Education Ruse



photo source

I gave a seriously hard time to a school board candidate at this past Saturday’s Tea Party meeting. I’m sorry, kind of. Even affter more than a decade, Mama Bear claws come out. So, while I appeared angry (and probably was, a bit, but we’ll just call it passionate), what I really appreciate is that the candidate answered the question at hand in a way that let me know how I would vote. And clarity is helpful. Plus, this question reveals a larger problem with the public school system.

During the presentation, the candidate—who is an educator at the local community college, with experience as a teacher, coach, and principal, who immigrated from a poor Asian nation and made good, and is probably a very decent human being—made this the main point of his presentation: “We need to concentrate on every single child. We need to be an advocate for every child.” Every child. Every single one.

He had pointed out that there’s a bottom 20% in every class. There are 130,000 current 9^th graders who may not graduate with their class in four years. Some end up in jail; some drop out. How do we reach out to get them equal opportunities?

What I think I heard was, “every child” means something more like a specific 20% of children. So I asked more pointedly for a definition of every child.

What I experienced in this very school district was failure toward my children, at high school, middle school, and elementary school levels. The gifted program at all levels was useless. The elementary school level was particularly telling. It consisted of moving my daughter from the class at one side of the room to the class at the other side. Not to a gifted class, just to one that was less slow in math. That was the sum total of the GT program. And she remained assigned to the first teacher, so I wasn’t allowed to meet with the newly assigned teacher. I also got feedback from teachers that they believed “gifted” was how they taught “all” the students, which told me they were clueless about this aspect of special education. There was some resentment that any child should even be identified as gifted.

Meanwhile, the school got an exceptional rating—the highest rating. I was told that the specific reason was that the principal concentrated on a lot of paperwork that looked good for reaching out to low performing minorities and ESL students (plenty were assigned to the school, as well as bussed in). As a principal who should be supportive of teachers and responsive to parents, she deserved a failing grade; I had multiple experiences convincing me. But after her retirement she got a new school named after her, because of her supposed great leadership. Concentrating on that lower 20% pays off in ways that honor a person for ignoring anyone not designated as socially worth helping.

So I asked the school board candidate, did he really mean ALL children, including smart white kids? His answer was that we really need to direct our resources to the lower 20%. His reason: there are three things that every child needs for education success: parental support, personal effort, and school opportunities. If you’re missing any one of those, it will be hard to succeed. So we need to make sure we offer them the school opportunities that all other students have.

There’s a logical flaw here. The school programs are already available for teaching basic education to every student. There are even a great many special programs for slower learners, addressing learning disabilities. There are food programs to feed those whose parents don’t provide their breakfast and lunch, because students can’t learn if they’re hungry. But there still isn’t really anything to make up for lack of the parent component.

If the effort is to provide the opportunity for every child to reach his/her potential, rather than to even out the result, then the school component is missing for anyone well above that lowest 20%.

When the candidate says, “We’re not worrying about those kids; they’re going to do fine,” what he’s saying is, if you’re smart, and a non-minority, and you have good parents, the schools have no obligation to provide that third component to help you reach your potential.

He was right that my kids did get what they needed—because we could see clearly that they could not get what they needed from this school district, so we pulled them out and did it ourselves. We nevertheless had to pay taxes for their education—in addition to the time, effort, lifestyle change, commitment, and loss of income that it cost us as a family. (Note: I was glad I was forced to do it; that decade is something I would never give up.)

But he’s wrong that the schools were doing fine by my kids and kids like them, that he’s justified in turning his attention elsewhere.

There’s a lie inherent in the very idea of public schooling. The history of the system is that it was intended to address the specific problem of those lower 20% who were not being educated by their families. Really, it was more specifically aimed at an even smaller percentage, the children of recent immigrants. There were poor kids on the streets, while their parents were working in factories, and they were getting into trouble and making no progress toward becoming contributing members of society. So a factory-style taxpayer-paid school system became a limited solution to a limited problem—that quickly grew into mandatory government-control of every child’s education except those who had parents with resources and determination to educate their children outside that system, over and above the costs they were forced to pay for all the other children in public schools.

There’s a pattern of tyrannist control here, worth a post on another day.

After the Tea Party meeting, the candidate came up to ask me, sincerely, whether he had answered my question. Yes. Yes he had. He had told me that he will take resources from doing the promised task of educating ALL students and give them to the specific students he feels sorry for, and that is what he means by “advocating for every child.”

I am not against doing what we can for children who are missing the basic social capital that would so benefit them. But pouring money into mitigating that damage, at the expense of students who deserve the ability to meet their potential, is not the solution. That is a way to deprive society of future success. The candidate will not get my vote.

On the bright side, his opponent was there, the incumbent, Don Ryan. I have been unfair to him in the past. When I first became aware of him, he ran on a ticket with two other candidates, neither of whom I liked—one of whom is the most harmful member of the board but most adored by teacher organizations. I had not disliked Ryan at the public forum; he sounded capable of dealing with the financial issues the board faces. But his connection to the others was a serious black mark.

These positions are nonpartisan, so it is hard to get philosophy. Since his election I have developed the priorities question:

You have three constituencies that you’re accountable to in your elected position as school board trustee: taxpayers, students, and teachers. How do you prioritize these constituencies, and why?

Don Ryan answered very well. First of all, he’s responsible to the taxpayers, but the combined goal of the taxpayers is the best education we can get for the students, so you can’t also feel a commitment to the students. He said it would be like choosing which child I a favorite. He mentioned teachers not at all. I liked his answer. He understands it’s about the best use of taxpayer money for the specified purpose of educating the children in our community.

I believed after last November’s election that we no longer had anyone conservative on our board. But after meeting him in person and hearing from him, I think we do have a lot in common. He also volunteered that he has always voted Republican in primary elections, and has always been conservative. Good to know, over and above his other good answers. He’s getting my vote.

The Priorities Question: School Board Part II

This is part II of information about a local school board election. I hope the thought process is valuable beyond the very local area.

I left off part I with this question for school board trustee candidates, about priorities: You have three constituencies in your elected position as school board trustee: taxpayers, students, and teachers. How do you prioritize these constituencies, and why?

I’ll introduce each of the three candidates, along with their order of priorities. I do think there’s a right answer, but almost no one ever gives it. I’ll cover my reasoning below.

Darcy Mingoia is the PAC candidate, running in tandem with Kevin Hoffman for the other open position (we didn’t hear from candidates for that position yet). She sees herself as conservative. She works in fundraising for the community college system, and even worked with the local chamber of commerce some years back to start the community college system. She has lived in the district for 34 years. She has been a small business owner, and served as president of the chamber of commerce for ten years. She went through school on scholarship (from a private foundation) and believes the community needs to help students get through school. Her kids went into engineering. She worked as a PTO and library volunteer, and then stayed connected as a volunteer representing the business community. She was instrumental in getting the access channel on cable so the community could view school board meetings.

She has a good resume. However, reaction to questions about the PAC showed her bristling, feeling adversarial to us Tea Partiers. I learned more about the PAC at this meeting, and I feel less knee-jerk rejection of anyone they put forward. Still, what I see is that the PAC has been detrimental to our district, regardless of their possibly well-meant intentions.

·         She answers the priorities question in this order: students first, then teachers, then taxpayers.

Bill Morris is the incumbent, and is probably best known for his vote against that big pay raise (discussed in part I). He’s been targeted for removal based simply on that vote, but he has fairly frequently stood alone or nearly alone against the rest of the board. He says he frequently puts forward ideas, but they do not get brought up for discussion, let alone for vote. It’s a tough position to be in. For a while, he was undecided about whether to run again, but in the end decided that he needed to keep standing firm; we needed someone who would.

He works for food services in HISD (Houston Independent School District), so his work lets him handle large portions of school budget, but without a conflict of interest within our district.

He is a man of few words. I would have liked to hear more details from him, more positive. He seems frustrated by the situation and mentioned a number of negatives. For example, a controversial issue has been the use and upkeep of a huge facility the district built (pretty much against the will of the people), with a football stadium, basketball arena, and theater areas. It is shared by various high schools in the district, but the rest of the time should be rented out to the community to mitigate costs. Some of that does happen, but there has been discussion about “thinking outside the box.” Renting out for events that would like to serve alcohol, such as weddings or some conventions, have been prohibited. Bill Morris is against that particular type of use; it is, after all, a high school facility. If alcohol were allowed, even under these specific circumstances, it would be the only such facility in the state to allow it. Not a good precedent to set. So, whether you agree or not, he is clear and firm in his position.

He pointed out that the head of the PAC had a school named after her, after the PAC got a particular candidate elected to the board. There’s an appearance of cronyism. Again, an apparent complaint. But, as a positive, he did give us an update on the efforts to push for parity among funding per student. Nearby Tomball district, for example, gets several hundred more per student than CFISD students. There has been pressure on the legislature, without effect. So now there is hope that pressure through the courts will have success. That case is coming up October 22^nd.

·         He answers the priorities question in this order: students first, then taxpayers, then teachers.

Lillian Wanjagi is a young mom, involved in higher education for 16 years, previously at Rice, and now at University of Houston Clear Lake. She has a third grade daughter at a school not far from me, who is her inspiration to get involved. She is working on her PhD, and her research topic is related to student success. I probably learned most from her during the Tea Party meeting (and conversation afterward). She grew up in Kenya, going through a British school system, so she at least has views beyond what has always been done here. I have seen school function better than here, so I like that there’s an outside view.

Her main points included giving choice to parents, who are “the main stakeholders in a child’s education,” and in setting priorities within a budget that will best affect quality for the student. She brought some interesting data. For example, of the $5000 per student spent in this district, $403 goes to ESL (English as a second language). That is the highest per student cost for a program. (Making sure you understand, this isn’t $403 per ESL student; it is $403 per student in the district in order to have an ESL program for those that need it.) For comparison, $82 per student goes to having sports programs; $55 goes to gifted and talented programs. (I can attest that the GT program is sub-par, as you’d expect if you’re spending seven-to-eight times more for ESL.)

Someone asked if we know how much of our budget goes to paying to educate and provide food and other services for children of illegal immigrants; we don’t have that data, although there were efforts in the last legislative session to try and obtain the data. The ESL program is, in theory, intended as a way to give a start to new immigrants (and schools don’t ask if the immigrants are legal or not) to get educated while learning the language. Many of these are certainly legal. But all the children of illegals will fall in this group as well. As Wanjagi said, we are required to educate all students, including illegals, but we’re not required to spend more on them than on our own students. So it’s about how you prioritize the spending per child, so that you get the quality we all want.

·        She answers the priorities question in this order: students first, then teachers, then taxpayers. However, more than once she said, “Parents are the most important stakeholders.” That comes very close to being a better answer.

In reality, the school board is hired for a specific purpose by the taxpayers and are not accountable to either the students or the teachers. But people hear a different question than I’m asking: “Who is most important to you?” Anyone involved in education who doesn’t answer that the students are most important is in the wrong place. But believing you’re accountable to students isn’t helpful. Students are likely want easy grades and fun classes—not necessarily things we know will lead to the outcome of best educated students. So saying you’re “for the children” isn’t very informative. So sometimes you have to look at the priority order between teachers and taxpayers.

In very fact, the trustees’ job is to carry out the mission of educating our children to the level we taxpayers request and expect, for the money we have contracted to provide. If they can’t do the job to the satisfaction of the taxpayers, they should be replaced with someone who can. What the students and teachers think of the trustees is irrelevant.  If they are faithful in their stewardship to the taxpaying community, the students will receive a good education—better than we’re seeing. And I don’t mean to imply that teachers are irrelevant. It is important to hire, retain, and compensate the best teachers we can get, in order to meet the mission. If trustees are being accountable to the taxpaying community that hires them, they will do what it takes to meet the mission. Teacher skill and satisfaction will be the result.

When a trustee mistakenly bows to the will of teachers (teacher unions/organizations), they may be betraying the taxpayers who hired them. That we have such resistance to merit-based pay and other performance related issues means someone is protecting ineffective teachers—which benefits neither the students nor the good teachers, and certainly not the taxpayers in their educational mission.

All three of our candidates were glad Texas has refused to accept federal money that came with strings attached. Texas is a rarity in this decision. But we believe we’re better off without submitting to yet more federal mandates.

All three of our candidates said they were in favor of keeping control as local as possible.

The priorities question is an indicator to me about how a person will decide issues. I’d have to look at my past notes, but I believe every PAC member has placed teachers ahead of taxpayers.

Which means we have to rule out Darcy Mingoia, even though she would probably not be a disastrous choice. But we have two candidates who seem to understand better than she does about the commitments being made to the people doing the hiring. It is parents, and broader than that, all taxpayers, who are paying for a particular outcome. We don’t want loyalties to some other constituency standing between us and the people we’ve hired.

Between Bill Morris and Lillian Wanjagi, I’ll let you choose. If I’m valuing fresh ideas, I’d probably go with Ms. Wanjagi. If I’m looking for ability to stand strong against difficult opposition, I’d go with Bill Morris. While I’m technically still undecided, I think I’m leaning toward the incumbent, because we need a guarantee right now that this one position on the board will stand firm.