Information is currency for democracy.
- Thomas Jefferson
A day without sunshine is like, you know,
night. -
Steve Martin
Education is unique among consumer products;
when it fails to work as advertised, it's the customer that gets labeled as
defective. - Kevin
Killion
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Courage is the most important of all
the virtues, because without courage you can't practice any other
virtues consistently. You can't be consistently kind or fair or
humane or generous, not without courage, because if you don't have
it, sooner or later you will stop and say, "The threat is too much.
The difficulty is ...too high. The challenge is too great. ~ Maya
Angelou
What's wrong with posting school district check
registers?
The Texas Legislature will vote during the next
legislative session on amendments to the Texas
Administrative Code. One of the proposed
changes (approved by the Texas Education Agency)
is the publication of check register pages for
districts that do not spend at least 65% of
their operating budget on classroom
instructions. This is a farce for many
reasons. First, there are numerous check
registers maintained by your school district.
The law will specifically exclude the payroll
register. Why? Because your school officials
continue to hide people on the payroll. This
is one of the education industry's best-kept
secrets. Here's what I know to be true:
The Texas
Education Code added Section 44.0071 to be effective
September 2003
"(b) At least annually a school district shall
provide educators employed by the district with a
list of district
employees determined by the district for purposes of
this section to be engaged in directly providing
classroom instruction to students. The list must
include the percentage of time spent by each
employee in directly providing classroom instruction
to students.
(c) For purposes of this section, the computation
of a district's expenditures used to fund direct
instructional
activities shall include the salary, including any
associated employment taxes, and value of any
benefits provided to any district employee who
directly provided classroom instruction to students,
but only in proportion to the percentage of time
spent by the employee in directly providing
classroom instruction to students.
(d) The commissioner shall adopt rules as necessary
to implement this section. To the extent possible,
the rules must provide for development of the
information required by this section using
information otherwise compiled by school districts
for reporting through the Public Education
Information Management System (PEIMS)."
If school
districts in Texas were maintaining data bases
with accurate PEIMS coding of employees, these
"Lists of Educators" would be produced with
little effort. After petitioning the
Commissioner to "write a rule" to facilitate the
production of this list, I received notice
from former Commissioner Neeley that no rule was
necessary because the data required should be in
the Fiendswood ISD data base. FISD is incapable
of producing the required list because they
do not use complete account code structures
as required by FASRG.
I challenge anyone in the State of Texas to show
me a list of educators that complies with the
language of TEC 44.0071.
The Pinata Effect
What would be the point of disclosing thousands
of random check register pages? This is an act
which is intended to confuse and confound anyone
who shows an interest in understanding their
school's financial activity. There are
numerous check registers for every school
district - which one would your officials show
you? What about the debt service
accounts? Where are the banking fees and costs
recorded Who controls the capital project funds
or the surplus funds? Posting check register
pages will have a pinata effect and offer
nothing relevant.
Why not
empower citizens, taxpayers and parents by including
enforcement provisions in the laws?
The Texas legislature should offer a process for
oridinary citizens to appeal for relief from abuse.
The Texas legislature writes laws which include no
enforcement provisions (such as TEC 44.0071) and
offers no process for ordinary citizens to remedy
the wrongs that are inflicted upon them. It is the
position of the Texas legislature that "standing" in
Court is reserved only for those who can prove that
they are injured in a way that distinguishes them
from the rest of the population. In other words,
the Texas Education Agency and local officials can
abuse you - just as long as they abuse everyone else
in the process.
Now
what?
None of us
has all the answers, but we can help each other – and must
do so for our children. The information posted
above was provided to KeepEanesInformed by Nancy Kessling in
Friendswood, Texas. You may contact her with any
questions by email at
nckessling@gmail.com. Thank you Nancy for
providing this important explanation.
