December 7, 2006

With Reprieve on School Finance, Key
Lawmakers Give Glimpse of Next Fights

By Mike Hailey
Capitol Inside Editor

Robin Who?

The Prince of Thieves had left the building long before four of the Texas Legislature's leading experts on education gathered Wednesday in downtown Austin to provide a peek at what to expect in a new world of public school politics that won't revolve around a court case as much as it had before legislators agreed on a school finance package last spring. After four years at war with each other over a school finance system that relied more heavily on property taxes and mandatory revenue-sharing, state legislators will finally be able to turn their attention to fights on other education-related dilemmas that had been shoved to the back burner while they scrambled for a way to keep the public school system in business in the face of a Supreme Court order.

But none of the three Republicans or the Democrat who shared their thoughts on the upcoming legislative session during a panel discussion at a Statewide Legislative Education Briefing left any impressions that public education would be any less expensive, less contentious or less complicated in 2007 than it had been before the Legislature got the courts off its back for the time being with a school finance plan it approved in special session last spring.

State Senator Florence Shapiro - a Plano Republican who sponsored the landmark special session measure known as House Bill 1 from her post as the Senate Education Committee chair - listed teacher quality, charter school reform, facilities and safety as key components in an agenda she wants legislators to consider after they convene next month for a regular session that will go on for five months. But Shapiro's call for an overhaul of the state's measuring system for educational performance may have the most potential for fireworks. And despite predictions of a record state surplus in the neighborhood of $15 billion come January - the veteran senator raised the specter of a major budget showdown by suggesting that a partisan Legislature would likely balk at attempts to bust a constitutional spending cap that could keep a substantial slice of the pie out of reach next year.

Shapiro plans to file legislation that would replace the controversial Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills test with "end of course exams" that would determine whether students are prepared to advance to the next level. Attempting to head off potential doubters, Shapiro insisted that her plan to move away from the standardized test in favor of exams tailored for specific courses would in no way eliminate or diminish accountability within the public school system. But it could be politically sticky after an election year in which Democrat Chris Bell used the TAKS test as a weapon in his bid to unseat Governor Rick Perry.

Shapiro's testing measure appears to be a middle ground proposal between suggestions that the TAKS be eliminated altogether and Perry's 2005 plan to give school districts the option to use end-of-course exams in basic subjects such as English and math in lieu of the standardized test that Texas adopted shortly after the incumbent became governor five years ago. Despite the local option provision, Perry still placed a high premium on TAKS scores, proposing that they be used as a basis for incentive funding for teachers and schools. The governor persuaded the Legislature to approve personalized study guides for students who failed the graduation examination in the 11th grade. But Shapiro says tests must be evaluated every five years - and she suggests that's what led to her current proposal.

Shapiro hopes to strengthen teacher recruitment and training provisions in HB 1. She wants charter schools that are doing a good job to be rewarded and those that are not to be closed. After delaying work on facilities in the spring special session due to time limitations, Shapiro suggested that should be a priority next year. The Senate's education leader also wants to make schools safer with mandatory fingerprinting for criminal background checks and a statewide clearing house where school districts can share information on employees who've transferred. Officials have been surprised to learn that dozens of registered sex offenders have landed jobs in the public school system.

Republican State Reps. Dan Branch of Dallas and Rob Eissler of The Woodlands - who've been been key players on the House Public Education Committee since their debut sessions four years ago - both suggested that public education in Texas has plenty of room for improvement despite recent gains. While legislators have talked a good game on accountability, Eissler indicated that a tiny fraction of the state's public schools are performing at a level as high as some Texans envision or expect.

Branch, who led the fight to limit the recapture of tax revenue in well-to-do districts for use by poorer schools, suggested that legislators will be making a costly mistake if they lose their focus on public education in 2007 simply because the courts are not breathing down their necks. Branch suggested that an educated workforce is a key to economic expansion and a prerequisite if Texas hopes to compete at a top level on an international playing field.

Shapiro said that money alone is not a cure-all, but none of the legislators on hand implied that the price tag for public education in Texas will do anything but go up if it's going to be done right. After Shapiro outlined goals that she hopes to parlay into successful legislation during the regular session, State Rep. Rene Oliveira, the panel's only Democrat, pointed to measures he hopes to help kill.

Oliveira, a Brownsville Democrat who's been the Public Education Committee's vice-chairman since the GOP took control of the House in 2003, warned that a spate of bills that would deny public education and other benefits to the children of illegal immigrants will help fuel a "doom of ignorance" that will cost Texas taxpayers substantially more in the long run. Oliveira said the measures targeting immigrants fly in the face of the U.S. Constitution and Supreme Court decisions - and for that reason he hopes they will "die a quick death." The immigration bill that has received the most attention so far is one that's been filed by Republican State Rep. Leo Berman of Tyler.

Oliveira acknowledged that he'd been one of eight House members to vote no on HB 1. While Oliveira praised the work that legislators like Shapiro, Eissler and Branch put into the school funding plan, he said he cast an opposing vote because in his mind it simply wasn't enough.