Texas legislature isn't dealing with the real problem, they're making our current fiscal situation worse.

School boards and administration positions are out of control.  No one is saying that better jobs shouldn't pay better salaries.  But paying over $300,000 for any employee that takes in state, federal and local tax dollars is absurd.  

By way of comparison, the highest paying salary at Social Security Administration`s office in Houston is paid to the Administrative Law Judge Wc making $158,500 per year, while the lowest paying salary is paid to the Administration Office Support Student Trainee at $26,639 per year.

It's no wonder that Dr. Jenney, superintendent of Fort Bend ISD was able to bring in seven of his former administrative employees from Virginia.  They moved their entire families calling Dr. Jenny a "visionary".  But let's be fair.  Anyone who is an administrator from another state probably has visions of Texas in the form of dollar signs.  

No regulation on local school boards leads to a shameful waste of taxpayer money.   Right now the Texas state legislature is considering taking away every safeguard that teachers have to protect their jobs.  If the legislature has their way, teachers and other non administration school employees will basically end up with the same contracts as at will employees or as those on probation.  Let's put two and two together.  Almost no oversight on school boards, superintendents and administrative positions, fewer and fewer rights for the middle class worker or the thousands working in public industries, no collective bargaining.  This is Rick Perry's Texas.  This is "fiscal responsibility".

Classrooms Under Assault in the Texas Legislature

Texas legislative honchos, with an eye on opinion polls showing strong support for public schools, like to say their goal this session is to “protect the classroom” from the impact of a huge revenue shortfall. But the reality of what they have in store for our schools is something altogether different. The students and teachers who populate Texas classrooms face attacks on multiple fronts.

On the House side of the capitol rotunda, next week could bring a vote on HB 400, by Republican Rep. Rob Eissler of The Woodlands, which is quite simply the most comprehensively bad bill we have seen so far this session. It would gut class-size caps for K-4 classrooms, eliminate salary guarantees for teachers, counselors, nurses, and librarians, require school districts to adopt “performance pay,” and destroy major contract safeguards. HB 400 would kill the right to an independent hearing before an impartial hearing examiner for a teacher faced with a mid-contract termination. The bill would deprive term-contract teachers of timely notice of proposed non-renewal, shifting the notice date to the last day of instruction rather than the current deadline of 45 days before the last day. Teachers on continuing contracts meanwhile would lose one of the main benefits of those contracts: seniority protection in case of layoffs.

A temporary revenue crisis is being used as an excuse for permanent repeal of all these educational quality standards and employee safeguards. Sadly, the state associations of school superintendents and school boards are leading the charge in support of these destructive policies, instead of working with Texas AFT and other teacher organizations on ideas like temporary class-size waivers, as well as temporary salary adjustments as a substitute for layoffs.

These groups, rather than standing shoulder to shoulder with teachers to fight for sufficient funding for our schools, have chosen to cozy up to the very lawmakers who have voted to inflict deep cuts on public education. Their dubious reward is legislation like HB 400, offering “flexibility” and “mandate relief” at the expense of students and teachers. (Note:  There are honored exceptions among administrators and school-board members who understand how dumb it is to waste time on divisive issues that put them at odds with front-line education employees when our schools are threatened with extreme funding cuts. And some notable administrator organizations also are on the right side of this fight. For instance, the South Texas Association of Schools, representing 62 school districts, and the Texas Elementary Principals and Supervisors Association both opposed HB 400 in the House Public Education Committee last Tuesday.)

HB 400 has not been scheduled for a floor vote yet, but it is not too soon to call your state representative on Monday and urge him or her to vote against the bill. You can call your legislator on Texas AFT’s toll-free line to the capitol: 1-888-836-8368. Just give your representative’s name and ask to be connected. (If you are not sure who represents you, go to www.capitol.state.tx.us and click on the “Who Represents Me” link.)

Please keep an eye out for a new action alert as soon as HB 400 is scheduled for a vote on the House floor. We expect to have a new letter you can e-mail against HB 400 up on our Web site early next week.

We wish HB 400 were the only attack we have to deal with next week, but it is not. On Monday, a constitutional amendment to make it much harder to raise needed revenue for public schools will become eligible for a vote on the Senate floor. SJR 12 by Sen. Dan Patrick, Republican of Houston, would block any increase in an existing tax rate or establishment of any new tax unless two-thirds of the House and two-thirds of the Senate approved. Thus, a small minority of lawmakers—as few as 51 members of the 150-member Texas House, for instance--could dictate state tax policy and starve our schools of the revenue needed to close a structural deficit of $5 billion a year in school funding. Texas AFT is working hard along with our allies to block this bad idea; we’ll have more to report on this front next week.

Another front in the assault on students and teachers is in the Senate Education Committee. On Tuesday, April 12, that panel could be voting on revised versions of several bad proposals, including:

--teacher evaluations based primarily on students’ scores on standardized tests, despite the lack of valid methodologies for doing so (SB 4);
--“home rule” for school districts that would exempt them from teacher-certification standards, class-size standards, contract safeguards, and other protections for students and school employees (SB 738);
--new power for the commissioner of education to convert a neighborhood school into a privately operated charter campus (SB 738);
--provisions for unpaid furloughs and salary reductions that could apply for years and years to come, without requiring that districts availing themselves of these options forgo layoffs (SB 3);
--removal of seniority protection for continuing-contract teachers faced with layoffs (SB 3); and
--untimely notice of proposed non-renewal of term contracts (not until 10 days before the end of the school year) (SB 3).

SB 3, SB 4, and SB 738 are all by Sen. Florence Shapiro, the Republican from Plano who chairs the Senate Education Committee.