Texas Progressives talk school takeovers, more

Off the Kuff produced the Q3 campaign finance reports for Texas Democratic candidates for Congress and the Senate.

SocraticGadfly noted that free speech is under attack at UNT .

It's "interesting" (repeat 11 or whatever times) that Gavin Newsom is waiting until after midterms to declare his expected presidential candidacy. Democratic midterm primaries are long done, so Zionism in the party can't be the excuse; maybe that's tied to the general, though. 

Long rumored and now official — TEA is taking over Fort Worth ISD. Another urban ISD where an Abbott flunky controls instruction. And, another big old fail on an article by the Trib, not even mentioning Marlin ISD among districts taken over by TEA in the past.

Cy-Fair has parents fighting back against the Christofascist Tim Dunn and Steve Hotze-backed wingnuts running its school board, who don't even allow textbooks. Contrast that to Solar Prep in Dallas. 

Abbott essentially admitted pushing an ideological purge in public universities. Per the piece, will this result in lawsuits? 

Kudos to Dr. Brett Cooper, deciding to stand up to Kenny Boy Paxton in a way that Dr. Mary Lau apparently decided not to. At the same time, a reminder to many liberals and many leftists that puberty blockers can indeed by overprescribed, per the May Clinic.

Neil at the Houston Democracy Project says the big peaceful October 18 No Kings protest in Downtown Houston was over-policed. The real criminals are the people running the state & running the country.   

The Barbed Wire notes the drop in attendance at the State Fair.

Texas Rail Advocates examines the first ever Statewide Multimodal Transit Plan for Texas.

Steve Vladeck and Law Dork wade into all of the National Guard litigation. 

The Texas Signal reports on an effort to defeat State Proposition 15.  

The Bloggess provides some education on various scams.

And, per this piece of mine yesterday, re Ana Marie Cox being removed from the feed? I again remind you that Charles Kuffner, aka Off the Kuff, loves No Kings protests and hates pro-Palestinian ones. 

Texas education: Looking at Bibles, books and more

The Texas Education Agency's offer to bribe local school districts to use "Bible-infused" curriculum is troubling indeed. And, it is surely unconstitutional. The bribery part makes clear this is the promotion of religion. And, the means by which it was done is one of Strangeabbott's most vile acts in his gubernatorial tenure, using a recess appointment to the State Board of Education.

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That said, the recess appointment vote was unnecessary for the SBOE to say it wants more control over local school district libraries. The hypocrisy of another tenet of modern conservativism is pretty glaring.

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Strangeabbott has said he will keep in place for another two years a tuition freeze at state universities. Places like Texas Woman's University, especially if they're not "flagships" like the Tea-Sippers or the Aggies having faced the state making up a smaller portion of their budget for several years, wonder if Strange is going to get the Lege to offer them more aid, and if not, where do they cut?

That’s because they have smaller budgets and endowments, fewer research grants and fewer deep-pocketed donors to make massive gifts. Faculty and higher education experts say they’re worried the state won’t step up to make up the difference.

There you are.

For details? Austin gets just 18 percent of its budget from the state. UNT, up here, it's 40 percent or more. Satellite schools like UT-Arlington, it's at least that high.

That said, the UT System is expanding the cutoff on its free tuition program to up to $100,000.

Will the city of Marlin replace Marlin ISD before TEA kills it?

The Marlin Independent School District has been a poster child for bad governance for a decade or more.

Michael Steck, touted as a turnaround artist in previous small school districts, claimed (as did TEA overseers) that he had at least made a serious start there.

He left just before the paper was sold and I left.

His successor, Michael Seabolt, threw him under the bus already a small bit before I left, and even more when I made my brief, undercut return.

It didn't add up to me.

Steck probably did some spinning, but, Seabolt wasn't a first-time or even a second-time super. Surely, he'd seen spinning before. Probably done some himself.

Also, if Steck was outrightly lying, would TEA monitors risk their reputations and even careers by cosigning that? Highly doubtful.

So, Seabolt got pointed toward the exit door last summer. BUT, he chose to open that door and go through it himself.

That, in turn, led to a dispute over whether he's eligible for unemployment. The district fought him.
And he's now won a round in his  battle against the district.

Meanwhile, the state-appointed board of managers is down to three.

Teachers fear/dislike the post-Seabolt administration.

And, the rumors are that the Texas Education Agency will stop the finger-wagging and finally close the district in six months if there's not real improvement.

Stop me if you've heard that before. It's the biggest district in the county. It would be tough for Rosebud-Lott, Chilton, Riesel or Bremond to swallow it. R-L is OK with vulture-picking transfer students in enough quantity to now be, I think, a bigger district by attendance. But, it doesn't want the whole district and the whole district's problems. Even smaller districts certainly don't.

Enter the city of Marlin.

The city has retained a former Waco superintendent to look at a city-run charter school. That said, he's "former" because of a misdemeanor pot bust, but says he's completed all legal hurdles.

The city still deserves better than the current school district, the mayor of a term back, and other things.

The county certainly deserves better than county attorney for life Jody Gilliam.

And, is a former denizen of the Dallas County Constables world (WHICH constable, given the amount of corruption exposed about them a decade ago), despite general police qualifications, an ideal police chief?

I wish I could do more from a ways away, but it's at least more than Ty Not-so Clevenger. 

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Update, Feb. 11: At the request of Gilliam, the Rangers are investigating Seabolt.

So, TEA still can't get Rosebud or Chilton to take over Marlin ISD

The Texas Education Agency, even before taking over direct control of Marlin ISD, had made noises about merging it into either Rosebud-Lott or Chilton ISD. But never has a larger school district been merged into a smaller. That said, with aggressive recruiting of transfers, Rosebud may be as big as Marlin now. But, it still doesn't want Marlin.

So, the TEA and Marlin ISD, or rather, the TEA's right hand in Austin and left hand of board of managers in Marlin, agreed TEA would run the district another year.

But THIS TIME WE MEAN IT, TEA's right hand told its left.

Improve enough, or we close the district.

And do what?

Let the kids be truants all day?

Try to force Rosebud-Lott (or Bremond???? Riesel????) to take over?

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Meanwhile, the city of Marlin has some theoretically good news — $10.6 million in a mix of grants and interest free loans to theoretically fix once and for all its water system.

What happens if Marlin defaults on the loans? Does the state take over a home-rule city? And, will this really fix the city's water problems? Ameliorate, yes, but fix?

Texas GOP voters: You reap what you sow

Texas Supreme Court
Justice Don Willett

For the first time ever, in the two-decade-plus history of multiple school financing lawsuits against the state of Texas, the state won on Friday. The full opinion is here.

And hence, the headline of the post. It's like "What's the Matter with Kansas," only more so.

Yes, the Texas Supreme Court's been all-GOP for some time, but it has shifted steadily further right. And steadily backward.

Sounding like something from the pre-Brown v Board of Education era, straight out of Plessy v Ferguson, Justice Don Willett, who wrote the opinion (there were two concurrences) said that money doesn't equate to educational quality.

Really? Then why do urban parents move to richer suburbs, from either the central city or poorer suburbs? Part of it is racial, but part is financial.

That said, out in small towns and rural areas, there's no rich suburbs where to move. But, people continue to vote against their own self-interest.

I'm in a part of the state where one of the two State Board of Education candidates believes President Obama used to be a gay prostitute, and stuff arguably even weirder. How does electing a candidate like that help rural schools get more money from the state?

It doesn't.

Worse yet, Bruner used to be a kindergarten teacher herself.

And, contra Cherokee County GOP Chairwoman Tammy Blair, Bruner is NOT "a nice older lady." Bigotry normally has hatred behind it. Her comments appear to reflect racism that she's projected back onto Obama (East Texas, especially Deep East Texas, still has plenty of that), gay-bashing, and more. There's nothing nice about that.

And, contra her opponent in the runoff, Keven Ellis, sorry, but for many people, thoughts like hers ARE conservative, and ARE Christian.

That said, there's no guarantee Ellis will be that much more enlightened, should he win the GOP runoff, and presumably, the general election.

And, it's the Texas Lege, not the SBOE, who make the funding decisions. And, so far, my Republican state rep and Republican state senator are both practicing duck and cover politics on this issue. And, that's with my state senator not up for election this cycle and my state rep facing no general election race.

Per the header, I feel sorry for Texas children in central cities, poorer first-ring suburbs, and small towns and the country.

Do I feel sorry for their parents, though?

If they voted Republican, not really.

Their own scriptures tell them that, in the old KJV: "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap," or in modern English: "As a man sows, so shall he reap."

Yes, the state Supremes, as well as the Texas Lege and the statewide executive offices, have been all-GOP for more than a decade. But, their holders, and their party, have drifted barreled hard farther right in the past half-dozen years or so.

I mean, former Texas Supreme Court Chief Justice Wallace Jefferson was a plaintiffs' lawyer! The court rejected a man formerly one of its own, who was part of the 2005 school finance ruling that said, yes, Texas did have a de facto statewide property tax.

UPDATE, May 18: The surest sign yet this ruling was fucked up is that Justice Willett is on Trump's SCOTUS short list.

Meltdown in Marlin ISD, or TEA commish kneecapping?

Well, it looks like the school district of my former newspaper home is in a heap of trouble.

Unless Marlin ISD has big improvement by next July, Texas Education Agency Commissioner Michael Williams wants to shut it down, lock, stock and barrel.

There's several head-scratchers here.

First, a bit of background.

The TEA was threatening to close Marlin three or four years ago, as described here, due to district academic deficiencies. Then it hired a new superintendent, Michael Steck, who'd already done some degree of turnaround in his first spot, at Veribest ISD, where he was a finalist for superintendent of the year.

The middle school and high school at Marlin got off the TEA schneid, but the elementary school, where the district's problems were by far the worst, remained academically unacceptable, and so the district did as a whole.

The first link, from the Waco Trib, seems to have little information from the period after Steck was hired, including that it notes a warning letter from former TEA Commish Robert Scott back in 2011 with this quote:

“The monitor I appointed has been met with resistance and a lack of cooperation as she has attempted to implement her changes,” states a letter from Robert Scott, commissioner of education in 2011.

The fact is that I saw no such resistance after Steck got there. And neither did TEA monitor Jamie Morris (at least for public consumption), the last monitor to remain in place after the state reduced most of its oversight at the middle and high schools.

I'm not quite saying the Trib was doing a whack job; I don't think it was. But, while I know Marlin ISD still has problems, the Trib's Stephanie Butts didn't lay out much of a timeline of progress that has been made.

Indeed, the paper that serves Natalia ISD, where Steck went next, notes that improvement:

“He was recruited to take the position of Marlin ISD Superintendent by the Regional Education Center and TEA,” (Natalia) Board President Eric Smith said. “When he took over there, it was scheduled to be closed by the state within months due to their extremely poor academic status. They had seven state monitors on-site full time. Steck asked TEA for one year to improve academics before closing the district. Three years later all monitors are gone, except one TEA representative and things are headed in the right direction. Although Steck admitted improvements have been achieved, there is still work to be done.”

Still work to be done.

Steck's successor in Marlin, Michael Seabolt, who started there in June, discusses that in the Trib piece:

Seabolt said he already has made drastic changes to both teacher training and student instruction. 

Teachers are now required to teach using the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills curriculum, which wasn’t previously required, and received professional development on teaching literacy during the summer. Some teachers hadn’t seen any state accountability tests, he said. 

“They really had no idea of the rigor needed or what was being tested, in particular in reading,” Seabolt said. 

OK, so, did Steck do that much, or not? I know the elementary principal, Wes Brown, fairly well. (The comments are referring to the elementary.)

Surely Morris would have said something if major issues with teacher training still existed. Was Steck that far off? Is Seabolt claiming credit for things that Steck already had in place?

Anyway, I shot Brown an email, politely noting my interpretation of the Trib's piece and a couple of other things. We'll see if he responds. (As of Monday late afternoon, no.) The district is having a "save our schools" meeting; we'll see what turnout there is.

Update, Oct. 8: Turnout was very good, the Trib says.

Per the second link, Williams says state law requires the revocation of accreditation. Per this piece, he also says that the district failed to file timely appeals on the ratings. 

That, too, could cut two ways. Either some things got lost in the shuffle of superintendent changes or else Steck, burned out, out of magic wands or sleights of hand, hightailed it knowing that Williams was going to torpedo the ship in Marlin anyway.

Update, Oct. 9: A follow-up story by the Trib (same reporter on all) has the same "lacuna" problem as the original story on recent superintendent history. I've emailed Trib Editor Steve Boggs already and have yet to hear back from him. I Tweeted Butts now, giving her enough hints to work on filling this lacuna, and finding out what else comes up — if she wants to and Boggs wants her to.

Update, Oct. 13: Butts said she left messages with Steck, so he had his chance to comment. Again, there could be multiple reasons he didn't. He may just have "moved on," or he may have been turd-polishing. And, he's old enough, that Devine ISD could be his last pre-retirement stop, in which case, he wouldn't care what Seabolt is insinuating about him.

Update, Oct. 23: Seabolt has called Marlin Elementary instruction from before he arrived "Crayola curriculum." If he's even partially right, that explains who Steck wouldn't talk to Butts and Brown wouldn't talk to me. As for TEA monitor Jamie Morris, was she that bedazzled?

Dan Patrick: Bad for Texas, very bad for Texas schools

In this in-depth op-ed interview in the Waco Herald-Tribune, Bonnie Lesley and Linda Ethridge of Texas Kids Can't Wait discuss the state of educational affairs in Texas.

Here's the nut graf of the header, though there's many nut grafs in the whole piece. From Lesley:

About a third of the House and about a fourth of the Senate we rated as unacceptable. These are the folks who are the real hardliners. Particularly in the Senate, there were a number of people who got minus points they were so bad. The very worst of both chambers was state Sen. Dan Patrick.

The pair notes, with sadness and no irony, that Patrick was, in last year's Legislature, chairman of the Senate Education Committee.

Why are he and others unacceptable?

Among other things, for giving blank checks to charter schools.

Those blank checks, some deliberate at this time, some already in place by the nature of charter schools, are:
1. Selective admission, including not having to admit students with physical or mental handicaps, ESL needs and more.
2. Like the Federal Reserve, wanting to be public institutions when it's beneficial, and private when that's beneficial. The biggest claim on the privacy side is trying to dodge the Open Records Act.
3. Lack of elected school boards, and refusal to make this a requirement.
4. Little curriculum oversight, including teaching of creationist-based pseudoscience at some charter schools.

Rick Perry likes to boast about Texas as a job creation state, while his detractors rightly note many of those jobs are at or near minimum wage and without health benefits. Well, with foxes like Patrick guarding the educational henhouse, we know why.

Next, they look at school finance, starting by dispelling the common assumption that last year's Lege "fixed the damage" from the previous one:

I think a lot of people thought the money they put in fixed it, but it didn’t. We’re still billions of dollars behind. The $5.4 billion (cut in the 2011-12 biennium) is gone forever and we didn’t even get that much back, plus we keep adding 85,000 kids (to Texas schools) a year. And if you look at the charter schools, without all the new ones that are coming on board that the Legislature approved, charters altogether cost the state some $1.6 billion this year in resources that otherwise would be public school money.

In other words, we're not even treading water; we're just drowning more slowly.

That's not counting the money being pounded down the charter school rathole.

That's not the only shocker. The unidentified interviewer says at least one member of the Lege doesn't know how school finance works. And openly admitted that.

Oy.

Go read the whole piece. It's good.

Tom Pauken starts venting his #xenophobia

Pauken, Greg Abbott's alleged "competition" for the GOP nomination for governor in Texas, rightly questions the Texas Education Agency's contract for school testing services with Pearson.

That contract has come under fire for lack of transparency, violating the state's "revolving door" statute on state officials immediately going to work for related private businesses, and more.

But, then, he "went there" (emphasis added in quote):

"In view of the State Auditor’s Office report criticizing Texas’ $462 million contract with the British firm Pearson as too vague, it should be more evident to everyone that the entire contract needs to be eliminated.

“My policy as governor would be to work with the Texas Education Agency to find a more sensible and less costly way of testing our public school students’ levels of achievement. There are better ways of ensuring accountability in public education while also maintaining high standards.

“I have previously called for completely ending the contract with this British-owned company. It is increasingly obvious that now is the time to end this contract.”

Good thing it's "fish and chips" instead of "fish and British fries," eh? 

The contract is wrong because it's wrong, period. No xenophobic references needed. And,  Deepwater Horizon aside, what does Pauken think of BP, the former British Petroleum? Or Royal Dutch Shell?

Meanwhile, the Dallas Morning News reports the revolving door has been shut again.

Meanwhile, where was Comptroller Susan Combs during all this? It's arguable that she was AWOL from monitoring that her agency has a right to do. Yes, the state auditor is the first line of defense, but, if that office wasn't going to intervene, the comptroller's office could have, IMO.

Finally, this is why Greg Abbott thinks he can do a general-election focused panderfest during the primary. Pauken makes him look sane, and offers little real competition.

The man has no electoral politics brains whatsoever.

If he did, instead of Brit-bashing, he'd be rhetorically asking how the revolving door issues flew by Abbott's office without an adversarial AG's opinion.

Instead, it's the same xenophobia we saw over the Trans-Texas Corridor. It too was wrong. But Cintra being a Spanish company, as wingnuts repeatedly mouthed, had nothing to do with it being wrong.

Texas schools are above average

I didn't type that with a straight face.

However, one of Texas AG Greg Abbott's minions witness-stand did say that, reportedly with a straight face, during the Texas school finance lawsuit.

Oh, and the fact that George Whitehurst, an ex-Bushie from the Bush-era Department of Education now works for Brookings is yet more proof it's not a "liberal" think tank. (Its neocon bloodthirstiness over Iraq should have dispelled that long ago, anyway.)

Here's a key statement:

Whitehurst also refuted conclusions by school-district witnesses that Texas schools are underfunded by billions of dollars per year. He said that, in general, the study of education and educational outcome has lagged far behind research in other areas and is something of a “backwater.”

Even more scary? If Rick Perry stands behind what Whitehurst says, will he propose whacking even more from the education budget in January?

The abysmal state of Texas sex education

When a MALE high school student wonders aloud about his cervical cancer risk, you know that “just say no,” abstinence-only and Korean War-era leftover Army VD films and other scare tactics, being used for what Gov. Helmethair and the Texas Education Agency euphmemistically call sex education is an utter flop.

And, that’s not the only problem. We also have illegal church-state mixtures, sexual stereotypes and more:

One abstinence-only program used in 53 school district says women need “financial support,” while men need “domestic support,” according to the report.

Some Texas classrooms mix religious instruction and Bible study into sex education programs.

“Hardly a page can be found that does not include multiple references to Bible verses, invocation of Christian principles, even attempts to proselytize students with the Christian plan of salvation,” the report states about a program called Wonderful Days used by three districts in the Fort Worth area.

Inaccuracies are also an issue. Condom failure rates, only about 2-3 percent in reality, are often taught as being as high as 20 percent. If not with the individual teachers, with the level of curriculum writing, I suspect that’s deliberate.

It’s all laid out in an executive study of the survey.

Lancaster ISD — ‘The worst school board meeting I have ever attended’

No, not my words, though they could be. Instead, that’s the comment of. TEA-appointed conservator James Damm.

Ron Rowell from the Texas Education Agency believes Damm is having a calming effect on the Lancaster School Board. Maybe at the last meeting, but not at the first two he was at.

Meanwhile, Damm partially contradicted LISD Chief Financial Officer Cheryl Peoples and said, yes, the district likely WILL need a bridge loan.

Oh, and will Damm’s comments shame either Carolyn Morris or Ed Kirkland? Fuhhgeddaboutit.

Se habla Español in vuestras escuelas?

Federal judge William Wayne Justice ruled Friday that the Texas Education Agency has not done enough for the education of bilingual students, and its’ now on the clock. The TEA has until January to submit a plan to Justice to remedy what he sees as state shortcomings.

The ruling was in response to a lawsuit by the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund. MALDEF pointed at scores on the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills as proof the state had not improved the education of bilingual students at the secondary level.

Justice reversed his own 2007 ruling, which looked at K-12 education overall and did not focus on secondary education.

MALDEF also alleged that bilingual programs were inadequately monitored.

Word is that the Lege had hoped to focus the 2009 session on transportation issues, with that being the sunset year for TxDOT, and push any major education issues back to 2011.

With this on the agenda, that’s going to open the floor to other education related items.

And, while I know that house and senate committees meet regularly in the off years, let me once again point out the stupidity of a legislature representing 20 million people meeting only every other year.

Sidebar – while Justice’s ruling applies only in Texas, MALDEF is going to be pushing other states with growing Hispanic populations to get on the ball, too

Larry Lewis, say hello to your new boss

James Damm, who oversaw Wilmer-Hutchins ISD as an interim superintendent, is now the new TEA-appointed conservator for Lancaster ISD. Damm has also been chief financial officer at Plano, Highland Park and El Paso ISDs.

Good luck, Mr. Damm. You’re going to need it.

You’re probably going to need every ounce of skill and energy to keep Lewis and Carolyn Morris from killing each other.

TEA Commissioner Robert Scott cited not just the past year’s financial management, but several years of less than stellar financial diligence.

In addition to financial and budgetary oversight, he’s also supposed to look at communication issues in the district.

As, I said above:
Good luck, Mr. Damm. You’re going to need it.

Oh, and in case you didn’t read down to the bottom of Scott’s bullet points, Larry, Damm can:
• Disapprove any action by the superintendent;
• Recommend additional sanctions against the district.

Mr. Damm, you probably should start by nosing around district personnel matters, hiring and firing, human relations and other issues.

Drop Commissioner Scott an e-mail line, maybe with a temporary e-mail account, if you have things James Damm needs to look at. (I did.)

Lancaster ISD Supt Larry Lewis – officially demoted by TEA or still hanging on? (Updated for DeSoto)

I guess the Texas Education Agency audit didn’t quite “vindicate” the school district or the superintendent after all, if TEA is in fact naming a conservator to oversee the “troubled” district. Yep, just like Wilmer-Hutchins before its ultimate demise, the Snooze will have their Microsoft Word programs with a text macro to automatically insert the word “troubled” in front of “Lancaster ISD” for the foreseeable future. TEA told Lancaster School Board President Carolyn Morris that the yet-unnamed conservator will be on campus three days a week. 

Update, Dec. 20, 2021. I see Lewis has been named interim superintendent at DeSoto ISD and this piece is trending. For a more complete list of other reasons not to make this permanent, click here .

Lewis said the TEA had not contacted him about the decision on a conservator. He was surprised to learn that Morris had been told first. “That’s not the Texas Education Agency I know,” Dr. Lewis said. “Generally, they talk to the superintendent and the superintendent then inform the board.”

Well, maybe something got leaked that TEA didn't want to go public yet. Or maybe (see below) Carolyn Morris got something wrong. Or maybe this isn't Shirley Neely's TEA any more.

Morris said she was told by TEA that the cost of the conservator is $60 an hour. According to the agency’s Web site, that is paid by the school district.

That’s $480 a day on a straight eight-hour day, or about $1,400 a week at three days a week. That said, per a second story, the TEA claims Morris misunderstood them and that Commissioner Scott still hasn’t pulled the trigger on anything. That said, Lewis said he talked with TEA officials, but isn’t commenting. Silence gives assent? To the original story, in this case? Details of what got LISD in trouble are in the 291-page PDF of the TEA audit findings. (The portions after page 64 are basically skippable.) 

• Not in compliance with IRS travel reimbursement regs, page 8; 
• Unallowable travel per diem when paid from a state or federal grant, page 9; 
• Per diem/credit card “double dipping,” page 9; 
• MLK dinner at Pappadeaux, page 11 (anytime you spend nearly $600 at Pappadeaux for a Martin Luther King Jr. dinner for less than 30 people - $55 a pop, roughly- , you’re inviting trouble from your own taxpayers - the heck with TEA; 
• Other credit card dining, with unnamed city of Lancaster staff as well, page 11ff; 
• Counting graduated seniors as attending school after the date of graduation, page 13.

 

Update, Dec. 20, 2021: I see we've got new visitors here, presumably attracted by Larry Lewis being named interim superintendent in DeSoto. 

Doorknob help us if this indicates he could be the permanent deal. Click the Larry Lewis tag below or else right here for all the "fun" about him.

Besides the above, you'll find this about his time at Lancaster ISD:

• A payday advance loan system, among other financial irregularities. 
• His general selling ice to Eskimos/coals to Newcastle bullshitting.
• His religious authoritarian appropriation that God talks to him and people opposing his bond proposals after he screwed the pooch on his first one are minions of Satan or close to it.
• Trying to funnel business from school district employees to a school board member.
• Someone willing to personally smear people without grounds.

And, pre-Lancaster, don't forget his performance at Austin Reagan.

Note also: I tweeted most this info to Talia Richman at the Snooze, the author of the linked piece. We'll see what, if any, folo she does.

Lancaster ISD in BIG trouble with TEA

Anytime the Texas Education Agency talks about appointing a conservator, you’re in trouble.

Anytime you get per diem meal allowances and still apparently bill meals to a credit card, you’re inviting trouble.

Anytime you spend nearly $600 at Pappadeaux for a Martin Luther King Jr. dinner for less than 30 people ($55 a pop, roughly), you’re inviting trouble from your own taxpayers; the heck with TEA.

And, it seems awfully strange for Superintendent Larry Lewis to claim this “vindicates” the school district.

Details in the 291-page PDF of the TEA audit findings. (The portions after page 64 are basically skippable.)
• Not in compliance with IRS travel reimbursement regs, page 8;
• Unallowable travel per diem when paid from a state or federal grant, page 9;
• Per diem/credit card “double dipping,” page 9;
• MLK dinner at Pappadeaux, page 11;
• Other credit card dining, with unnamed city of Lancaster staff as well, page 11ff;
• Counting graduated seniors as attending school after the date of graduation, page 13;

Also, whether ethical or not, or legal or not, a number of the credit card bills, as I had heard off the record in the past, are related to the International Baccalaureate program.

As for the Pappadeaux dinner, the current LISD administration could have talked to the “other lens” called King Myrick before he moved away from Lancaster.

Now, if you had just invited Jeff Melcher there, everything would have been hunky-dory!

That said, Kathy Goolsby (or her editor), coming off as typical mainstream media, couldn’t resist taking a shot at Lancaster Today. If the Snooze would just worry about its own financial bottom line, it wouldn’t have to potshot at a school district entering into an agreement with a suburban community newspaper. (And, Today Newspapers actually has a copy of the contract, Kathy.)

Lancaster ISD in BIG trouble with TEA

Anytime the Texas Education Agency talks about appointing a conservator, you’re in trouble.

Anytime you get per diem meal allowances and still apparently bill meals to a credit card, you’re inviting trouble.

Anytime you spend nearly $600 at Pappdeaux for a Martin Luther King Jr. dinner for less than 30 people ($55 a pop, roughly), you’re inviting trouble from your own taxpayers; the heck with TEA.

And, it seems awfully strange for Superintendent Larry Lewis to claim this “vindicates” the school district.

Details in the 291-page PDF of the TEA audit findings. (The portions after page 64 are basically skippable.)
• Not in compliance with IRS travel reimbursement regs, page 8;
• Unallowable travel per diem when paid from a state or federal grant, page 9;
• Per diem/credit card “double dipping,” page 9;
• MLK dinner at Pappadeaux, page 11;
• Other credit card dining, with unnamed city of Lancaster staff as well, page 11ff;
• Counting graduated seniors as attending school after the date of graduation, page 13;

Also, whether ethical or not, or legal or not, a number of the credit card bills, as I had heard off the record in the past, are related to the International Baccalaureate program.

As for the Pappadeaux dinner, the current LISD administration could have talked to the “other lens” called King Myrick before he moved away from Lancaster.

Now, if you had just invited Jeff Melcher there, everything would have been hunky-dory!

That said, Kathy Goolsby (or her editor), coming off as typical mainstream media, couldn’t resist taking a shot at Lancaster Today. If the Snooze would just worry about its own financial bottom line, it wouldn’t have to potshot at a school district entering into an agreement with a suburban community newspaper. (And, Today Newspapers actually has a copy of the contract, Kathy.)

Teacher merit pay concerns in Texas

I can see why a lot of school districts here in Texas are opting out of the state’s merit pay plan. Poorer districts are worried about the 15 percent match.

But, all districts should be worried about “teaching to the TAKS,” given that the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills makes up 60 percent of the assessment weight for Tier 1 of the state’s merit pay program.

All I know is that, being in the Dallas area, when I hear “TAKS” and “money” in the same sentence, my first associational response is “Wilmer-Hutchins ISD.”

Of course, the monetary amounts on the merit pay system are too low to be a huge incentive to cheating, but it would surely cross somebody’s mind.

And, since Tier 3 of the Texas Education Association merit pay plan is based on student attendance, what’s to stop somebody from fudging the books there?

I’ll have more next week, after an article in my newspaper and at least one post on our company blog stimulates some discussion, I hope.