TPPF COMMENTARY: Texans demand accountability for education dollars

A Hoover Institution scholar, Roger A. Freeman, in bygone times observed wryly that popular support for dumping more and more public dollars into public education called to mind the alchemists of yore, who never managed to turn base metals into gold, but, say, what did that prove? Only – so far as the alchemists themselves were concerned – that the experiment hadn't been tried long enough.

The emotional linkage of alchemy and the more-money-for-public-schools movement is an unhappy one – a reminder that baseless and unwarranted faiths can be as stubborn as, well, education lobbyists, making their umpteenth pitch for another financial transfusion.

What's heartening, at last, is that the public may be catching on to the emptiness of the lobbyists' arguments.

Consider a brand new poll by the University of Texas-Austin's government department and Texas Politics Project. The poll – which shows opinion evenly divided on the quality of the public schools – indicates that just 37 percent of Texans see increased funding as the remedy for the schools' record of stagnant or declining achievement.

By contrast, 56 percent see more accountability as the answer. There we go at last. At a minimum, we're pointing in the right direction – away from money as plasma for laggard schools, toward insistence on performance in exchange for such money as the schools receive.

No one capable of correctly adding one and one suggests that money – for teachers, for books, for scientific equipment, for buildings – bears no relationship to educational attainment. Many teachers, as if we didn't all acknowledge it, deserve a lot more money than they make. The point is that education unions, egged on frequently by school officials and editorial writers, more than suggest such a connection. They demand the taxpayers acknowledge it.

Higher public school funding, of course, isn't merely burdensome for taxpayers. It's diversionary. It deflects attention from – as Texans seem to suspect – our cultural and political reluctance to hold accountable those schools and teachers and principals who just plain don't get the job done.

Not that "accountability" doesn't present issues of its own. Texas, by calculation of the Brookings Institution, has relatively strong accountability standards (unlike, according to Brookings, "irresponsible" states like Minnesota, Maine, and Tennessee). There's a difference, all the same, between merely setting standards and actually using them as prods to steady improvement. The Texas Education Agency reported Aug. 1 that 66.6 percent of school districts and 43 percent of campuses received the "academically acceptable" rating – a grade, in effect, of C. Thirty-seven districts and 217 campuses came in as flatly "unacceptable."

No less a public figure than Bill Hammond of the Texas Association of Business – whose members depend on a predictable flow of competent recruits to the workplace – complained this summer about enforcement of the standards.

Hammond accused the Texas Education Agency of disingenuousness in setting standards with so many escape clauses that not to attain a particular benchmark requires some craft. Or some plain old-fashioned incompetence.

"For too long," Hammond said at an Austin press conference, "the TEA has fostered an environment where number games and bureaucracy cast a shadow over public education. A third of our high school students cannot graduate high school in four years.

"Instead of focusing on the root causes of poor performance, TEA is lowering standards and manipulating statistics, which ultimately victimizes our children from receiving the type of education they richly deserve."

It all suggests how much more there is to real improvement of the schools than simple recognition of their problems. And yet, when a clear majority of Texans profess to see accountability as the likeliest remedy for improvement, as contrasted with perhaps the least likely remedy, that of turning on the money spigots – well! Even an alchemist or two might be moved by the sight.

"Texas taxpayers, families, and – most importantly – students," Hammond said, "deserve an education system that ensures our children are prepared to meet the challenges of college and the job market."

A 24-karat appraisal, you might say. No alchemists needed or wanted.

William Murchison is a Senior Fellow at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a non-profit, free-market research institute based in Austin.

What do you think?

To leave your opinion click on the word "COMMENT(S)" below

TPPF COMMENTARY: Texas’ School Accountability System Fails Students

As Texas homeowners write their checks for property taxes this month, most assume that the local public schools they fund are doing a good job educating students. After all, parents looking to the state accountability system for answers on the quality of their local school find that only 3.4 percent of public schools were rated “Unacceptable” last year.

What parents and taxpayers don’t realize is that the academic standards used to rate schools are ridiculously low.

In 2007, a school could be rated “Academically Acceptable” with only 40 percent of students passing science and 45 percent of students passing math. Surely, parents and taxpayers would not consider more than half of Texas school children failing core subjects like math and science as “acceptable.”

Yet, more than half of Texas public schools and three fourths of Texas school districts were rated “Academically Acceptable,” according to the Texas Education Agency.

Residents across the state may be shocked to discover that many of their local schools are not doing a good job teaching the basics, especially in math and science. For example, in Arlington, a mere 53 percent of Morton Elementary School students passed science; 45 percent of Roquemore Elementary students passed science while 56 percent passed math; and only 49 percent of Sam Houston High School students passed science while 57 percent passed math.

In the Austin area, only 47 percent of students passed science at Manor ISD’s Decker Elementary, while 57 percent of students passed math. In nearby Del Valle, only 61 percent of high school students passed science and 52 percent of students passed math.

Residents in Houston’s Alief school district might be surprised to learn that bare majorities of Elsik High School students passed science and math, while only 57 percent of Hastings High School students passed science and a scant 54 percent passed math.

Astonishingly, the state deemed all of these schools “Academically Acceptable.”

Texas cannot afford to have large numbers of students ignorant in core subject areas, and taxpayers should not tolerate it. State lawmakers must make significant changes to the state accountability system, including raising the rigor and academic expectations for both schools and students.

The conventional grading scale for students sets a score of 70 percent as the bottom end of the acceptable range. Schools should be held to a similar standard, with at least 70 percent of students passing reading, writing, history, math and science to be rated as “Acceptable.”

Another way to raise the rigor of the system is to reduce the large numbers of students exempted from testing. Last year, almost 70,000 students were exempted from the TAKS or other state tests. The accountability system needs to hold teachers and schools responsible for every child’s performance by closing these loopholes.

The system also needs to be simplified. Schools and districts must track and report performance on as many as 36 measures. Today’s accountability system focuses too much on inputs and not enough on outcomes and results. To move in this direction, state lawmakers should decrease the overall number of indicators used to evaluate schools and districts and make sure the system gives schools and districts credit for student improvement and growth over the year.

Other helpful changes to the state accountability system include aligning the state and federal systems by using common definitions where possible and making the system more transparent to parents and the community.

The purpose of a state accountability system is to evaluate school performance and provide that information to parents and the public so they can determine the quality of a particular school or district. The current accountability system fails in this regard and needs to be redesigned.

With tens of billions of dollars spent on public schools, Texas taxpayers deserve a better and more accurate accountability system; one that is easy to understand, useful, and actually holds schools accountable.

Brooke Dollens Terry is an education policy analyst at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a non-profit, free-market research institute based in Austin.

What do you think?

To leave your opinion click on the word "COMMENT(S)" below