Burnt Orange Report

"As long as I'm speaker, we're not going to do it."

By Phillip Martin

Q. Which of the following should be done to fix our public schools?
A. Keep school board elections out of gyms on an odd Saturday in the spring
B. Move money away from textbooks to technology
C. Offer vouchers for private school education
D. All of the above

If you answered D, you must be House Speaker Tom Craddick, who is quoted in an article in Sunday's Midland Reporter Telegram as saying not to expect more money for our public schools anytime soon. In his own words: "As long as I'm speaker, we're not going to do it."

Touting Perry's 65% plan and the need for increased accountability, Speaker Craddick insisted that the state cannot afford to put more money into the "bottomless pit" of public education. However, as the Waco Tribune-Herald recently noted, Governor Perry's decree that the state should be allowed to micromanage every school in Texas not only defies local control, but arrogantly presumes that the needs in cities are the same as those in rural areas across Texas. That 65% doesn't factor in teacher aides, transporation, or nurses, just to name a few of the many "non-classroom" needs of our public schools.

What's more, the increased cry for accountability is the worst of political rhetoric. As one rural Superintendent from Jacksonville recently noted, superintendents already administer 48 different tests to their students every year, not to mention countless other accountability measures placed on them by state and federal mandates.

Why, then, do Republicans continue to push for meaningless reforms that will do nothing to help our schools? Two recent editorials give us some direction:

First, a recent Houston Chronicle editorial (it was archived, so the link is to a Texas education blog that posted it) titled "Perry's order on spending says more about own failings than about school districts'" talks about how foolish the 65% order is, and how its primary aim seems to be preventing school districts from suing the state:

Under Perry's order, school districts would have to account for what they spend on lobbyists and lawyers to sue the state for a constitutional school finance system. If Texas had responsible leaders and legislators, the school districts would have no need to petition the government for redress of grievances.

Gov. Perry's order serves two useful purposes. It demonstrates his indifference to the plight of public education, and it draws a bold diagram of how desperate that plight grows in Texas' leadership vacuum.

Secondly, a Fort-Worth editorial points out that maybe, just maybe, the Republican's want our schools to fail. In fact, Superintendent Kyle Collier of Pottsboro even bluntly accused state officials of trying to "de-emphasize public schools and make us fail so much that they have to pass vouchers."

Can we ever expect the Republican leadership to stop failing our schools and start investing in real reforms for our public schools? In Craddick's own words: "As long as I'm speaker, we're not going to do it."