Tag Archives: Funding

PTA Mom Stunned: Texas Children Run Laps for Curriculum, State Representative Unmoved

By Kim Burkett, PTA Mom

I should be asleep. It’s 5 a.m. on a Saturday and I’m wide awake. My week has been full with visits to the pediatrician, solving the mystery of the lost library book, nearly missing my deadline for the PTA newsletter, and helping my son make an insect with appropriate anatomical pieces out of play-doh.  I’m tired; so why am I awake before dawn on a Saturday morning? Because yesterday I witnessed the most shocking display of willful ignorance and callous disinterest that I think I’ve ever seen, and I can’t stop thinking about it.

Yesterday began with a fun run fundraiser at my kindergarten son’s elementary school, one of the many fundraising and giving opportunities presented to us by the school this year. If you haven’t been a part of this before (or been hit up for pledge money), here’s how it works: the children collect pledges from their family and friends in support of their run.  For every lap the kids run, for instance, Grandma donates $1. The kids win various chotskies based upon the number of pledges they collect and the money goes to benefit the cause. My son absolutely loved it, and my guess is the other children did too. Especially nice is the school selected a fundraiser that encourages fitness instead of leaving me with a refrigerator full of cookie dough!

I remember fundraisers when I was a kid – they were often used to support a school dance, maybe buy a trophy case, or perhaps to replace aging sports equipment. What was my son’s school raising money for? My son’s fundraiser wasn’t for a cool trip to Disney World. It wasn’t even to purchase uniforms for the basketball club. Instead my child and his schoolmates were raising funds so their school can purchase curriculum materials and technology. Yep, my five-year-old just ran 48 laps for curriculum.

When this fundraiser was announced I was dismayed, but not surprised. I’m well aware of the plight Texas school districts face after $5.4 billion in funding cuts last year. My son’s school of more than 900 students has eight kindergarten classes and seven first grade classes. All of those kindergarteners and first graders were not funded by the state in 2011. Due to faulty revenue projections by the state comptroller, the Texas legislature did not fund enrollment growth for the first time in the state’s modern history.  So our school is running with probably more than one third of its students un-funded by the state.

The result – my neighborhood school only has library books for half of its population (which is why solving the mystery of the lost library book was so critical this week!). I’ve watched the PTA give money to the school to support a writing curriculum in the past. They’ve been working all year to purchase new technology. I know they’re struggling and I appreciate their tenacity in searching for every way possible to get the resources our kids need. I wish they didn’t have to work that hard to purchase something as fundamental as materials for curriculum, but kudos to the school for keeping up the fight.

So, what does a PTA Mom do when her child runs laps for curriculum? She takes her son – wearing his fun run t-shirt – to her state representative’s town hall meeting, of course! Representative Giovanni Capriglione (HD-98) happened to hold a town hall meeting on the same day as the fun run. I wanted to speak with Representative Capriglione about restoring last session’s budget cuts to education. While the state of Texas has a budget surplus right now, in addition to a rainy day fund that’s expected to hit $12 billion by the next biennium, the drafted budget under consideration in the legislature only restores about half of the funding to public education.

The meeting was held in the idyllic Town Hall in Southlake, Texas. It’s a, beautiful place – very much like something out of a Norman Rockwell painting or perhaps the movie Pleasantville. The hall was standing room only – something incredibly commendable for a Friday evening political meeting. Many in the audience identified themselves as members of local tea party organizations. Capriglione was well supported by these conservative groups during his election in 2012 and they were proud to make their presence known.

I waited my turn while the crowd celebrated Representative Capriglione’s legislative efforts for various important problems I didn’t know we faced, like bringing home Texas’ gold reserves  and ensuring college students take comprehensive American or Texas history classes rather than other more specialized history courses . (By the way, that legislation is pretty controversial and many say akin to a radical Arizona law. It will be protested by many groups that feel it will micromanage universities and limit student access to historical studies of women and ethnic groups. State Representative Capriglione’s response to the would-be protestors? “Whatever. Bring it.”)

When it was my turn I introduced my son and explained to my representative that he attended kindergarten in district 98. My son, sadly a veteran of town hall and other political meetings, sat uninterested playing Brain Pop on an iPad. I pointed to his fun run t-shirt where teachers had marked off each of the 48 laps he ran that day. I asked Representative Capriglione why he would support a budget that didn’t fully restore education funding when there are children like mine running laps to purchase curriculum. I reminded Capriglione that the state has a budget surplus and growing rainy day fund. I also reminded him that a bipartisan poll last month indicated 79% of Texans (including 61% of Republican primary voters like many of those sitting in that meeting room) supported fully restoring funding. I concluded by asking why he wouldn’t support public education?

While Capriglione has represented himself in the past as someone that supports public education (his children attend Texas public schools and he has been active in his local education foundation), his response was fairly typical for somebody more concerned in protecting the rating on their tea party report card than supporting the needs of Texans. He admitted that Texas was in a strong financial position with unexpected revenue. Then came the laundry list of excuses:

  • He talked to me about the fact that the state faces a $5 billion Medicaid bill. He failed to mention it was left over from last session because of the “balanced” budget shenanigans and smoke and mirrors of his legislative predecessors.
  • He talked to me about the constitutional spending cap limit. He failed to mention that the limit was selected by his conservative legislative colleagues and represented one of the most restrictive spending limits available to them, even though they knew of the previously-mentioned Medicaid bill and underfunding of education.
  • He talked about the consequences of busting the cap. He didn’t mention that can be done with a simple vote.
  • He talked about the dangers of using the rainy day fund – last tapped to support education in 2007. He failed to mention that tapping the rainy day fund can be accomplished with a two-thirds or possibly three-fifths majority vote and will likely be done to fund water projects and/or infrastructure, as suggested by Governor Perry.

What he also failed to mention was that each of these excuses were legislative-made and solvable for those with the political will to do so. And, frankly, these self-imposed impediments are not the problem of Texas children. They should be solved by the grown-ups that created them instead of punishing students. The Representative quickly thanked me for my question before I could follow-up to tell him that he hadn’t answered it. (Many in the crowd approached me after the meeting to point out his non-answer as well.)

At the end of his monologue citing all of the debatable fiscal reasons why he supported continuing the defunding of Texas public education, he was applauded by the members of the local tea party organizations. They applauded the fact that my child and 160,000 other Texas children were left unfunded by needless cuts. They applauded the fact that my representative had absolutely no desire nor will to do anything about it. They applauded the fact that my child ran laps for curriculum materials today.  I sat down next to my five-year-old with the realization that I was one of the few people in that room that gave a damn about his education. I will never forget that moment. I shook my head in disbelief. Representative Capriglione quickly moved on to other topics from the crowd like defeating Obamacare’s state exchanges and preventing “illegals” from accessing resources. It was surreal.

Although shell shocked by the crowd’s lack of empathy for Texas public school children, the most striking part of Capriglione’s message was not lost on me. In his rambling thoughts about spending limits, revenue projections, and rainy day funds he never mentioned the words “children” or “education.” Not once. Those words didn’t pass his lips. How does a person “answer” a question about public education without mentioning public education? Or students? It was incredibly telling.

Representative Capriglione didn’t glance at the unfunded child sitting next to me. He wouldn’t look at him. One of the hundreds of thousands of children the state of Texas chose to ignore in its funding of public education in 2011 was again ignored – this time by our state representative standing in the same room. I guess it’s difficult to look at the young faces of those you sacrifice for political gain.

He didn’t mention the fun run t-shirt my son sported proudly. The t-shirt that to me represents something sick and perverse – where we accept the fact that our schools are forced to hold their hands out to the community like Dickensian beggars to scrape together enough pennies to buy something as basic as materials for curriculum.  Something that should be easily paid for by school funds – if we actually funded our schools.

In their abandonment of public schools, politicians apparently now find it acceptable that our children run laps to raise money for their curriculum. When did this become acceptable? Is this the new normal? Where is the outrage?

For those who hadn’t realized it before, this simple exchange at a town hall meeting exemplifies that for many politicians the battle over public education has absolutely nothing to do with children – and this battle rages nationwide. Sure, some Texas politicians have been known to cry crocodile tears for the “poor children,” but they put on that performance as they continue to defund their public schools, force privatized, corporate-driven reform measures upon them, and kowtow to the testing-for-dollars industry. Texas children have been sold out and ignored. My child was sold out and ignored. Representative Capriglione’s own children were sold out and ignored.

And the tea party applauded.

So, given the realization that politicians like Capriglione will put fiscal excuses before the needs of children; given the fact that the politics of local tea party extremism trump the needs of Texas’ future workforce; given the fact that it is now considered de rigueur for five-year-olds to run for curriculum, what does a PTA Mom do?

She dusts herself off and vows to fight harder.

She fights for the children the state ignores, won’t acknowledge, and disregards. She gives up calling her legislators every other week, and instead speed dials them weekly moving forward. She reminds her neighbors that it’s inappropriate for children to run for curriculum and lets them know only their angry voices will stop it. She helps other PTA Moms and Dads and Grandparents and community supporters cut through the rhetoric and excuses disingenuous politicians present.

And she hugs her son tight on the way home and tells him that she’ll continue to fight every day for his education. Because unlike politicians, PTA Moms are in it for the children.

And then she wakes up at 5 a.m. the next day and begins the fight again.

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Falling Down the Voucher Rabbit Hole What you Need to Know About Texas’ School Voucher Scheme

6a00d8341ca6f253ef010535fec21b970bBy Dr. Jerry Burkett

Senator Dan Patrick (R-Houston) really wants to see a voucher program in Texas. Patrick recently filed two new voucher bills in Texas’ lawmakers continuing quest to saddle Texas with an ill-conceived voucher scheme. Senate Bill 1410 and SB23 co-sponsored by Senator Ken Paxton (R-McKinney) seek to create a voucher program offering private school vouchers for at-risk students, with a priority for kids in low-rated schools. Two other voucher bills have followed Patrick’s, Senator Donna Campbell (R-New Braunfels) filed SB 1575 (also co-sponsored by Paxton) and House Bill 3497 was filed by Representative Scott Turner (R-Frisco).

The legislators who have filed these bills were very careful not to refer to them as “voucher” programs. Instead they have adopted the more fiscally friendly term “tax payer saving grants” or “equal opportunity scholarship” programs. However, despite the politically correct language used to describe these so-called “reform” measures, “tax payers” (you and me) save nothing and these “scholarships” are not designed for poor families. Patrick proposes that the family income cutoff to qualify for the voucher will be about $71,000 for a family of three, which is twice the federal free and reduced lunch program limit.

In previewing his voucher scheme late last year, Patrick touted his plan as a way to save Texas money by reducing the amount of general revenue expenditures into public education by reducing enrollment – those schools that are still reeling from $5.4 billion in budget cuts from last session. Patrick has maintained that the plan does not pull money from public schools, yet his bill offers participating companies a credit toward their business franchise tax. The franchise tax is the under-performing education funding source that has created much of the revenue shortfall for public education. In fact, businesses could take up to 15 percent of what they’d pay in franchise taxes, and donate it to the new scholarship fund instead. So not only does this boondoggle shift student funding from public schools to private interests, it further depletes the franchise tax revenue that was originally proposed to replace the hole left in the education budget from the 2006 structural tax deficit. To claim this scheme does not impact public schools financially is an exercise in delusion.

Despite little evidence of success (see the lackluster performance of long-running voucher programs in Cleveland and Milwaukee), there are pushes for similar voucher schemes nationwide – Indiana’s voucher program was just upheld as constitutional while Louisiana’s program was recently declared unconstitutional There are pushes to expand the program in Florida and Tennessee. Efforts recently passed in Arizona and Alabama. Vouchers are the holy grail of those seeking to privatize public education. Pro-corporation lobbying groups such as the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) even provide model legislation to privatization-friendly lawmakers to further their causes to privatize public education through vouchers, charter schools, and efforts to generally undermine the public education system. With profiteering lobbyists driving the voucher discussion, we’ll continue to see it around the nation. So, what exactly does a voucher scheme entail:

What is a Tax-Credit Scholarship?
The term “tax-credit scholarship” or “taxpayer scholarship” is not new term in the realm of school finance. The “tax credit” is issued to companies, business, or private entities in exchange for financing private education for students. Instead of paying your tax dollars directly to the general revenue, you pay part of the tuition for a student to attend private school in exchange for having your tax liability reduced. The first “tax credit scholarship” was established in Arizona in 1997 and similar programs have been expanded into Georgia, Virginia, and Florida.

As of September 2012, 14 tuition tax credit programs exist in 11 states (NCSL). In 2008, Georgia’s tax credit plan was challenged in a report by the Southern Education Foundation claiming a lack of transparency and the use of accounting gimmicks. In 2011, Arizona’s program was challenged and upheld in the U.S. Supreme Court.

“Supporters of tuition tax credits say they save the state money because annual tuition at a private school is typically less than the per-pupil cost at public schools. This is shown through a nonpartisan analysis of the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship Program. It reported for every $1 spent on the tax credit program, Florida taxpayers saved an estimated $1.49”.

However, despite the reported taxpayer savings both the report on the Florida program and the 2008 analysis of the Georgia program agree that saving is based significantly on student participation in the program that must balance with the proposed tax credit cap that is placed on the program.

Opponents of tax-credit or taxpayer scholarships have described the plans as complicated school voucher plans since the purpose of the scholarship is to pay for tuition and fees to private schools through manipulation or diversion of tax revenue dollars. Supporters maintain that these programs allow for more students to participate, save the state money, and are an alternative to traditional school voucher programs.

Brief History of School Vouchers
A school voucher program is an arrangement whereby public funds are made available to qualified parents to cover some or all of the expenses associated with enrolling their child in a participating private school of their choosing. School voucher programs have been introduced by legislatures since 1869. Vermont was the first state to implement a voucher program issuing a “town tuitioning” program that was designed to allow students in rural areas, without access to a public school, the opportunity to attend a nearby private school. Few voucher programs came into existence after 1869 in the United States but gained popularity in the 1990’s when 3 voucher programs were established in Wisconsin, Ohio, and Florida.

The programs established in the 1990 have had similar aspects seeking to provide school choice alternatives for low-income students using a publicly funded voucher. However, the constitutionality of the voucher program in Ohio was challenged in the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case Zelman v. Simmons-Harris. The voucher program enacted in the Cleveland school district gave qualified families the option of sending their children to a participating public school, a private sectarian school, or a private non-sectarian school. As a result of the program, in the 1999-2000 school year, 96 percent of the students receiving vouchers were enrolled in religiously affiliated schools. The US Supreme Court upheld the Ohio voucher law establishing that the program does not violate the Establishment Clause.

Since the Zelman decision, there has been a rise in the number of school voucher programs enacted through legislation throughout the United States. Six states including Washington, D.C. established voucher programs each seeking to serve low-socioeconomic, disabled, or foster students from 2002-2007 (Wolf, 418). In Utah, a voucher plan was passed by the state legislature but later struck down by voters. Indiana and Louisiana have most recently passed voucher legislation seeking to provide students with universal access to school vouchers (citations).

Researcher Patrick Wolf examined the voucher issue stating that when voucher programs are enacted, the students who apply for and use vouchers tend to be educationally disadvantaged because of the logic of parental choice. Previous research has established that private schooling tends to have larger positive achievement effects on disadvantaged students than on advantaged students which may have led to the initial push from state legislations to enact programs for economically disadvantaged and foster students.

Do Taxpayer Scholarship Programs Save Money?
Senator Patrick’s “tax-credit scholarship” program is supposedly designed to give at-risk or low-income students first access to the voucher instead of allowing all students access to the scholarship as was proposed in Georgia. Research has not been conducted on universal voucher access programs to determine if these programs save tax money.

However, despite the lack of scholarly research, various aspects of taxpayer scholarship programs have been examined and evidence has been presented that should be taken in consideration for future legislation that is in development for these types of grants.

The most significant report on taxpayer grants was written by the Southern Education Foundation, which found a variety of flaws in Georgia’s plan. Through analysis of a variety of state and local data, the SEF found that the state of Georgia actually diverted more taxpayer dollars to the program than originally intended. Scholarships in 2009 cost the state government $11,803 per student and the state government incurred an additional cost of $7,510 in financing a partial scholarship in a private school above and beyond what it would have paid in 2009 for the education of the same student in a public school.

The report also cited an August 2009 article from the Atlanta Journal‐Constitution that reported that parents and students attending private schools were showing up at public schools “to fill out paperwork to enroll their kids in public schools solely to qualify” for the tax‐funded scholarships—“with no intention of actually attending classes in the public school.” Largely, parents who are accepting the scholarship dollars are from households with children (between the ages of six and 16) and had essentially twice the median income of those households where children attended public schools in 2007.

Testifying in support of taxpayer scholarships for Texas in 2011, both the Heritage Institute and the Texas Public Policy Foundation released reports stating that Texas would save $2 billion for the 2012-13 biennium or $3,429 dollars per participating student. To support the potential for student participation in the Texas program, the Texas Public Policy Foundation and the Heritage Institute both cite data from a voucher program enacted in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The TPPF used student enrollment data from Milwaukee to project Texas taxpayer savings at $2.3 billion.

Steve West, writing for the Texas Association of School Business Officials, stated that the data from the Heartland Institute was flawed as it consisted of all school district spending per student part of which includes “funds that are prohibited or are not available for use for general maintenance and operations spending.” When recalculated to include eligible funds, the potential savings is reduced to $1 billion.

The National Education Association points out that moving students from public to private schools harms school districts because they cannot reduce their fixed facilities and transportation costs in proportion to the number of students who leave (citation).

Do Taxpayer Scholarships Improve Student Learning?
Supporters for taxpayer scholarships often point, specifically, to data collected by Harvard University researchers on the Milwaukee and Cleveland voucher programs. Although there was a jump in the testing performance for voucher students, when these students were compared to non-voucher students, there was not difference in their scores.

Other research studies conducted on the Milwaukee program have found no significant voucher impacts on test scores until students had used them for at least three years, generated math gains of 1.5 to 2.3 percentiles per year but no statistically significant reading gains, and a one-year snapshot of the 2006-07 school year, students’ state test scores were about the same on average in Milwaukee regardless of whether they used vouchers or attended public schools.

Who can receive a voucher?
The provisions of Texas’ current voucher bills state that any private school that is a member of Texas Private School Accreditation Commission (TEPSAC) is eligible for the program. When people think of private schools, many think of the large, expensive and established schools like Ursuline, The Hockaday School, or Fort Worth Country Day; however these schools are just three of 1,187 schools listed with TEPSAC. Many of the schools listed with TEPSAC are smaller private schools that are managed by churches or daycare providers like Primrose Academy, KidsRKids, or franchise schools like The Goddard School.  If these schools can provide evidence (to whom has not yet been established) that they give a nationally norm-referenced assessment to students (basically any test that provides a percentile rank for a child) they are eligible for the scholarship dollars.

Clearly, more research is necessary to determine the fiscal and academic effectiveness of universal school voucher programs like the tax-credit scholarship plan suggested by Patrick. It is clear that in the development of a program, it must include a variety of elements that other states have either included or lack in their current programs.

In addition, consideration of such a program should not occur until the state of Texas has resolved pending law suits related to school funding adequacy and equity and has increased current per students funding allotments for public schools. According to the National Education Association, Texas ranks 49th in per student funding at $8,400 per student which is a figure that is nearly $3000 below the national average. It is negligent of the state of Texas, when determined to be inadequately funding education in violation of the state constitution, to chase such a boondoggle. Texas needs to fund its constitutional obligations to a system of free public schools before falling down the school voucher rabbit hole.

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