Cut and Paste

THURSDAY, JUNE 9, 2011

This has been an amazing year for Texas public schools. The year began as always with football practice (2-a-days) in August, volleyball practice, cheerleader camps, elementary teachers sneaking into classrooms early for bulletin boards, principals frantically hiring and finalizing handbooks and staff development days, superintendents and school boards working on budgets, etc., etc. All the back-to-school sales sent parents scurrying to stores for school clothes and school supplies and negotiating with their offspring about what to wear the first day. Parents of elementary kids want desperately to know who will teach their child, and secondary kids desperately want to know their schedules and who among their friends will they see during the day. The August frenzy devolves to the September routine.

November changed everything. In an amazing show of force Texas voters returned Rick Perry to the re-modeled Governor's Mansion, and sent a slew of newly elected very conservative Republicans to the state legislature. These newly elected politicos promised to reduce state government, cut spending, balance the budget and took what appears to be a blood oath to not raise taxes or revenues or even use vast state reserves to fund public services.

These newbies, and some oldies who wanted to ride the surge, got sworn-in in January, but were sworn at by the end of the week. Seems that to maintain campaign promises and be faithful to their literal political bible, Texas government began the process of self-denial, self-reduction, and self-destruction. Large on the chopping block were any public programs that helped folks who could not afford to help themselves. The war on poverty quickly became the war on the poor. State mental health, childhood health care, Medicare and caid, Children's protective services, and public education stood in line to take massive funding cuts as our leaders fought to balance a budget with revenue predictions well below previous levels. The Great Recession caught up with Texas Government via downturns in sales and property tax revenues, and to balance a budget with that downturn sacrificed programs that help the have-nots, such decisions being made by the newly elected "haves."

School Districts wavered between denial, panic and swift brutal action. Some immediately announced personnel cuts; teachers are most of the budget so teachers were most of the cuts. Weekly calls came out from various groups representing teachers, administrators, parents, school boards to rally in Austin to show support and save public ed. funding. Thousands drove to our most liberal city with their mostly liberal message and wasted their time. Behind closed doors, deals and budgets were cut.

The Legislature adjourned by law on May 31, the cusp of June. Our Governor so wants to be President that he appears like the lovestruck teenage boy, pining for the girl of his dreams and willing to promise her anything just to get attention from national media and conservative think-tanks (Is that an oxymoron?). Our Lt. Gov. so wants to be a US Senator. Our new Tea Party reps so want to be heroes to the hometowns that elected them. This group leans so far to the right their left legs are longer. They waited until the very last minute to fund public ed., or to underfund public ed. In the final hour of the final day of the regular session, a moderate Democrat filibuster defeated the plan and the Governor was forced to call a Special Session. We are now 2 weeks into that session and votes are forthcoming on a compromise plan.

And they have crafted a fascinating plan: Rich districts will be cut, poor districts will be cut. Rich districts will be cut to levels above where poor districts are right now. Poor districts will be cut even lower than they are right now. The second year of the two year budget is even worse. Clearly the newbie Legislators believe in reducing government expenditure in areas other than where they live. Even in the realm of public service the current state leadership believes that those governmental entities who have more should get more. Amazing. Zip code determines quality of education.

As children skip out the door for summer vacation and as teachers pack up classrooms and take down bulletin boards, administrators every where in the state are in for a long, tough summer as they attempt to do impossible tasks: maintain programs for kids with fewer staff and keep the kid per adult ratio reasonable. How do you do that?

You could milk sacred cows, but that will result in termination of the dairy farmers who make such attempts. Athletics could be eliminated. Career courses preparing kids for jobs from the previous century could go away (Ag, Home Ec., Hair Styling, etc.). These programmatic changes could save most school systems almost 10% of their budgets.

You could simply ignore all the state and federal mandates and reduce the administrative and clerical staff that currently exist only to comply with mandates. When auditors and lawyers write the rules to determine the efficacy of education, districts must hire folks who can develop, report and document the kinds of data that auditors and lawyers like. Clearly, there is an entire group of Americans who enter public education for the sole purpose of stealing these big bucks and wasting them. (That was written with a scarcastic sneer.) (The state, in my opinion, is the most fraudulent spender of public ed. dollars by simply sending millions to Pearson, the standardized test generating company!) But, since public schools have become the compliance whores of conservative micro-management and accountability, they take the money and perform the deeds required. Again, any school administrator advocating such steps would simply disappear, buried by the myriad laws and red tape of current school compliance mandates.

So what will school administrators decide to do regarding running their schools next year with assuredly less money? After all, the Legislature will pass a plan and go home. Soon thereafter, buses will run and bells will ring and kids will show up. I have three sets of generic guesses:

1. Play it safe: cut programs that do not have large constituencies or vocal supporters. Let class size trickle up, reduce teaching staff by attrition or RIF, reduce admin ranks, reduce paraprofessional ranks and keep on trucking.

2. Play it lean and mean: cut teachers by RIF, cut fine arts, and let class sizes get big.

3. Play it focused: Protect all core academic area teachers including fine arts. Let extra and co-curricular programs shrink to large teacher/pupil ratios due to less staff, reduce admin where feasible, cut all budgetary frills, travel and supply accounts.

No matter how they play it, they will be worse off and the opportunities for kids will be less. The glue that holds schools together is coming unstuck with deep cuts. Time for new paste. Cut and paste, that is.