Community Partners Rally to Save Fort Bend Education
Organizers anticipating hundreds to voice opposition to education cuts
MISSOURI CITY, TX. Community leaders throughout Fort Bend County will gather next Saturday to voice their opposition to state and local cuts to public education. The Save Fort Bend Education rally is expected to draw hundreds of parents, students and leaders countywide.
“It’s clear that lawmakers have decided that investing in our children’s education is no longer their priority,” commented rally organizer Steve Brown. “On May 7, we have the opportunity to tell them they’re wrong!”
The goal of the Save Fort Bend Education rally is to raise awareness of the public’s displeasure for both education funding cuts, as well as attempts to close Fort Bend ISD schools. After the rally, attendees will caravan to the Missouri City Civic Center to vote in the May school board races.
WHAT: SAVE FORT BEND EDUCATION
WHEN: Saturday, May 7, 2011
11:00am – 2:00pm
WHERE: Independence Park
2621 Court Road, TX
Speakers include U.S. Congressman Al Green, State Representative Ron Reynolds and representatives from the American Federation of Teachers, Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. and various student representatives.
Sure would be nice if Steve, Ron & the Bankstons would stop ignoring the real budget problems locally and continuing to point the finger exclusively at the state in this power play of politricks. Before the state budget cuts came down our superintendent and his board (except for Jim Babb) had voted for 4 consecutive record budget deficits and a RECORD long-term bond debt which included many non-campus based building projects. This Jenney debt has the district in a very sad position as the state cuts come down, yet they continue to misdirect the arguments and endorse an incumbent or Jenney friendly candidates. A number of local school districts are not RIFing hundreds of teachers because they kept their budgets in balance and debt manageable. Our district and its board was taken over long ago by the special interests. Two current members are actually owners or managers of several district vendors/contractor companies that feed off this taxpayer funded long-term debt that has forced our property taxes up over the last 3 years. Not only can't Jenney manage this budget, he can't manage the record revenues coming in, nearly 50 million more over the last 2 years. His failure to pay down the long-term debt has severely aggravated the operations budget short-fall by almost 54 million a year which competes with the personnel budget and is indirectly responsible for the mass RIFs FBISD is experiencing now. Yet two east-end coalition groups sponsoring this event are backing incumbent Susan Hohnbaum and 2 others that are friendly to this superintendent. So YES the state budget crisis this year will add to superintendent Jenneys on-going budget problems but did not create it. His inability to control spending (with increasing revenue) and the district contractors who control this board are to blame. So don't be completely fooled by the political rhetoric. Our problems began as a local budget failure under this leadership.....declaring a "financial emergency" two years in a row while sitting on 368 million in reserves and pointing the finger at the state is NOT the solution. New local leadership during these elections is and NOT leadership that is content with business as usual under the "vendor feeders" who would continue to RIF, rob, and move on to greener pastures.
ReplyDeleteWAKE UP and go vote now! Send Mr. Jenney a strong message that you do not want his tax, borrow and spend ways any longer and we must focus on the classrooms and teachers first, NOT by RIFing 1000 of them but by significantly reducing the longterm debt load accumulated under this supt. and his bloated growing central office... GO VOTE!
http://www.brucealbright.com
http://www.votewatassek.com
Hi Richard!
ReplyDeleteYes, the local district has been wasteful, but that does not exempt the state from its part in this. FBISD is not the only district facing layoffs and program cuts. It is statewide. Our legislators are right to focus on the state, that is their domain. We as voters and members of this community need to focus on the local district and need to vote in people who believe in public education and student success as well as having a commitment to staff the schools properly. That may mean Democrats in the current state of things.
ReplyDeleteSince local school board races are non-party affiliated how do you intende to do that? Oh yeh, that doesn't matter because you will claim whatever party gets you the money and the win. Now, lets make look at the real problem again. With 46% of classroom dollars going elsewhere and the superintendent feeding the district vendors and contractors (via the preferred vendor lists), we will continue to have increasing debt loads (currently 1.6 billion under this admin). Now to debunk your other claim, yes several large school districts across the state are in financial trouble before the budget ax came down, but many our size were not and avoided the mass RIFs and other cuts, not to mention your spending hero, Tim Jenney, refuses to touch the 368 million in reserves to save a single teachers job. Money taken and repurposed from prior bond elections. Take a look at CISD and closer to home LCISD which managed their local debt without pushing expensive projects like the "Global Science Center" (30 million for this non-campus based project and a theatre and performing arts center too, all in the pipeline for this year)....no, stop playing partisan politricks with this. There is enough blame to go around but our superintendents spending and taxing record was well established in Va beach and now over the last 5 years here. The "vendor" board brought him in and he quickly created numerous asst. supt positions. Please do your homework before pointing the finger, we have. We had a CPA look at the records.
ReplyDeleteFBISD Total Revenue for each of year since 2006:
2006 – $521.58 Million
2007 – $549.91 Million
2008 – $568.19 Million
2009 – $591.69 Million
2010 – $610.19 million
http://www.texastribune.org/library/data/texas-superintendent-contracts-annotated/ (and he made the top 2% in the state for pay while RIFing hundreds of our best--he should be ashamed)
Take a look at what happened in Austin today and tell me Republicans have nothing to do with the problem.
ReplyDeleteActually I would say you making this crisis a partisan issue is creating more of a problem. Both tax subsidized parties feed at the taxpayer trough and you know it. Stop the empty mindless rhetoric.
ReplyDeleteAnyone that can’t balance this district budget with this much revenue coming in since 2006 has a spending problem, a 1.6 billion dollar spending problem to be exact.
FBISD Total Revenue for each of year since 2006:
2006 – $521.58 Million
2007 – $549.91 Million
2008 – $568.19 Million
2009 – $591.69 Million
2010 – $610.19 million
http://www.texastribune.org/library/data/texas-superintendent-contracts-annotated/
I've seen these numbers many times before. It doesn't mean what you are implying. While the overall dollar amounts in state funding have increased, the level of funding has stayed the same since about the year you started listing there, 2006. In other words, the state has increased overall funding based on population growth, but has not changed the amount per student in federal funding, other than to reduce it through tax cuts.
ReplyDeleteState funding has been a HUGE problem for Texas schools for years. The rhetoric and the justification for lowering school funding has been conservative in nature eg. lower taxes, fiscal responsibility. But the end result has been anything but responsible. We will feel the negative effects for years to come.
That is a typical red herring partisan excuse. Actual funding per student has increased and in FBISD the per student has jumped significantly over the last 2 decades. What has decreased is how much of those dollars get the classroom. Close to 46% never make it to the classroom. The FBISD superintendent has increased administrative positions and asst. supts over prior administrations and increased the back end spending (bond debt) to over 1.6 billion meaning 54 million goes out of the budget to service that debt while competing with the personnel budget 71 million. Yes their is a direct relationship between over spending on non-classroom related projects, diversion of classroom dollars and a subsequent decrease in service (all while Mr. Jenney sits on his own 368 million reserve fund). I could careless which party is responsible but public ed. was hijacked long ago by the tail waggers (government contractors).
ReplyDeleteThis is in response to the previous point:
ReplyDeleteYou call the argument that Texas has spent less per pupil over the last few years a red herring. I assume that you are implying that I am trying to draw attention away from irresponsible spending at the district level and am using a "typical" partisan excuse.
1) Both the state and many local school districts are to blame for irresponsible spending. People who think that competition is the only way to go even with public services are assuming that people, if left alone, will do the right thing. No, most people are greedy and will do whatever the law will allow to make more money. There is little to no state oversight on local school districts/boards and this is what you get.
2) The National Center for Educational Statistics shows very clearly that Texas Expenditures on K-12 Schools per $1,000 of Personal Income,1998-99 through 2006-07 has gone down starting in the year 2002. Per student expenditures in 2007-2008 were at $8350 ranking Texas 43rd in the nation.
Anyone wants to turn this into some petty, partisan battle is welcome to, but they just close their eyes to the part of the problem that lies at the state level.
There is a very serious problem at the local level, too. If you wanted to try and fix a problem as big as this, where would you start?
"The National Center for Educational Statistics shows very clearly that Texas Expenditures on K-12 Schools per $1,000 of Personal Income,1998-99 through 2006-07 has gone down starting in the year 2002. Per student expenditures in 2007-2008 were at $8350 ranking Texas 43rd in the nation."--Some creative word-smithing underway above. It does not contradict the per student claim that in actual dollars spending has increased over the last 2 decades or since 2006 (the rate of inflation does not account for the near 20 million a year increase from 06-10). Nor does it refute the claim for the percent of dollars reaching the classroom. This FBISD administration at the local level has failed to increase the rate of dollars reaching the classroom. There is also nothing in your position that refutes the actual dollar amounts have increased. Efficiency and effective use of those dollars appears to be the problem. As mentioned before by others engaged in this dialogue, school districts whose leadership reduced over-all debt and balanced their budgets have been able to avoid mass RIFs like FBISD, KISD and HISD (experiencing some of the highest debt loads in the state), while districts with lower debt loads and balanced budgets are experiencing fewer RIFs. It's really a very simple formula for budget success.
ReplyDelete"1) Both the state and many local school districts are to blame for irresponsible spending. People who think that competition is the only way to go even with public services are assuming that people, if left alone, will do the right thing. No, most people are greedy and will do whatever the law will allow to make more money. There is little to no state oversight on local school districts/boards and this is what you get."
ReplyDeleteThis, however, is agood point but don't let a supt making more than many governors off the hook.
Agreed. Tim Jenney is a sorry excuse for a superintendent. But the state legislature and Gov. Hair-Do have made a mess of public education and other things as well. And it is a partisan issue whether or not you want to admit it or not. A good portion of the republicans elected to statewide offices would like nothing better than to kill public education entirely. That would take care of your jenney problem.
ReplyDelete