Davis, Hill coming across as anti-education council members

Why is Dallas city Council member Carolyn Davis so anti-education? And why is colleague Vonciel Hill joining this anti-education parade?

Davis is dead set against creating a mechanism that would allow charter schools in Dallas to issue low interest bonds for construction projects. And if such a mechanism is created, she plans to do her best to scuttle it. Why? She claims the city should be supporting DISD instead, an argument totally irrelevant to the subject up for debate.

Carolyn Davis

First, there is little the city can do to help DISD, which is content on digging its own grave and shunting aside anyone who tries to help. (Anyone remember the efforts of Ross Perot and Sandy Kress?)

Second, whatever power the city has in the field of public education should be directed at providing the opportunity for the best possible public education for its school-age chldren, not fighting stupid turf wars.

And who does Davis offer to speak on her side? Members of the various teacher associations, which, more than any other single body, is responsible for the mess our public schools are in. And, if you don’t believe me on this, but are advocates of public school education, then rent, borrow, download, or buy a copy of the documentary Waiting for Superman to learn why our public schools are in so much trouble. Then add to that the fact Dallas has a school board totally uninterested in education – a board that will run off any superintendent intent on improving educational standards (see Michael Hinajosa, among others), and you will understand why alternatives are desperately needed.

I imagine Davis is proud to be a product of the DISD, although she is not the best advertisement for a DISD education. She wants the traditions, the old ways of doing things preserved. But the old ways simply don’t work anymore. It’s a new and different day – far different from the days I attended public schools, far different from the days Davis attended them as well.

This argument should not be and cannot be about which educational body should be in charge of educating our public school students, as Davis and Hill think it should be. The subject of this debate – the only subject – is what can the city do to provide its school age children the best possible public school education. And how can that education be provided now – not in some utopian future when and if DISD gets its act together.

Perhaps if Davis and Hill had a child or a grandchild about to enter the school system, they would see the light. It makes a big difference when you really have something at stake in this fight.

Homeowners association president is freakin' out of his mind

I need to tread carefully with this because My Hero lives in Bryan Place. But then so does Dallas City Manager Mary Suhm. However, I don’t know if either of them realize Eric Williamson, the president of their Bryan Place Neighborhood Association, needs to be removed from his position of authority and it should be done before he embarrasses the residents of his neighborhood any further.

This man went before the Dallas City Council yesterday and said his association would rather have bars in their neighborhood than good schools. Howz zat? Yep, that’s what the lame brain said. Obviously he is a product of a bar and not a good school.

His statements came when he spoke during the debate of whether the City should help charter schools have the ability to sell low-interest bonds. The geographically challenged Williamson changed the subject to the totally irrelevant argument of whether these schools should be able to locate in his neighborhood. He is against the idea. Here is his statement as transcribed by Rudolph Bush of The Dallas Morning News:

"Deep Ellum is an entertainment district just north (of Bryan Place [actually it is south, as shown in the map above]) separated only by the Meadows Foundation and areas along Swiss Avenue (along with a number of apartments and condominiums along Live Oak, the Baylor Hospital complex, and the DART Green Line, but I guess he doesn’t count those). We value that Deep Ellum is close to us and allows us entertainment options. We have people in our neighborhood who own businesses in Deep Ellum."

So, according to Williamson, if children in his hood want an education they should go to bartending school and if those in the neighborhood who own businesses in Deep Ellum want an educated work force, they will have to find them elsewhere.

It’s thinking like Williamson’s that will keep Dallas from being a first-class, perhaps even a second-class, city.

Mayor Mike’s finest moment

Mayor Mike

I was not a big fan of Mike Rawlings when he was running for mayor. He didn’t stand out as "a leader" to me. But how that has changed since he’s been in office! I can’t remember the last time I was this proud of someone sitting at the apex of the Dallas City Council horseshoe. First it was his impassioned, reasoned plea for the passage of the Flow Control Ordinance. Then there was his speech, which I made reference to yesterday, on behalf of charter schools in the City of Dallas.

If you missed it, you can see it in its entirety here, courtesy Dallas Morning News city hall reporter Steve Thompson. Trust me, it is well worth the eight to 10 minutes it takes to view the entire clip.

Education: Why does it have to be either/or?

I was casually listening to the Dallas City Council debate this morning on a proposal that would create a mechanism allowing an outfit called Uplift Schools to sell low interest bonds to finance the construction of charter schools in Dallas. It seemed that some members of the council, most notably Carolyn Davis, argued approving the item would be a betrayal to the Dallas Independent School District.

Admittedly, I’m not an expert on charter schools. What I know about them is that they receive public money but are not subjected to many of the rules and regulations that govern other public schools. In return, they create "a charter" outlining the results they will achieve and are then held accountable to that charter. They are not allowed to charge tuition and are considered non-profit institutions. That’s about the extent of my knowledge.

If anyone has seen that wonderful documentary film about public education Waiting for Superman, then you know that charter schools were seen as a remedy for what’s ailing traditional schools. And, as we all know, the DISD is ailing. Mayor Mike appears to be passionately supportive of charter schools, especially those run by Uplift. In fact, at first I was siding with Davis on this issue until MM said that only 12 percent of DISD graduates are prepared to enter college whereas 100 percent of the Uplift graduates attend college. That’s amazing, especially when you consider charter schools can’t "cherry-pick" their enrollees. They are not allowed to admit only the best and the brightest. Entrance is strictly on a lottery basis from all the students in the neighborhood who would rather attend a charter school instead of a DISD institution.

That 100 percent announcement jerked my head around quickly. That’s when I started wondering why this had to be an either/or argument. Why can’t we help charter schools like Uplift and Dallas Can Academy and also continue to do what can be done to improve DISD. Why can’t this be a pro-education issue?

In fact, DISD can learn from Uplift. It is seeking these low interest bonds because the lower interest payments will save Uplift $300,000, money it will use on educating students instead of on interest payments to bond holders. The DISD should have been following this example years ago — instead of issuing bonds and paying the interest rates on those bonds to fund the construction of new schools, it should have focused on using whatever resources were at its disposal (and money is a major resource) to providing a higher standard of education to its students.

So now the schedule is that the council will be briefed on this issue a week from today and then the item that was deferred on today’s agenda will re-appear two weeks from today. Until someone has a sound argument to counter that 100% percent statistic, the item should be approved. After that, let’s examine what the city can do about the DISD.

Schutze: Gov. Hair drove Hinojosa from Dallas

Jim Schutze

Dallas Observer columnist Jim Schutze had the courage yesterday to cast the blame for the sudden departure of Dallas School Superintendent Michael Hinojosa right where it belongs: in the lap of Gov. Hair.

I’ll let you read his fine piece in its entirety here, but let me give you some of his finest words:

“Governor Rick Perry and the Tea Party are charging ahead with an agenda aimed at the destruction of public education in Texas and massive ethnic-cleansing-style deportation of Mexicans. Perry and a cabal of ultra-right ideologues are exploiting a catastrophic $23-billion state revenue shortfall to engineer the decimation of public education. … Forget civic-mindedness. Texas is being steered by people who don't like America — not the country as we've always known it. They want a different country, and it won't include public schools.”

My hat is off to you, Mr. Schutze.

Tommy Lee Jones speaks out against education cuts in Texas

What’s wrong with this picture? (What’s wrong with Richardson’s schools?)

Pity the poor Texas public school student

It's bad enough that Gov. Hair exempted Texas from the national education goals designed to make sure that American public school students can compete with those from other countries and make them better prepared for life outside the classrooms. What makes it worse for Texas public school students is that their basic curriculum is not being decided by educational value, but by politics and ideology.

The Texas Board of Education, a panel of politicians that obviously knows nothing about education, is making decisions that should best be left to teachers and scholars. Wait a minute! Teachers and scholars did work for almost a year to produce new curriculum standards, but the political board has totally disregarded that curriculum to insert a political one of its own.

I don't mind that the board decided the word "capitalism" should be taboo and replaced with "free-enterprise system." That simply makes Texas look foolish, not stupid. But questioning the doctrine of "separation of church and state" from the social studies curriculum is flatly wrong-headed, as is eliminating Thomas Jefferson from the list of revolutionary writers because he coined that phrase.

Texas school children deserve better than this. They are being placed at a disadvantage they'll probably never be able to recover from. It's absolutely criminal that these politicians are punishing Texas school children to serve their own political agendas.

Gov. Hair is to Texas schoolchildren what earthquakes are to Haiti

What more can Gov. Hair do to doom the chances for Texas' public school students? Perhaps I shouldn't be surprised at his callous disregard for the future of this state, but I'm wondering how this clown sleeps at night.

His latest stunt was to deny Texas a chance at $700 million in school funds, money the state was eligible for if it completed and submitted a "Race to the Top" application. The Texas Education Agency reported it spent between 700 and 800 hours preparing and completing the application, but Hair refused to submit it. Why? Because it violates his right wingnut approach. Hair says, in effect, "you take that $700 million and the next thing you know, the feds have taken over our school system."

Yet, in a letter to Hair last week, State Representative Garnet Coleman (pictured, right) of Houston, vice chair of the Select Committee on Federal Legislation and a member of the Select Committee on Federal Economic Stabilization Funding, wrote:

"Submitting the application for Race to the Top Funds will allow our state to compete with other states for grants. Race to the Top is not like unemployment insurance stimulus funds, which you turned down because of possible 'strings attached'. This is a competitive program where states that do better will receive larger allocations."

Following Hair's decision not to submit the application, Coleman said:

"It's shocking that Governor Perry doesn't even want to let Texas compete with other states for Race to the Top funds. His argument against applying boils down to the fact that he doesn't like the teacher that will grade his test. This is an application that even awards points for his own pet policies - teacher incentive pay and charter school expansion. He used $10 million in federal funds to create his own teacher incentive pay program in 2005, but he's willing to go back on his own principles in an effort to score political points. Maybe Governor Perry should take his own advice and not bother competing for re-election. At least then Texas schoolchildren would have a fighting chance at a decent education."

Lucy, you got some explanining to do

If there is anyone playing politics with school children it is the Arlington Independent School District which refused to allow President Obama's speech to school children be broadcast into any of its schools yet will bus school children to Jonestown on Sept. 21 (a school day) to hear a speech from George Bush.

I know there's a subversive political message in here someplace if I could just locate it (Cont.)

Jimmy Margulies, New Jersey Record

I know there's a subversive political message in here someplace if I could just locate it

I am convinced that if a white President, of either major political party, had wanted to address school students, you would now have heard the uproar from fascists like Mark Davis and the rest of the right-wingnut stormtroopers.

Here is the text of what the President said. Warning, if you don't give a damn about the future of this country -- a future that will be decided by our schoolchildren of today -- I advise you stop reading now.

Hello everyone – how’s everybody doing today? I’m here with students at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Virginia. And we’ve got students tuning in from all across America, kindergarten through twelfth grade. I’m glad you all could join us today.

I know that for many of you, today is the first day of school. And for those of you in kindergarten, or starting middle or high school, it’s your first day in a new school, so it’s understandable if you’re a little nervous. I imagine there are some seniors out there who are feeling pretty good right now, with just one more year to go. And no matter what grade you’re in, some of you are probably wishing it were still summer, and you could’ve stayed in bed just a little longer this morning.

I know that feeling. When I was young, my family lived in Indonesia for a few years, and my mother didn’t have the money to send me where all the American kids went to school. So she decided to teach me extra lessons herself, Monday through Friday – at 4:30 in the morning.

Now I wasn’t too happy about getting up that early. A lot of times, I’d fall asleep right there at the kitchen table. But whenever I’d complain, my mother would just give me one of those looks and say, "This is no picnic for me either, buster."

So I know some of you are still adjusting to being back at school. But I’m here today because I have something important to discuss with you. I’m here because I want to talk with you about your education and what’s expected of all of you in this new school year.

Now I’ve given a lot of speeches about education. And I’ve talked a lot about responsibility.

I’ve talked about your teachers’ responsibility for inspiring you, and pushing you to learn.

I’ve talked about your parents’ responsibility for making sure you stay on track, and get your homework done, and don’t spend every waking hour in front of the TV or with that Xbox.

I’ve talked a lot about your government’s responsibility for setting high standards, supporting teachers and principals, and turning around schools that aren’t working where students aren’t getting the opportunities they deserve.

But at the end of the day, we can have the most dedicated teachers, the most supportive parents, and the best schools in the world – and none of it will matter unless all of you fulfill your responsibilities. Unless you show up to those schools; pay attention to those teachers; listen to your parents, grandparents and other adults; and put in the hard work it takes to succeed.

And that’s what I want to focus on today: the responsibility each of you has for your education. I want to start with the responsibility you have to yourself.

Every single one of you has something you’re good at. Every single one of you has something to offer. And you have a responsibility to yourself to discover what that is. That’s the opportunity an education can provide.

Maybe you could be a good writer – maybe even good enough to write a book or articles in a newspaper – but you might not know it until you write a paper for your English class. Maybe you could be an innovator or an inventor – maybe even good enough to come up with the next iPhone or a new medicine or vaccine – but you might not know it until you do a project for your science class. Maybe you could be a mayor or a Senator or a Supreme Court Justice, but you might not know that until you join student government or the debate team.

And no matter what you want to do with your life – I guarantee that you’ll need an education to do it. You want to be a doctor, or a teacher, or a police officer? You want to be a nurse or an architect, a lawyer or a member of our military? You’re going to need a good education for every single one of those careers. You can’t drop out of school and just drop into a good job. You’ve got to work for it and train for it and learn for it.

And this isn’t just important for your own life and your own future. What you make of your education will decide nothing less than the future of this country. What you’re learning in school today will determine whether we as a nation can meet our greatest challenges in the future.

You’ll need the knowledge and problem-solving skills you learn in science and math to cure diseases like cancer and AIDS, and to develop new energy technologies and protect our environment. You’ll need the insights and critical thinking skills you gain in history and social studies to fight poverty and homelessness, crime and discrimination, and make our nation more fair and more free. You’ll need the creativity and ingenuity you develop in all your classes to build new companies that will create new jobs and boost our economy.

We need every single one of you to develop your talents, skills and intellect so you can help solve our most difficult problems. If you don’t do that – if you quit on school – you’re not just quitting on yourself, you’re quitting on your country.

Now I know it’s not always easy to do well in school. I know a lot of you have challenges in your lives right now that can make it hard to focus on your schoolwork.

I get it. I know what that’s like. My father left my family when I was two years old, and I was raised by a single mother who struggled at times to pay the bills and wasn’t always able to give us things the other kids had. There were times when I missed having a father in my life. There were times when I was lonely and felt like I didn’t fit in.

So I wasn’t always as focused as I should have been. I did some things I’m not proud of, and got in more trouble than I should have. And my life could have easily taken a turn for the worse.

But I was fortunate. I got a lot of second chances and had the opportunity to go to college, and law school, and follow my dreams. My wife, our First Lady Michelle Obama, has a similar story. Neither of her parents had gone to college, and they didn’t have much. But they worked hard, and she worked hard, so that she could go to the best schools in this country.

Some of you might not have those advantages. Maybe you don’t have adults in your life who give you the support that you need. Maybe someone in your family has lost their job, and there’s not enough money to go around. Maybe you live in a neighborhood where you don’t feel safe, or have friends who are pressuring you to do things you know aren’t right.

But at the end of the day, the circumstances of your life – what you look like, where you come from, how much money you have, what you’ve got going on at home – that’s no excuse for neglecting your homework or having a bad attitude. That’s no excuse for talking back to your teacher, or cutting class, or dropping out of school. That’s no excuse for not trying.

Where you are right now doesn’t have to determine where you’ll end up. No one’s written your destiny for you. Here in America, you write your own destiny. You make your own future.
That’s what young people like you are doing every day, all across America.

Young people like Jazmin Perez, from Roma, Texas. Jazmin didn’t speak English when she first started school. Hardly anyone in her hometown went to college, and neither of her parents had gone either. But she worked hard, earned good grades, got a scholarship to Brown University, and is now in graduate school, studying public health, on her way to being Dr. Jazmin Perez.

I’m thinking about Andoni Schultz, from Los Altos, California, who’s fought brain cancer since he was three. He’s endured all sorts of treatments and surgeries, one of which affected his memory, so it took him much longer – hundreds of extra hours – to do his schoolwork. But he never fell behind, and he’s headed to college this fall.

And then there’s Shantell Steve, from my hometown of Chicago, Illinois. Even when bouncing from foster home to foster home in the toughest neighborhoods, she managed to get a job at a local health center; start a program to keep young people out of gangs; and she’s on track to graduate high school with honors and go on to college.

Jazmin, Andoni and Shantell aren’t any different from any of you. They faced challenges in their lives just like you do. But they refused to give up. They chose to take responsibility for their education and set goals for themselves. And I expect all of you to do the same.

That’s why today, I’m calling on each of you to set your own goals for your education – and to do everything you can to meet them. Your goal can be something as simple as doing all your homework, paying attention in class, or spending time each day reading a book. Maybe you’ll decide to get involved in an extracurricular activity, or volunteer in your community. Maybe you’ll decide to stand up for kids who are being teased or bullied because of who they are or how they look, because you believe, like I do, that all kids deserve a safe environment to study and learn. Maybe you’ll decide to take better care of yourself so you can be more ready to learn. And along those lines, I hope you’ll all wash your hands a lot, and stay home from school when you don’t feel well, so we can keep people from getting the flu this fall and winter.

Whatever you resolve to do, I want you to commit to it. I want you to really work at it.
I know that sometimes, you get the sense from TV that you can be rich and successful without any hard work -- that your ticket to success is through rapping or basketball or being a reality TV star, when chances are, you’re not going to be any of those things.

But the truth is, being successful is hard. You won’t love every subject you study. You won’t click with every teacher. Not every homework assignment will seem completely relevant to your life right this minute. And you won’t necessarily succeed at everything the first time you try.

That’s OK. Some of the most successful people in the world are the ones who’ve had the most failures. JK Rowling’s first Harry Potter book was rejected twelve times before it was finally published. Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team, and he lost hundreds of games and missed thousands of shots during his career. But he once said, "I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."

These people succeeded because they understand that you can’t let your failures define you – you have to let them teach you. You have to let them show you what to do differently next time. If you get in trouble, that doesn’t mean you’re a troublemaker, it means you need to try harder to behave. If you get a bad grade, that doesn’t mean you’re stupid, it just means you need to spend more time studying.

No one’s born being good at things, you become good at things through hard work. You’re not a varsity athlete the first time you play a new sport. You don’t hit every note the first time you sing a song. You’ve got to practice. It’s the same with your schoolwork. You might have to do a math problem a few times before you get it right, or read something a few times before you understand it, or do a few drafts of a paper before it’s good enough to hand in.

Don’t be afraid to ask questions. Don’t be afraid to ask for help when you need it. I do that every day. Asking for help isn’t a sign of weakness, it’s a sign of strength. It shows you have the courage to admit when you don’t know something, and to learn something new. So find an adult you trust – a parent, grandparent or teacher; a coach or counselor – and ask them to help you stay on track to meet your goals.

And even when you’re struggling, even when you’re discouraged, and you feel like other people have given up on you – don’t ever give up on yourself. Because when you give up on yourself, you give up on your country.

The story of America isn’t about people who quit when things got tough. It’s about people who kept going, who tried harder, who loved their country too much to do anything less than their best.

It’s the story of students who sat where you sit 250 years ago, and went on to wage a revolution and found this nation. Students who sat where you sit 75 years ago who overcame a Depression and won a world war; who fought for civil rights and put a man on the moon. Students who sat where you sit 20 years ago who founded Google, Twitter and Facebook and changed the way we communicate with each other.

So today, I want to ask you, what’s your contribution going to be? What problems are you going to solve? What discoveries will you make? What will a president who comes here in twenty or fifty or one hundred years say about what all of you did for this country?

Your families, your teachers, and I are doing everything we can to make sure you have the education you need to answer these questions. I’m working hard to fix up your classrooms and get you the books, equipment and computers you need to learn. But you’ve got to do your part too. So I expect you to get serious this year. I expect you to put your best effort into everything you do. I expect great things from each of you. So don’t let us down – don’t let your family or your country or yourself down. Make us all proud. I know you can do it.

Thank you, God bless you, and God bless America.

Education will continue to be second rate in Texas

Gov. Hair made sure of that with the appointment this week of Gail Lowe (pictured here) to be the chair of the State Board of Education. Ms. Lowe is a creationist who believes sex education classes should teach only abstinence. In 2003, she voted against all biology textbooks that did not include discussions of "the weaknesses of the theory of evolution." Texas Freedom Network President Kathy Miller said of the appointment:

"It's disappointing that instead of choosing a mainstream conservative who could heal the divisions on the board, the governor once again appointed someone who repeatedly has put political agendas ahead of the education of Texas schoolchildren. Ms. Lowe has marched in lockstep with a faction of board members who believe that their personal beliefs are more important than the experience and expertise of teachers and academics who have dedicated their careers to educating our children and helping them succeed. We can only hope that she will rise above her history on the board and as chair keep the board from continuing to hold the education of our children hostage to divisive 'culture war' battles."

The Economist recently released a Special Report on Texas that quoted one Texas sociologist as follows: "If we fail to turn our education system around, we will find that a whole generation has been locked out of the jobs market." Gov. Hair obviously thinks it's more important to forward a political agenda than to prepare our children for the future.

Texas students missing out on educational standards

My family moved a lot when I was kid. My father was a chemical engineer who worked as a construction superintendent for a company that built chemical plants. As soon as he finished constructing one plant, we would move to another location to build another one. I went to kindergarten and first grade in New York City, but then the migrations began--to Michigan City, Ind.; Lakeland, Fla.; Richmond, Calif.; New Orleans; Houston; Burlington, Ontario, Canada; and Fresno, Calif., where I completed the junior year in high school I began in Canada. At this point, my father left this employer to join Brown & Root and so we moved back to Houston. I only attended the final semester of the high school I graduated from.

I mention all this because these moves showed me first-hand the disparity of the national primary and secondary educational system. I discovered the best schools were in Canada and California. The worst in New Orleans. Texas was not high on the list. In Canada, for instance, where French was the second language, the requirements for high school graduation included seven years of French (five years of grammar, two of literature), plus two years of another foreign language (either German, Spanish or Latin). When I began high school in Houston the first time we lived there, Spanish was the only foreign-language option available in high school. And even then the Spanish teacher was primarily an algebra teacher who was recruited to teach Spanish because no one else was available. She was learning it the day before she tried to teach it to us.

Finally something is being done to correct this imbalance. Actually, something is being done in 46 states as well as in the District of Columbia, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. These 46 states—representing 80 percent of the nation’s K-12 student population—have formally agreed to join forces to create common academic standards in math and English language arts through an effort led by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers. The four states not participating are Alaska, Missouri, South Carolina and, of course, Texas. Missouri might join as soon as it finds a new state education chief.

The announcement of this process said "A primary goal is to eliminate the patchwork of academic standards across the country that result in students in the same grades learning different things in different states. The effort also is intended to devise a more rigorous common set of academic targets, and then internationally benchmark them."

I find it intolerable that Texas is not part of this coalition because it will put high school students from here at a competitive disadvantage with the other 92 percent of America's high school graduates. Our future depends on the ability of our children and we cannot shortchange their educational opportunities. If nothing else, coalitions like this force educational policy makers from all over the country to come together to share ideas. That has to be a good thing. It's a shame that Texas -- and Texas primary and secondary school students -- will have to lose out.

A Sharp tuition idea

John Sharp, the former Texas comptroller and now a Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate used the occasion of Martin Luther King Day to propose "a new initiative to pay the college tuition of any young person who gives one year of his or her time working at a neighborhood school, a community hospital, a housing program, an environmental clean-up operation, or another approved public service project. "

Writing in the Burnt Orange Report, Sharp said America's biggest challenge is facing the competition that will come from China and other emerging economies.

"That means strengthening our educational and economic infrastructure to keep us ahead of the technology that serves as the foundation of our future progress and prosperity," Sharp writes. "We need to raise our game in education especially, starting with universal pre-K programs and basic elementary school skills so that we can do a better job of feeding our universities, which are still the best in the world. If we raise the number of American workers with high-school diplomas and college degrees, we will also raise incomes across the board. "

Why Texas educators should be worried

Cynthia Dunbar of Richmond, Texas, doesn't believe President-elect Barack Obama is a U.S. citizen. "Yes, I’ve seen the birth certificate posted online. I’ve read all the articles," Dunbar told the Fort Worth Star Telegram. "What concerns me is the time he spent in Indonesia. His time in Indonesia would be a substantive issue, and I really don’t know why it hasn’t been examined more closely."

But this isn't just any typical Texas crackpot talking. Cynthia Dunbar is a member of the State Board of Education, the folks that, among other things, decide which civics textbooks should be used in the state's public schools.

Those battling Baptists

Baylor University's Faculty Senate has passed a motion condemning a practice I talked about yesterday in which freshmen receive financial incentives for retaking the SAT. “This practice is academically dishonest and should be discontinued,” the motion read.

So what happens now? From what I hear, the next step is that Baylor's interim president, David Garland, wants to know why the Faculty Senate is opposed to this idea and plans to meet with some faculty representatives.

Brownsville either has great or really bad schools -- I can't tell which

The Brownsville Independent School District is the recipient of this year's $1 million Broad Prize, considered to be the nation's most important award for excellence in urban education and the prize that the Dallas School District Administration has been hungering for. The BISD won largely because its students outperformed those in other Texas districts with similar student populations on reading and math tests. (The schools population is 98 percent Hispanic and 95 percent needy.) The award was announced yesterday and what makes this really interesting is that on the same day state education officials announced the Brownsville district had failed to meet minimum achievement standards for the second straight year under the No Child Left Behind law.

Dallas ISD bond program

Just received an e-mail from the folks behind the May 10 Dallas school bond election, which, of course, encourages me to vote "yes," get a campaign sign and to generally show my love for DISD.

Now, I gotta tell ya, I'm a big supporter of public schools. I am a product of public schools, yet I'm still a supporter of them. But in this e-mail, which makes no mention whatsoever of the total amount of the bond proposal (it's a whopping $1.2 billion), it says by voting to sell these bonds I will "help give Dallas the best urban school system in America."

What a load of crap!

Spending $1.2 billion on construction, which includes funds for new cafeterias and athletic facilities, is not going to give Dallas the best urban school system in America. A complete overhaul of the way in which Dallas schools specifically and Texas public schools generally approach education might help. But the money shouldn't be poured into buildings, it should be poured into the salaries of our educators. I find it almost criminal that the highest paid educator at any high school is usually the head football coach.

If we as a city, a state and a nation really believe in investing in our future, then we should raise the minimum starting salaries of public school educators to $65,000 for those in elementary education and $80,000 for those in secondary schools. Then we might attract those who can make a difference in a young person's life but can't afford to because of what teachers are paid right now.

We also need the cooperation of businesses to incentivize students to stay in school. One of the problems, I think, we are facing as an urban school district is the feeling inherent in many students "Why should I put any effort into education. I could never afford to go to college anyway." A mayor in Kalamazoo, Michigan, started a program called the Kalamazoo Promise. I won't go into all the details, but basically it guarantees that a graduate of city's public school system will have his or her college tuition paid for. You can also click on the link to see how this program has raised the test scores of Kalamazoo public school students.

It's programs like this that are needed if we truly want "best urban school system in America." If, however, you think the recipe for success is simply more buildings, then go ahead and support the bond program.

Whatever happened to the concept of learning?

I realized something that startled me this while reading this story which claims that students, parents and teachers are upset over the current school schedule in which the end of the fall semester does not coincide with the Christmas vacation break. Here's what they are upset about: Students are taught something, have three weeks off, then return to class and are tested on what they were taught three weeks earlier. The story actually quotes one student as saying: "To retain all this information and then use it is a lot to ask of some teenagers."

What? Not only are we not expecting our children to learn anything in school, we think it's even too much to ask them to remember a lesson for three weeks after it's taught??? Here's another quote from the story attributed to Plano School Board member Mary Beth King: "They've (students) essentially been away from the material for three weeks, and it's a hard thing to come back and be tested on the contents of what they studied three weeks ago." That's from a school board member!!!!

I find this a startling admission. How can we complain about public schools when we are encouraging a system in which students not only are not required to learn a subject, they are not even required to remember it for longer than a fortnight?