A Further Indictment

I’m a big fan of The Texas Tribune, an online news organization, focused on everything about Texas.

For those who haven’t been paying attention, the Texas Legislature is in special session, trying to figure out school vouchers, along with other issues associated with the state’s public education system. Today The Trib hosted a panel event discussing several Texas-focused public school topics, sans school vouchers. I thought it interesting that the topics covered could have been discussed in any other state than Texas – teacher recruitment and retention, teacher certification, student achievement, finance, and declining public trust in our public schools. And, I’m guessing the conversation would have sounded the same in any state, no matter where it happened in the country.

The panel was made up of a representative from a Texas-based education non-profit committed to improving public education outcomes, a superintendent from a rural Texas district, and a spokesperson for equitable funding across the Lone Star state. Here are the highlights from the conversation:

When the panel discussed teacher recruitment and retention, the superintendent announced something rather startling, even to me. This district leader told us that her first-year teachers made $33,000 a year as a starting salary, and that the highest teacher salary in her district was $55,000. Now I understand that the cost of living isn’t high in rural Texas compared to Houston, Dallas, or San Antonio, but committing to a career where you are going to earn $22,000 more from the time you start to the time you retire is problematic – wherever it happens.

How are you supposed to recruit and retain classroom teachers when you’re facing these types of compensation woes?

When the panel began a conversation on teacher certification, the superintendent shared that 20 of the 90 teachers who work in her schools are alternatively certified, meaning that those teachers haven’t completed a traditional teacher training program before entering the classroom. And to make matters more challenging, the superintendent asked this question: “Where do I put these folks that, even though they want to be good teachers, have no real experience with young learners – Pre-K, kindergarten thru 2^nd grade, or state-testing grades 3 and 4?”

This is when the equity expert spoke up. He pointed out that even though student achievement expectations have continued to rise (and no one was against rising expectations by the way), state funding hasn’t. The non-profit leader added that young learners, especially those who don’t know how to read well, need high impact tutoring early in their elementary school experience. If they don’t receive that type of support, then only 9% of Texas’s third graders catch up with their reading skills by the time they reach the 6^th grade.

When the finance topic was raised, the superintendent pointed out that the State of Texas owes their public school districts around $750 million to make the state’s portion of Texas’s per pupil expenditure whole. What this means to those who aren’t school finance experts is that Texas has short-changed their public schools when it comes to state funding. Unless the school district can make up that money through increased property taxes or other local funding, that school district loses out on funding important to student learning. Meanwhile, Greg Abbott, presently the Texas Governor, is pushing passage of a $500 million school voucher bill. And, Texas has a rather large budget surplus this biennium.

The panel discussed teacher morale and lack of public trust in schools. The Texas superintendent implored the state’s elected officials to do a better job leading on the issue of public education. I’m sure, if you asked Texas legislators today whether they thought they were leading on the public education issue, while they sit in a special session discussing that exact topic, they would tell you that they are trying to do everything in their power to improve the system. There seems to be a disconnect between the Texas Legislature and the state’s school superintendents about how well leadership is taking care of teachers and schools at large.

The most impactful comment coming from the panel, at least to me, was what the non-profit leader answered when asked how we improve public trust in schools. She said this:

“We need to focus on systems – as systems get better, that improvement will trickle down to our teachers.”

I might say something different, but still emphasize the importance of admitting to a broken system. What I might say is this:

“The way to improve the system is to focus on learning, including a learning plan, a learning coach (replacing a teacher), and a learning cohort supported by public dollars. If we do that, a better system will emerge.”

Lastly, the panel asked their audience a powerful question:

“If the school isn’t serving the community, then who is?”

Til tomorrow. SVB