Charter Schools and Athletics

I sat in the Wharton County Junior College gym last night watching our varsity girls’ basketball team play a charter school in the bi-district playoff game.  We won, so you would think I’d be happy.  I’m not.

Charter schools are taxpayer funded schools of choice.  What that literally means is that any parent or student regardless of the public school attendance area in which they live, may apply to enroll in a charter school.  Charter schools receive state funding from taxpayers based on the number of kids enrolled.  They must hire certified teachers and they are held accountable for the state’s accountability system.  Yes, they take TAKS, STAAR, or whatever iteration of standardized testing is currently mandated.  But, there are crucial differences in charter schools and public schools.

Charter schools are not required to educate every kid within a certain geographical area.  They are not required to accept every kid or keep every kid.  They can filter, screen, and kick kids out.  The kids that are kicked out must return to the public schools.  If a student is a behavior problem, he or she can be kicked out.  If a student has learning difficulties and is academically challenged, he or she can be kicked out.  So, not only do parents have choice, the charter school has choice!  Public schools must educate every child within their attendance area.  Public schools do not have choice.  It doesn’t matter if the child is disabled, dyslexic, non-English Speaking, obese, mentally disabled, emotionally dysfunctional, behaviorally belligerent, etc., etc.  If they live here, we teach them.  We do not kick them out.

Every student enrolled in a charter school has a home public school where they could attend.  Every parent who has opted to take his or her son or daughter out of the public school and enroll them in a charter school has shifted tax payer money from the public school to the charter school.  Charter schools are free enterprise institutions funded by public tax dollars.  Public schools are public, governmental institutions funded by tax dollars where policies and procedures are set by a publicly elected Board of Trustees.  We are transparent, we are accountable, and we serve all the kids.

The Texas Legislature ruled that publicly funded charter schools may compete with public schools in UIL competitions.  Few have opted to play football.  Most opt to play volleyball, basketball, softball, baseball and track.  Public schools now are assigned multiple UIL districts to accommodate the charter schools.  We have a football district, and an "everything else" district with charter schools.  The charter schools not only cost us lost revenue for the kids enrolled, they cost us more travel expense in athletics.  I do not know that it is happening, but it could happen that a charter school could recruit athletes from public schools, much as private schools can do.  That is patently unfair.  We field teams based on the kids in our attendance area.  They do not.

I am not angry at the kids in charter schools.  It was a Legislative decision to create charter schools.  It was a parental decision to withdraw a student from the public school and enroll them in the charter school.  Why parents would opt to do so baffles me as the research is pretty clear:  charter schools do not outperform public schools.  They pay their administrators much more and their teachers less, but they do not outperform us.  They simply take tax payer dollars from public schools.  They are schools of choice, both for the kids and the school.

I am very proud of our Cowgirl Basketball Team.  They whooped Yes Prep Charter School.  I am not happy that we played a charter school.  I am not happy that charter schools exist and that they are allowed to compete in UIL.  From where I sit, that’s just not right.

Falling STAAR?

A small group of Edna ISD administrators just returned from the annual Texas Association of School Administrators (TASA) Mid Winter Conference in Austin.  (It was a small group that went because the total number of administrators in EISD is a small group, and this year not all of us could go because we slashed travel budgets.)  I go each year for a variety of reasons:  I serve on some state-wide committees that schedule their meetings to coincide with this conference.  The 4,000 school administrators in attendance draw some great key-note speakers.  The sessions are presented by TEA staffers whom we assume have the inside scoop on what is coming.  Other sessions are presented by school districts who have found successful solutions and innovations for a variety of issues and programs.  And, the exhibit hall is full of the latest and greatest gizmos and solutions hawked by private sector folks seeking public sector dollars.  At no other time during the school year are you likely to find virtually every one of the 1,000 superintendents in Texas at the same venue.

Mid Winter last year was depressing.  The Legislative session had just begun and we were looking at a possible $24 billion cut in public ed.  STAAR was rising, and while we TASA folks were telling the Legislature that increasing standards at the same time resources were declining was poppycock and balderdash.  In the hallways between sessions we shared our strategies, our fears, our financial outlook for the coming year.  We continued to hear that our governor was going to throw his hat in the Presidential race and that the Potential President Perry Platform (PPPP) ensured that the Legislature would not tap the state’s fund balance to save schools and that they would not back off increasing the accountability stakes and the implementation of STAAR.  PPPP prevailed over TASA and the budgets were cut, we did not dip into the state fund balance for the coming biennium and we still got STAAR.  (The cuts were not as severe as initially feared, but it remains the first time in the history of our Legislature that schools were not fully funded and no additional money was allocated for the projected additional 80,000 kids who would show up this school year.)  Commissioner of Education Robert Scott was a keynote speaker, and though he attempted to put a positive spin on forthcoming budget cuts he continued to support implementing the STAAR test.  In fact, he unveiled the name of the test at this event two years ago and hawked it as bigger, better, college-ready, challenging, and very much worth doing.  He received both polite applause when he was through and then some very tough questions from the audience regarding the rationale behind increasing standards and cutting resources.  He held firm.  It was, after all, the year of the PPPP.

We had a tough spring and summer in Edna.  Our funds were cut almost a million dollars.  We reduced staff, cut travel budgets, re-assigned staff, froze administrator salaries, etc.  Our school year began, as you know, with a cloud hanging over us, one that did not bring rain.  We knew STAAR was coming and we would have to prepare kids for a more rigorous test with fewer resources, fewer teachers and smaller budgets.  We focused on the new high school construction, winning athletic teams and local uplifting events like the Fair.  We also joined one of the four lawsuits filed against the State of Texas claiming the current state funding of public education is unconstitutional.  Those cases are styled “Umpteen School Districts vs. Commissioner Robert Scott”.  Now in January STAAR is on the horizon, and we few, proud, professional Edna administrators head back to Austin for the Mid Winter Conference to learn what is going on.

I posted earlier about all the confusion with grading End of Course exams.  We have our own solution in place now, but I attended sessions at Mid Winter presented by TEA and by lawyers about what we should do.  No one knows and our solution appears to be as good as or better than many, though loud voices who support the PPPP continue to cry that we and others who have chosen a grading scheme that promotes student success are undermining STAAR.  I testified before a sub-committee of the Legislative Budget Board regarding how the funding cuts impacted Edna.  My co-testifier was old friend Alton Frailey, Superintendent of Katy ISD.  We did much the same here he did there, except he cut 120 central office positions.  (We only have 120 professional positions all together, so that was not an option for us.)  Otherwise, we both continue to support PreK despite the cuts, tutorials and remediation despite the cuts, etc., etc.  All of this led up to Tuesday afternoon’s key note address by Commissioner Scott.

The General Session began with the Clear Lake High School Symphony Orchestra, a wonderful performance by a talented group of kids.  The classical music soothed me, which was a good thing as I prepared to hear Mr. Scott.

Scott began by saying that the, “carrot, sticks and bully pulpit approach used by the state and federal government” to improve public education was not working.  He said that “We are complicit in creating this system and I am frustrated by it.”  “Testing has become a perversion of its original intent.”  Wow.  Tentative applause.

He went on to say that he apologized that he could not get back every single dollar cut by the Legislature.  He knew we were being asked to do more with less.  He understood that his name was on the school finance lawsuits so he must be careful about what he said to us as it might come back to haunt him in the trial, but he said, “I cannot certify a ban on social promotion without providing the appropriate resources to teach kids.”  Wow.  WOW.  Spontaneous, enthusiastic applause by all present ensued.

He spoke of saving the Regional Education Service Centers.  He spoke about improving teacher quality through a variety of methods, not just the appraisal system.  He spoke of amending Ch. 39 of the Texas Education Code which addresses sanctions against districts who are in financial trouble or are low performing.  Wow.  More applause.

He said that if it was within his legal authority to do so, he would ban the 15% grading requirement on the EOCs this year.  Commissioner Scott concluded by saying, “Let me be Captain Obvious:  there is change coming.  There is a backlash to standardized testing and we must look to the likes of the Visioning Institute to seek new ways to assess.”

All 4,000 administrators rose to our feet in thunderous ovation.  The air was sucked out of the room.  We were in shock.  Stunned, excited, jubilant shock.  I tweeted as I left the session, “Who is this man and what has he done with our Commissioner?” He speaks as though he is one of us!

I left the convention hall and walked to a reception.  As I approached the sign-in area, there stood Robert Scott.  I have not been his strongest supporter, and he knows that.  I told him that if what I had just heard was the new Robert Scott I would support him.  He gave me a guy hug.

The PPPP critics are already attacking his stance, and there is more to come.  Frankly, now that he has positioned himself to support reasonable assessment within the framework of reasonable funding I worry that he can retain his appointed position.  But for now, I am encouraged by our Commissioner of Education and he has my support.

     STAAR is still on the horizon this spring.  But it has slipped a little in the political galaxy.  That falling STAAR could be good news for kids, teachers, schools and school systems sometime in the future, like when the Legislature reconvenes in January of 2013.  My telescope cannot see that far, but I have hope.  Is that a wish upon a STAAR?