So What Was That About School Funding?

Based on the last part of my previous post, this headline from the Houston Chronicle should come as no surprise:

Next Governor Likely to Face School Finance Problems

This is the critical issue facing the state, as it has since 1993, 1997, 2003, and obviously today. But when a school district like Plano is facing such serious shortfalls, it's surprising when the governor won't admit that there's a problem.

TEX EDUCATION, 2010

An interesting post by Paul Burka regarding the two Republican gubernatorial candidates in Texas. The gist is that Senator Hutchison claims that Governor Perry has let public education founder during his record-setting time in office. Fine by me.

But Burka points out that the senator's own statements on what she would do to solve the problem are woefully lacking, writing:

Here’s what’s missing from the Hutchison battle strategy: She doesn’t hesitate to say that Perry is doing some important things badly, and she doesn’t hesitate to say that she has done good things in the Senate. What she doesn’t say is what she will do when she is elected governor. Voters have no more clue what the top priorities of a Hutchison governorship might be, or how she might carry them out, than they did when she first announced that she was running a year ago.

This is one of the major problems with education--it's always there as a whipping boy for the next cycle, but progress is painfully slow. My sense is that until the state contributes more tax dollars to the schools instead of relying so much on property taxes and recapture, we won't make serious headway.

And There It Is . . .

The DMN weighs in on the editorial page. I'd call it "qualified" support.

RE: Tom Leppert

No editorial today, as I had predicted in my previous post (it's coming though, just you wait), but there is this story in the metro section that examines how previous mayors have interacted with DISD. Summary: Laura Miller was conservatively prudent; Ron Kirk was ready to throw the bums out.

Tom Leppert's Grade Expectations

When Tom Leppert was elected mayor of Dallas in June 2007, one of his platforms was improving DISD. No one doubted his commitment to education, but journalists asked him the question they should have asked him: What does being mayor of Dallas have to do with running the schools? He correctly pointed out that, according to the charter, absolutely nothing. But he also correctly pointed out that the mayor should shine a light on education, offer support, and suggest ways to improve. Public School Dad agreed with all of this.

So today the Dallas Morning News runs a front-pager above the fold called "Leppert Looks at Taking Over DISD." The mayor has spoken to powerful (and popular) state senator Royce West about possible legislation that could make such a change happen, though my sense it that the more likely scenario for takeover would come from the TEA, which would probably appoint a career educator as conservator instead of the mayor. Still, here's the simple play for Leppert: He cares about the schools. He has proven himself to be an effective and popular mayor. And DISD has proven itself to be--how do you say?--"not effective" and "not popular." For a mayor with larger political aspirations, running this proposal up the flag pole makes perfect sense. And given that city manager Mary Suhm seemed surprised to hear this news confirms that. Let's face it--any pressure that the school board and the superintendent feel about their performance is a positive. After all, these are the fine folks who brought you this.

Two small additional points. One, the News didn't do a great job of explaining the mechanics of such a takeover process, either via the Lege or TEA. The sidebar on other major cities that have had their districts taken over the mayor's office--Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, and Washington D.C.--is helpful, but no mention of Texas cities would leave the reader with the assumption that this has never happened in our state. That should have been in the story.

Second, you gotta love this bit from trustee Leigh Ann Ellis:

"If this is true, I think it's an underhanded kind of slimy tactic. The mayor needs to just stay in his kingdom down there." Ellis said improvements are being made in the district, but it can't be fixed overnight.

By "overnight," I guess she's measuring that in geologic time. Finally, what are the odds that the DMN editorial page will weigh in on this positively tomorrow? I'd bet a six-pack (of Dr Pepper).

One Needle in a Very Large Haystack

There's a certain irony that on the day the wags at the Wall Street Journal published a story titled "Why Everything Is Bigger in Texas," about the number of past and present players from the Texas Rangers who have been implicated in the growing steroid scandal, another story ran on the front page of the Houston Chronicle. This one was headlined "State's High School Steroid Testing Yields 7 Positive Results."

Texas has embarked on the country's most aggressive testing program for high school athletes, and here are the latest numbers: Out of 29,000 tests, only 11 have been positive. Now, even I hadn't been drug-free in high school, I could figure out that that's only 0.037 percent. And let's be honest, I would have expected that at least 0.037 percent would have been flagged for ingesting a combination of Dr Pepper, heroin, diesel fuel, and Monster Energy drink.

So my question is this: Assuming the numbers are correct, is the program really worth $6 million a year? And if the testing is flawed, why are we paying the National Center for Drug Free Sport that much money in the first place?