Politics
Hood Riddance
Rick Perry's approach to getting rid of Texas's rob-the-rich school finance system seems like politics as usual—as usual.
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The concern among educational leaders is that the political risks will outweigh the necessity to improve the schools. The education funding crisis offers state leaders the best opportunity since the 1984 reform efforts led by Ross Perot to improve upon the most important function of state government. The 1984 session set Texas schools on the path toward more equity in funding, more accountability for performance, and higher standards. If state leaders can do as well this time around, any additional costs will be easier to sell to the public.
Perry has embraced some modest reforms aimed at reducing dropout rates, rewarding teachers for improved student performance, and giving school districts incentives to cut costs. All are ideas championed by Kent Grusendorf, the Arlington Republican named by Craddick to chair the House's interim study on school finance. A self-described investor, the 62-year-old Grusendorf has applied his conservative, market-based philosophy to state government issues since he ran for, and won, a seat on the State Board of Education in 1982. Unlike many Republicans, he sees taxes as a "necessary evil"; he wants to seize the moment and reinvent Texas public education. "How do you get maximum value for every dollar spent? That is going to require tough decisions, and we can't continue to do business as usual," says Grusendorf, who says he "has a big shopping list" of reforms. "Efficiency does not mean doing things on the cheap."
Grusendorf believes that the Legislature was "buying votes as opposed to buying better education" when it adopted across-the-board teacher pay raises in 2001. "The worst teacher on every campus got the exact same raise as the best teacher on every campus," he says. "We have to look at a better way of spending money." One better way, he says, would be to award incentives—"in the range of ten thousand to fifteen thousand dollars a year"—to principals and teachers who improve their students' performance during a school year. He'd free schools "from rules and regulations"—for instance, allow principals to decide whether to comply with the Perot-created 22-to-1 student-teacher ratio for elementary classrooms. "Don't get me wrong. I'm for small classes, but you need flexibility," he says. "You also need a strong accountability system so there's a price to pay if you make a dumb decision."
Grusendorf's willingness to seek more money for public schools could put him at odds with Perry, who prefers the less risky path of the little fix. Perry told reporters in January that he favored only enough new state money to allow reductions in local property taxes. A few days later, he said he "might" consider new money for incentive programs, but he is clearly resistant to any big fix. The issue of additional funding above current levels is a key point in the school districts' lawsuit; the districts claim that state funding is inadequate to provide the quality of education that the state constitution and laws currently mandate. Former Highland Park school board president Mike Boone, who has long advocated a big fix that would help rich and poor schools alike, grouses of Perry's position, "He's talking about rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic."
Boone points out that, because of Robin Hood, Highland Park has had to obtain a waiver from the 22-to-1 teacher ratio because it cannot afford to hire more teachers, even though it raised $2 million from private sources last year and several years ago began charging a $500 fee for sports participation. He calculates that the district needs about $1,000 more per student to bring it in line with state requirements. "We're leveling down and reducing the quality of education," he says. "If Highland Park, one of the wealthiest districts in the state, is down one thousand dollars per student, how bad off are districts with far fewer resources?"
One has to travel only a few blocks to find a district worse off than Highland Park: Dallas. Superintendent Mike Moses, who served as commissioner of education under Governor George W. Bush, produced a $1.2 billion budget last year by cutting administrative costs and 360 teaching positions. "When you do that, do you know what happens to class size?" he asks. "We can't go back to that well this year." That leaves arts programs and extracurricular activities as targets, and Dallas's per pupil spending on those programs is already well below the state average. "If you want the dropout rate to go down, you have to recognize there are kids who stay in school because they are engaged in activities that are wholesome and healthy," he says. "I don't know many kids in band, choir, or athletics who drop out."
Moses urged his board to join the lawsuit challenging the school finance system in part because cost adjustments for students with expensive special needs haven't been changed in more than eleven years, during which the state has undergone a huge demographic shift: 60 percent of the past decade's new students qualified for bilingual or special-education services. Of the Dallas Independent School District's 163,000 students, 93 percent are minorities, 79 percent are economically disadvantaged, and 32 percent are limited in English proficiency.
The district has established a separate student intake center for new immigrants to handle the complexities of integrating the two thousand or so new arrivals each year who represent 27 languages. The day I visited the center, the waiting room was filled with students from all over the globe. As I was interviewing the director, I saw Merlin Melgar, a spunky, clean-cut Honduran boy of fifteen, arrive, brimming with excitement about starting school. His circuitous route to Dallas schools began after his father's murder two years ago. Relatives fearing for Merlin's safety saved $2,500 to hire a coyote to spirit him to an uncle who worked as a roofer in Dallas. The trip took an unexpected detour when the van in which he was riding crashed in Kansas City, sending him to the hospital with a serious head injury. Immigration officials put him in a juvenile detention facility for a month before allowing him to go live with his uncle. "If we don't do something to make sure these kids are successful," says Moses, "are we really going to allow ourselves to become a state of low-skilled, low-wage workers?"
Meanwhile, back in Austin, the best chance for avoiding the Russian novel syndrome lies with the hope that political courage will trump fear of change. Members of both parties in the House and the Senate told me that they are determined to write a more optimistic ending, even if it means taking responsibility for a tax bill that Perry doesn't want. Otherwise, expect more of the barren, wintry landscape of Yudof's experience for Texas's long-suffering schools.
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