April 27, 2006 |
THE STATE'S ROLE IN SCHOOL REFORM The Texas Supreme Court has given the state a June 1 deadline to come up with a new method to fund public schools that lowers property taxes. With this deadline looming, focusing on school finance must clearly be the priority this special session. The Texas Education Reform Caucus - a bipartisan group of educators and business leaders - urges our state’s leaders to get the job done quickly so that they can move onto education reform issues either during this special session or in January. If the Legislature allocates any new money for education, we ask that those dollars be tied to education improvements that are measurable and most directly improve classroom learning. To improve our schools will take a broad partnership of stakeholders. We urge lawmakers to aggressively meet with educators and business leaders to discuss and debate the proposed education reforms. This collaborative process begs the question – what is the role of the Legislature in school reform? Two decades ago, Texas did not have a high performing school system. Today, however, our state is a leader in preparing students for college, enabling students to reach a standard of excellence and closing the achievement gap. We’ve seen marked improvement, thanks to a balance of three elements: accountability of schools for results, local control and building capacity of the system. The state’s role has been to set high standards and holds districts accountable for meeting them, give districts the freedom to design their own policy framework for results and provide adequate resources and other capacity measures. The state has not been in the business of micromanaging schools. Since 1995 when the Education Code was revised, the state’s share of public education funding has dropped to its lowest level in decades while it has passed dozens of new requirements that impinge on local control, such as the 65 percent rule restricting districts from allocating resources to best meet their needs. Recent proposals for a uniform school start date and November school board elections would have no impact on student learning. The state must maintain its role of focusing on the results, not the “how to” so that local school districts can innovate and develop their own reforms. Clearly, districts have different needs that will largely determine how they manage their human resources and allocate their dollars. The Legislature must give districts more flexibility to allocate and target resources where they will make the most improvements in a school. School districts should have more flexibility to hire the teachers and administrators who will most effectively improve student achievement and operations. Districts should be encouraged to incorporate incentive pay for teachers in shortage areas or low-performing campuses and merit pay for improved student performance. Without competitive compensation, Texas cannot staff its high schools with qualified science and math teachers. Ultimately, education reform should be about improving the quality of education our children receive. Texas policymakers have helped lead a revolution in our public schools over the past decade. But many of the regulations and some of the new proposals under consideration may no longer be necessary. In fact, they could stand in the way of the next giant step on the journey to better schools for all Texas children and a prosperous future for all Texans. ### Jim Nelson is a former Commissioner of Education and superintendent of the Richardson Independent School District. Abe Saavedra is superintendent of the Houston Independent School District. |
